French Revolution - Points Test 1, Ancien Regime prior to 1789

Question 1

What age was Louis XVI when he came to the throne?

Answer 1

Aged 20.

Question 2

Why did Louis XVI succeed to the throne?

Answer 2

Had not been expected to take the throne. When born, his grandfather Louis XV ruled France and Louis’s father and elder brother were above him in the succession. His brother died in 1761, followed by his father in 1765, leaving Louis as the ‘Dauphin’.

Question 3

When did he marry Marie-Antoinette?

Answer 3

1770 (betrothed 1768).

Question 4

Why was the betrothal of Marie-Antoinette to Louis XVI (before he was king) controversial?

Answer 4

France and Austria has fought in the Wars of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), trying to prevent Maria-Theresa, Marie-Antoinette’s mother, from taking the Austrian throne.
France failed and in 1756 the two sides agreed an alliance. By 1768 however, the alliance was in danger of breaking up, hence the betrothal (organised by pro-Austrian French foreign ministers).

Question 5

Give two reasons why Louis is often considered lacking the qualities to have been a good king.

Answer 5

Louis often considered lacking in the qualities and abilities necessary to be king.
He lacked his grandfather’s charm and was weak-willed and indecisive.
His greatest passions were hunting and dining and, although well-meaning and had hopes of reforming France and benefiting the lives of his subjects, he had little understanding of politics.
He was reluctant to take a lead and stubborn when faced with changes he disliked, but usually ready to concede when he had no choice (when it was too late).

Question 6

Why was Marie-Antoinette a problematic Queen for Louis XVI to have/what inabilities did she exhibit as a ruler?

Answer 6

• Maria-Antionette (1755-93) was the fourth daughter of the Empress Maria-Theresa of Austria, rather naïve.
• She had a reputation as a spendthrift (‘Madame Déficit’), which was worsened by a story that suggested an affair with Cardinal Rohan involving the spending of large sums of money on a diamond necklace.
• Marie-Antionette had no sympathy with the revolution, and sought the help of her brother Leopold of Austria.

Question 7

Why was the Court of Versailles problematic in terms of ruling France? Give two relevant points.

Answer 7

Any of x2 below…

• Life was expensive there, and different court factions constantly sought royal favours (pensions, sinecures, contracts and gratuities) to maintain their lifestyle.
• The king was the ultimate dispenser of patronage, but Marie-Antoinette also used her influence to advance her own pro-Austrian clique, earning the derogatory nickname ‘L’Autrichienne’ (The Austrian Bitch) from those still hostile to the Austrians.
• Sinecures were incomes attached to offices that were either honorary or required very little input from the recipient.
• Contracts, in this context, were favours to undertake a project giving the recipient the opportunity to make free money.
• Gratuities were ‘free gifts’.
• Patronage, in this specific context, was the provision of appointments to offices and the granting of privileges.
• An elaborate system of etiquette had built up at Versailles. Much ceremonial surrounded, for example, the royal Levée (The king’s waking), which produced the formalities of both the smaller petit lever du roi and the more formal grand lever du roi.
• Manners were honed to the point of absurdity; a word or glance from the King could make or destroy a career and failure to acknowledge a superior in a passageway was a serious crime.
• The royal couple thus lived out their lives in isolation from the outside world, in an atmosphere in which intrigue and deceit were commonplace amongst those jostling for influence.

Question 8

What children did the Royal Couple have, and what happened to them?

Answer 8

• Of the children the marriage produced, only Maria-Thérése Charlotte (1778-1851) survived the revolution.
  • Louis-Joseph-Xavier-Francois (1781-June 1789) died of TB. Louis-Charles (1785-95) was proclaimed Louis XVII in 1793 but was starved in prison by the revolutionaries and died, aged 10.
  • Sophie-Beatrice (1786-87) failed to survive babyhood.

Question 9

What was Louis’ perspective with regards to his ‘Divine Right’?

Answer 9

• For all his limitations, Louis was acutely aware that his position was a sacred one.
• By right of inheritance and his anointment with sacred oils at his coronation, it was clear to all that he was God’s representative in France.
• It was accepted that the king carried out the divine will and that he was only answerable to his maker.
• This ‘Divine Right’ justified the ‘Absolute’ powers of the monarch.
• He alone had the power to make laws and to ensure they were carried out, incarcerating those who went against his will by lettres de cachet.

Question 10

What was a lettre de cachet?

