REPRESENTATION WITHOUT REVOLUTION: POLITICAL REPRESENTATION AS DEFINED IN THE GENERAL CAHIERS Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 DE DOLEANCES OF 1789

ROBERT H BLACKMAN*

When, in 1788, the French monarchy agreed to consult its subjects by summoning an Estates General, there was no consensus on what powers this body might have The summoning of the Estates General in 1789 caused widespread speculation as to its role and powers, and some of this speculation was quite radical.1 Lynn Hunt has asserted that many - if not most - of the third estate deputies came to the Estates General in May 1789 fully prepared to overthrow the traditional monarchy in favour of a parliamentary democracy wherein the king retained only executive power, or perhaps held a purely ceremonial role in governing. Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret has made similar claims for the Second Estate.2 At first it seems impossible to evaluate these claims. After all, more than 1,000 deputies attended the Estates General of 1789, and it would be impossible to attempt a description of their individual intentions and thus of whether or not they arrived with revolution in mind However, each deputy came not on his own authority to Versailles, but as the representative of a specific order and community. Each deputy or delegation carried a cabier de doleances, a document containing comprehen- sive instructions from his electors. These 'general' cabiers de doleances were

• The author is Visiting Assistant Professor of History, Hampden-Sydney College, Hampden- Sydney, VA 23943 He wishes to thank Marjorie Beale and Ann Blair for their Insightful criticism of this work He would also like to thank Gall Bossenga, who commented on an earlier version of this paper, Richard Bonney, and the anonymous reviewers from French History Last, he would like to thank Timothy Tacken for his generosity in reading and commenting on multiple drafts of this paper A]] errors that remain are, of course, his own 1 For a selection of pamphlets from this period J Popkln and D. Van Kley, Tbe pre- Revolutionary debate, section 5 of The French Revolution Research Collection, general editor Colin Lucas (New York, 1990) See also J Egret, Tbe French Prerevolution, 1787-1788, trans W D Camp (Chicago, 1977) 2 L Hunt, "The "National Assembly"', Tbe French Revolution and tbe creation of modern political culture. I Tbe political culture of tbe Old Regime, cd K. Baker (Oxford, 1987), pp. 403- 15, G Chaussinand-Nogaret, Tbe French nobility in tbe eighteenth century, trans. W Doyle (Cambridge, 1985), pp 145-67. See also M Fltzsimmons, 'New light on the aristocratic reaction in France', Fr Hist, 10 (1996), 418-31.

C Oxford University Press 2001 French History, VoL 15 No 2, pp. 159-185 160 REPRESENTATION WITHOUT REVOLUTION drawn up in the assemblies which would send deputies directly to the Estates General.3 Moreover, the deputies came not as representatives in the modern sense of the word, but as bearers of the instructions of their electors, instructions meant to limit and regulate the political acts of their bearers. Upon receiving the cabier of his electors, each deputy swore an oath faithfully to present the grievances of his electors. In return, he was given a mandate, formal recognition of his ability to enter into binding agreements on the part of his electors. The mandates came in three basic kinds: first, there was the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 general mandate, which granted the bearer powers to advise, remonstrate and consent as specified in the king's order convoking the Estates General. Second, communities could give more direct instructions to their deputies in the form of a special mandate which put emphasis on a specific task, but stopped short of disowning a deputy who found that circumstances prevented carrying out the electors' wishes. Third, the electors might give their deputy a binding or 'imperative' mandate, one which the deputy could not disobey without being disowned by his electors and replaced as their representative.4 As Ran Halevi points out, there was generally 'a peaceful division of tasks between the represented and their representatives The former enjoyed the prerogatives of remonstrance; the latter, the honors of the mandate. On the one hand, there was the voice of a community; on the other, the ambition of an individual.'5 In conveying the wishes of the electors, the cabiers recorded the desires of a large portion and remarkable cross-section of French elite at the end of the ancien regime.6 These cabiers, written in the same assemblies that elected the deputies, form a reliable source for analysing the relationship between the

