Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Western CIV. Episode four hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty seven, The Old Regime. So today we're going to
Speaker 1: start the story arc of the French Revolution, and that's
Speaker 1: going to take a lot of episodes. The French Revolution
Speaker 1: is an incredibly important event. In hindsight, you might argue
Speaker 1: that the American Revolution is equally important, but nobody saw
Speaker 1: it like that. At the time of France was one
Speaker 1: of the three most powerful kingdoms in all of Europe,
Speaker 1: alongside Spain and England. So the turmoil and complete sea
Speaker 1: change of government that it's going to experience are going
Speaker 1: to have reverberations that are going to go all throughout
Speaker 1: Europe and beyond. Many historians argue it is the beginning
Speaker 1: of modernity, and I think there's good arguments to say that,
Speaker 1: particularly as we look today at what France was before
Speaker 1: the Old Regime is often referred to as the Assion
Speaker 1: or an ancient regime in French. But what I really
Speaker 1: want to make sure that I do throughout this series
Speaker 1: is to talk not only about how these events impacted France,
Speaker 1: but how the reverberations echoed out throughout Europe and well beyond.
Speaker 1: This is a story that we're going to start here
Speaker 1: in the old regime, and we're going to continue all
Speaker 1: the way through the final defeat of Napoleon and the
Speaker 1: Treaty of Vienna, which is going to essentially put the
Speaker 1: book end on the Napoleonic Wars. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: go further than some historians and other podcasts have gone
Speaker 1: to talk about the French Revolution. One of the advantages
Speaker 1: I have is always I'm not a historian, so I'm
Speaker 1: not sort of stuck into a box. I can just
Speaker 1: sort of call balls and strikes as I see them.
Speaker 1: And I want to go all the way to Vienna,
Speaker 1: and so we're going to go to Vienna because I
Speaker 1: want to talk about, of course, Napoleon, and I want
Speaker 1: to talk about the wars and the battles and all
Speaker 1: the fun stuff that are tied in with that. But
Speaker 1: we want to begin today by looking at the old
Speaker 1: regime before we start to extrapolate out what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: If we want to consider the Ension regime, we have
Speaker 1: to think about the orders that were sent forth. And
Speaker 1: orders is a specific and very medieval term, and what
Speaker 1: you're going to notice in this episode is there's a
Speaker 1: lot that's medieval about France all the way through the
Speaker 1: middle of the eighteenth century. At the heart of the
Speaker 1: ancient regime lay a rigid social structure, divided into these
Speaker 1: famous three estates. The first estate, the clergy, numbered maybe
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty thousand in a kingdom of over
Speaker 1: twenty five million. They were guardians of religion, education, and morality,
Speaker 1: but there were also major landowners. Despite their small numbers,
Speaker 1: they controlled around ten percent of the land in all
Speaker 1: of France. Remember this is still a time period when
Speaker 1: land equals wealth. They enjoyed privileges exemptions from most direct taxation,
Speaker 1: the right to levy the tithe on peasants, and influence
Speaker 1: in royal councils. The second estate, the nobility, was bigger,
Speaker 1: but not by much. It comprised about three hundred thousand individuals,
Speaker 1: less than two percent of the population, Yet they held
Speaker 1: vast estates, lucrative offices and commanding positions in the army
Speaker 1: and in the church. Their legal privileges were extensive exemption
Speaker 1: from the tale, the direct land tax, the right to
Speaker 1: collect feudal dues from peasants, and the prestige of birth.
Speaker 1: Yet by the eighteenth century, the nobility itself was divided
Speaker 1: between the old sword and whose families could trace their
Speaker 1: lineage backed century, and those of the rogue nobility, who
Speaker 1: purchased offices in royal administration and courts. This division bred
Speaker 1: resentment within the elite, for many rogue nobles were wealthier
Speaker 1: than their sword counterparts. Now there was, of course, the
Speaker 1: third estate, which was everyone else urban workers, lawyers, merchants, artisans,
Speaker 1: and most importantly, the peasant class, who made up about
Speaker 1: eighty percent of the population. Burdened with rents, dues, tithes, taxes,
Speaker 1: they bore the brunt of supporting the kingdom while enjoying
Speaker 1: absolutely noneovich privileges. As Abbi Sis would famously put it
Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty nine, what is the third estate? Everything?
