43 The Rise of the Nobility

22.1.4: The Rise of the Nobility

Despite attempts to weaken the position of the nobility, Louis XV met with avid resistance and largely failed to reform the system that privileged the aristocracy.

Learning Objective

Explain how the nobility continued to gain power throughout the reign of Louis XV.

Key Points

  • Louis XIV believed in the divine right of kings, which assert that a monarch is above everyone except God. He continued his predecessors’ work of creating a centralized state governed from Paris, sought to eliminate remnants of feudalism in France, and subjugated and weakened the aristocracy.
  • Louis XIV eventually failed to reform the unjust tax system that greatly favored the nobility, but instituted reforms in military administration and compelled many members of the nobility, especially the noble elite, to inhabit Versailles. This created an effective system of control as the king manipulated the nobility with an elaborate system of pensions and privileges, minimizing their influence and increasing his own power.
  • Although Louis XV attempted to continue his predecessor’s efforts to weaken the aristocracy, he failed to establish himself as an absolute monarch of Louis XIV’s stature. He supported the policy of fiscal justice, which created a tax on the twentieth of all revenues that affected the privileged classes as well as commoners. This breach in the privileged status of the aristocracy and the clergy was another attempt to impose taxes on the privileged, but the new tax was received with violent protest from the upper classes.
  • Pressed and eventually won over by his entourage at court, the king gave in and exempted the clergy from the twentieth in 1751. Eventually, the twentieth became a mere increase in the already existing taille, the most important direct tax of the monarchy from which privileged classes were exempted.
  • During the reign of Louis XV, the parlements repeatedly challenged the crown for control over policy, especially regarding taxes and religion, which strengthened the position of the nobility and weakened the authority of the king.
  • Chancellor René Nicolas de Maupeou sought to reassert royal power by suppressing the parlements in 1770. A furious battle resulted and after King Louis XV died, the parlements were restored.

Key Terms

Ancien Régime
The social and political system established in the Kingdom of France from approximately the 15th century until the latter part of the 18th century under the late Valois and Bourbon dynasties. The term is occasionally used to refer to the similar feudal social and political order of the time elsewhere in Europe.
lit de justice
A particular formal session of the Parlement of Paris, under the presidency of the king, for the compulsory registration of the royal edicts.
parlements
Provincial appellate courts in the France of the Ancien Régime, i.e. before the French Revolution. They were not legislative bodies but rather the court of final appeal of the judicial system. They typically wielded much power over a wide range of subject matter, particularly taxation. Laws and edicts issued by the Crown were not official in their respective jurisdictions until assent was given by publishing them. The members were aristocrats who had bought or inherited their offices and were independent of the King.
letters patent
A type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, president, or other head of state, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation.
taille
A direct land tax on the French peasantry and non-nobles in Ancien Régime France. The tax was imposed on each household based on how much land it held.

 

Background: The Nobility under Louis XIV

Louis XIV believed in the divine right of kings, which assert that a monarch is above everyone except God and therefore not answerable to the will of his people, the aristocracy, or the Church. Louis continued his predecessors’ work of creating a centralized state governed from Paris, sought to eliminate remnants of feudalism in France, and subjugated and weakened the aristocracy.

The reign of Louis XIV marked the rise of France of as a military, diplomatic, and cultural power in Europe. However, the ongoing wars, the panoply of Versailles, and the growing civil administration required a great deal of money, and finance was always the weak spot in the French monarchy. Tax-collecting methods were costly and inefficient and the state always received far less than what the taxpayers paid. But the main weakness arose from an old bargain between the French crown and nobility: the king reigned with limited or no opposition from the nobles if only he refrained from taxing them. Only the commoners paid direct taxes and that meant the peasants because many bourgeois obtained exemptions. The system was outrageously unjust in throwing a heavy tax burden on the poor and helpless.

Later after 1700, the French ministers supported by Madame De Maintenon (Louis XIV’s second wife) were able to convince the King to change his fiscal policy. Louis was willing enough to tax the nobles but unwilling to fall under their control. Only towards the close of his reign under extreme stress of war was he able, for the first time in French history, to impose direct taxes on the aristocracy. This was a step toward equality before the law and toward sound public finance, but so many concessions and exemptions were won by nobles and bourgeois that the reform lost much of its value.