3 In the case of the third estate, there had been a series of assemblies and elections to bodies which drafted cabiers for their regions The general cabiers were those of the last electoral body, which had to evaluate the regional cabiers given to it and draft a formal document which would represent the best interests of the entire area it represented * Lettre du roi pour la convocation des fitats gfrieraux a Versailles le 27 avril 1789, in Archivesparlementairesde 1787a 1860,premiereserie (1787a 1799), ed M J Mavidai and M E Laurent, 2nd edn (1879-1913), i 543 (24 Jan 1789) [henceforth abbreviated as AP] Reglement fait par le roi pour I'execution des lettres de convocation du 24 Janvier 1789, AP i 544, 549 On the nature of the mandates B Hyslop, Guide to tbe general cabiers of 1789 (New York, 1968), pp 99-100 Illustrative of the special mandate is the cabier of the third estate in the s6necbausee Albert, in which the deputies were required to demand a vote by head, but told not to retire if this was refused, accepting instead the decision to vote by order AP i 704-5 5 R. Halevi, 'The monarchy and the elections of 1789',/ Mod Hist, 60, suppl (September 1988), S93 In a wonderful example of the priority of the mandate over the deputy, Halevi cites the elections in Lyon, in which the election of workers, rather than guild-masters, to the local assembly of the third estate did not result in a noticeably more radical cabier Thus, he reasons, the selection processes of men and ideas were quite separate ibid S94-S95 * Halevi estimates that roughly 105,000 to 110,000 individuals took part in the highest level of the elections of 1789 Of the men involved in the elections, the third estate represented 42 per cent, the clergy 34 per cent and the nobility 24 per cent ibid. S87-S88 Tackett notes that the cabiers for the third estate generally reflect the opinions of a 'relatively homogeneous group of urban, non-privileged notables', and 'the non-peasant "notables" within the Third Estate, and particularly those commoner elites living in urban settings' T Tackett, 'Use of the "cahiers de doleances" of 1789 for the analysis of regional attitudes', Mil icole Fr Rome, 103 (1991), 30, 33 ROBERT H BLACKMAN l6l electing bodies and their representatives, as well as the expected relationship between the forthcoming Estates General and the monarchy. Keith Baker has claimed, however, that the cabiers had little importance in determining the actions of the deputies. He writes that the 'French Revolution of 1789 was, first and foremost, a revolution of the deputies against the conditions of their election', and that this revolution required 'a dramatic repudiation' of their powers as given in the cabiers de doleances? However, Baker does not make it immediately clear how far and in what way the deputies Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 exceeded the powers given them by their constituents and recognized by the king. In order to evaluate the claims of Hunt, Chaussinand-Nogaret and Baker, we must examine the concepts of political representation and participation found in the general cabiers de doleances of 1789, the documents created by the assemblies convoked to elect the deputies who would attend the Estates General in Versailles. Only then will we be in a position to declare whether or not the deputies arrived ready to create a constitutional monarchy, or if in seeking a constitutional monarchy they exceeded the desires of their constituents.

While there exist many excellent studies of the cabiers, none specifically addresses the relationship envisaged in them between the deputies and their monarch, or explores the forms proposed in them for future meetings of the Estates General.8 A careful survey of the instructions given to the deputies by their electors reveals the outlines of the reforms envisaged by a significant portion of the French elite in 1789. Almost all of the cabiers surveyed here discussed the powers of the Estates General and sought to define its future role. However, one finds through a careful analysis of the cabiers that the electoral assemblies - and by inference the urban elite from which they were drawn - envisaged a reworking of political representation within the late eighteenth- century monarchy while largely preserving the prerogatives of the monarch. The issues examined here - the role of the Estates General in legislative and financial matters, the need to increase the accountability of royal officials, the

7 K M. Baker, Inventing the French Revolution (Cambridge, 1990), p 244 A similar interpretation can be found in W Doyle, Oxford history of the French Revolution (Oxford, 1990), p 118 8 Those that address the political content of the cabiers include T Tackett, Religion, revolution, and regional culture in eighteenth century France (Princeton, N J , 1986), pp 146-56, 251-75; C Tilly, Tbe Vendie (Cambridge, 1964), pp 177-86, and G V Taylor, 'Revolutionary and nonrevolutionary content in the cabiers of 1789 an interim report', Fr Hist Stud, 7 (1972), 497-502. For the most recent and important work G Shapiro and J Markoff, Revolutionary demands, a content analysis of tbe cabiers de dol&ances of 1789 (Stanford, Calif, 1998), J Markoff, Tbe abolition of feudalism (University Park, Pa, 1996) See also B Hyslop, French nationalism in 1789 according to tbe general cabiers (New York, 1968), Tackett, 'Use of the "Cahiers de doleances" ', pp 27-46, L. Pimenova, 'Analyse des cahiers de doleances. l'cxemple des cahlers de la noblesse', Mil Fxole Fr Rome, 103 (1991), 85-101, and Chaussinand-Nogaret, French nobility, pp 130-65 162 REPRESENTATION WITHOUT REVOLUTION need for a free press, and the periodicity of the Estates - form the outline of a plan for a reformed monarchy that falls far short of the revolutionary overthrow of the existing government. A quantitative analysis of the demands made regarding representation in die general cahiers of the nobility and third estate forms die basis of this article. The 129 noble cabiers and 144 third estate cabiers used for my sample are available in the Archives Parlementaires volumes 1 -5 (as corrected by Beatrice Hyslop), or appear in their entirety in Hyslop's General Guide to the Cabiers Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 of 1789? Also included were two cahiers jointiy drafted by die noble and third estates, and six drafted by noble, clerical and third estate deputies, all appearing in the above sources, bringing the total number of cahiers sampled for this study to 281. A further twenty-five cabiers read were excluded from the sample as diey were eidier completed after the opening of die Estates General on 5 May 1789, show evidence of significant tampering by royal officials or are of doubtful authenticity.10 As we shall see below, a significant minority of die deputies arrived in Versailles with instructions to change the relationship between die government and its subjects. Over a third of noble or tiiird estate cabiers instructed their bearers to change die way in which the public was represented to and within die government. For over a diird of the electoral assemblies, this reworking of representation consisted largely of replacing die hidierto appointed representatives of the monarchy - the ministers, the intendants and even die sovereign courts - widi bodies accountable to the Estates General, so as better to present counsel to die monarch. Moreover, die reforms diey demanded would have tended to strengthen die king's audiority and role in governing, rather than diminish it In order to show how die changes demanded in the cahiers amounted to reform but not to revolution, it will be necessary first to discuss how political representation functioned at die end of the eighteenth century We begin by examining the role of die Estates General up to its last previous meeting in

