Speaker 1: Hello, and Welcome to Western SIEV Episode four hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty eight, The Flood. The reign of Louis the fifteenth,
Speaker 1: who sat upon the French throne from seventeen fifteen to
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy four, was one of paradox and a slow
Speaker 1: erosion of power, an era that really began in splendor
Speaker 1: and optimism, but ended in doubt, ridicule, and the foreboding collapse.
Speaker 1: Known in his youth as Libyan m Though well beloved,
Speaker 1: Louis would die a monarch largely unloved, his kingdom straining
Speaker 1: under financial burdens im moral cynicism that set the stage
Speaker 1: for the French Revolution. Louis the fifteenth was only five
Speaker 1: years old when his great grandfather, the Mighty Louis the fourteenth,
Speaker 1: died in September seventeen fifteen. The son king had ruled
Speaker 1: for seventy two years, leaving behind both grandeur and exhaustion.
Speaker 1: Versailles glittered. France remained Europe's cultural beacon, but its treasury
Speaker 1: was totally depleted, its army and militaries worn down, and
Speaker 1: its people, weary of endless war and expense into this world,
Speaker 1: stepped the small fraile child, who was now to be king.
Speaker 1: Because of his age, of course, a regency was necessary.
Speaker 1: The task fell to Philippe de Orleman, the late king's nephew.
Speaker 1: The regency from seventeen fifteen to seventeen twenty three was
Speaker 1: marked by a loosening of the rigid ceremonial culture of
Speaker 1: Louis the fourteenth Court. Philippe moved the government from Versaid
Speaker 1: back to Paris, restored some powers to the nobility, and
Speaker 1: allowed more open debate within the royal councils. The financial
Speaker 1: chaos of the realm was addressed through a bold but
Speaker 1: disastrous experiment. The Scottish adventurer John Law was granted control
Speaker 1: of the Bank General and soon promoted his Mississippi Company.
Speaker 1: Scheme laws financial system, part bank, part colonial speculation temporarily
Speaker 1: revived credit and enthusiasm, but collapsed spectacularly in seventeen twenty.
Speaker 1: Fortunes were ruined, confidence in royal finances shattered, and the
Speaker 1: whole episode foreshadowed the chronic fiscal mismanagement that would plague
Speaker 1: Louis the fifteenth reign. In seventeen twenty three, Louis turned
Speaker 1: fifteen and was declared of age. The regent died shortly thereafter,
Speaker 1: and the young king took up full authority, though initially
Speaker 1: power was exercised through chief ministers. Cardinal Fleury, an austere
Speaker 1: churchman of remarkable prudence, became the King's tutor and later
Speaker 1: his principal minister. Fleury's steady hand provided a rare moment
Speaker 1: of stability. He balanced the budget, he restrained reckless spending,
Speaker 1: and sought peace abroad. Fleury's foreign policy was all about
Speaker 1: avoiding expensive, grandiose foreign wars. He initially kept France out
Speaker 1: of the War of Polish Succession, which lasted from seventeen
Speaker 1: thirty three to seventeen thirty eight, but eventually French arms
Speaker 1: were engaged to press the claims of Stanislaw Leazinski Louis,
Speaker 1: the fifteenth father in law. The conflict ended with Stanislaw's
Speaker 1: symbolic kingship in Lorraine, which upon his death would pass
Speaker 1: permanently to France, a quiet but still significant territorial gain.
Speaker 1: Another war, the War of Austrian Succession, embroiled France much
Speaker 1: more deeply. France allied with Prussia against Austria and Britain,
Speaker 1: hoping to check Habsburg power and secure influence in the
Speaker 1: low countries. French armies won dramatic victories, most notably at
Speaker 1: Fontenois in seventeen forty five, where Louis himself appeared on campaign.
Speaker 1: A soldier is said to have shouted to him, Sire,
Speaker 1: do not expose yourself withdraw, to which the king replied
Speaker 1: to gentlemen, I am here to see you fight. It
Speaker 1: was a moment that briefly, briefly revived his popularity, but
Speaker 1: the war ended with little tangible gain, draining the treasury
Speaker 1: and spreading disillusionment. It was the first sign that France,
Speaker 1: though still Europe's most populous and culturally dominant nation, was
Speaker 1: slipping into military and diplomatic in effectiveness. Louis the fifteenth
Speaker 1: himself was a private person. He was ill suited to
Speaker 1: the relentless ceremonial exposure that his great grandfather had relished.