Speaker 1: What has it been uptel now in the political order? Nothing?
Speaker 1: Though France was a monarchy, the king's power was not
Speaker 1: as absolute as the image of Louis the fourteenth and
Speaker 1: his leta semis eight is mine or I am the
Speaker 1: state might suggest. The king reigned at Versailles, of course,
Speaker 1: supported by an elaborate bureaucracy, but his decisions were constrained
Speaker 1: by custom, tradition, and a patchwork of laws across the
Speaker 1: Kingdom France was not at all uniform. You have to
Speaker 1: understand that some regions, like Brittany and Burgundy still had
Speaker 1: their own estates and their own parliaments or parliaments. Local
Speaker 1: customs varied from province to province, and taxation was unevenly distributed,
Speaker 1: riddled with exemptions and privileges. The parliaments royal courts, dominated
Speaker 1: by nobles of the rogue, acted as both law courts
Speaker 1: and political bodies. They had the power to register royal
Speaker 1: edicts before they became law. In theory, they were meant
Speaker 1: to ensure legality. In practice, they were often used to
Speaker 1: block or delay reforms, defending aristocratic privilege under the guy
Speaker 1: is of protecting the quote unquote fundamental laws of the realm.
Speaker 1: By the late eighteenth century, most of the territory that
Speaker 1: today we would call France was under what we call domain,
Speaker 1: royal lands that had been gradually brought under the direct
Speaker 1: control of the crown, really since the days of Charlemagne
Speaker 1: in eight hundred CE. This domain had expanded over the centuries,
Speaker 1: beginning with the capacis tiny holdings around the Ea de
Speaker 1: France and stretching outward through conquest, marriage, and dynastic chance.
Speaker 1: By seventeen eighty nine, the king's writ ran over the
Speaker 1: great heartland of provinces Norman, dy Champagne or the uns
Speaker 1: Language doctor Gien and Burgundy. These provinces sent troops and taxes,
Speaker 1: and their governors, though usually nobles of influence, served at
Speaker 1: the King's pleasure. But even here uniformity remained a fiction.
Speaker 1: Each province had its own customs, laws, and institutions. The
Speaker 1: costume may is local customary laws varied widely, especially between
Speaker 1: the north and the south. Towns and provinces alike clong
Speaker 1: to charters guaranteeing special exemptions from priviges, many dating back
Speaker 1: to the Middle Ages. One of the clearest markers of
Speaker 1: this distinction is taxation. In the Pays de la Oxion,
Speaker 1: the bulk of the kingdom, the king's appointed intendants assessed
Speaker 1: and levied taxes directly, but the Pays de estates regions
Speaker 1: like Brittany, Burgundy, Languidoc, and promense local representatives and assemblies.
Speaker 1: The estates of the province negotiated their tax rates continuously
Speaker 1: with the crown. What that meant was that in Brittany
Speaker 1: or Languidoc, the king could not simply decree a new tax,
Speaker 1: he had to constantly bargain with local estates who jealously
Speaker 1: guarded their autonomy. Thus, while so France had one king,
Speaker 1: it did not have one tax system. A traveler moving
Speaker 1: through the kingdom might come across invisible boundaries where entirely
Speaker 1: different fiscal rules applied. Now, of course, a great many
Speaker 1: territories had joined France only recently, and their integration remained
Speaker 1: very incomplete. Alsace, annext in the seventeenth century, retained German
Speaker 1: law in many places, and the city of Strasburg had
Speaker 1: special privileges. Lorraine, incorporated in seventeen sixty six after the
Speaker 1: death of its duke, still maintained its own parliament and
Speaker 1: legal traditions. Corsica had been purchased by France from Genoa
Speaker 1: only in seventeen sixty eight, and though technically a French province,
Speaker 1: by seventeen eighty nine, it was a land with its
Speaker 1: own fiercely independent traditions. The southern border told a similar story.