9 There have been found to date only 167 noble cabiers approved either singly or jointly by a noble assembly, and 198 third estate cabiers likewise approved by third estate electors The documents found in the AP and in Hyslop's Guide represent over three-quarters of the surviving cabiers and come from all over France, providing a more than adequate sample For a discussion of the number of surviving cabiers, the flaws of the AP and the considerable merit of Hyslop's corrections Shapiro and Markoff, Revolutionary demands, pp 114-19 10 On tampering by royal officials and the doubtful authenticity of some cabiers- Hyslop, Guide, pp 85-8 Also excluded were the cabiers from the order of the clergy Given the extremely fictional character of the clergy during the early Revolution and the specifically clerical matters that concerned this order the most, only a small fraction of the existing clerical cabiers were initially examined. As a sample of 10 clerical cabiers taken at random from the AP contained very little in the way of claims regarding political representation, the decision was made to exclude them from the survey Also, there already exist excellent content analyses of the clerical cabiers- see especially Tackett, Religion, revolution, and regional culture On the factionalism of the clergy M G Hutt, "The cures and the third estate the ideas of reform in the pamphlets of the French lower clergy in the period 1787-1789',/ Eccl Hist, 8 (1957), 74-92 Dale Van Hey pursues this theme in 'The debate over the Galilean Church on the eve of the French Revolution', in The pre-Revolutionary debate, section 5 of the French Revolutionary Research Collection, emphasizing the split within the clergy between the Jansenists and the rest of the order and its lingering effect on French politics. See also Tackett, Priest and parish in eigbteenttxentury France (Princeton, NJ , 1977) ROBERT H. BLACKMAN 163

1614-15, and see how its functions were gradually taken on by an increasingly active and powerful set of parlementary courts after the death of Louis XTV France under the ancien regime had never had a regularly convoked representative assembly. When the monarchy required aid and counsel from its subjects, it called on an irregular and ill-defined body on an ad hoc basis. This body, called the Estates General, had been summoned infrequently at best, and typically only when the monarch required unusual assistance from his subjects.11 The monarchy had never recognized a legislative role for the Estates Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 General, nor did the Estates General serve to represent the people of France to the monarch. Instead, it served to express the needs and desires of the disparate corporate bodies to the king, who alone had the right to act on this information. The Estates General had been a source of information and support for the monarchy, a way of consulting the parts of the kingdom in order better to solve problems facing the whole. The Estates themselves had sought a more regular role in government over the centuries, but to little avail.12 As Armand Brette wrote, the Estates-General 'n'etaient qu'un corps de complaignants, dont la fonction est de presenter des griefs, et de se soumettre sans entrer en nulle connaissance de rien'.13 In practice, then, the calling of an Estates General had been as much a way to manufacture consent for government policies as it was a means to gather information and take counsel. By the time Louis XVI came to the throne in June 1774, the monarchy had not summoned the Estates General for more than 150 years, a sign of the generations-long attempt to centralize power and authority under an absolute monarch in France. Louis XTV had been particularly successful in this quest. Russell Major, in his landmark work on the subject, defines an 'absolute monarchy' as14

one in which there were no theoretical limitations on the king's authority other than those imposed by divine, natural, and a few fundamental laws, and in which the king controlled the vertical ties necessary to hold society together and had an obedient army and bureaucracy of sufficient size to enable him to impose his will under ordinary circumstances.

According to Major, Louis XTV had15

11 Baker, Inventing, p 226, J M Hayden, France and the Estates General of 1614 (1974), pp 2-6 For a comprehensive treatment of the Estates General and its history J R Major, From Renaissance monarchy to absolute monarchy. French kings, nobles, and estates (Baltimore, Md, 1994), and idem, Representative government in early modern France (New Haven, Conn , 1980) 12 While all three estates had long asked for more frequent meetings of the Estates General, only the third estate had asked for regular convocation in 1614 Hayden, Estates General of 1614, p 212. 13 A Brette, Recueil de documents relatifs a la convocation des Etats Generaux de 1789 (1894), I, p vi 14 Major, From Renaissance monarchy to absolute monarchy, p xxi. See also R. J. Bonney, 'Absolutism what's in a name'1 Fr Hist, 1 (1987), 93-117 " Major, From Renaissance monarchy to absolute monarchy, p 375 164 REPRESENTATION WITHOUT REVOLUTION

assured every individual, class, order, and corporate group that he would protect and preserve their social status and economic well- being, but not their political independence. If they cooperated, increased wealth and prestige would be theirs. If they did not, at best neglect and at worst exile or imprisonment would be their reward.

After 1670, Louis XTV chose his own council, replaced local and provincial Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 officials with those appointed from the centre, stripped the Parlements of their right of remonstrance, and refused to call the Estates General to approve new taxes. The monarchy had established for itself unprecedented authority to govern France. However, Major notes that 'Louis XIV achieved [absolute] monarchy in the 1670s, but he had to purchase the cooperation of the leaders of society and cater to many interests to achieve this position, and there was subversive resistance to his rule'.16 There is no question that 'absolute' government in France had practical limits. One of the more important checks on the king's authority was the necessity to seek counsel While the king could never be commanded, his subjects often asked that he rely on them to provide counsel, so that the preservation of the common good, the goal and ground of the monarchy, might be better obtained 17 During his reign, Louis XTV had developed new methods of gathering information from the governed, with the intention of bypassing traditional elites and their predictable resistance to his policies. A variety of appointed or venal government officials, from the ministers in Paris to the minor officials in each parish, gathered information and transmitted it to Versailles. Nevertheless, gathering information was not the same as asking the governed to present their grievances. Short of asking the monarch's appointed agents for help or submitting unsolicited petitions, there were few legitimate ways to transmit one's opinions to the monarch, especially outside the pays d'etats.18 Louis XTV's successors had managed to keep their predecessor's system more or less intact, and had even expanded the powers of the