Speaker 1: He preferred hunting, scientific experiments, and the company of intimate
Speaker 1: friends and mistresses to the grand rituals of Versailles. His aloofness,
Speaker 1: combined with a tendency towards indecision, left government often adrift.
Speaker 1: The king's mistresses became powerful figures at court, shaping both
Speaker 1: patronage and public perception, Madame de Pompadour, who rose to
Speaker 1: prominence in the seventeen forties, was far more than a
Speaker 1: royal favorite. Intelligent and politically astute, she became a patron
Speaker 1: of the arts, champion of enlightenment figures like Voltaire, and
Speaker 1: even a quiet player in diplomacy. Critics, though mocked the
Speaker 1: influence of a bourgeoisie woman over the king, cultural patronage
Speaker 1: left an enduring mark on French art and architecture, fostering
Speaker 1: the Rococo style that defined the age. Later, Madame du Barrier,
Speaker 1: of even humbler origins, would scandalized the court by her
Speaker 1: extravagance and seeming frivolity, so the public the succession of
Speaker 1: Mistress's simply embodied royal decadence, pamphlets and underground satire flourished,
Speaker 1: eroding the monarchy's dignity in the eyes of many of
Speaker 1: its subjects. But, of course, as I talked about in
Speaker 1: previous episodes, the biggest turning point of Louis the Fifteenth
Speaker 1: Reign came with the Seven Years War, which lasted from
Speaker 1: seventeen fifty six to seventeen sixty three. In a diplomatic revolution,
Speaker 1: France abandoned its traditional hostility to Austria, and allied itself
Speaker 1: with Empress Maria Teresa against Prussia and Britain. This grand
Speaker 1: alliance was meant to isolate Frederick the Great and curb
Speaker 1: British colonial expansion, but as we know, instead it proved disastrous.
Speaker 1: French forces suffered repeated defeats at Plas in India, and
Speaker 1: then there was the capture of Quebec in seventeen fifty
Speaker 1: nine that ultimately stripped France of its overseas empire. Naval
Speaker 1: defeats at Lagos and Kuberian Bay shattered French naval power.
Speaker 1: By the Treaty of Paris in seventeen sixty three, France
Speaker 1: seeded Canada to Britain, lost much of India, and surrendered
Speaker 1: its dominance in North America. The war's humiliation deeply tarnished
Speaker 1: Louis The fifteenth Reputation a bitter saying ran, this king
Speaker 1: has lost everything except his honor, but even honor seemed
Speaker 1: in doubt. Voltaire captured the public mood with biting irony,
Speaker 1: writing that France had gone to war quote for the
Speaker 1: ears of Madame de Pompadour, suggesting that foreign policy was
Speaker 1: shaped by the king's mistress rather than reasons of state.
Speaker 1: After the war, the monarchy attempted reforms to recover authority.
Speaker 1: French ministers sought new taxes, but entrenched privileges blocked any change.
Speaker 1: The parliaments sovereign courts dominated by nobles, presented themselves as
Speaker 1: defenders of liberty against arbitrary monarchy, resisting any new levies.
Speaker 1: In reality, all they wanted to do was predect their
Speaker 1: own privileges. They'll lose them soon enough, don't worry. In
Speaker 1: and albeit much more dramatic faction, Louis the fifteenth tried
Speaker 1: to reassert royal authority. In the midst of the growing storm.
Speaker 1: In seventeen seventy one, Chancellor Mapieu dissolved the parliaments, replacing
Speaker 1: them with more pliant courts. It was a bold stroke
Speaker 1: of absolutism that was reminiscent of Louis the fourteenth, but
Speaker 1: it was way too late. Many Frenchmen saw it not
Speaker 1: as a reform, but as a move towards tyranny. The
Speaker 1: monarchy was trapped, too weak to impose central authority, yet
Speaker 1: too rigid to enact lasking fiscal modernization. Meanwhile, Enlightenment ideas
Speaker 1: spread like wildfire. Philosophers like Rousseau, Montesquieu and Dita rou
Speaker 1: critiqued monarchy, privilege, and clerical power in general. Although Louis
Speaker 1: the fifteenth tolerated some of this intellectual ferment, the cultural
Speaker 1: prestige of the crown dimmed as new visions of politics
Speaker 1: and society captured the public imagination. Louis the fifteenths later
Speaker 1: years were marked by increasing isolation. Is One's popular image
Speaker 1: as the well beloved was long gone. He had become
Speaker 1: to many the symbol of an exhausted monarchy, indecisive, scandalous,
Speaker 1: and increasingly irrelevant. In seventeen seventy four, amid and outbreak
Speaker 1: of smallpox at Versailles, the sixty four year old king
Speaker 1: fell hill. Crowds once prayed for the boy kot King's health,
Speaker 1: but now as Louis the fifteenth lay dying, Harris buzzed
Speaker 1: with a sort of grim sense of relief. He passed
Speaker 1: away on May tenth, seventeen seventy four, and now his
Speaker 1: grandson succeeded him as Louis the sixteenth. At his funeral,
Speaker 1: the entire procession was met not with mourning, but with jeers.