Speaker 1: Roussoon and part of Candan had come into France from
Speaker 1: Spain only by the Treaty of the Pyrenees in sixteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine, and though the French speaking officials had been installed.
Speaker 1: Catalan customs and privileges lingered in the north. Artois and Flanders,
Speaker 1: acquired through wars with Spain in the seventeenth century, were
Speaker 1: still quite Flemish in language and practice. Even stranger were
Speaker 1: the enclaves and the outliers that dotted the kingdom. The
Speaker 1: Papacy still held on to Avignon and the nearby comtant Nissin,
Speaker 1: both enclaves within French territory. Though long surrounded by French
Speaker 1: royal lands, these were still ruled by papal legates and
Speaker 1: had no political connection to Versailles whatsoever. The Principality of Orange,
Speaker 1: though a next earlier in the century, still bore the
Speaker 1: mark of its old independence. In the Pyrenees, tinye sovereignties
Speaker 1: and odd arrangements like the co sovereignty of Andorra shared
Speaker 1: between the French crown and the Spanish Bishop of Yugel,
Speaker 1: spoke to medieval compromises that no one, even for some reason,
Speaker 1: bought to sweep away. Then, of course, there were the
Speaker 1: Paillius concreis, the conquered lands, such as the French committe
Speaker 1: annex from Spain in sixteen seventy eight, though under royal control.
Speaker 1: Regions like this too, retained their own legal and administrative distinctness.
Speaker 1: Look the effect of all this was that France in
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty nine was less a centralized state than a
Speaker 1: mosaic of provinces, each with its own contract with the monarchy.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned before, Louis the fourteenth liked to project
Speaker 1: this image of a unified France, in which he commanded
Speaker 1: every animal, every bug to move. But that wasn't true.
Speaker 1: Majuris jen Bautiste Colbert had once sought to impose uniformity,
Speaker 1: but even a century after Barbank absolutism, diversity continued to prevail.
Speaker 1: In the south, Roman law lingered in legal codes. In
Speaker 1: the north, customary law prevailed. Weights and measures could vary
Speaker 1: from town to town. In fact, throughout France in seventeen
Speaker 1: eighty nine, over two hundred different measures of capacity were
Speaker 1: in use. A peasant selling grain in one province might
Speaker 1: find that his unit of bushels wasn't recognized in the next.
Speaker 1: Thus it was on the eve of the revolution. France
Speaker 1: was a kingdom of contradictions. The king could command armies,
Speaker 1: negotiate treaties, and maintain his splendor at Versaign But he
Speaker 1: ruled a territory riddled with exemptions, privileges, and fragment and sovereignties.
Speaker 1: Royal control was broad, but it wasn't deep. A noble
Speaker 1: in Brittany or a magistrate in Languidoc did not see
Speaker 1: himself as merely a French subject. He was a Breton,
Speaker 1: he was a Languidocian, and he defended the rights of
Speaker 1: his province against the centralizing hand of Versailles. The Revolution
Speaker 1: will sweep most of this away. The National Assembly is
Speaker 1: going to abolish provincial estates, feudal dues, and the bewildering
Speaker 1: patchwork of laws, replacing them with the vision of a
Speaker 1: unified nation. As I said, there's a reason that the
Speaker 1: French Revolution is seen as the beginning of modernity. But
Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty nine, the reality was that France was
Speaker 1: less a single, homogeneous kingdom than a loose federation of
Speaker 1: territories bound by allegiance to a common monarch. Now we
Speaker 1: must turn our attention to the economic machinery of the state,
Speaker 1: because it's not any better than the legal situation. The
Speaker 1: Seven Years War ended in humiliation for France, defeated by Britain.
