The Ancien Regime in France

Date: 20/04/23

Learning intention:

SWBAT explain the Social and Economic conditions in France on the eve of the revolution

Success Criteria

•Take at least 15 dot point notes on the political conditions of Ancien Regime France

•Answer one questions on the King’s power and define two key terms.

•Listen to a podcast on the Bourboun Dynasty and create a mindmap of at least 5 key ideas

Revolutions Unit 3 AOS 1

TENSIONS, GRIEVANCES andCONFLICTS

• Tension – a strained political, social or economic relationship

• Grievance – real or imagined cause of complaint

• Conflict - state of opposition or hostilities, a struggle or fight, clashing of opposing principles, opposition of

Social StructureSociety divided

into three ESTATES

which were defined by privilege

based upon birthClergyNobility

Commoners

First Estate - Clergy

• 0.5% of population• Church owned 10% of land• 98% of pop. Roman Catholic – official

religion• Exempt from most taxes• Gave don gratuit (voluntary gift) at its

discretion• Gained income from land rents and tithe

– tax paid by land owners to Church• Controlled education, poor relief,

hospitals, registers of births, marriages and deaths, censorship, preached the laws of the country from the pulpit

Archbishop Talleyrand – a liberal upper clergyman

• Abuses – Upper clergy gained positions because of noble birth – often held several positions, often absent at court

• Lower clergy often as poor as parishioners, did all the work.

• Church had own ecclesiastical courts of law

• EV: “The burden of collecting the tithe falls upon [the parish priest], but the Prelates, (bishops) … pocket it. The Bishops treat their priests … as stable boys.” l’abbé Michel Lavassor (F&M p.22)

Voltaire • criticized superstition and intolerance of Church• “Écrasez l’infâme!” (Crush it’s infamy!)

On Ecclesiastical Law and Religious Tolerance 1763• No separate Church law or magistrates – Church should be subject

to state law• Church should not have monopoly on marriages• Church should not act as money lender

• Church should bear its share of tax burden • “Each citizen [should] be permitted to believe and think

that which his reason rightly or wrongly dictates, … provided he does not disturb public order.” (F&M, p. 42)

• Calas affair (Brooman p. 13) - tolerance

Second Estate-Nobility

• 1.5% of population • Owned 25-33% of land – from

which it gained its income• Privileged by birth which gave

it access to many positions at court– and esp. ARMY – or by purchase of venal offices in law and administration

• Exempt from most taxes• Had seigneurial rights e.g. to

hunt through tenant’s fields, keep doves, gain income from wine presses/ovens (banalités)

The Marquis de Marigny brother of Mme de Pompadour

• Noblesse de court – technically had to be able to trace noble birth back to 1399 – in reality distinguished by its wealth which allowed it to live at Versailles

• EV: “The young Duke of Sonfranc … is already rich and is heir to a fortune which would make a hundred families wealthy” (18th-century writer)

• Noblesse d’épée – privilege gained through service to the crown in battle many generations before – this group not always wealthy – the impoverished country nobility or hobereaux (est. 60% of nobility) came from this group – they fiercely guarded their privileges because these were often all they had to distinguish them from commoners.

• EV: “At the very bottom there were perhaps 5000 families who were too poor to possess … a sword, a dog and a horse.”(Simon Schama – modern historian)

• Noblesse de robe – newly ennobled through purchase of one of 50,000 venal offices from the King – (e.g. as magistrates in parlements, as tax farmers, other administrative positions) – these offices and titles could become hereditary

• Feudal/Aristocratic Reaction 1780s - Noblesse d’épée resented noblesse de robe because noblesse d’épée had been excluded from important offices by Louis XIV (who did not want them to have too much power) and who had raised revenue by selling these offices to wealthy bourgeoisie (n. de robe).

• Louis XVI passed Army Act 1781 – reserving higher Army ranks for noblesse d’épéé to placate them

• Many aristocrats employed ‘feudists’ to search family records and reinstituted lapsed rights and dues.