Speaker 1: The monarchy was still standing. Sure, but the aura of
Speaker 1: sacred majesty was over. The French people were entering a
Speaker 1: new age of skepticism, political restlessness, and one that would
Speaker 1: soon explode in revolution. Louis the fifteenth reign is often
Speaker 1: summed up as one of squandered opportunity. He inherited the
Speaker 1: strongest monarchy in Europe, yet he left his successor of
Speaker 1: fragile and discredited crown. His reign oversaw the flowering of
Speaker 1: Enlightenment culture, the elegance of Rococo Art, and the brilliance
Speaker 1: of votaire rousseau in Montesquieu, but also the loss of
Speaker 1: France's overseas empire in a deepening crisis of financial legitimacy.
Speaker 1: Perhaps most telling is the bitter nickname that was whispered
Speaker 1: in the final years of Louis the fifteenth Epres moi
Speaker 1: leges after me the flood. Whether Louis ever uttered it
Speaker 1: is uncertain, but it captured the sense that he foresaw
Speaker 1: catastrophe to come. Indeed, less than two decades after his death,
Speaker 1: the flood that arrived would sweep away the monarchy itself.
Speaker 1: When Louis the sixteenth ascended the throne of France in
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy four, he was only nineteen years old, a shy,
Speaker 1: awkward young man thrust into the most glittering but fragile
Speaker 1: monarchy in all of Europe. His reign up to the
Speaker 1: crisis of seventeen eighty eight is a tale of what
Speaker 1: we can only say was just honest intentions, undermined by indecision,
Speaker 1: the entrenchment of privilege, and sadly, the weight of history.
Speaker 1: At his side throughout the whole thing would stand his Queen,
Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette, who's one of those rare figures in history
Speaker 1: where the queen is probably better known, at least in
Speaker 1: the colloquial sense, than the king. She was charming, vivacious,
Speaker 1: and quite frankly, often misunderstood, but she would come to
Speaker 1: embody the monarchy's glamour and tragically it's unpopularity. Born Louis
Speaker 1: August in seventeen fifty four, the second son of the Dauphin,
Speaker 1: he had absolutely not been destined for the crown, but
Speaker 1: the early deaths of his elder brother and father placed
Speaker 1: him in line, and in seventeen seventy, at the age
Speaker 1: of only fifteen, he was married to a fourteen year
Speaker 1: old Austrian arch Duchess Marie Antoinette. Their unimion was political.
Speaker 1: It was intended to cement the fragile alliance between the
Speaker 1: Borbon dynasty of France and the Habsburgs of Austria, forged
Speaker 1: in the diplomatic revolution of seventeen fifty six that also
Speaker 1: witnessed the rise of Prussia and the reorientation of Britain.
Speaker 1: Louis was thoughtful, conscientious, and dutiful. It was also very,
Speaker 1: very hesitant. He preferred the workshop and the hunt to
Speaker 1: the politics of Versailles. He was fascinated by locks and locksmithing,
Speaker 1: often retreating to his private rooms to tinker with iron
Speaker 1: and gears. His tutors had instilled a sense of morality
Speaker 1: and duty, but not the political skill to master the
Speaker 1: factions and intrigues of court. In May seventeen seventy four,
Speaker 1: when his grandfather Louis the fifteenth succumbed to smallpox, Louis
Speaker 1: the sixteenth became king. He was crowned at Reims, the capital,
Speaker 1: in the following year, in a ceremony that recalled the
Speaker 1: grandeur of the Capacian monarchy. Crowds hailed him as a
Speaker 1: young reformer, a fresh beginning after decades of scandal and decline.
Speaker 1: Now for her part, Marie Antoinette was born in Vienna
Speaker 1: in seventeen seventy five, the fifteenth child of Empress Maria
Speaker 1: Teresa of Austria and Emperor Francis the First. Her mother,
Speaker 1: a formidable ruler, saw her daughter's marriage to the French
Speaker 1: heir as a master stroke of diplomacy. Raised in the
Speaker 1: opulent but disciplined Viennese court, Marie Antoinette arrived in France
Speaker 1: with little education and a reputation for gaiety at Versailles.