Speaker 1: She lost nearly all her North American empire, Canada, the
Speaker 1: Ohio Valley, the Mississippi Lands, though she retained lucrative sugar
Speaker 1: islands like Martinique Guadalupe. The war had been ruinously expensive,
Speaker 1: as of course it had been for the British military
Speaker 1: expenditures soared to one point three billion livre and France's
Speaker 1: debt swelled. The Crown emerged not only diplomatically weakened, but
Speaker 1: fiscally and feebled. The peace restored neither credit nor confidence.
Speaker 1: The loss of Canada was less disastrous economically than contemporaries
Speaker 1: feared Voltaire's sneering phrase. A few acres of snow captured
Speaker 1: its limited fiscal value compared, of course, to Caribbean sugar.
Speaker 1: But the war had exposed major structural weaknesses. Britain's global
Speaker 1: trading system, powered by its navy, eclipsed France's, and French
Speaker 1: ministers began to fear that without reform, the kingdom would
Speaker 1: never again regain its stature. The reality was is that
Speaker 1: France's economy was still overwhelmingly agricultural. Around eighty percent of
Speaker 1: the population lived on the land, and grain was life.
Speaker 1: Bread made up as much as three quarters of a
Speaker 1: laborer's diet. The productivity of French agriculture had improved since
Speaker 1: the early eighteenth century. New techniques, crop rotations, and selective
Speaker 1: breeding were spreading, but progress was uneven and significantly slowed
Speaker 1: by tradition. Feudal dews, ties and signiorial rights still weighed
Speaker 1: heavily on the peasants. They paid rents to their lords,
Speaker 1: a tithe to the church, and taxes to the crown,
Speaker 1: leaving them vulnerable to fluctuations and harvest. When crops failed,
Speaker 1: as they did in seventeen seventy five and then again
Speaker 1: disastrously in the late seventeen eighties, bread prices soared and
Speaker 1: riots erupted. The Flower War of seventeen seventy five, sparked
Speaker 1: by liberalization of the grain trade under Louis the sixteenth
Speaker 1: Minister Turgo, revealed how fragile the balance between subsistence and
Speaker 1: revolt could be. Arthur Young, the English traveler, recorded in
Speaker 1: the seventeen eighties the desperate condition of peasants in places
Speaker 1: like Bordona's quote, the poor people seem poor, indeed the
Speaker 1: children terribly ragged. If I saw a man who looks
Speaker 1: tolerably well dressed, his hat was old and his coat
Speaker 1: cut out at the elbows. The women and children were
Speaker 1: nothing or rags end quote. This was not a reflection
Speaker 1: on the image of a prosperous kingdom, but of a
Speaker 1: countryside where wealth was completely concentrated in the top while
Speaker 1: the majority lived in chronic insecurity. And if you're trying
Speaker 1: to get an image of gosh, what kind of powder
Speaker 1: keg do you need for revolution? Well you're getting your answer.
Speaker 1: If agric cultural stagnated industry to an extent, expanded French
Speaker 1: textile production, especially in linen, silk and cotton grew rapidly.
Speaker 1: Cities like Lyons arrived on silk weaving. Rowan was a
Speaker 1: hub for cotton printing. Lilas and Imans turned out wolves.
Speaker 1: Metallurgy developed in eastern France, particularly in Lorraine, while coal
Speaker 1: mining in the north hinted at a potential industrial future.
Speaker 1: Yet French industry continued to lag behind Britain, and the
Speaker 1: reasons were structural fragmented internal markets, lack of uniform weights
Speaker 1: and measures, and barriers like local tolls and guild restrictions.
Speaker 1: The guild system this is a holdover, of course, from
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages. Regulated entry into trades often stifling innovation.