16 ibid 17 The French kings had always relied on the advice of others to aid them In ruling, and 'the obligation to seek advice before acting was one of the most hallowed and fundamental of French constitutional principles' W Doyle, Origins of tbe French Revolution, 2nd edn (1989), p 55 One must note, of course, that there was no written constitution in France before 1791 What Doyle refers to is the set of practices which were seen as prior to the rights of the monarch, for example, primogeniture, the Catholic faith, exclusion of women from the throne, and so on Doyle reminds us that 'the essence of Louis XIVs seizure of power in 1661 had been his decision to be advised only by men of his own choice, in preference to those who claimed an hereditary or ex-ofBdo right' to advise him ibid p 55 Daniel Gordon sees the change from a monarchy which sought the counsel of its subjects to one based on bureaucratic, indirect rule occurring after 1680. D Gordon, Citizens without sovereignty (Princeton, NJ , 1994), p 203 18 Arlette Farge points out that under Louis XV an extenstve network of police informers was set up in Pans to gather information on public sentiments, and that Louis XV took the information gathered very seriously But attempts by individuals to transmit information to the king could be seen as lese-tnajeste A Farge, Subversive words, public opinion in eigbteentb-century France, trans R. Morris (University Park, Pa, 1995), pp 18-20, 151-95 passim ROBERT H. BLACKMAN 165

monarchy in some areas.19 This did not lead to the direct, personal rule of the king over France. Nevertheless, though Louis XVI ruled indirectly through his ministers, his government remained theoretically based on the absolutist system developed by Louis XTV. Despite Louis XIV's suppression and bypassing of autonomous representative bodies, corporate bodies had retained a kind of political existence, and their members had a voice through the medium of their corporation.20 Foremost

among the powerful corporations in France were the thirteen sovereign courts, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 charged by the king not only to administer justice but also to handle routine administrative matters. They had limited executive abilities, always subject to the approval of the king, and held the right to remonstrate against laws which they felt infringed on the customs and privileges of their territorial jurisdiction. This amounted to a kind of negative legislative ability, used to protect the traditional rights and privileges of local corporations In theory, the monarch would take the court's objections into account and revise edicts and decrees they questioned or disputed, though he could also, in a ceremony known as the lit de justice, personally or through his agent force a Parlement to accept any proclamation.21 Louis XIV had removed from the courts their right of remonstrance, but after his death, this right was quickly restored. Even before the accession of Louis XV, the Parlements increasingly combined the functions of the defunct Estates General with their own, guarding the privileges of the king's subjects and formally expressing their dissent. For example, there was some talk among the due d'Orleans's councillors before Louis XTV's death about convening the Estates General to ratify Orleans's regency and oversee a royal bankruptcy, but nothing came of it. Instead, Orleans chose to work with the Parlement of Paris.22 Thus, as early as 1718, the Parlement of Paris could believably argue that it had inherited the function of the Estates General2i In 1732, the author of an anonymous tract, Judicium Francorum, argued that the courts represented the various orders of the kingdom to the king, taking advantage of the 'century-old coma of the Estates General' 24 By the end of Louis XV s reign the regional Parlements, following the lead of Paris, declared openly that in the absence of the Estates General, they were the sole representatives of the nation.25

19 Franklin Ford noted that under Louis XTV, the Regency and Louis XV there had been a consistent policy of 'minimizing the possibilities for public expressions of resentment' Ford, Robe and sword (Cambridge, Mass , 1962), p 191 20 M Fitzsimmons, 'Privilege and the polity in France, 1786-1791', Am Hist R , 92 (1987), 269- 95 See also R. E. Mousnier, Tbe institutions of France under tbe absolute monarchy, 1598-1789, trans A Goldhammer (Chicago, 1984), i 429-76. 21 On the powers of the Parlements- Ford, Robe and sword, and B Stone, Tbe French Parlements and tbe crisis of tbe Old Regime (Chapel Hill, N C , 1986), esp pp 16-20 22 Ford, Robe and sword, p 190 23 Baker, Inventing, p. 233, see also Stone, French Parlements, pp 20-1. u Ford, Robe and sword, pp 91-2 25 Baker, Inventing, p 234 One must be careful not to read the term 'nation' with twentieth- century eyes, as at the end of the anden regime, 'nation' could mean anything from 'bailliage' to 'province' to 'order", depending on the context 166 REPRESENTATION WITHOUT REVOLUTION

However, when faced with a new round of reforms during the 'aristocratic revolt' of 1787-8, the defence of parlementary privilege reverted to a cry for a meeting of the Estates General, as the first Assembly of Notables and the Parlement of Paris refused to approve of, or implement, the government's new policies.26 When the Estates General finally met in May 1789, it had become, in the popular imagination, the repository of all of the representative functions and pretensions developed by the sovereign courts in the proceeding 150 years. In the absence of other comprehensive elected bodies, the Estates Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 General came to stand in for the entire population of the kingdom in a new way, bypassing remaining appointed officials, municipalities and the newer provincial assemblies Thus, in 1789 the deputies could claim to represent the interests of their electors to their king in a way that neither the Parlements nor preceding Estates General ever had.