Speaker 1: She quickly attract attention. She was graceful, loved music and dancing,
Speaker 1: and was known for her radiant smile. But her position
Speaker 1: was never easy. The French court, always weary of Austrian influence,
Speaker 1: treated her with disdain and suspicion for years. Her marriage
Speaker 1: with Louis remained unconsummated, an awkward fact whispered about in
Speaker 1: the salons and pamphlets, undermining her dignity as dauphine and
Speaker 1: later as queen. By the seventeen eighties, she would become
Speaker 1: infamous as le Chenet, a cruel play on the words
Speaker 1: meeting both the Austrian woman and in it sound the
Speaker 1: Austrian bitch. Yet early in her reign she was admired
Speaker 1: for her beauty and youth, a symbol of renewal beside
Speaker 1: her earnest husband, Louis the sixteenth began his reign determined
Speaker 1: to repair the monarchy's finances and restore confidence. His predecessor
Speaker 1: had left France near bankruptcy, its treasury drained by the
Speaker 1: Seven Years War and its humiliating loss of Canada and India.
Speaker 1: Louis turned to his capable ministers as a response. Na
Speaker 1: Robert Jacques Urgeaux, his first Controller General of Finances, produced
Speaker 1: sweeping reforms, cutting court expenses, reducing tariffs, abolishing feudal dues,
Speaker 1: and freeing the grain trade. Turgeaud declared in seventeen seventy
Speaker 1: six no bankruptcy, no increase of taxes, no new loans,
Speaker 1: only economy and reform. But his reforms treated noble privilege
Speaker 1: and threatened it, and opposition in the court and Parlement
Speaker 1: eventually forced his dismissal. He was succeeded by Jacques Necker,
Speaker 1: a Swiss banker of Protestant background. Neckuier introduced loans rather
Speaker 1: than new taxes to finance the government, and in seventeen
Speaker 1: eighty one he published the first ever Comte de Rendeus
Speaker 1: de Las, the first public budget in French history. It
Speaker 1: painted a misleadingly optimistic picture of royal finances, but it
Speaker 1: won him immense popularity. Is a little bit of a
Speaker 1: wonder child. Neckayre's dismissal that same year further fed the
Speaker 1: public sense that the vested interest at court were obstructing reform.
Speaker 1: While Louis labored, often ineffectively, over fiscal reform, Marie Antoinette
Speaker 1: carved out her own space at Versailles. She retreated from
Speaker 1: the formalities of the grand courts to her private refuge,
Speaker 1: the Petit Trian, where she entertained close friends in a
Speaker 1: more intimate style. She delighted in the pastoral fantasy of
Speaker 1: the jimad rein a mock village where she could play
Speaker 1: it being a shepherdess amid artificial streams and cottages. To her,
Speaker 1: these escapes offered freedom from suffocating ceremony. To her critics,
Speaker 1: they symbolized extravagance and frivolity. The Queen's love of fashion,
Speaker 1: Towering hairstyles, costly gowns, diamonds made her an easy target
Speaker 1: in a country where bread was growing scarce. Satirical pamphlets
Speaker 1: spread rumors of her lovers, of debauchery, of callous indifference.
Speaker 1: None of those things were true in the extreme, but
Speaker 1: they shaped a dangerous public perception. The infamous diamond necklace
Speaker 1: affair of seventeen eighty five, in which a fraudulent scheme
Speaker 1: implicated her in the supposed purchase of a wildly expensive necklace,
Speaker 1: further blackened her reputation. Though she was innocent, the scandal
Speaker 1: fed the myth of the spendthrift, immoral queen indifferent to
Speaker 1: her subject suffering now Louis the sixteenth, for his part,
Speaker 1: he was not entirely timid when it came to the
Speaker 1: international stage. When the American colonists rose against Britain, he
Speaker 1: saw an opportunity for revenge against his nation's old enemy.
Speaker 1: Though cautious at first, he approved of covert aid and
Speaker 1: eventually open alliance. By seventeen seventy eight, after the critical
Speaker 1: American victory at the Battle of Saratoga, France had joined
Speaker 1: the American War of Independence. Victory was sweet, indeed, New
Speaker 1: Yorktown in seventeen eighty one, secured with French military, naval
Speaker 1: support effectively humiliated Britain, Yet the war's costs were immense.