Answer 10

A Lettre de cachet was a letter bearing the royal seal or ‘cachet’, by which the king could order imprisonment. In the reign of Louis XV, these had been much abused. They were provided, ready signed, for others to complete. Their use was reigned in under Louis XVI, but they were not abandoned until the revolution.

Question 11

Give any explanation of how French Absolutism was supposed to have been retrained from becoming a tyranny.

Answer 11

• French Absolutism was restrained by the customs of the land and in practice the king needed the support of his noble elites.
• The monarch was expected to maintain conventions and to uphold rule ‘by law’ (in contrast to a Despot, a ruler who ignores or abuses the law, behaving in an arbitrary fashion).
• This meant upholding Christian morality and respecting the rights, privileges and customs of both his subjects and of the provinces and regions which made up his kingdom.

Question 12

Which royal councils met in the presence of the king, and what were their roles?

Answer 12

• The Counseil d’etat (Council of State): This dealt with major issues of state and foreign affairs.
• The Counseil des Dépeches: this received dispatches from the king’s officials in the provinces and dealt with church affairs.
• The Conseil Royal des Finances: this managed state finances and household costs; from 1787 it also handled economic policy, which had previously been run by a separate council.

Question 13

What were the chief offices of State under the Ancien Regime?

Answer 13

• There were also other lesser councils that did not meet in the king’s presence.
• However, despite the councils, power tended to fall into the hands of a restricted number of influential individuals who acted independently.
• These conducted private business with the king, usually in weekly discussions.
• They included the King’s chief ministers such as the Secretaries of State for War, Foreign Affairs, the Navy and the Royal Household.
• They also included the Controller-General, who took responsibility for the king’s finances and had his own bureau of workers.

Question 14

What problem did Ministers serving Louis have in terms of keeping their roles and operating effectively? Give two points.

Answer 14

• In such a system, the quality and efficiency of government was large determined by the quality of the men who held key posts.
• Louis’ choice of ministers was at least as much directed by the intrigues of court factions and the pressure put on him by others (including Marie-Antoinette) as it was by any recognition of a potential minister’s abilities.
• Although Louis was generally well-intentioned, no minister could be sure he would hold his post for long.
• Ministers’ attention was therefore focussed upon protecting reputations and maintaining support at Court, as much as on the demands of the roles they were in.

Question 15

Who did the king use as his key representatives in the provinces?

Answer 15

The King appointed Intendents as royal agents, both to maintain his rule in the provinces and to feed back information: they kept central government informed about, for example, the economic situation in the regions or other local problems.

Question 16

How many Intendants were there, and what were their responsibilities?

Answer 16

The intendants were responsible for finance, policing and justice. There was normally one intendant for every généralité – an administrative division created in the 17th century.
• There were 33 by 1789; each was sub-divided into ‘sub-delegations’ which were headed by ‘sub-delegates’ chosen by the intendent.
• Specific duties included…
1. Ensuring taxes were paid.
2. Ensuring the king’s edicts were carried out.
3. Presiding over local courts.
4. Co-ordinating the activities of the prevots (police force); they could even request a lettres de caches against a private person.
5. Raising troops.

Question 17

Why was the role of the Intendant so hard to fulfil? Give any two relevant points.

Answer 17

• The role of the Intendant was not easy. They were over-worked and allocated too few staff to support them in their roles.
• Moreover, they could not make decisions by themselves and if they needed to act they had to obtain an order from the king’s council.
• Indeed, they could not even always rely on the central government to back up their decisions.
• They were also the victims of France’s confused administrative set-up, under which their role often overlapped with those of other officials or was challenged by long-established institutions.

Question 18

Why was there lots of regional variation in terms of how France was governed?

Answer 18

• France had only gradually come together as one kingdom by the end of the 15th century as a result of wars and marriage alliances.
• As kings of France had absorbed new lands, they had made agreements to respect old customs and practices.
• This meant there were slightly different practices, laws and taxation arrangements in different parts of France.

Question 19

What were the Pays dÉtats?

Answer 19

Pays d’États were regions where representative assemblies had retained the right to negotiate on the raising of taxes with the royal intendants; the assembly kept part of the taxes raised to fund public spending (e.g. road building) in the region.
• There were six areas of France, known as the ‘pays d’états’, which had been allowed the privilege of negotiating directly with the Crown on taxation and then paying a lump sum to the king.
• To establish and agree taxes, these areas had powerful assemblies with whom the intendants were forced to share power.

Question 20

Describe the role of provincial governors in France under the AR?