II But was the new representative character of the ancient and august Estates General to translate into new powers for it? Chaussinand-Nogaret, in his analysis of the noble cahiers, claims that the nobles intended for 'the totality of legislative power... to belong to the Nation alone, represented in the freely- elected Estates General'.27 He goes on to argue that the Estates General would have a monopoly on the creation of laws, and through this, dominate the government of the new France. However, when one carefully examines demands related to legislative power in the cahiers, one can see no such clear demands on the part of the nobles or the third estate. Instead, when the documents are not silent, they are often ambiguous or even contradictory. In fact, much discussion of legislative power declared only that the Estates General should be involved in legislation, without specifying the extent or nature of its responsibilities. The circumscribed nature of the demands regarding legislative power implies that the deputies were prepared to leave the king as the primary legislator, but sought to guarantee that the Estates General would be involved in the legislative process. To show this, we can examine four different though not entirely exclusive models regarding the legislative role of the Estates General which emerge on close reading of the cahiers In the first, the Estates General itself was to be wholly or partially responsible for the creation of the laws, though the king was also to be involved. This is seen in cahiers which ask that the king 'sanction' the laws created by the Estates General, and which give the Estates the right to approve laws proposed by the king. Legislative power is split between the two

28 See especially Egret, Prerevolution See also P M Jones, Reform and revolution in France' tbe politics of transition, 1774-1791 (Cambridge, 1995), pp 139-74, and notabty p 241, where Jones makes the claim that the reforms initiated by the monarchy had led to a situation at the end of 1787 in which 'streamlined absolute monarchy was no longer an option' As we shall see below, the authors of many general cabiers continued to seek such a streamlined monarchy in early 1789 27 Chaussinand-Nogaret, French nobility, p 157 ROBERT H. BLACKMAN 167

Table 1 Legislative role of the Estates General Nobles Third Estate Grievances/demands No /W No /% 1 Estates General to be involved in legislative matters in some way 97/75 88/61 2 Estates General may create laws 48/37 34/24 3 Estates General must deliberate over all new laws 10/8 17/12 4 Estates General must consent to all new laws proposed by the monarchy 75/58 72/50 5 Legislative power jointly held between Estates General and king or king 74/57 48/33 must approve of all laws Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 6 King may make provisional laws, subject to eventual approval by Estates 24/19 20/14 General 7 All laws created since 1614 void without approval of Estates General 2/2 3/2 Sources' Archives pariementaires, Hyslop, Guide to the general cabiers representative bodies, though it is unclear to whom the larger share would belong. In the second model, the Estates might deliberate regarding the laws and make recommendations to the king, who was under no obligation to accept this advice. This model falls in line with the monarchy's interpretation of the Estates General: historically, the summoning of the Estates General had been the occasion of collecting information and gaining consent. The king had been expected to explain his policies and needs carefully before proposing solutions, but simple attendance at the assembly had implied the consent of the deputies. This kind of mandatory consultation combined with implied consent may have been the mechanism represented by the verb 'consentir' in many cabiers. The third model gives the Estates General no obvious role in creating laws, but requires the active legislative consent of the Estates General before the king could promulgate a new law, which is also a probable meaning of 'consentir' in the context of an Estates General Finally, a very few cabiers would have given legislative power over entirely to the Estates General, with no mention of any ability on the part of the king to influence them. The cahiers of the nobles and third estate show remarkable agreement, with 75 per cent of the nobles and 6l per cent of the third estate asking that the king and Estates share the legislative power in some way, though they seldom made clear how this sharing would occur. The vast majority of the cahiers from both orders implied that the king would propose most, if not all, legislation only in a third or fewer of the cahiers is the power to propose laws specifically demanded for the Estates General. Further, in a quarter of the cahiers one finds the claim that the Estates General has the power of consent, with no mention of a role in actually initiating legislation: demanding a role in the legislative process did not necessarily mean a role in the creation or promulgation of the laws.28 hi this area, the documents remain almost irritatingly silent if there was