Louis XIV also instituted reforms in military administration through Michel le Tellier and his son François-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois. They helped to curb the independent spirit of the nobility, imposing order on them at court and in the army. Gone were the days when generals protracted war at the frontiers while bickering over precedence and ignoring orders from the capital and the larger politico-diplomatic picture. The old military aristocracy (“the nobility of the sword”) ceased to have a monopoly over senior military positions and rank.

Over time, Louis XIV also compelled many members of the nobility, especially the noble elite, to inhabit Versailles. Provincial nobles who refused to join the Versailles system were locked out of important positions in the military or state offices. Lacking royal subsides and thus unable to keep up a noble lifestyle, these rural nobles often went into debt.This created an effective system of control as the king manipulated the nobility with an elaborate system of pensions and privileges, minimizing their influence and increasing his own power.

French aristocrats, c. 1774, by Antoine-Jean Duclos.

In the political system of pre-Revolutionary France, the nobility made up the Second Estate (with the Catholic clergy comprising the First Estate and the bourgeoisie and peasants in the Third Estate). Although membership in the noble class was mainly inherited, it was not a closed order. New individuals were appointed to the nobility by the monarchy, or could purchase rights and titles or join by marriage. Sources differ about the actual number of nobles in France, but proportionally it was among the smallest noble classes in Europe.

Louis XV: Attempts to Reform

Although Louis XV attempted to continue his predecessor’s efforts to weaken the aristocracy, he failed to establish himself as an absolute monarch of Louis XIV’s stature. Following the advice of his mistress, Marquise de Pompadour, Louis XV supported the policy of fiscal justice designed by Machault d’Arnouville. In order to finance the budget deficit, which amounted to 100 million livres in 1745, Machault d’Arnouville created a tax on the twentieth of all revenues that affected the privileged classes as well as commoners. This breach in the privileged status of the aristocracy and the clergy, normally exempt from taxes, was another attempt to impose taxes on the privileged. However, the new tax was received with violent protest from the privileged classes in the estates of the few provinces that retained the right to decide taxation (most provinces had long lost their provincial estates and the right to decide taxation). The new tax was also opposed by the clergy and by the parlements (provincial appellate court staffed by aristocrats). Members of these courts bought their positions from the king, together with the right to transfer their positions hereditarily through payment of an annual fee. Membership in such courts and appointment to other public positions often led to elevation to nobility (the so-called nobles of the robe, as distinguished from the nobility of ancestral military origin, the nobles of the sword.) While these two categories of nobles were often at odds, both sought to retain their privileges.

 

The Role of Parlements

Pressed and eventually won over by his entourage at court, the king gave in and exempted the clergy from the twentieth in 1751. Eventually, the twentieth became a mere increase in the already existing taille, the most important direct tax of the monarchy from which privileged classes were exempted. It was another defeat in the taxation war waged against the privileged classes. As a result of these attempts at reform, the Parlement of Paris, using the quarrel between the clergy and the Jansenists as a pretext, addressed remonstrances to the king in April 1753. In these remonstrances, the Parlement, made up of privileged aristocrats and ennobled commoners, proclaimed itself the “natural defender of the fundamental laws of the kingdom” against the arbitrariness of the monarchy.

During the reign of Louis XV, the parlements repeatedly challenged the crown for control over policy, especially regarding taxes and religion. The parlements had the duty to record all royal edicts and laws. Some, especially the Parlement of Paris, gradually acquired the habit of refusing to register legislation with which they disagreed until the king held a lit de justice or sent letters patent to force them to act. Furthermore, the parlements could pass certain regulations, which were laws that applied within their jurisdiction. In the years immediately before the start of the French Revolution in 1789, their extreme concern to preserve Ancien Régime institutions of noble privilege prevented France from carrying out many simple reforms, especially in the area of taxation, even when those reforms had the support of the king. Chancellor René Nicolas de Maupeou sought to reassert royal power by suppressing the parlements in 1770. A furious battle resulted and after King Louis XV died, the parlements were restored.

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