Speaker 1: By seventeen eighty three, France had spent over a billion livre,
Speaker 1: piling debt upon debt. The glory of defeating Britain did
Speaker 1: not restore France's colonial empire, but it deepened the fiscal
Speaker 1: crisis back at home. Throughout the seventeen eighties, the monarchy
Speaker 1: staggered from one financial expedient to another. Ministers proposed new
Speaker 1: taxes that would fall upon the privileged states, the nobility
Speaker 1: and clergy. Each time, parlements resisted, presenting themselves as defenders
Speaker 1: of traditional liberties against royal despotism. In seventeen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: Louis Minister Colonne proposed a sweeping plan of tax reform,
Speaker 1: a land tax for the first time without any exemption
Speaker 1: for a state. It was presented to an assembly of notables,
Speaker 1: but the nobles refused. The king dismissed Kelown, but the
Speaker 1: problem only deepened. His successor, Briann, tried to push reforms
Speaker 1: through parlements, which again were resisted. And we're going to
Speaker 1: go into more detail in that in just a second,
Speaker 1: because I want to talk about really the missed opportunity here.
Speaker 1: The reality is is that by the mid seventeen eighties
Speaker 1: France was staggering under the weight of a financial system
Speaker 1: that was not designed for a modern nation state. It
Speaker 1: was designed for a small medieval kingdom of earlier centuries.
Speaker 1: These wars, I mean cut them up, the War of
Speaker 1: Austrian Section, the Seven Years War, and most recently the
Speaker 1: American War of Independence, they had all drained the treasury.
Speaker 1: The French crown owed over four billion livre debt service
Speaker 1: was consuming half of the state's revenues. And for all
Speaker 1: of this, where did the taxation fall, Not on the wealthiest,
Speaker 1: not on the nobility or the clergy. It almost exclusively
Speaker 1: fell through the direct land tax, the taala, all on
Speaker 1: the peasants. And so let's dig into this a little
Speaker 1: bit more deeply. Because the king's financial minister, Charles Alexandre
Speaker 1: de Cologne, he knew what was going on. He realized
Speaker 1: that only radical reform could save France from bankruptcy. And
Speaker 1: so the solution, as they mentioned before, that bold new
Speaker 1: land tax without exemptions, touching nobles and clergy as well
Speaker 1: as commoners. It made a lot of sense. And he
Speaker 1: also proposed that provincial assemblies administer this tax more equitably.
Speaker 1: There would be new internal free trade measures and a
Speaker 1: general reform of the grain market. To Cologne, this was
Speaker 1: a project of enlightened absolutism. The king, he thought, could
Speaker 1: impose reform for the good of the nation. Unfortunately, he
Speaker 1: was not the man to put this forward. Colonne or Cologne,
Speaker 1: the way you want to say it, was a man
Speaker 1: of extravagant tastes, with a reputation for reckless spending, and
Speaker 1: he had almost no allies in all of the court.
Speaker 1: The Parliament of Paris, the traditional high court that also
Speaker 1: registered royal edicts, was totally hostile to any tax innovation
Speaker 1: imposed without its consent, and therefore Cologne advised Louis the
Speaker 1: sixteenth to bypass the Parlements entirely and instead to call
Speaker 1: an Assembly of notables. The Assembly of Notables, which sat
Speaker 1: from February in May seventeen eighty seven, was one of
Speaker 1: the last opportunities to avoid the French Revolution. This body
Speaker 1: had no constitutional standing it had last been called in
Speaker 1: sixteen twenty six under then Cardinal Richelieu. But the idea
Speaker 1: was pretty simple. Gather one hundred and forty four hand
Speaker 1: picked men, nobles, bishop's, magistrates, and a sprinkling of royal
Speaker 1: officials so that they could endorse the King's reforms and
Speaker 1: give the machine of legitimacy. Louis the sixteenth opened the
Speaker 1: Assembly in February seventeen eighty seven at Versailles with solemn
Speaker 1: words quote, we are assembled to deliberate upon the means
Speaker 1: to secure the prosperity of my kingdom and the relief
Speaker 1: of my people. The king hoped the nobles would rally
Speaker 1: to this call, but instead of providing support, the Assembly
Speaker 1: proved skeptical an obstructionist, many nobles resenting being asked to
Speaker 1: sacrifice privileges. Others suspected Cologne's scheme, masking his own mismanagement.
