Ancient history

Preludes of the French Revolution

Prelude:the financial crisis (1770-1787)

It all started with a crisis in the royal finances of Louis XVI. The Crown of France, which is one with the kingdom of France, is awash in debt.

During the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI, several ministers, including Turgot, unsuccessfully proposed to reform the tax system by taxing the nobles. Such measures met with strong resistance from the Parliaments, then dominated by the nobility.

In addition, France had engaged in the American war of independence first by the supply of material and aid in favor of the insurgents (1776), then in an official war in 1778. French naval aid and land allowed the American victory, notably at the Battle of Yorktown, and ended with the prestigious Treaty of Paris of 1783. But this had a terrible cost:more than a billion pounds tournaments which added to the already catastrophic situation of the French finances.

As the need to increase taxes places the king in a difficult position with the nobility, Maurepas, then Prime Minister, chooses as ministers “new men” according to the expression of François Mignet. Turgot, Chrétien de Malesherbes, and Jacques Necker tried one after another to reform the tax system and to make other reforms, such as reducing the extravagance of the court, but none succeeded. It should be noted that lavish spending represents less than 1% of state revenue, and debt service absorbs 80%. This enormous debt essentially stems from the American War of Independence.

Conversely, Calonne, appointed Minister of Finance in 1783, again allowed extravagant spending worthy of the time of Louis XIV. When Calonne brought together an Assembly of Notables on February 22, 1787 to address the issue of the financial situation, France was almost bankrupt:no one was ready to lend money to the king to meet court expenses. and government. According to Mignet, the loans amounted to "one billion six hundred and forty six million ... and ... there was an annual deficit ... of 140 million pounds". Calonne was then replaced by his main opponent Étienne-Charles de Loménie de Brienne, Archbishop of Sens, but the situation remained unchanged:the government no longer had any possible loans. To try to remedy this, the Assembly of Notables approved the establishment of provincial assemblies, a regulation of the wheat trade, the abolition of corvées, and a new stamp tax; then she retired on May 25, 1787.

The ensuing struggle with the parliaments to enforce these decisions shows one of the first signs of the end of the society of the Ancien Régime. Faced with these problems,

* Protestants are restored to their rights;
* Louis XVI promises an annual publication of the state of the kingdom's finances;
* Louis XVI promises to convene the Estates General within five years.

The provincial parliaments manifest their opposition to ministerial tyranny. In response, several nobles, including Louis Philippe II d'Orléans, were banished, triggering a series of contradictory and conflicting decisions between the king and the parliaments. Troubles break out in Dauphiné, Brittany, Provence, Flanders, Languedoc, and Béarn.

Despite the old regime's doctrine that France was an absolute monarchy, it became clear that the royal government could not make the necessary changes without the consent of the nobility. The financial crisis has become a political crisis.

Prelude:Convocation of the Estates General (1788 - May 1789)

On July 13, 1787, after the assembly of the Estates of Dauphiné had met, the parliament and the nobility asked the king to convene the Estates General at Vizille. On December 18, 1787, the king promised to convene the Estates General within five years.

In 1788, the "Day of the tiles of Grenoble" took place:the protests of the families affected by the economic disaster had multiplied since May, these agitations pushed the garrison to intervene on June 7th. This is received by jets of tiles launched by the inhabitants of Grenoble mounted on the roofs. After the "day of the tiles", an assembly of the three orders (nobility, clergy, third estate) meets at the castle of Vizille and decides on the tax strike as long as the States General of the province have not been convened by the king. to vote on them.

After the failure of Brienne on August 25, 1788, then responsible for controlling the Finances of the Nation, and with the return of Necker in place of Brienne, Louis XVI, unable to restore order, yielded in August 1788.

The prospect of the Estates General rekindles the conflict of interest between the nobility and the third estate (in theory, all the men of the people; in fact, the middle classes, the bourgeoisie). Society has changed since 1614. The clergy and nobility together make up only 2% of the population. The third estate, which theoretically represents the remaining 98%, in fact holds an increasingly large proportion of the country's wealth. It was rarely associated with the other two Orders in the king's consultative assembly. Indeed, only the clergy and the nobility could previously vote. Many bourgeois nevertheless see the convocation of the Estates General as a chance to gain power.

According to the model of 1614, the Estates General must consist of the same number of representatives of each order. The third estate asks for a double representation, which they already have in the provincial assemblies. This request became a subject for the authors of pamphlets, the most remarkable of which was that of Father Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès What is the Third Estate?. Necker, hoping to avoid conflict, convened a second assembly of notables on December 6, 1788; but, to his regret, they reject the idea of ​​dual representation. In convening this assembly, Necker simply underlined the opposition of the nobles to a forced policy.

