NOVEL WEB Chapter 55: The New Currency of Power
In the volatile silence after Louis's strained, dramatic abdication to the people of Paris, there came into being a strange new political world. The absolute monarch was dead, dead for all intents and purposes. In his place stood a curious new man: a monarch who had affixed his name to a document of revolt against his own authority, a king who now attended the daily sessions of the National Assembly as its most brilliant, most powerful, and most closely watched member. He was constitutional monarch in fact, though centuries would pass before he signed his name to anything labeling himself as one.
These initial days of this new arrangement were a whirl of directionless chaos. The National Assembly, triumphing as it was over the privileged orders, was now arrogant with its own powers. The sessions, held in the great Salle des Menus-Plaisirs, were a blur of soaring oratory and theoretical debate. Deputations who had led nameless provincial lives now delivered impassioned orations on the metaphysical rights of man, citing Rousseau and Montesquieu as if they were holy scripture. They spent one week debating the proper language of the first article of what would be the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
Louis sat through these arguments, an expressionless, grim-faced man in a bland black coat. He listened to the useless arguments over vague ideals and a cold, all-too-familiar feeling insinuated itself into his gut. The same one he got back at corporate boardrooms where showy but inept CEOs would go on and on over a new company slogan as the quarterlies showed the business bleeding cash.
The Assembly was great at pronouncing universal rights. They were, he was fast finding out, completely incompetent when it came to economic policy. The disastrous economic state, the very reason he had called them together in the first place, was being totally overlooked. When brought up, solutions were radical, frightening, and nearly hilariously impracticable.
There was one group of radicals, with holy indignation in their tones, calling for the immediate seizure and redistribution of all noble property, something Louis knew would not only result in civil war, but completely eliminate the concept of private property and collapse the economy as well. A second group, led by men who had read tracts on banking but little economics, advised simply pulling up great amounts of new paper money, devoid of anything substantial behind it, to cover the state's debts. Louis shuddered at the prospect with his modern sensibility. He knew this method led directly from this predicament to the Weimar Republic and hyperinflation, and this cure was far, far greater than the disease. A third, cynical group, advised simply defaulting on all the Crown's debts, something that would provide momentary relief but would damage France's credit for centuries and convert the state into a pariah state.
He witnessed them bicker, and he recognized his moment. The currency of the old world was birthright, tradition, and divinely ordained authority. Those he had lost. But the new world, the new world of revolution and emergency, comprehended an alternate currency: competence. He recognized, with the businessman's moment of insight of a CEO finding an irreparable flaw in an enemy's business plan, that his authority was no longer rooted in his crown. It was rooted in the harsh, undeniable fact that he alone, among the twelve hundred lawyers and minds in the room, could sight at a glance a balance sheet. He would recover his authority not with command, but with competence.
After an incredibly long and fruitless debate concerning whether or not the rights of an individual were "natural and imprescriptible," Louis arose. A respectful quiet enveloped the room.
"Gentlemen," he began, his voice not loud, but with gravity of severe authority that instantly made them sit up. His voice was not kingly, but of an unfazed, slightly disappointed CEO addressing an anxious and distracted board. "We've been arguing for a week now over most fascinating and fundamental philosophical foundations of a free society. This work is fundamental. But listen carefully because rights are naught and will be naught if one's nation is bankrupt. A declaration of rights won't feed one's starving family, or pay one soldier guarding our borders."
He paused and let his words take hold. "The biggest threat to this revolution, to this new France we are all working to build, is not an enemy foreign army. It is not some lofty plot. It is this."
He gestured toward Necker as if by signal. The finance minister, with histrionic weightiness, moved to the center of the hall. Two aides helping him unrolled an immense, intimidating chart. It was a simple but gruesome illustration of the finances of the state, an enormous bar graph contrasting the colossal mound of state debts beside the insignificant molehill of state revenues.
"This, gentlemen, is the enemy," he stated, his voice dropping to an ominous tone. "This is the cancer that will kill us all unless we cut it out. And we cannot fight it with philosophy. We fight it with facts, with figures, and with an honest, unbending eye for reality."
He gave the Assembly time to absorb the startling image, the hushed room now one of shock at its own finding and not boredom. He then took his initiative. He would draw up a method, a procedure by which he could tap his own personal abilities and yet provide the Assembly with fortification. He had run the HUD before the session, calibrating the language and discovering the frames most politically efficacious.
His first option was "The King will conduct a national audit." The HUD prediction was very specific: Outcome: The Assembly becomes fearful of a royal power grab. They will oppose you because they will think you are looking to regain your old power. Support: 30%.
The second option was "The National Assembly will audit." The HUD prognosis was equally disappointing: Outcome: The Assembly, inexperienced and split by infighting fractions, will be bogged down in bottomless procedural wrangles. The audit will be politicized and will prove unsuccessful. Support: 90%, but wholly ineffectual.
Then he hit upon the third path, the best blend of royal guidance and revolutionary legitimacy.
"Therefore," he stated to the now fully attentive Assembly, "before we can propose one solution, first we must take stock of the problem as an entirety. In this regard, I suggest this body, as part of its first great national reconstruction act, request the first-ever National Audit of the Kingdom of France."
He outlined the proposal. "We will create a new committee, under the absolute sovereign jurisdiction of this National Assembly. It will be called the Committee of Public Accounts. Its sole sacred task will be to scrutinize each and every livre of state revenue and each and every livre of state spending. We will trace the money, wherever the money leads. Not a single account shall be too hallowed to be examined, no privilege too long-established to be investigated. We will map the entire financial corpus of the kingdom, we will determine all points of waste, corruption, and incompetence. And only then, when this great and noble work shall be finished, will we, as one, lay down the remedy."
He then produced the masterstroke. "In order to be sure of this committee benefiting from the full cooperation of all royal offices, and to give it the experience it needs, I think it ought to be presided over by me, assisted by our illustrious Minister Necker."
It was a clever move. He was not seeking power, he was offering his talents at the disposal of the Assembly. He was making himself the man one could not do without. The Assembly craving to be delivered from the economic ditch and overawed by the King's surprising, matter-of-fact grasp of the issue, bellowed its agreement. The motion was adopted with practically unanimous votes.
Louis succeeded. He recovered from the loss of the Bastille, he accepted being an captive symbol, and now, he just created for himself an all-new role. He was no longer the sole King of France. He now was, thanks to the Assembly itself, the Chief Financial Officer of the French Revolution.