Speaker 1: The Archbishop of Toulouse at Tiennecharlos des la Main Brienne,
Speaker 1: emerged as a leading critic, insisting that reforms required deeper
Speaker 1: justification and more transparency. In April, when Cologne's enemies prevailed,
Speaker 1: the Minister was dismissed in disgrace, and of course it
Speaker 1: was Brian then who replaced him as Controller General. Ironically,
Speaker 1: once he was in office, he could see the books,
Speaker 1: and then he immediately adopted all of Cutloane's proposals. Recognizing
Speaker 1: their necessity. The Assembly by that point, though, was too
Speaker 1: far gone, and it dissolved without approving any of the reforms,
Speaker 1: and so the opportunity had been squandered. Instead of broad consensus,
Speaker 1: Louis the sixteenth now faced open resistance. Brienne, recognizing the
Speaker 1: extreme danger of the situation, now tried to push the
Speaker 1: measure through the Parlement of Paris. In July of seventeen
Speaker 1: eighty seven, the Parliament declared that only the Estates General,
Speaker 1: the full representative body of clergy, nobility and commons, which
Speaker 1: had met since sixteen fourteen, had the authority to sanction
Speaker 1: new taxes. This was a stunning assertion. It implied that
Speaker 1: the crown could not legislate financial reform on its own.
Speaker 1: Louis the sixteenth reacted with irritation. In August, he summoned
Speaker 1: the Parliament to Paris and, in a dramatic moment, commanded
Speaker 1: the registration of the new taxes. Yet such royal bullying
Speaker 1: only fueled resistance. Parliamentaries cast themselves as the defenders of
Speaker 1: the nation against arbitrary power. Crowds in Paris hailed them
Speaker 1: as heroes. The struggle escalated in seventeen eighty eight. The
Speaker 1: parliaments banished for defiance were recalled amid public uproar, only
Speaker 1: to resume their obstruction. Provincial assemblies and noble corporations joined
Speaker 1: in the protest. The monarchy attempted repression, censoring pamphlets and
Speaker 1: arresting magistrates. The popular opinion had now turned decisively against
Speaker 1: Louis Court. In Grenoble, when royal troops tried to dissolve
Speaker 1: the local parliament, townspeople rioted from the rooftops. They heard
Speaker 1: tiles down upon the soldiers in what became known as
Speaker 1: the Day of Tiles, the seventh of June seventeen eighty eight.
Speaker 1: It was one of the first violent confrontation of the
Speaker 1: coming revolution, symbolizing the defense of liberty was no longer
Speaker 1: confined to courtrooms, but had spilled out onto the streets.
Speaker 1: At the same time, France was suffering natural calamity. The
Speaker 1: winter of seventeen eighty eight eighty nine was among the
Speaker 1: harshest of the century, destroying harvests and sending bread prices soaring.
Speaker 1: Popular anger mingled with constitutional crisis. By the summer of
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty eight, Brienne was bankruptically and fiscally. The government
Speaker 1: could not raise loans, tax farmers balked at advancing funds,
Speaker 1: and so in desperation, Louis the sixteenth announced that he
Speaker 1: would summon the Estates General in May seventeen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: It was a remarkable concession. The monarchy, once absolute, was
Speaker 1: acknowledging the need for national representation. Brienne resigned in August
Speaker 1: of seventeen eighty eight, and Jacques Neckaire, popular with the
Speaker 1: public and remembered for his earlier tenure during the American War,
Speaker 1: returned as Finance minister. Nickare's recall was greeted with jubilation
Speaker 1: in Paris, but it was way too late to stabilize
Speaker 1: royal authority. The Assembly of Notables had been intended as
Speaker 1: a way to legitimate reform from above. Instead, all it
Speaker 1: had done was reveal the depth of aristocratic resistance and
Speaker 1: opened the door for demands for wider representation. The parliaments,
Speaker 1: though conservative and intent, had popularized the idea that only
Speaker 1: the nation could consent to new taxation. By seventeen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: the monarchy's authority had been fatally weakened. As one contemporary
Speaker 1: pamphleteer put it, it was not America that ruined France,
Speaker 1: but the notables and parliaments who would not let her
Speaker 1: be saved. Thus, from the polished halls of Versailles to
Speaker 1: the tiled roofs of Grenoble. The year seventeen eighty seven
Speaker 1: to seventeen eighty eight marked the prelude to revolution. By
Speaker 1: summoning the Estates General, Louis the sixteenth set in motion
Speaker 1: forces he could no longer control, and the Anson regime
Speaker 1: entered its final act