A royal decree of November 27, 1788 announces that the Estates General must bring together at least a thousand deputies; this effectively guarantees dual representation. In addition, Protestants can be deputies for the Third Estate. According to Mignet, after honest elections, “the delegation of the nobility included two hundred and forty-two aristocrats and twenty-eight members of Parliament; that of the clergy, forty-eight archbishops or bishops, thirty-five abbots or deans, and two hundred and eight parish priests; and that of the third estate, two ecclesiastics, twelve nobles, eighteen city magistrates, two hundred members of counties, two hundred and twelve lawyers, sixteen physicists, and two hundred and sixteen merchants and peasants. Other sources offer slightly different data.

The high proportion of priests is due to the reduction of the minimal portion in the years 1770-1780. The congruent portion (which means:the sufficient part) is the part of the tithe, the tax levied by the Church, that the bishoprics leave to the priests so that they can live. The reduction of this minimum portion has been such that the priests are sometimes poorer than their parishioners, and therefore find themselves very close to their concerns. The subject is debated several times, the priests trying to obtain a rebalancing, but the episcopate sticks to its positions. The priests therefore took advantage of the convocation of the Estates General to elect, not their hierarchy as usual, but their peers, intending to discuss this problem. As soon as the representatives are elected, the privileged find themselves in the minority, even while maintaining the traditional voting system.

Societies began to form, such as the Society of Friends of the Constitution at Versailles in April 1789 (which would become the Club des Jacobins) and the Patriotic Society of 1789.

From the Estates General to the Constituent Assembly (May 5, 1789 - June 17, 1789)

When the Estates General met at Versailles on May 5, 1789 surrounded by many festivities, many representatives of the third estate saw, at first, the double representation as a revolution already peacefully over. However, with the strongly observed etiquette of 1614, the royal insignia of the clergy and nobility, the placement of the deputies of the three orders following the protocol of an ancient time, everything suggests, in fact, that nothing was finished.

When Louis XVI and Barentin (Keeper of the Seals) address the deputies on May 6, the third estate discovers that the royal decree guaranteeing double representation is somewhat of a sham. Of course, they have more representatives than the other two orders combined, but the voting process must be by order:the 578 representatives of the third estate, after deliberation, will see their collective vote weigh exactly as much as that of each other order. .

The apparent intention of the King and Barentin is that each should come directly to the matter of taxes. The greater representation of the third estate must be only symbolic, without giving them any additional power. Necker is more sympathetic to the Third Estate, but on this occasion he speaks only about the fiscal situation, leaving it to Barentin to talk about how the Estates General should function.

Trying to avoid the issue of representation and focusing only on taxes, the king and his ministers misjudged the situation. The third estate wants the orders to meet as a whole and to count one vote per deputy (voting by ballot rather than by order). While they want to denounce royal absolutism, the other two orders believe - and History would prove it - that they will lose more power over the third estate than gain over the king. Minister Necker was sympathetic to the third estate in this sense, but the shrewd financier is a less gifted politician. He decides to leave the problem in abeyance. Thus, even before the king grants anything to the third estate, it seems that the king's decision is akin to a concession made by the monarchy, rather than a gift that would have convinced the people of the possibility of a hope.

The impasse is immediate. The primary concern of the Estates General is the verification of credentials. Mirabeau, a noble himself but chosen to represent the Third Estate, unsuccessfully tries to bring the three orders together in one room to discuss it. Instead of discussing the king's taxes, the three orders begin by separately discussing not taxes but the organization of the legislature. Shuttle diplomacy continued without result until May 27, 1789, when the nobles firmly decided to keep the verification system separate. The following day, the Abbé Sieyès (a member of the clergy, but - like Mirabeau - chosen to represent the third estate) declared that the third estate, which now met in communes, continued the verification and invited the other two orders to join it. participate, but no longer expects them.

On June 17, 1789, with the failure to reconcile the three orders, the communes set up their own verification process, thus becoming the only domain whose powers were suitably legalized. The communes voted almost immediately on a far more radical measure:they constituted themselves a National Assembly, an assembly not of orders but of the people. They invite other orders to join them, but make it clear that they intend to take care of the nation, with or without them.

The Constituent Assembly and the storming of the Bastille (June 17, 1789 - July 14, 1789)

The newly elected Assembly immediately took care of the finances - finding the credits necessary to cover the national debt - and the people. The public debt is consolidated, and the existing taxes are declared illegal, but provisionally renewed for the duration of the exercise of the assembly. This restores the confidence of financiers and gives them a strong interest in keeping it in place. For the third estate, committees are created to solve the problems of lack of food.

Necker's previous plan - of conciliation, a complex arrangement whose main idea was to accept some points in favor of the Third while remaining firm on the others - was deflected by events.

More interested in the advice of Necker, Louis XVI, under the influence of the courtiers of his privy council, resolved to go to the Assembly, to annul his decrees, order the separation of the orders, and dictate the reforms to be carried out by the States General reconstituted.