28 26 per cent of noble cabiers, 26 per cent of third estate cabiers Roughly half of the cabiers which mention consent do not mention creation of laws Interestingly, the right to discuss legislation is explicitly mentioned in several cabiers Though one might assume this implicit in the right of consent, one must only think of the legislative bodies under Napoleon to see how the two functions could be separated. 168 REPRESENTATION WITHOUT REVOLUTION a plan on the part of the nobles or third estate to seize the legislative power, it was not mentioned in the vast majority of the cahiers. For example, the deputies from the third estate of Bar-le-Duc, in north-east France, asked that 'les lois, qui sont des reglements faits de l'autorite du souverain.. doivent etre acceptees et consenties par la nation ou par ses representants.. .l29 In this context, the souverain is the king: the law is an expression of his will, not the will of the people. Nevertheless, the people must be consulted: the nation was to have a role in legitimizing the law, even if the law itself originated in the will Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 of the monarch. The ability of the Estates General to originate laws was not discussed. Even cahiers which project a major role for the Estates General are often unclear as to what that role would be in practice. The nobles of Auxerre in Dijon sought to involve the Estates General in all law-making, declaring that the king made the law conjointly with 'la nation assemblee par ses represenants' and that any who dared to lessen the rights of either the king or the nation were guilty of 'lese-majeste et nation' w This complex formulation failed to define how sovereignty was to be shared in matters of legislation: there was no mention of what would happen if the king and the Estates General failed to agree.31 In order to support Chaussinand-Nogaret's argument, one would have to find compelling evidence that the nobles sought a monopoly of legislative power, and that they sought to regulate or exclude the monarch from legislative affairs. Comparing the results in Table 2 to the original numbers of cabiers requesting that the Estates General have the right to create laws, we can see that only 3 per cent of the third estate cabiers and 5 per cent of the noble ones in our sample sought to deny the king a role in the legislative process. Further, more than half of the noble cabiers and one in three third estate cabiers explicitly required the participation of the monarch as well as the involvement of the Estates General for legislation to pass, and as one sees in Table 1,19 per cent of noble cahiers and 14 per cent of third estate cabiers recognized the king's right to promulgate laws in the absence of the Estates General, subject to their eventual approval This hardly amounts to a legislative monopoly for the Estates General. Overwhelmingly, the noble and third estate cabiers which sought the ability to propose laws also sought to involve the king jointly in the legislative power, acknowledging his right to initiate legislation and to approve any legislation originating in the Estates General. An implied sharing of legislative power would certainly be an innovation, but it hardly meant the overthrow of the traditional monarchy in France, it simply demanded for the Estates General something similar to the right of remonstrance long enjoyed by the Parlements. Further, these demands originated in cahiers of all political stripes, from the most constitutionally minded and traditional noble cabiers of Lorraine to the more radical and egalitarian third estate cahiers of

w AP ii 193 *> APii 114 31 Timothy Tackctt has found similar ambiguity in pamphlets published by deputies-to-be in 1789 see T Tackett, Becoming a revolutionary (Princeton, NJ , 1996), pp 102-4 for third estate opinions ROBERT H BLACKMAN 169

Table 2 Legislative power

Noble Third Estate

Expected Observed Expected Observed Ousters of demands found in cabiers No/% No/% No/% No/%

1 Estates General may create laws, Estates 28/22 42/33 17/12 30/21 General must consent to all laws 2 Estates General may create laws, ability to 20/16 6/5 17/12 4/3 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 consent to laws not mentioned 3 Estates General to be involved in legislative 56/43 73/57 29/20 48/33 matters in some way, legislative power jointly held between Estates General and king or king must approve of all laws Sources' Archives partementairesr, Hyslop, Guide to the general cabiers Note on tables' All italicized results in the Observed columns are statistically significant, as they deviate meaningfully from the expected number of cabiers which would contain the grievances listed if all demands were randomly assorted through all cabiers For example, if demand A appears in X per cent of cabiers, and demand B appears in Y per cent of cabiers, then demands A and B should be found in a percentage of cabiers roughly equal to X times Y In most cases, the observed percentage of clustered demands deviates from this expected number - the question to be asked is whether or not the observed number is sufficiently different from the number expected for us to infer that the cluster represents a meaningful pattern in the documents rather than mere coincidence For a result to be considered significant, I have used the Chi-Squared method of analysis with appropriate degrees of freedom, seeking a result in which the chance that a cluster of demands would appear randomly was less than 5 per cent If they appear or fail to appear at a rate significantly different from the expected rate, then it is necessary to interpret the result

Dijon. The few which sought to exclude the monarch were as likely to come from the most intransigent of nobles as from the radical outliers of the National party. For example, the nobles of Longuyon, in Lorraine, earned a cahier dedicated to preserving their corporate privileges and extending them if possible. However, it declared that 'toutes les loix seront proposees et dehberees et sanctionees par les etats generaux pour ensuite [etre] promulguees au nom du Monarque '32 Here we see one of the few cases in which the monarch was cut entirely out of the practice of law making: in the future the deputies would simply legislate in his name. This demand appears in an otherwise quite conservative document, bringing into question claims that restricting the king's powers or giving precedence to the elected assembly originated in a revolutionary plan exclusive to liberal nobles or the third estate. In discussing legislative matters, many cahiers use pseudo-Lockean terminology to describe how the government should function, arguing in favour of the separation of powers between the monarch and the Estates General33 The very concept of a separation of powers seems to imply an

