Increasing tensions 1774-8

Question 1

Intendents - strengths

Answer 1

1. 33 in total – power dispersed (eg they control taxes, respond to local grievances, preside over local courts, coordinate activies of the police) and not all burdened on Louis so more effective local government
2. They could request ‘lettres de cahet’ so held authority

Question 2

intendents - weaknesses

Answer 2

1. Only one intendent per generalitie – they were overworked and allocated too few staff
2. Had to obtain an order from the King’s council in order to act – slow and ineffective process which still all resolved around Louis
3. Victim of France’s poor, outdated and confused administrative set-up which meant their roles cashed with that of the seigneurs
4. Too young and inexperienced – eg Charles Alexandra Calonne became an intendent at the age of 32

Question 3

weaknesses of provincial governors

Answer 3

1. 1779: there were 39 governors
2. theoretically the King’s representatives but in many areas they had become intrenched in certain families who acted like a ‘provincial dynasty’
3. not always fit for position because they aren’t elected through ability
4. hierarchical system incompatible with growing enlightened ideas which demanded representation and more equality

Question 4

seigneurs - strengths

Answer 4

Land- owning nobles who resolved disputes, organised poor relief, had administrative duties – effective distribution of power

Question 5

seigneurs - weaknesses

Answer 5

1. Peasants could be tried in seigneurial courts held on the lord’s estate; there were some 100,000 such courts
2. seigneurs weren’t always fair and so could abuse power
3. seigneurial rights became increasingly unpopular, especially with growing Enlightened ideas

Question 6

the King and court - strengths

Answer 6

Louis can choose his chief ministers which creates a more unified and cohesive government as there is less opposition to his rule

Question 7

the King and court - weaknesses

Answer 7

• His choices aren’t generally based on efficiency or quality of the ministers, but more on how compliant they are, and if those around him like them (eg Marie- Antionette put a lot of pressure on him)
• Louis fires competent ministers if they don’t agree with his rule because he’s an absolute monarch. Eg Necker
• ‘lettres de cahet’ was extremely an extremely unpopular feature of Louis’ absolutist rule

Question 8

representative bodies - strengths

Answer 8

• Hierarchy of royal courts stretching from the prévôtés, through 430 bailliage courts, to 13 parlements. High number – legislative power dispersed – effective law
• The courts hear cases so give representation/freedom to the people

Question 9

representative bodies - weaknesses

Answer 9

• The parlements had a right to question and criticise decrees to the King directly, and could force him to reconsider by sending a ‘remonstrance’. Slowed down law making process. Also, the king was able to overrule the parlements through the lit de jusice so they didn’t even have much power.
• Parlements were dominated by 1st and 2nd estate so didn’t give proper representation
• The parlements also controlled guilds, corporations and markets as well as local government finances and law and order. They could come into conflict with the intendents.

Question 10

Nature of Louis’ Kingship - weaknesses

Answer 10

1. Early death of his brother meant that he became king at 20 and wasn’t prepared for it – perceived as weak-willed and indecisive. He apparently said, on his accession, ‘Protect us, Lord, for we reign too young.’
2. A British Ambassador wrote about Louis at the start of his reign that he seemed a ‘young, inexperienced mind’
3. Louis had a passion for locks – people perceived him as odd and introverted
4. He kept is personal expenditure down but this made him look weak next to the strong willed, extravagant Marie-Antionette.
5. It took eight years for Louis to produce an heir – further scandal and gossip around their competence as monarchs
6. He was short sighted so was always squinting and appeared clumsy/ridiculous: One of Marie Antionette’s ladies in waiting described him as looking ‘like some peasant shambling along behind his plough’

Question 11

Marie Antionette - weaknesses

Answer 11

1. Marie-Antionette was nicknamed ‘Madame Deficit’ due to her frivolous spending.
2. Reputation made worse by the ‘Diamond Necklace Affair’: the story suggested an affair with Cardinal Rohan involving the spending of large sums of money on a diamond necklace.

Question 12

Rigid social structure - weaknesses

Answer 12

1. Only a very small proportion of bourgeoisie members could buy venal office due to the rapid increase in their cost throughout the 1700s; a minor office could cost 20,000 livres, while higher offices with immediate noble status were in excess of 50,000 livres.
2. Even if noble status was aquired, the noblesse de robe would be looked down on by the noblesse d’épée, which built up resentment amongst the members of the bourgeoisie, many of whom were superior in intellect and ability to members of the hereditary nobility.