Speaker 1: A decree in seventeen seventy six finally abolished many of
Speaker 1: these guilds under the aforementioned Turgo, but they were restored
Speaker 1: under pressure from vested interests. Still, it is worth noting
Speaker 1: that urban centers were growing in the eighteenth century. Paris
Speaker 1: swelled to around six hundred thousand inhabitants by the seventeen eighties,
Speaker 1: making it one of Europe's largest cities. Bordeaux prospered as
Speaker 1: a port for Atlantic trade, particularly the lucrative triangular trade
Speaker 1: in slaves, sugar and coffee. Na and Marseille and the
Speaker 1: have also thrived on overseas commerce. France's colonial trade boomed
Speaker 1: after seventeen sixty three, even as France more in the
Speaker 1: loss of Canada. The Caribbean colonies San Dominique which is
Speaker 1: modern Haiti, Martinique and Guadaloupe became the jewels of the
Speaker 1: French economy. Sendomique in particular, was the richest colony in
Speaker 1: the world, producing sugar, coffee and indigo on the backs
Speaker 1: of a half a million enslaved Africans. By the seventeen eighties,
Speaker 1: colonial commerce accounted for nearly a third of France's foreign trade.
Speaker 1: Merchants in Bordeaux Nonsen Marseille grew immensely wealthy from this traffic.
Speaker 1: Bordeaux's prosperity, in fact, was a direct result of Sendemiche's
Speaker 1: sugar and coffee exports. But of course, as I mentioned before,
Speaker 1: this wealth was unevenly distributed, concentrated in a few port cities,
Speaker 1: and tied to a brutal slave system that's going to
Speaker 1: collapse with the Haitian Revolution itself a product of the
Speaker 1: French Revolution. In the seventeen nineties, overseas, France began to
Speaker 1: expand its trade with the Levant and Asia. The French
Speaker 1: East India Company, re established in seventeen eighty five, sought
Speaker 1: to compete with Britain, though never with much success. At
Speaker 1: the center of all this stood, of course, the monarchy's finances,
Speaker 1: which grew ever more desperate the war debts of seventeen
Speaker 1: sixty three would never be paid down. The system of
Speaker 1: taxation remained irrational and unjust considered the following the tale,
Speaker 1: which was the only direct land tax in France, fell
Speaker 1: almost exclusively on peasants. The gable the salt tax was
Speaker 1: despised by basically every single person in France and frankly
Speaker 1: varied wildly by province. The viteme, a kind of income
Speaker 1: tax introduced in the mid eighteenth century. In theory touched
Speaker 1: all estates, but in practice the nobility could buy exemptions,
Speaker 1: and it was riddled with holes. The clergy negotiated lump
Speaker 1: sums called don gretuit instead of paying taxes. Nobles claimed exemptions.
Speaker 1: The wealthy bourgeoisie often bought offices that carried financial privileges.
Speaker 1: The real burden fell on the commoners, and the inefficiency
Speaker 1: of collection meant that the crown often saw far less
Speaker 1: revenue then was expected on paper. Tax farming companies skimmed
Speaker 1: off enormous profits. Attempts to reform ran aground again and again.
Speaker 1: But it's worth considering the four men who attempted at
Speaker 1: least tried to write the ship and Robert Jacques Tergaux,
Speaker 1: the philosopher Minister, entered Louis the sixteenth government in seventeen
Speaker 1: seventy four with a reputation for intelligence and enlightenment reform.
Speaker 1: A disciple of physiocrats, he believed that agriculture was the
Speaker 1: true foundation of wealth, that free markets would generate prosperity,
Speaker 1: and that state, regulation and privilege were strangling the economy.
Speaker 1: Almost at once. To go tackled three major reforms. First,
Speaker 1: he tried to liberalize the grain trade. He ended the
Speaker 1: restrictions that had been existing ungrave movement within the kingdom,
Speaker 1: convinced that if a peasant or a lord could sell
Speaker 1: their grain from province to province, it could stabilize prices
Speaker 1: and stimulate production. Instead, a poor harvest in seventeen seventy four,
Speaker 1: which was not his fault, sent bread prices soaring. Riots
Speaker 1: broke out in what became known as the Flower War
Speaker 1: of seventeen seventy five. Critics blamed Turgeau's liberalization. In truth,
Speaker 1: it was bad weather, but politically the damage had been done.