Answer 20

• Provincial governors (drawn from the nobility) were responsible for France’s historic provinces, on which the boundaries of the intendants’ généralités had been imposed.
• Provincial governors were responsible for maintaining order in their regions and sometimes had the right to call a provincial parlement or preside over other municipal bodies.
• In 1779 there were 39 governors.
• Although theoretically there were the king’s representatives, in some areas these posts had become entrenched in certain families, who acted like a provincial ‘dynasty’.
• It was partly to curb the independence of these governors that the intendants had been created in the 17th century.

Question 21

What was Venality?

Answer 21

Venality (from the French Vendre, ‘To Sell’) was the custom of selling administrative offices.
• This had been common practice in France as a way of augmenting royal income.
• Almost all of the posts of public responsibility that were not inherited were bought (the intendants being an exception).
• By the 18th century, there were 70,000 venal offices, comprising the entire judiciacy, most of the legal profession, officers in the army, and a wide range of other professions, from financiers to auctioneers and even wigmakers.

Question 22

What were the Parlements?

Answer 22

• 13 parlements in France.
• The parlements were the ‘sovereign’ courts, and of these the Paris Parlement (responsible for roughly 2/5th of France) was the most important.
• It was the parlements’ job to hear both civil and criminal cases that the local courts could not solve.
• These parlements had also acquired other powers: they controlled guilds, corporations and markers as well as local government finances and law and order.
• They too, therefore, often came into conflict with the intendants.

Question 23

What other courts also existed in AR France?

Answer 23

• There were also other supreme courts, depending on the issue concerned (e.g. the Cambre de Comptes, the Cour de Aides, the Cour de Monnaies and the Chatelet.
• Law was dispensed at the lowest level in the villages by seigneurial courts in the hands of feudal landlords, and were beyond the scope of royal justice.
• Church courts also operated separately.

Question 24

What was the Lit de Justice?

Answer 24

A royal session of the Paris Parlement for the compulsory registration of royal edicts; literally a ‘Bed of Justice’, the name derives from the portable canopied throne created for this ceremony in the 14th century.

Question 25

How could the parlements challenge the rule of the king through dealing with royal edicts?

Answer 25

• Perhaps the most important right of these parlements, however, was that of registering each of the king’s edicts to ensure its conformity with previous legislation and provincial codes.
• With this also came the right to remonstrate/complain: the parlements could question and criticise the decrees, and force the king to think again by sending a remonstrance.
• Such rights gave the parlements tremendous power – particularly the Paris Parlement which always took the lead and acted first.
• The king could overrule his parlements and force the acceptance of an edict in the process known as a ‘lit de Justice’ – but to do so could lay him open to the charge of acting despotically, so it was something no monarch wished to do too often.

Question 26

What tensions had existed between the monarchy and the parlements before Louis XVI’s rule?

Answer 26

From 1763, the Paris Parlement had blocked a series of royal reforms and policies and in 1771 Louis XV had tried to abolish the parlements altogether.

Question 27

What measure did Louis XVI take with regards to the parlements when he took the throne?

Answer 27

When Louis XVI took the throne in 1774 he restored the parlements to their previous status, but he did not find them easy to manage.

Question 28

Why did law in AR France vary according to Geography?

Answer 28

The southern third of France was governed by written law, adapted from the Roman legal system, with very clear and rigid rules.
• The rest of France, however, operated a system of common law, based on customary practice.

Question 29

What was the population of France by the 1780s?

Answer 29

By the 1780s, France had the largest population of any country in Europe, with around 27 million people (of around 21 million of whom were engaged in some form of agriculture).

Question 30

What were the rough figures for each of the three estates under the AR?

Answer 30

• There numbers in each estate are notoriously difficult to gauge as they changed constantly and in the absence of any census have to be calculated from other records.
• However, the rough figures are…
1. The first Estate, comprising the clergy, c.150,000.
2. The second Estate, the nobility, c.200-000-400,000 members.
3. The third estate, the commoners (everyone else), the rest.

Question 31

Why were the First Estate seen as so important in AR france?

Answer 31

• The First Estate comprised the clergy, and the exclusively male clerics (other than nuns?) were regarded as essential to the nations’ well-being.
• The church provided for the nations’ souls, carrying out the vital religious duties of administering the mass, hearing confessions and performing christenings, marriages and the last rites.
• It also controlled education and provided care for the sick and elderly.
• The pulpit was also used as a means of conveying royal messages and the church authorities had extensive powers of censorship.
• France was c.97% Catholic and only they possessed full legal rights, so the majority of the population accepted the idea that a priest was essential for an individual’s salvation, even though attendance at mass varied.
• Observance was strongest in parts of the west, north-east and south, and the weakest in Paris, the large cities and the area immediately south of the capital).
• The remaining 3% were mainly protestants and some jews.