32 Hyslop, Guide, p 317 On p 316, Hyslop notes that the cabier 'displays ignorance of good grammatical form' " For a discussion of the 'English model' proposed by Montesquieu and its critics Baker, Inventing, pp 173-85, see also N Hampson, Will and circumstance Montesquieu, Rousseau and tbe French Revolution (1983), esp pp 59-64 R R Palmer argued, however, that in discussing a separation of powers, Montesquieu was 'thinking of the balance between King, nobility, and Commons' and not the strict separation of judicial, executive and legislative functions R R Palmer, Tbe age of democratic revolution, I Tbe challenge (Princeton, NJ , 1959), p 58 170 REPRESENTATION WITHOUT REVOLUTION assault on the absolute power of the monarch. To Chaussinand-Nogaret, the introduction of the separation of powers meant that the nobles sought to establish 'a monarchy that was constitutional and liberal' This constitution, he claims, 'was to be based on the principle... of the separation of powers' in which 'the king. . was invested with executive power' and the Estates General held the legislative power.34 As J. K Wright has noted, however, this modern version of the separation of powers was not the only one available to the 35 deputies Many cabiers bring up the concept of executive power as well as Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 that of legislative power, but in context, the implied separation of powers is incomplete and worked to preserve the monarch's power rather than undermine it. Fewer than 2 per cent of the cahiers clearly demarcated the functions of the executive and of the legislative ^ Instead, the two roles were most often mixed in the body of the king 37 As we see in Table 3,25 per cent of noble cahiers and 19 per cent of third estate cahiers went further than a formulaic recognition of the king's authority, specifically reserving all executive powers to the king alone. Notably, all cahiers in this sample which specified that the king was the sole executive power also demanded a role for the Estates General in legislation As one can see in Table 4, most cahiers which specified an executive monopoly for the king and a legislative role for the Estates General mandated that the legislative power was to be held jointly with the king in some way. An illustrative example appears in the cahier of the nobles of St. Mihiel, near Nancy Despite claiming a legislative role for the Estates, the electors clearly sought to reinforce the authority of the king, declaring that 'si l'assemblee des Etats generaux presumait de donner a ses decrets force de loi, avant d'etre revetues du consentement du Roi, elle ferait un acte de souverainete ^ Here, to create the law without reference to the king was to be a crime, and 'souverainete', in this context, is the ability autonomously to make decrees. The sovereignty of the king was explicitly recognized, even as an active role for the Estates General in government was demanded. The monarch had his executive monopoly recognized, but this recognition did not imply that the king's powers were limited to the executive At first, when one sees that one in every six cahiers from either order gives a form of legislative power to the Estates General and guarantees the king his executive role, one might think that there was a push towards separation of powers in governing, even if only among a minority of the deputies who went to Versailles in May 1789. However, the number of cahiers taking a position that would deny the king a legislative role is much smaller than one would

34 Chaussinand-Nogaret, French nobility, p 157 35 j K Wright, 'NauonaJ sovereignty and the general will the political program of the Declaration of Rights', Tbe French Idea of freedom the Old Regime and tbe Declaration of Rights of 1789, ed D Van Kley (Stanford, Calif, 1994), pp 216-24 * For an example, see the cabier for the third estate of Etampes, AP iii 283 37 Palmer speculated that the notion of a separation of powers was distasteful to the French, as it seemed too 'British' and contradicted the normal bent of the Physiocrats towards further centralization of government powers Palmer, Age of democratic revolution, pp 276ff 38 AP ii 235 ROBERT H BLACKMAN 171

Table 3 Separation of powers

Nobles Third Estate Grievances/demands No/% No7%

1 Monarchy retains monopoly on executive powers 32/25 28/19 2 Parlements to lose rights of remonstrance and must register laws 44/34 41/28 without modification or delay 3 Deputies are inviolable while in office 30/23 25/17 4 Judges are inviolable while in office 20/16 14/10 5 Estates General will be regularly summoned 122/95 130/90 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021

Sources- Archives pariementaires, Hyslop, Guide to the general cabiers

Table 4 Separation of powers

Noble Third Estate

Expected Observed Expected Observed Clusters of demands found in cabiers No/% No/% No/% No/%

1 Estates General may create laws, Estates 28/22 42/33 17/12 30/21 General must consent to all laws 2 Estates General may create laws, monarch 12/9 17/13 7/5 17/12 retains monopoly on executive powers 3 Same as above, but omitting all cabiers which 7/5 3/2 8/6 2/1 mention the ability of the Estates General to consent to all laws, implying that the king may not create laws 4 Monarch retains monopoly on executive 18/14 28/22 9/6 22/15 power; legislative power jointly held between Estates General and king or king must approve of all laws 5 Monarch retains monopoly on executive 14/11 28/22 6/4 22/15 power; Estates General involved in legislative matters, legislative power jointly held between Estates General and king or king must approve of all laws 6 Estates General involved in legislative matters, 18/14 24/19 12/8 19/13 king may make provisional laws while Estates General not in session, subject to eventual approval 7 King may make provisional laws while Estates 5/4 11/9 2/1 7/5 General not in session, subject to eventual approval, Estates General may create laws, and Estates General must consent to all laws

Sources' Archives pariementaires; Hyslop, Guide to tbe general cabiers expect assuming a random distribution of demands in the cabiers. Moreover, the cahiers that reserve executive power for the monarch while also acknowledging his role in legislation appear far more frequently than a random distribution would lead us to expect. Cahiers which granted the Estates General a legislative role were also more likely to recognize the king's right to legislate in their absence. While this trend is most significant in third estate cahiers, it is also present in noble cahiers to a lesser extent. Cabiers including demands which, taken alone and out of context, appear to demand a separation of powers in the government actually seek to protect the king's role in legislation while recognizing his executive monopoly. 172 REPRESENTATION WITHOUT REVOLUTION

The cahiers show that the electoral assemblies had no uniform idea of what separation of powers meant, something which would become more evident once the Estates General met in May 1789 In the cahiers, the practice of justice was sometimes portrayed as an extension of the executive power, and the legislative power was assumed to be shared by different bodies in the government, as we have seen above. The analysis in Table 4 shows that the clusters of demands in the cahiers tend to undermine any effective separation of powers much more than support it This mixing of legislative and executive Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 powers in the body of the king lends support to the claim that the Estates General was still regarded as a consultative body by the deputies, not the independent legislative body Chaussinand-Nogaret claims.