Speaker 1: He had also attempted to abolish the corvee, the forced
Speaker 1: peasant labor on roads, with a monetary tax that could
Speaker 1: be applied universally. In fact, so universal was this so
Speaker 1: novel was it in its concept that gasp even nobles
Speaker 1: and clergy, would have to contribute. This principle of shared
Speaker 1: responsibility was radical, and it enraged the privileged orders, who
Speaker 1: almost immediately refused to pay. And of course, he also
Speaker 1: did his best to cut expenditures he counseled Louis the
Speaker 1: sixteenth to resist wars abroad and extravagance at court. His
Speaker 1: famous warning was stark quote no bankruptcy, no new taxes,
Speaker 1: no loans. Reform is the only resource end quote. Sergae's
Speaker 1: reforms directly threatened the privileges of nobles, clergy, and the financiers.
Speaker 1: When Marie Antoinette pressed the King to grant favors to
Speaker 1: her proteges to go refused, his enemies multiplied, and in
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six he was dismissed from service. And so
Speaker 1: the monarchy spurned its best chance at radical and rational reform.
Speaker 1: And that brings us to Jacques Nicare Nicaire, a Swiss
Speaker 1: Protestant anchor, was appointed Director of Finances in seventeen seventy seven.
Speaker 1: He was not permitted the title of Controller General because
Speaker 1: as a Protestant he actually wasn't allowed to hold a
Speaker 1: Catholic office, but his influence was still immense. Neckair's approach
Speaker 1: was to restore confidence in the French economy and the
Speaker 1: royal finances through transparency. In seventeen eighty one, he published
Speaker 1: the Compete rendu a rah, a public account of royal finances.
Speaker 1: It was the first time ever that ordinary Frenchmen could
Speaker 1: see the monarchy's balance sheet. Neckcair claimed that the Crown
Speaker 1: had a surplus of ten million nevre. In reality, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: he had concealed the costs of war by classifying them
Speaker 1: as ordinary expenses, so he was transparent but still a liar.
Speaker 1: The illusion of solvency was brought at the price of
Speaker 1: later shock. For all that, though Neckcare was absolutely beloved
Speaker 1: by the public, he had raised funds for the American
Speaker 1: War seemingly without introducing new taxes, largely by appealing to
Speaker 1: his banker contacts and by using the creative accounting. He
Speaker 1: also reformed the hospital system, tried to limit the venality
Speaker 1: of office, and curtailed the abuse of tax farming, but
Speaker 1: he often clashed with the more privileged orders. His exclusion
Speaker 1: from the Royal Council stung, and when he saw greater authority,
Speaker 1: court factions maneuvered against him. In seventeen eighty one, he resigned,
Speaker 1: but his popularity endured to many. In the third Estate,
Speaker 1: Nicare became the symbol of honest reform sacrificed by a
Speaker 1: corrupt court. The next up to the plate was Charles
Speaker 1: Alexandre des klan if Nicare was the banker, and Turgo
Speaker 1: the philosopher. Calon was the court finincierre. He was charming, extravagant,
Speaker 1: but undeniably shrewd. Appointed Controller General in seventeen eighty three,
Speaker 1: he faced a deficit that had balloon to over one
Speaker 1: hundred million livre. Colonn's strategy was bold, spend lavishly to
Speaker 1: restore confidence and then launch sweeping reforms. He borrowed heavily
Speaker 1: to maintain the appearance of solvency, but by seventeen eighty
Speaker 1: six he admitted that the kingdom was headed for bankruptcy
Speaker 1: unless radical measures were taken. His proposals were, in essence,
Speaker 1: the reform that France desperately needed. It was a universal
Speaker 1: land tax paid by everyone, even the nobility, without exception.