Social Tensions

The castles which bristle in our provinces and swallow up large estates possess misused rights of hunting, fishing and cutting wood: and those castles still conceal those haughty gentlemen who add their own taxes to those of the monarch and oppress all too easily the poor despondent peasant. The rest of the nobility surround the throne … to beg eternally for pensions and places. They want everything for themselves – dignities, employments and preferences. They will not allow the common people to have either promotion or reward, whatever their ability or their service to their country.L.S Mercier, Tableau de Paris 1783-89

• Liberal nobility: came from all groups – were imbued with enlightened principles and recognized that it must surrender privileges and implement reform if France were to survive. Many had served as army officers in American War of Independence – e.g the Marquis de Lafayette and his friend the Comte de Ségur, who said in 1782 upon his departure for America:

• EV: “The freedom for which I am going to fight inspires me and I would like my own country to enjoy such a liberty as would fit in with our monarchy, our position and our customs.” (Schools History Project p.112)

Third Estate - Commoners

• Approximately 98% of population were commoners.

• In total, they controlled about 45% of the land.• This order contained many different groups with

enormous extremes of wealth and poverty, from the wealthiest bankers to the poorest métayers or sharecroppers.

• None had privilege.• All paid taxes and dues to the monarch.

The Third Estate bore the burden of the other two privileged Estates.

The Third Estate produced nearly all the wealth of France and paid nearly all the taxes

EVIDENCE

In times past the most useful were crushed under stones. 

The bourgeoisie

• The bourgeoisie made up approximately 8% of France’s population.

• This group included merchants, industrialists, lawyers, bankers, financiers, doctors, writers, and civil servants

• As a group, it was rising in numbers and wealth.

Members of the Third Estate controlled about 25% of the land and owned 39,000 of 50,000 venal offices. This figure reflects their desire for self-improvement, to move away from ‘common status’ and into the higher ranks of society.

• Aspiration: to buy into the nobility and to gain political power

• Even as late as 1788 the lawyers (avocats) of Nuits in Burgundy declared:

• “The privileges of the nobility are truly their property. We will respect them all the more because we are not excluded from them and can acquire them … Why, then … think of destroying the source of emulation [inspiration] which guides our labours?”

Urban Workers• The urban workers or town dwellers made

up approximately 6% of the population.

• They were the tradesmen, shopkeepers, labourers, craftsmen, (working in small workshops, not factories). One cause of resentment for this group was the 1786 Free Trade Agreement with Britain, which flooded France with cheaper imported textiles.

The ‘Indian’ cottons

• The old guild system was still in place: workers were forbidden to ‘combine’ (i.e. strike) for better wages and conditions.

• In 1789, urban workers were spending up to 75% of their daily wage on bread.

• The major grievances were the demand for a living wage and better working conditions.

• A fairly large proportion of this group were servants, who lived within the households of their employers. They were fed and clothed, but poorly paid and always on call. Some households forbade servants to marry.

Peasants• Peasants made up

approximately 85% of the population, but controlled about 32 % of the land.

• While there were independent prosperous landholders, many were renters, métayers or share croppers, cottagers or landless daily itinerant labourers.

Peasants’ greatest grievances were taxes and feudal dues. They wanted tax relief, freedom from seigneurial dues and abolition of seigneurial rights.

The administration of France

By the reign of Louis XVI the administration of France was a hotchpotch of chaotic overlapping systems and jurisdictions all based upon the overriding principle of privilege based on birth.

Rivers – Seine, Loire, Garonne, Rhône

Mountains – Pyrenees, Massiff Central, Southern Alps, Jura, Vosges

Geography of France

The pays d’état• Pays d’état (provinces)

attached to France after Middle Ages

• Acquired through conquest, inheritance or marriage

• Had rights and privileges in law and were exempt from some taxes

• Were governed by royal officers (intendants) but some had local assemblies of landowners (états-provincaux)

Britanny

Burgundy

Languedoc

Généralités and Départements

36 Généralités had grown up higgley-piggedly during ancien régime and were administered by a royally appointed intendants.

