the modern democratic faith in the virtue and wisdom of the
common people. Voltaire habitually spoke of their bigotry and prejudice
with the natural bitterness of a cultivated man towards the incurable
vices of ignorance. The Economists admitted Voltaire's view as true of
an existing state of things, but they looked to education, meaning by
that something more than primary instruction, to lead gradually to the
development of sound political intelligence. Hence when Turgot come into
full power as the minister of Lewis XVI., twelve years after he first
went to his obscure duties in the Limousin, he introduced the method of
prefacing his edicts by an elaborate statement of the reasons on which
their policy rested. And on the same principle he now adopted the only
means at his disposal for instructing and directing opinion. The
book-press was at that moment doing tremendous work among the classes
with education and leisure. But the newspaper press hardly existed, and
even if it had existed, however many official journals Turgot might have
had under his inspiration, the people whose minds he wished to affect
were unable to read. There was only one way of reaching them, and that
was through the priests. Religious life among the Limousins was, as we
have seen, not very pure, but it is a significant law of human nature
that the less pure a religion is, the more important in it is the place
of the priest and his office. Turgot pressed the cures into friendly
service. It is a remarkable fact, not without a parallel in other parts
of modern history, that of the two great conservative corporations of
society, the lawyers did all they could to thwart his projects, and the
priests did all they could to advance them. In truth the priests are
usually more or less sympathetic towards any form of centralised
authority; it is only when the people take their own government into
their own hands that the clergy are sure to turn cold or antipathetic
towards improvement. There is one other reservation, as Turgot found out
in 1775, when he had been transferred to a greater post, and the clergy
had joined his bitterest enemies. Then he touched the corporate spirit,
and perceived that for authority to lay a hand on ecclesiastical
privilege is to metamorphose goodwill into the most rancorous malignity.
Meanwhile, the letters in which Turgot explained his views and wishes to
the cures, by them to be imparted to their parishes, are masterpieces of
the