Question 32

Why was there huge variety in the power of those who made up the first estate?

Answer 32

• There was, nevertheless, a huge variation in terms of wealth and power within the first estate.
• However, not all members of the first estate were rich.
• At the top, the cardinals, archbishops and bishops came from the ranks of the nobility and lived a lifestyle comparable to those of their secular counterparts.
• However, the majority of the clergy had a much less flamboyant lifestyle and some were far poorer than their own parishoners.

Question 33

Why was the First Estate so rich?

Answer 33

• The church itself was a wealthy institution, with a large income from the rents and dues paid for the use of Church land as well as income from the rents and dues paid for the use of church land.
• The church owned around 10% of the land in France, varying from 5% in parts of the west to 20% in parts of the north and east.
• It also got income from church taxes (principally the tithe, which everyone had to pay). This was a 10% income tax, originally paid in the form of produce. Although not always levied in full, it could be a considerable burden to peasants.
• The clergy of the first estate were not required to pay the taille, the main French direct tax.
(Direct Taxes were those taken directly away from individuals, often according to their wealth or possessions; in contrast, indirect taxes are taxes on goods or services).
• Instead, the clergy were allowed to meet in their own assemblies, decide their own affairs and offer a lump sum, known as a Don Gratuit, to the king.

Question 34

What other privileges did members of the first estate get, other than financial?

Answer 34

They could only be prosecuted in their own courts, and couldn’t be asked to perform military service or to provide money or billet (housing) for royal troops.

Question 35

How much land did the 2nd estate own?

Answer 35

• They jointly owned between 1/5th and ¼ of all land in France.
• They mostly lived off the rents of their landed estates.
• Their wealth and lifestyle varied according to the size of their holdings and what other income they had managed to acquire, through pensions, offices and sinecures, or by purchasing offices.
• However, a large amount of nobles’ wealth came from ‘unearned income’.
(earnings from rents or investments).

Question 36

Who were the Noblesse d’épée?

Answer 36

Nobles of the sword, traditionally the only group allowed to wear a sword) were the hereditary nobility.

Question 37

Who were the Noblesse de court?

Answer 37

Those in residence at Versailles (sometimes described as the noblesse de court) were able to access plentiful royal patronage and served as ambassadors and councillors; others remained in the provinces, living in chateaux or manor houses on their country estates.

Question 38

Who were the ‘Princes of the Blood’?

Answer 38

Members of the king’s own family.

Question 39

Why did the wealth of the nobility vary widely?

Answer 39

Some of the provincial hereditary nobility had become impoverished over the years, yet still clung to their status and privileges.
• They were nicknamed the ‘Hobereaux’ (literally ‘sparrow-hawks’) by the upper-nobility.
• Living away from Versailles prevented them from gaining state offices, and their attempts to maintain a noble lifestyle could easily send them into debt.

Question 40

Who were the Noblesse de Robe?

Answer 40

• The Noblesse de Robe (nobility of the robe, named after the magistrates’ robes) had acquired noble status, usually because of the venal jobs they did.
• Their numbers had grown considerably during the 18th century, as more offices had been sold.
• By 1789, there were more than 70,000.
• During the time of Louis XVI, the opportunities to buy nobility had begun to dry up.
• Another way to gain noble status was through marriage.
• The Noblesse de robe were scattered around the towns and cities of France performing legal and administrative duties.
• Like the noblesse d’épée, they generally looked down on business and trade, although by the 1780s there was a small group of ‘business nobility’ in France (most commercial and manual activities were officially forbidden to the 2nd estate, on pain of losing their noble status).

Question 41

What privileges did the Nobility possess?

Answer 41

• Noblemen shared honorific privileges, such as the right to display a coat of arms or take precedence at public ceremonies.
• They held a privileged position in law: the right to be beheaded rather than hanged, for example.
• Like the first estate, they also had financial privileges.
• They did not pay the taille and had exemptions or a lower rate of assessment for other direct times.
• Many nobles also managed to avoid indirect taxes – or, at worst, paid only a tiny proportion of their income.
• The distinction between the noblesse d’épée and the noblesse de robe could become blurred. When offices were retained by a family for three generations, they could become hereditary, although the roblesse d’épée still tended to look down upon ‘upstarts’.
• Distinctions of wealth also varied and the land held by the 2nd estate was unequally dispersed, with 40% in parts of the south-west, 33% in Burgundy and less than 10% in Flanders.

