France Before the Revolution

J. H. Shennan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136161582
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia mondiale

This fully revised second edition takes account of historical work produced during the last decade. Covering the period between Louis XIV's death in 1715 and the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, it discusses:
* France's accomplishments in international affairs, commercial expansion, and intellectual and artistic life
* the significance of long-term political, social and economic forces in causing the Revolution
* how the changing perception of government, from one of divine-right kingship towards the idea of a national enterprise, ultimately undermined the old regime.

1

Introduction

This pamphlet is primarily concerned with the years between 1715 and 1789, from the accession of Louis XV to the outbreak of the French Revolution. Because this period ends so dramatically it is difficult for historians to write about the eighteenth century without linking their work, directly or implicitly, to the events following 1789. It is tempting, in other words, to interpret eighteenth-century French history as a preparation for the Revolution. It was such a momentous event that it has always seemed a natural stopping and starting point, not only for historians but even for those who lived through the Revolution. The phrase ancien régime, or old order, which we commonly use to describe the organization of government and society before 1789 was only coined at about that time by men who were in the process of establishing a new kind of system. They looked back across the revolutionary divide in order to define the eighteenth century in terms of their own experience. It is understandable that historians, whose additional hindsight makes them even more conscious of the importance of the Revolution, might follow their example and write the history of the eighteenth century backwards, as it were, from the standpoint of 1789. The temptation to do so has recently been that much greater, with the celebration of the Revolution’s bicentenary producing a spate of commemorative reassessments. However, we should remember that the men and women who lived in France during Louis XV’s reign (1715–74) and much of that of his successor, Louis XVI, had no inkling of approaching revolution and no means of understanding what that upheaval would involve. Like all of us they lived in the present and were powerless to foresee the future. The historian has some obligation, therefore, to write their history in such a way as to reflect their own understanding of events, circumstances and personalities, and not to subject them constantly to the distorting mirror of the French Revolution. Equally, for they do have the advantage of knowing what happened late in the century, historians must try to assess the extent to which the Revolution was caused by deep-seated problems as against the circumstances arising shortly before 1789.

Consideration of that important question requires the historian to take a view about fundamental changes, and accompanying stresses, which were affecting the French state not only during the eighteenth century but even earlier, during the long reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715). The argument that Louis defeated the power of the French nobility and established a centralized, absolutist state has been subjected to a good deal of historical revision. It now appears that the king drew heavily upon the support of the nobility in his policy of stabilizing and strengthening the state. The key feature of that policy was his ability to attract to himself, as the embodiment of the French state, the loyalty of all his subjects. He succeeded thereby in replacing the various bonds of patron-client loyalty which had previously empowered the nobility, without losing the latter’s support. This was a significant achievement. By reasserting the great nobility’s personal relationship with the crown, most visibly and symbolically at Versailles, Louis succeeded, paradoxically, in establishing the idea of universal loyalty to an impersonal national enterprise rather than to a dynasty. By extension a similar relationship grew up between the king and his chief advisers, members of the noblesse de robe, most of whose families had achieved their noble status through the acquisition of high office. These men depended for their continuing status more on the quality of their service to the crown than upon ancient lineage. Yet despite the increasingly professional nature of their role, Louis continued to view his ministers of state, whom he called to sit at his High Council, as loyal personal servants to whom he in turn showed loyalty. Only seventeen ministers were appointed throughout the whole of the king’s majority (1661–1715), most of them from one of three families, the Colbert, the Le Tellier and the Phélypeaux.

However, this reformulation of royal authority, based upon the medieval tradition of the Curia Regis or King’s Court, which was intended to extend the power of the king’s government in the early modern period, was not without its dangers for the crown. It was impossible for Louis XIV to increase his administrative control over the kingdom merely by extending the range of his personal intervention. That intervention was increasingly exercised on his behalf by agents: ministers, secretaries of state, intendants, all of whom were served by a growing army of expert advisers and clerks. This impersonal state machine which was thus in the process of formation would at some stage require some other justification than that traditionally associated with dynastic divine-right monarchy. It would demand a commitment to the state by all the subjects, based upon the equality of their responsibilities. Yet Louis’s regime supported a society of orders which was characterized by a gross inequality of status and obligation between various groups. The nobility, for example, was accustomed to enjoying exemption from the burden of direct taxation. This contradiction came increasingly to weaken the government during the eighteenth century. In the words of an American historian, writing recently on this subject, ‘The simultaneously personal and impersonal character of the “absolute” monarchy set the stage for the critical argument over public accountability in the last decade of the old regime’.¹ By the same token, in a world of large-scale warfare in which the government was forced to make increasingly heavy financial demands upon the subjects, social inequalities militated against the emergence of a patriotic spirit which was the natural concomitant of impersonal statehood.