Speaker 1: The abolition of internal tariffs to create finally a single
Speaker 1: national market. The conversion of the corvet or labor tax
Speaker 1: into a money tax. The establishment of provincial assemblies giving
Speaker 1: localities some say in the administration. It was a program
Speaker 1: of fiscal equality and administrative modernization, but Quielan knew the
Speaker 1: parliaments would resist, so he turned instead to an assassembly
Speaker 1: of notables, a gathering of one hundred and forty four aristocrats,
Speaker 1: clergy and magistrates, hoping that their prestige alone would be
Speaker 1: enough to push the reforms through, but he backfired. The notables,
Speaker 1: dominated by the nobility, refused to sacrifice their privileges. They
Speaker 1: turned against Cologne, accusing him of financial mismanagement. By seventeen
Speaker 1: eighty seven, he was dismissed, his reforms abandoned, and the
Speaker 1: monarchy's credibility further eroded, which brings us to our last player,
Speaker 1: Etienne Charles de l'met Brian. Brian, the Archbishop of Toulouse
Speaker 1: and an ally of the Queen, succeeded Cologne in seventeen
Speaker 1: eighty seven. Unlike his predecessor, he had no special financial
Speaker 1: expertise at all. He attempted to revive Cologne's program, but
Speaker 1: now the parliaments became the main obstacle. The Parliament of
Speaker 1: Paris refused to register the new taxes, insisting that only
Speaker 1: the Estates General, which hadn't met by the way since
Speaker 1: sixteen fourteen. More on that next time, had the authority
Speaker 1: to consent. The government exiled magistrates, sparking uproar. In seventeen
Speaker 1: eighty eight, desperate for cash, Brian announced a moratorium on payments,
Speaker 1: effectively declaring bankruptcy for the crown. By August, Briann conceded defeat.
Speaker 1: He resigned, recommending that Nickahre be recalled. But the monarchy's
Speaker 1: authority was effectively shattered by this point. Its finances lay
Speaker 1: in ruin, its credit completely destroyed, and its political legitimacy
Speaker 1: dependence on taking that final step summoning the Estates General.
Speaker 1: These ministers to go. Nickaier Columbrienne form a tragic sequence.
Speaker 1: Each one was able to quickly diagnose the kingdom's fiscal problems,
Speaker 1: each proposed reform in each was undone by entrenched privilege
Speaker 1: and political cowardice Urgeau sought to reform without borrowing. He
Speaker 1: was dismissed. Nickair borrowed to avoid reform. He was dismissed.
Speaker 1: Cologne sought to reform after borrowing. He was dismissed. Brienne
Speaker 1: tried to govern without reform or credibility, and he collapsed.
Speaker 1: As the historian Alexey Destaukville later observed, the French found
Speaker 1: it intolerable to bear those old burdens once they had
Speaker 1: caught a glimpse of a better existence, the monarchy had
Speaker 1: proven incapable of adapting, and its paralysis it drove its
Speaker 1: subjorks toward revolution, and then there were several foreign crises.
Speaker 1: France's intervention in the American Revolution was a gamble. It
Speaker 1: restored some sense of national pride after the humiliation of
Speaker 1: the Seven Year War in seventeen sixty three, but it
Speaker 1: deepened the fiscal abyss. The war added over one billion
Speaker 1: livred to the debt. By seventeen eighty eight, interest payments
Speaker 1: alone consumed more than half of all royal revenue. And
Speaker 1: yet the war also carried ideological consequences. French officers like
Speaker 1: the Marquis de Lafayette returned from America inspired by Republican ideals,
Speaker 1: and the financial crisis caused by the war set the
Speaker 1: stage for the convocation of the Estates General in seventeen
Speaker 1: eighty nine. By the late seventeen eighties, all the weaknesses
Speaker 1: of France's economy converged. Harvest failures in seventeen eighty seven
Speaker 1: eighty nine led to famine parts of the country and
Speaker 1: soaring bread prices in Paris. Real wages stagnated as food
Speaker 1: costs rose, Unemployment surged in the cities especially among the
Speaker 1: artisans and textile workers. The crown, unable to raise new loans,
Speaker 1: suspended payments in seventeen eighty eight, a declaration of bankruptcy,
Speaker 1: and all but name. The fiscal breakdown became a political
Speaker 1: crisis with no other option. Louis the sixteenth is going
Speaker 1: to summon the Estates General in May of seventeen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: the first time since sixteen fourteen the Kingdom's three orders
Speaker 1: would meet. The economic machine of the Ossien regime had
Speaker 1: finally collapsed under its contradictions. Between the Seven Years War
Speaker 1: and the Revolution, France's economy was truly one of contrasts,
Speaker 1: rich colonies and starving peasants, bustling ports and bankrupt coffers,
Speaker 1: innovation and industry shackled by guilds, an expanding population facing
Speaker 1: diminishing resources. Above all, the monarchy's failure to reform its
Speaker 1: fiscal system because privilege invested interest resisted every change, turned
Speaker 1: economic strain into political crises. As Turgeau once warned Louis
Speaker 1: the sixteenth, Sir, remember that it was weakness which brought
Speaker 1: down the monarchy of your ancestors. By seventeen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: that prophecy was ready to be fulfilled. The reality was
Speaker 1: the Enseon regime was held together by custom, privilege, and
Speaker 1: the mystique of the monarchy, but it was incredibly fragile.