Question 13

flexible social structure - strengths

Answer 13

1. Possibility of buying venal office: more than 70,000 members of the noblesse de robe by 1789
2. Venal office incentivised members of the bourgeoisie to climb up the ranks in society - propped up the feudal system

Question 14

3rd estate grievances

Answer 14

1. Tax burden: all members of the 3rd estate were subject to the taille (brought in around 20 million livres a year and made up 16% of the govenment’s total income)
2. Members of the 3rd estate had an additional duty called the corvee royale, which was unpaid labour service to maintain the King’s roads or other public benefits.
3. The feudal peasants were also subject to a range of seigneurial dues, including the champart (paid in grain) and the cens (paid in cash), which further highlights the unjust social structure in France.

Question 15

2nd estate grievances

Answer 15

The provincial nobles with lesser titles and smaller land holdings, often referred to as the hobereaux (‘old birds’), had usually lost most of their land and wealth, despite retaining their privileges and the snobbery that came with them.

As a result, these nobles resented the rising bourgeoisie, who had outstripped them in land and wealth, as well as the monarchy, who they felt weren’t trying hard enough to protect the nobility and their property.

Question 16

1st estate grievances

Answer 16

Church’s wealth was concentrated at the top, leaving the majority of parish priests and cures poorly paid and often disregarded by higher clergy.

As these lower ranks comprised around one third of clergy, it is evident that a significant proportion of the 3rd estate were poorly treated by those above them, increasing resentment of the monarch who oversaw their grievances.

Question 17

Enlightenement - criticism of organised religion

Answer 17

Many philosophes were ‘deists’ who believed in the existence of a God, but criticised organised religion.
1. Denis Diderot: claimed in one of his entries in his ‘Enclyclopedie’, that if someone of an ‘intolerant faith’ was asked about how their religion treated those from other religions, he would either have to ‘admit something odious, lie, or keep a shameful silence.’

Question 18

Enlightenment - questioning of royal absolute authority

Answer 18

Criticism of ‘Divine Right’ led to increasing interest in the idea of a ‘limited monarch’ that shared power with an elected Government.
1. Montesquieu especially explored the idea of the separation of powers, stating in ‘The Spirit of the Laws’ that ‘It is not enough to have the intermediate ranks (i.e. the nobility) moderating the power in a monarchy. There must also be a depository of laws (i.e. the parlements).’
2. Moreover, ‘The Spirit of Laws’, despite being placed on the list of prohibited books by the Church, sold thousands of copies, demonstrating that the ideas of the Enlightenment were both radical and widespread.
3. Finally, these ideas were potentially problematic because of the extent of influence of the philosophes; their ideas were discussed in ‘salons’, coffee houses, ‘academies’ and freemasons between both the nobles and the bourgeoisie, men and women.

Question 19

Enlightenment - not that problematic

Answer 19

Most philosophes accepted the existence of a God, and their criticism was merely targeted on the way in which religion was organised.
4. Denis Diderot states from one of his entries in his ‘Enclyclopedie’ that ‘It is God, whose power always has a direct bearing each creature,’
5. The ideas of a ‘good monarch’ were not radical; it had always been understood that a king should perform his duties well.
6. The Enlightenment wasn’t the greatest problem Louis XVI faced because the ideas were only discussed within two sectors of society: the nobility (7.7%) and the upper end of the bourgeoisie (1-1.5%)
7. Literacy rate in pre-revolutionary France was around 60%, a large proportion of the population (comprised mostly of peasants) did not even have a means of learning about enlightened ideas, which would have been spread through pamphlets and newspapers.

