It was against the latter indeed, that the courtiers’ anger and M. de Maurepas’ growing jealousy were directed.  “Once upon a time there was in France,” said a ,pamphlet, entitled Le Songe de M. de Maurepas, attributed to Monsieur, the king’s brother,—­“there was in France a certain man, clumsy, crass, heavy, born with more of rudeness than of character, more of obstinacy than of firmness, of impetuosity than of tact, a charlatan in administration as well as in virtue, made to bring the one into disrepute and the other into disgust, in other respects shy from self-conceit, timid from pride, as unfamiliar with men, whom he had never known, as with public affairs, which he had always seen askew; his name was Turgot.  He was one of those half-thinking brains which adopt all visions, all manias of a gigantic sort.  He was believed to be deep, he was really shallow; night and day he was raving of philosophy, liberty, equality, net product.”  “He is too much (trop fort) for me,” M. de Maurepas would often say.  “A man must be possessed (or inspired—­ enrage),” wrote Malesherbes, “to force, at one and the same time, the hand of the king, of M. de Maurepas, of the whole court and of the Parliament.”

Perhaps the task was above human strength; it was certainly beyond that of M. Turgot.  Ever occupied with the public weal, he turned his mind to every subject, issuing a multiplicity of decrees, sometimes with rather chimerical hopes.  He had proposed to the king six edicts; two were extremely important; the first abolished jurorships (jurandes) and masterships (maitrises) among the workmen.  “The king,” said the preamble, “wishes to secure to all his subjects, and especially to the humblest, to those who have no property but their labor and their industry, the full and entire enjoyment of their rights, and to reform, consequently, the institutions which strike at those rights, and which, in spite of their antiquity, have failed to be legalized by time, opinion, and even the acts of authority.”  The second substituted for forced labor on roads and highways an impost to which all proprietors were equally liable.

This was the first step towards equal redistribution of taxes; great was the explosion of disquietude and wrath on the part of the privileged; it showed itself first in the council, by the mouth of M. de Miromesnil; Turgot sprang up with animation.  “The keeper of the seals,” he said, “seems to adopt the principle that, by the constitution of the state, the noblesse ought to be exempt from all taxation.  This idea will appear a paradox to the majority of the nation.  The commoners (roturiers) are certainly the greatest number, and we are no longer in the days when their voices did not count.”  The king listened to the discussion in silence.  “Come,” he exclaimed abruptly, “I see that there are only M. Turgot and I here who love the people,” and he signed the edicts.

The Parliament, like the noblesse, had taken up the cudgels; they made representation after representation.  “The populace of France,” said the court boldly, “is liable to talliage and forced labor at will, and that is a part of the constitution which the king cannot change.”  Louis XVI. summoned the Parliament to Versailles, and had the edicts enregistered at a bed of justice.  “It is a bed of beneficence!” exclaimed Voltaire, a passionate admirer of Turgot.