By 1790 the revolutionaries had reorganised the administrative structure of France into 83 departments of roughly equal size, with capital near geographic centre and administered by locally elected councils.

Parlements• 13 sovereign courts of

appeal • Responsibility of

registering the King’s decrees (edicts)

• Could refuse to issue a decree (right of remonstrance)

• King could impose royal will with a lit de justice

• Parlements could also make local laws for their areas of jurisdiction called ressorts

Gouvernements or Military Provinces where military courts tried men in armed forces

Ecclesiastical courts in each diocese also dispensed justice

Code Law left by Romans in south

Case Law (Germanic Law) in north

CASE LAW

CODE LAW

Other Legal Jurisdictions

Inequalities of Tax BurdenThird Estate bore the burden

• Direct tax on income: 10-15% of peasant’s gross product to King

• Tithes to Church for upkeep of Clergy: approx. 8% of peasant’s product

• Corvée: forced unpaid labour for 14 days on roads or unpaid labour to seigneur (lord)

• Captitation: head tax or poll tax

• Indirect tax on goods: eg the gabelle (tax on salt) all

• Taille: Land tax paid by all• Vingtième (20th) paid by all in

times of warBanalités (feudal or seigneurial dues) paid by peasants to lord or seigneur

The EconomyBackward and inefficient

Agriculturally based

Manufacture still based on workshops and guilds

Highly controlled

Hampered by many internal customs barriers

No national market

No specialization

Only profitable aspect: Overseas trade based upon Triangular Trade and slave labour in colonies A Merchant from Nantes 1786

Agriculture

• Backward traditional methods – subsistence farming

• need to pay taxes in grain – diversification not possible

• internal customs barriers discouraged development of national market

• technological advances not introduced• no money• no interest or awareness by many

Manufacture• still run on traditional guild system

• small workshops with masters and journey men living and working agencies

• ‘out-workers’ still used (spinning and weaving in own homes – second income in country areas

• England had industrialised but France had not

• French cotton industry suffered after Free Trade Act of 1786 with Britain

Trade

• impeded by internal customs barriers at gates of towns, on rivers and between provinces

• Goods could pass through as many as 36 internal customs barriers

• Therefore no national market and little specialisation

Overseas trade

• only area of economy still booming by 1780s• Marseilles a near monopoly with the Levant

(near East Turkey, Greece, Syria, Egypt)• Bordeaux, Nantes, Le Havre, La Rochelle

booming Atlantic trade – slaves picked up in Africa – to West Indies – colonial products-sugar, coffee, tobacco, cotton, indigo brought back to France – Triangular trade - .

French Triangular Trade

French Atlantic PortsManufacutured and luxury goods for colonies

West coast of Africa for slaves

Slaves sold to French colonies at 100 % profit

Luxury goods

Plantation produce (sugar) to France

France’s Colonies after Seven Years War (1763)

French Saint Domingue

Spanish Santo Domingo

French West Indies “Antilles” – Saint-Domingue, Martinque, Gaudeloupe French

Guinea

Ile St Louis

Ile de Bourbon

Bad fiscal management

• Inefficient taxation system

• Corruption of tax farmers

• Foreign borrowing

• No national treasury accountable to country

• Kings purse and national treasury the same thing (i.e. lack of accountability)

• BORROWING at high interest to cover deficit, largely brought by

• EXPENSIVE FOREIGN WARS and to a lesser degree, by extravagance at Versailles.

• Extravagance at Versailles relatively unimportant in overall crises, except in people’s perceptions.

France on eve of Revolution

• Centralised Divine Right Monarchy• Chaotic, inefficient and corrupt administration,

legal system and taxation system• Inefficient and backward economy• Extensive overseas borrowing at high interest

rates• Society founded upon privilege of birth with each

order or estate aggrieved about many issues