Question 20

American War of Independence - problematic

Answer 20

1. France provided 12,000 soldiers and 32,000 sailors to the American war effort – ideas of liberty representation were brought back to France
2. France had secretly sent over 5 million livres in economic aid to France by 1777.
3. The 20-year-old Marquis de Lafayette went to fight in the American War of Independence – picked up on enlightened ideas and was central to drafting the Declaration of the Rights of Man and organising of the National Guard
4. The American Ambassador to France wrote to the Us Secretary of State that the war seemed to have had ‘awakened the thinking part of France from the sleep of despotism in which they were sunk’.
5. Benjamin Franklin sent to France in 1776 to rally support for the war – he attacked to nobility and condemned a hereditary order of chivalry – was positively received in the Paris salons, where Enlightened thought was developing

Question 21

American War of Independence - not that problematic

Answer 21

1. Revolution only really started in 1789, catalysed by poor economy. Ideas brought to France by the American War of Independence can’t have been either radical enough, convincing enough, or widespread enough to have had a serious impact.
2. Only spread to soldiers, which was a relatively small number compared to France’s total population of 28 million

Question 22

The Ancien Regime economy: strengths

Answer 22

1. Population of 27million by the 1780s (more than 3 times that of Great Britain) – rapid population growth
2. Between 1715 and 1771, French commerce increased almost eightfold, making France second only to GB in trade
3. Transport improved (from 1760s to 1780s, the time it took to travel 1000 kilometres between Paris and Toulouse halved)
4. Industrial production doubled between 1715 and 1771 (mining and textiles)

Question 23

The Ancien Regime economy: weaknesses

Answer 23

1. Still a backward agricultural nation: only 15% of the population lived in localities of more than 2000 inhabitants
2. Highly taxed peasantry used backward farming methods (eg they still farmed by hand) – low yield form farms couldn’t sustain demand from growing population
3. Measurement system not unform across France: there were an estimated 25,000 different units of measurement in France before in the 1770s
4. By 1764 France was 2.3 billion livres in debt

Question 24

Royal finance and the tax system: weaknesses

Answer 24

1. The taille was a direct tax on property and income of the 3rd estate – it wasn’t economically efficient for the main form of direct tax to be burdened on the poorest estate
2. The privileges of the 1st estate meant that they could avoid the capitation and pay a ‘don gratuit’ (self-calculated lump of money) instead, which bore little relation to the wealth of its lands (amounted to only 2% of the Church’s total revenue)
3. Direct tax: physically collected by royal officers so many peasants would refuse and were unwilling to pay tax
4. Indirect tax: subject to corruption as the price could be raised by a penny or two and produce a lot of money

Question 25

Turgot’s finance reforms: strengths

Answer 25

• Made cuts to royal spending
• Made a plan to reduce gov. spending through ordering government departments to submit their expenses to the Controller-General
• Made some reforms to tax-farming system

These methods helped to reduce the deficit and enabled him to negotiate a low-interest loan of 4% with some Dutch bankers in 1776.

Question 26

Turgot’s finance reforms: weaknesses

Answer 26

• Wanted to replace indirect taxes with a land tax but was strongly opposed by nobles
• Attempt to establish free trade in grain in 1774 was opposed by men with vested interests. Had to abandon edict with the ‘flour wars’ in 1775 following bad harvest the previous year.
• Turgot expressed in his ‘six edicts’ in 1776his desire to abolish privilege, to tax all and to grant every man with the right to work without restriction. The Paris parlement issued two remonstrances in response.
• Forced to resign by Louis, under the heavy influence of Marie Antionette – polices were too offensive.

Question 27

Necker’s finance reforms: strengths

Answer 27

• Continued Necker’s cost-cutting measures: reduced royal spending, appointed salaried officials, rather than venal corporations, to run the royal estates and removed the vingtieme on industry
• Reduced the number of tax-farmers from 60 to 40
• Replaced the 48 posts of ‘receivers-general’ of direct taxes with 12 salaried officials who were made to submit their receipts to Necker personally – reduced corruption

Compte Rendu:

• The Compte Rendu suggested that France had a surplus of 10 million livres rather than a substantial deficit – by disguising the financial crisis, he helped get more loans, gained popularity, and decreased public resentment of the Ancien Regime

Question 28

Necker’s finance reforms: weaknesses

Answer 28

Compte Rendu au Roi

• Produced a ‘budget-statement’ (Compte Rendu au Roi) in 1781 summarising expenditure and income – sold 100,000 copies within weeks – provoked unhelpful public debate

Question 29

Calonne’s financial reforms

Answer 29

• Proposed a general land tax, the establishment of provincial assemblies (to involve landowners in the assessment of the new tax), removal of controls on the grain trade, and removal of internal custom barriers to boost commerce