When Louis XIV’s great-grandson, Louis XV, ascended the throne in 1715 old loyalties and beliefs seemed still to be in the ascendant, but under the surface of the body politic subtle shifts and pressures were at work which would have long-term effects. Before examining them further, however, we must try to understand the nature of the old order, as it appeared to most observers on the morrow of Louis XIV’s death.

2

The old order

The crown

The crown was the lynch-pin of the system providing the sole source of political authority in the state. French kings have been described as absolute rulers, and it is important to be clear about what that phrase means. It does not mean that the king could ride roughshod over the liberties of his subjects. Even in those areas of public policy where the king’s authority had ultimately to prevail, for example in matters relating to the security of the realm, it was expected that he would take steps to reconcile the subjects’ liberties with the royal prerogative. If war put the realm at risk and the king required additional exceptional revenue from taxation to cope with the danger, he would have to consult with the relevant groups, large and small, provincial estates, municipal assemblies, even the theologians of the Sorbonne, in order to justify his proposals. Beyond those public boundaries, all subjects remained free under the law which it was the king’s duty to maintain; the alternative would have been a regime of slavery. A recent commentator, Nicholas Henshall, has suggested that the sense of individual freedom felt by all the subjects of the king of France reduces the significance usually ascribed to the possession of corporate rights.² However, that is to conflate private with public rights; the crown had a direct interest in the latter but not in the former.

As absolute rulers French kings were not limited in the execution of their powers by any other individuals, groups or institutions within their realm. Thus they were not directly accountable to their subjects for the manner in which they ruled. This did not mean however that their power was despotic, for that would have implied a refusal to recognize that their subjects possessed private and public rights. The French themselves made a clear distinction between absolute and despotic rule and it was the basis on which the king of France founded his authority which made the decisive difference. This basis was two-fold: the support of the law and of God. The order of succession to the French crown was governed by a principle which was considered so essential to the survival of the state that it was called a fundamental law. It stipulated that the heir to the throne would always be the eldest legitimate male relative in the direct line of descent from the previous ruler. Thus the king was always the legal source of authority in his realm, and was bound to take its laws seriously. A despotic ruler, on the other hand, would have felt no obligation to tolerate such restrictions upon his freedom of action. The fundamental law of succession was the starting point in the development of a strong judicial tradition in French government, centred upon the crown. Over the centuries the country’s internal stability was secured through the exercise of the king’s authority as chief judge, responsible for maintaining law and order and preserving the various rights of his subjects. His credibility as the political leader of France was inextricably linked with his role as guarantor of a just regime. Originally the king had exercised authority directly through the Curia Regis, but with the passing of time he worked increasingly through his council, an organization which became more elaborate as the king became more dependent upon its members for expert advice. He also delegated his authority as judge to a hierarchy of law-courts, which included at the highest level the so-called sovereign courts, those great legal institutions, like the parlement of Paris, which heard cases on appeal from lower tribunals. As we shall see these bodies played an important political role during the eighteenth century. They were also the repositories of private law which, as the guarantor of a secure and just regime, it was the crown’s task to support and maintain.

To add support to his position the king of France emphasized his special relationship with God. At his coronation each king was anointed with sacred oils and, with the title of His Most Christian Majesty, became God’s representative in France, ruler by divine right. In that capacity he had to promote respect for Christian virtues and the divine commandments. If he neglected to do so he would have to answer to God after death for his failure. In a deeply r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface to the Second Edition
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The old order
• 3 Problems solved and unresolved: the eighteenth-century balance sheet
• 4 France’s cultural and intellectual influence
• 5 The coming of the Revolution
• Notes
• Bibliography