Mirabeau

I
Necker’s Financial Plan^*
(1789)

You recoil with dismay from thecontemplation. Inconsistent and pusillanimous! What! Do you not perceive that, in decreeing a public bankruptcy, or, what is worse, in rendering it inevitable without decreeing it, you disgrace yourselves by an act a thousand times more criminal, and—folly inconceivable!—gratuitously criminal? For, in the shocking alternative I have supposed, at least the deficit would be wiped off.

But do you imagine that, in refusing to pay, you shall cease to owe? Think you that the thousands, the millions of men, who will lose in an instant, by the terrible explosion of a bankruptcy, or its revulsion, all that formed the consolation of their lives, and perhaps their sole means of subsistence think you that they will leave you to the peaceable fruition of your crime? Stoical spectators of the incalculable evils which this catastrophe would disgorge upon France; impenetrable egotists, who fancy that these convulsions of despair and of misery will pass, as other calamities have passed—and all the more rapidly because of their intense violence—are you, indeed, certain that so many men without bread will leave you tranquilly to the enjoyment of those savory viands, the number and delicacy of which you are so loath to diminish? No! you will perish, and, in the universal conflagration, which you do not shrink from kindling, you will not, in losing your honor, save a single one of your detestable indulgences. This is the way we are going.

And I say to you, that the men who, above all others, are interested in the enforcement of these sacrifices which the government demands, are you yourselves! Vote, then, this subsidy extraordinary; and may it prove sufficient! Vote it, inasmuch as whatever doubts you may entertain as to the means—doubts vague and unenlightened—you can have none as to the necessity, or as to our inability to provide—immediately, at least—a substitute. Vote it, because the circumstances of the country admit of no evasion, and we shall be responsible for all delays. Beware of demanding more time! Misfortune accords it never. Why, gentlemen, it was but the other day, that, in reference to a ridiculous commotion at the Palais-Royal—a quixotic insurrection, which never had any importance save in the feeble imaginations or perverse designs of certain faithless men—you heard these wild words: "Catiline is at the gates of Rome, and yet you deliberate!" And verily there was neither a Catiline nor a Rome, neither perils nor factions around you. But, to-day, bankruptcy, hideous bankruptcy, is there before you, and threatens to consume you, yourselves, your property, your honor—and yet you deliberate!

^*Delivered in the National Assembly on September 26, 1789. Abridged. On July 14th, of this year, the Bastille had fallen. The occasion of this speech was Necker’s plan of an income tax of twenty-five per cent to relieve the desperate state of the treasury. Mirabeau, heretofore, had been opposed to Necker, but now came forth to assist him, making two speeches in favor of his measure. The Bill being still threatened with defeat, he then made a third speech, from which is taken the passage given here. The Bill now passed. Necker’s famous daughter, Madame De Stel, who sat near Mirabeau while he spoke, afterward described the effect of the speech as "prodigious." Mola, the famous actor, was also present. "With what an accent did you deliver that speech!" said he; "you have surely missed your vocation"—a compliment by which Mirabeau was much flattered. Dumont says Mirabeau was not well acquainted with the subject of Necker’s plan, and quotes a remark by Panchaud, that Mirabeau "was the first man in the world to speak on a subject he knew nothing about." Necker’s plan failed to relieve the treasury. Bankruptcy was averted only by the issue of assignats.