Question 42

Who were the wealthiest members of the Third Estate?

Answer 42

The wealthiest commoners were the bourgeoisie, who relied on ‘skills’ for their income, and were able to enjoy a reasonable standard of living.

Question 43

How had this tiny but influential group (the Bourgeoisie) grown so economically wealthy under the AR, before the revolution?

Answer 43

This group had grown quite considerably during the 18th century as trade and commerce expanded.
• Nevertheless, it remained tiny compared to the mass of urban workers and peasants that made up the bulk of the third estate.
• The Bourgeoisie (sometimes divided between the haute bourgeoisie and petit bourgeoisie) ranged from merchants, doctors, lawyers, non-noble office holders, financiers and teachers to artists, smaller-scale traders and master craftsmen.
• The wealthiest of its members could enjoy a lifestyle that was little different from those of some of the second estate.
• A prosperous merchant might well command a far higher income than an impoverished nobleman and any surplus wealth that the bourgeoisie made was usually invested in land and property.
• This meant that the higher ranks of the 3rd estate associated more with those above than those beneath them.
• Where possible, these would seek to improve their social status by buying office.

Question 44

What were the other two members of the Third Estate?

Answer 44

• The semi-skilled and unskilled town workers whose lives depended on the vagaries of trade, the whims of their masters and the price of food in the towns and cities.
• The Peasantry, who lived and worked in the countryside.

Question 45

What were the lives of the peasantry like?

Answer 45

• The peasantry comprised by far the largest percentage of the 3rd estate.
• Peasants worked the land, mostly under feudal arrangements with the land-holding seigneur (Lord).
• There were only a small number of peasant proprietors who had managed to buy land in their own right.
• The richer land-owning peasantry and those with tenancy agreements (who paid a money rent for their land) could become relatively prosperous by selling their surpluses at town markets.
• However, most peasants were subsistence farmers, legally bound to a seigneur who provided small plots within his estate, to individuals or small groups.

Question 46

What obligations did the 3rd Estate have under the AR?

Answer 46

• The 3rd estate had no privileges.
• They were required to pay direct taxes such as the taille, the vingtiéme and capitation and indirect taxes such as the gabelle (salt tax), the aides on drink, and taxes on tobacco, as well as their tithe to the church.
• Every male was liable for military service (and families might have troops billeted upon them).
• They were also required to do unpaid labour service to maintain royal roads (or provide other public benefits), known as the corvée royale.
• However, the wealthier citizens could buy their way out of this obligation.

Question 47

What feudal taxes/obligations did peasants have to pay under the AR?

Answer 47

• The feudal peasants were not only taxed by the state and church, but also subject to a range of seigneurial dues, including the champart (paid in grain or produce), and the cens (paid in cash).
• The seigneur could demand that peasants from nearby villages ground their grain in his mill, baked their bread in his over and pressed their grapes in his wine press, adhering to the dates of the farming calendar laid down by his agents.
• In return for the use of these facilities, the peasants paid annual payments known as banalities.
• In some regions the seigneur allowed no-one else to own male pigs or cattle; this enabled him to charge a stud or breeding fee.
• The seigneur also enjoyed the right to breed game, hunt and fish on his lands, while his peasants could be hanged for ‘poaching’ if found doing the same.
• The peasants could be tried in seigneurial courts held on the lord’s estate; there were around 100,000 such courts, though they operated infrequently.

Question 48

Who was even worse off than the peasantry in AR France, and why?

Answer 48

• However, even the feudal peasant was better off than those at the very bottom of the third estate: the journaliers or day labourers who could never be sure where the next day’s work would come from, or, lower still, the prostitutes, vagabonds, tramps and beggars who lived on the borders of society and were feared by others as ‘outsiders’.

Question 49

What arguable strengths did the AR have?

Answer 49

• The administrative structure and judicial institutions of the Ancien Régime provided for a highly centralised government by an absolute monarch.
• While government functioned relatively well by the standards of the day and the king could take advantage of powerful noble networks (exploiting the ties between the grand courtly families and those holding provincial offices).

Question 50

What arguable weaknesses did the AR have?

Answer 50

The operation of this system was limited by the many divisions that existed in France, geographic, historical and social, there was an almost universal acceptance by the mid-18th century that reform was needed, and yet change was not easy. The power of the privileged and the Court, with its ministerial rivalries paralysed the system in the 1780s, and the compounding problems were the inadequacies of Louis XVI himself.