Monarchy Embattled

Reality never matched the popular image of the all-powerful French King. Even Louis XIV, exalted by his own propagandists and many historians as the Sun King, never actually enjoyed that kind of authority. Theories of divine right, which linked the King to God, proved untenable for many. Yet, by the reign of Louis XIV the monarch was no longer a weak power against which nobles were regularly in revolt.

We pick up the story of the French monarchy at the beginning of the eighteenth century, by which time the Bourbon Kings had taken on an unprecedented level of responsibility for ruling all of France. Previously they had shared this task with the higher noblesвЂ"princes, dukes, and counts. However, many continued to compete with the crown for authority, from the lords of the manors to municipal and regional governments. Even the King's own officersвЂ"especially the judges of the royal law courtsвЂ"were only partly under the control of the monarchy. So the actual functioning of government was a balance between the King, the royal bureaucracy, and local elites consisting of nobles and non-nobles who made money from the land they owned, professional fees, financial investments (especially in royal bonds), and wholesale commerce.

To a historian, perhaps the most interesting aspect of eighteenth century French politics was a battle being waged among political theorists. In general, those closest to the King favored classical notions of monarchy, such as the theory developed in the late seventeenth century by Jacques-BÐ"©nignÐ"© Bossuet for Louis XIV, which became known as absolutism. Other eighteenth-century descriptions of monarchy advocated centralizing power in the hands of the King. When the Franks first decided to establish their own government to replace the fading Roman Empire, argued Jacob-Nicolas Moreau, they entrusted the King with all authority.

To spread ideas such as Moreau's, French monarchs published newspapers supporting their actions. In one such periodical, the Gazette of France, the crown took a subtle rather than a propagandistic approach: it never mentioned its opponents and treated royalty with total reverenceвЂ"even though the news being reported was not necessarily the most important events of the day. But the monarchy's position on its role in society did not always need cloaking. In 1765 Louis XV informed the highest law courts in the land in no uncertain terms of his divine right to rule and his unquestioned authority. Even up to 1787, on the eve of the Revolution, the King told these same judges that he was the "sovereign chief" who held his power indivisibly.

Despite all this royal bravado, the monarchy faced significant challenges вЂ"some even life threatening, as Louis XV discovered on 5 January 1757, when a domestic servant named Robert-FranÐ"§ois Damiens tried to kill the King. Damiens succeeded only in scratching Louis XV with his knife. Not surprisingly, supporters of the monarchy regarded this act as a heinous crime and thought that its perpetrator must have been a madman who should be exorcised from society. But mixed in with the public outcry over the assassination attempt were rumors of plots against the monarchy.

Some said that Damiens had been motivated by criticisms of the King for his involvement in recent religious controversies. Specifically, Louis XV had supported an order by the Archbishop of Paris that priests must deny last rites to those who adhered to Jansenism, a stricter, more ascetic version of Catholicism than the Jesuit beliefs favored by the circle at court. Among those who opposed the King on this question were the magistrates of the nation's chief law courts, the ParlementsвЂ"which not only heard criminal and civil cases but also were responsible for registering all royal edicts. In their view, His Majesty had violated the traditions of the French monarchy. This broader debate was echoed in Damiens's own testimony, in questions posed by his investigators, and in various pamphlets published about the attack and ensuing trial. For a monarchy quick to deny that any such opposition could exist, the trial of Damiens provided an opportunity to search out (and presumably suppress) all dissidenceвЂ"even among such unlikely critics as the nuns of the convent of St. Joseph. Finally, having satisfied themselves that Damiens had indeed acted alone, the magistrates of the Parlement ended the entire affair and the life of the would-be assassin, by staging a spectacular public execution.

The Damiens affair demonstrates the monarchy's general problem: religious controversies were stirring up antagonistic sentiments. The Parlementary magistrates articulated historically justifiable and specific criticisms of the crown. Even though they were judges in royal courts of law, the magistrates could protest against royal edicts by issuing "remonstrances," rather than registering them as new laws. Through such protests, which were sometimes printed, the judges could enunciate their views to an ever-growing audience of interested observers, referred to as the "public" or "nation."

In their first responses to the edicts suppressing Jansenism, the magistrates were quite circumspect. Although they attacked not only the clergy's deed but also an edict issued by the royal government, they claimed to be allying themselves completely with the monarch. The judges retained this basic pose of subservience to royal authority, even while defying it, although their rhetoric became more overtly antimonarchical as the long reign of Louis XV brought crisis upon crisis.

The conflict between the Parlements and the King moved to other topics and intensified in 1756, with the onset of a new war with Britain. In the wake of extraordinary expenses and a poor military performance in the Seven Years' War, many began complaining about royal taxes. The Parlement of Paris argued that only its participation in government could restore public confidence in the government and thereby ensure sufficient credit to cover the mounting deficit. These views emanated from a particular version of French history that attributed the sovereignty of the first kings to counsels of nobles (from whom the Parlementary magistrates now claimed descent); thus, by tradition, kings needed the consent of the Parlements to rule legitimately.

The legal battle between one of these bodies, the Parlement of Brittany, and the King lasted from 1765 to 1770. The specific issue was whether the central administration had the right to govern directly in a province that had always enjoyed a substantial degree of autonomy. In the heat of this battle, the judges, supported by the other