However, Louis XVI remained in Marly and closed the room to prevent the Assembly from meeting for a few days, the time to be ready himself. The Assembly moved its deliberations to the tennis court, where the deputies took the Oath of the Jeu de Paume on (June 20, 1789), not to separate until they had given France a constitution. .

Two days later, deprived of entry to the tennis court, the National Assembly met in the Church of Saint-Louis, where it was joined by the majority of the representatives of the clergy:the efforts to restore the old order served only to hasten events. When, on June 23, 1789, in accordance with his plans, the king finally addressed the representatives of the three orders, he was received in a leaden silence.

He concludes by ordering all to disperse, and is obeyed by the nobles and the clergy; the deputies of the third estate remain seated in a silence which is finally broken by Mirabeau:

“A military force surrounds the Assembly! Where are the enemies of the nation? Is Catiline on our doorstep? I demand that by investing you with your dignity, with your legislative power, you lock yourself into respect for your oath. It is not permissible to separate yourselves until you have formed a constitution. »

MPs stay true to their promise.

History also reports this response that Mirabeau would have made to the Marquis de Dreux-Brézé, envoy of the king:

“Go and tell those who sent you that we are here by the will of the people and that we will only get out by force of bayonets”

Necker, noticed for his absence from the royal party of the day, fell into disgrace, but returned to the good graces of the National Assembly. The members of the clergy and forty-seven members of the nobility, including the Duke of Orléans, who joined the Assembly at the Saint-Louis chapel, remain with the Tiers.

The king brought in large numbers of troops around Paris and Versailles. Many messages of support arrive at the Paris Assembly. On July 9, 1789, the Assembly, reconstituting itself as the National Constituent Assembly, addressed the king in respectful but firm terms, asking for the movement of the troops (including the foreign regiments, whose obedience to the king was by far more greater than that of the French troops), but Louis XVI declared that he alone could judge the need for troops, and assured the Assembly that the troops were strictly a precautionary measure. Louis XVI offered to move the Assembly to Noyon or Soissons:that is to say, to place it between two armies and deprive it of the support of the Parisian people, unanimous in their support for the Assembly and close to the insurrection.

The pressure changes the discussions of the Assembly; political conversation overflows from the Assembly into the squares and public halls of the capital. The Royal Palace and its surroundings became the site of a continuous meeting. The Parisian crowd opens the prisons of the Abbey to release some grenadiers from the French guards who have been imprisoned because they refused to fire on the people. The Assembly recommends them to the King's clemency; they return to prison, and receive forgiveness. Their regiment joined the popular cause.

On July 11, 1789, with troops at Versailles, Sèvres, the Champ de Mars, and Saint-Denis, the king, acting under the influence of the noble conservatives of his privy council, dismissed Necker (who had left for Brussels), and forms a new ministry. Marshal Victor François, Duke of Broglie, La Galissonnière, Duke of Vauguyon, Baron Louis de Breteuil, and Intendant Foulon, are appointed to replace Puységur, Armand Marc, Count of Montmorin, La Luzerne, Saint Priest, and Necker .

News of Necker's dismissal reached Paris on the afternoon of Sunday, July 12, 1789, where it was interpreted as a Conservative coup. Crowds constitute meetings throughout the city, with more than ten thousand people at the Royal Palace. Camille Desmoulins, according to Mignet, rallies the crowd around him, mounted on a table, pistol in hand, exclaiming:

“Citizens, there is no time to lose; the dismissal of Necker is the signal for a Saint-Barthélemy of patriots! Tonight the German and Swiss regiments will leave the Champ de Mars to massacre us all; our only resource is to take up arms! »

A growing crowd, brandishing busts of Necker and the Duke of Orléans, moved to Place Vendôme, where a detachment of the Royal German had been stationed, and drowned it in a shower of stones. On the Place Louis XV, the dragoons of the Prince of Lambesc shoot at the bearer of one of the busts; a soldier is also killed. de Lambesc and his soldiers pursue them, attacking not only the demonstrators but also those they meet on their way.

The regiment of the French Guard, favorably disposed towards the popular cause, is confined to its barracks. With Paris transformed into a general riot, de Lambesc, not trusting the regiment to obey this order, posted sixty dragoons in front of his depot on the Chaussée-d'Antin. Again, a measure intended to prevent serves only to provoke. The French Guards arrive, kill two dragoons, wound three, and put the rest to flight. The citizen rebellion has acquired a trained regiment for its cause.

The rebels gather in and around the Hôtel de Ville and sound the tocsin. The mistrust between the councilors grouped in the Hôtel de Ville and the crowd that surrounds it is aggravated by the inability of the municipality to provide arms to the Parisian people. Between political insurrection and opportunist looting, Paris is chaos. In Versailles, the Assembly held firmly to its positions, and began a continuous session so as not to be deprived of its meeting space again.