Speaker 1: Its limitations were obvious privilege, bread resentment. The nobility clung
Speaker 1: to exemptions and signiorial dues. At precisely the moment when
Speaker 1: the rising bourgeoisie sought equality of opportunity and the peasants
Speaker 1: desperately cried out for relief, there was an unjust physical system.
Speaker 1: The most able to pay, the nobles and the clergy,
Speaker 1: were the least taxed, while those least able, the peasants,
Speaker 1: paid the most. There was administrative chaos. France lacked a
Speaker 1: uniform legal code, a centralized tax structure, or a consistent
Speaker 1: system of weights and measures. A merchant moving across the
Speaker 1: kingdom with his goods might face dozens of tariffs and
Speaker 1: dozens of tolls. There was huge resistance to reform, as
Speaker 1: we've seen. When ministers link Turgo and Neckcare proposed financial reforms,
Speaker 1: they found themselves blocked by parliaments, nobles, or sometimes even
Speaker 1: the court, as the Urgo once lamented. The first thing
Speaker 1: one discovers in beginning to govern is that one cannot
Speaker 1: do what one pleases. Nothing could have been further than
Speaker 1: Louis the fourteenths declaration, I am the State, And of course,
Speaker 1: as it outlined, a lot now there was massive economic strain.
Speaker 1: Population growth strained the land. Harvest failures in the seventeen
Speaker 1: eighties sent bread prices soaring. For the Parisian poor, bread
Speaker 1: was life, and when his price rose, discontent turned swiftly
Speaker 1: to unrest. By the eve of the revolution. For Grants
Speaker 1: was a paradox, a powerful state with a glorious culture,
Speaker 1: yet politically brittle and financially unsustainable. Enlightenment thinkers Voltaire Rousseau
Speaker 1: Montesquieu had long criticized its injustices. Foreign observers, too, marveled
Speaker 1: at the contradictions. Arthur Young, an English traveler, wrote in
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty seven, the abuses of seigniorial rights, the feudal services,
Speaker 1: the game laws, the corvets, the exemptions, the oppressions of
Speaker 1: the nobility are all things that will sooner or later
Speaker 1: plunge this kingdom into convulsions. The Enseon regime was a
Speaker 1: system designed for an earlier age, preserved by privilege and inertia,
Speaker 1: unable to adapt to the pressures of a modern, literate
Speaker 1: and restless society. Its problems fiscal, political, and social would
Speaker 1: converge in crisis, and when that crisis came, the revolution
Speaker 1: would not simply reform the old order, it would sweep
Speaker 1: it away. Next week, we're going to dig into the
Speaker 1: transition of the political machine from Louis the fifteenth to
Speaker 1: Louis the sixteenth and introduced a couple of personalities that
Speaker 1: are going to play a key role in the events
Speaker 1: to come as the kingdom barrels towards the inevitable calling
Speaker 1: of the Estates General