Ill The electoral assemblies also seem to have thought that the Estates General should be able to advise the king in executive matters, presuming a consultative role rather than an equal one in governing, further undermining the concept of a separation of powers. A small number of cahiers argued that the Estates General should not only advise the king as a part of the legislative branch, but replace the ministers as the main source of advice on executive decisions. Roughly one-tenth of noble cahiers, but fewer than 5 per cent of third estate cabiers, went further, asking that the Estates General replace the ministers as the sole source of counsel for the monarch. The most common formulation of this can be found in the cabier of the third estate of Crepy en Valois, which asked that 'Sa Majeste prefere les deliberations durables des Etats, au conseil passager de ses ministres.. >39 In either case, the advice given would properly represent the interests of the king's subjects, the king, however, would retain the decision-making power, and thus be able to protect his own interests A demand much to the same point asked that the ministers and administrators have no representative function in the future40 Even though this specific demand appeared in fewer than 5 per cent of the cahiers of either order, the fact that it appears at all merits notice, as such a change would have overturned a central function of the anden regime bureaucracy, as appointed officials would lose their power to present the grievances and protect the interests of their charges. The desire to replace appointed or venal administrative officials with elected representatives was central to the change in representation demanded in the cahiers Under the absolute monarchy, if one wished to present one's opinions or grievances to the king, one generally had to use intermediaries appointed by the government or beholden to the monarchy. These officials, including the intendants and ministers, were vital in presenting the needs of the nation to the king, and vice versa. However, they were in no way popularly elected, and only

39 AP iii 76. See also the cabier of the nobles of Charolles, in Dijon, AP li 618 •*° An additional 3 per cent of the cabiers stated that the Estates General was the sole representative body See the United cabier of Villers-la-Montagne in Nancy, AP li 245 ROBERT H. BLACKMAN 173 widespread and violent public disorder could meaningfully influence public policy decisions made by these officials in the monarch's name. This was apparently well understood, as the cabier of the third estate of Bailleul, in Lille, pointed out Tetat deplorable de la chose publique, qui ne permet aux citoyens d'exprimer leurs sentiments que par des gemissements..."" As we see in Table 5, 45 per cent of noble cahiers and 38 per cent of third estate cabiers favoured making ministers responsible to the Estates General for their conduct 42 in all executive matters, not just those limited to finance. An additional Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 handful of cabiers asked that the ministers be made answerable to the nation, presumably through its representatives, leading us to conclude that close to a half of the cabiers carried by nobles and commoners to Versailles favoured making the ministers accountable to the Estates General. Making the ministers responsible to elected officials, even though they were not elected themselves, would recognize the de facto representative function of the ministers without infringing on the right of the king to compose his own government. This was an attempt to make the ministers subject to the same laws as the governed - a safeguard against ministerial despotism as well as paralleling the attempt to replace the ministers with the Estates General as the primary source of counsel to the king. The move to make royal officials accountable to the electorate did not stop with the ministers. The cabiers show that a significant number of third estate and noble electoral assemblies wished to strip the sovereign courts of the representative role they had acquired in the absence of the Estates General. As representatives, the parlementaires left much to be desired. They were not elected, and they did not necessarily come from a background similar to those whom they claimed to represent Worse, their office was held as a form of property: it was difficult, if not impossible, to remove zparlementaire from his position. While somewhat protected against the monarch and capable of limited dissent, the sovereign courts were part of the apparatus by which the monarch ruled, and not a body independent of the monarchy.43 In short, they were not accountable to those whom they represented.

41 AP li. 174 This point is also made by Francois Menard de U Groye, deputy to the third estate from Maine, in a letter to his wife dated 23 June 1789 Menard de la Groye, Correspondance (1989), pp 49-50 The nobles of Tartas, in Bordeaux, reverse the causal chain, arguing that it is the disorder in government that caused the disorder of the countryside, not that the disorder was an attempt to influence the government. AP i 700 42 In Chaussinand-Nogaret's analysis of the noble cabiers, he points out that 85 per cent of the noble cabiers sought to make the ministers 'answerable' However, he makes no distinction between being answerable for financial conduct and being answerable for other executive matters Chausslnand-Nogaret, French nobility, p 153 4> A review of the history of the Parlements in the eighteenth century shows that the king could get what he wanted despite the resistance of the Parlements, with the important exception of reforms involving the courts themselves Doyle, Origins, pp 66-77 Very instructive in this regard isW Doyle, "The Parlements of France and the breakdown of the Old Regime, 1771-1788', Fr Hist Stud, 6 (1970), 415-58. Doyle writes on p 454 that '[parlementary resistance], in fact, was a matter of not obstructing the government while appearing to, government was a matter of ignoring resistance while appearing not to' 174 REPRESENTATION WITHOUT REVOLUTION Table 5 Government accountability

Nobles Third Estate Grievances/demands No/% No/K

1 King will prefer the advice of the Estates General to that of his ministers 12/9 3/2 2 Ministers and administrators will have no representative or legislative role 4/3 5/3 3 Estates General is sole representative body 4/3 2/1 4 Ministers accountable to Estates General for non-financial matters 58/45 55/38 5 Ministers accountable to nation for non-financial matters 9/7 15/10 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 Sourcesl Archives pariementairer, Hyslop, Guide to the general cabiers

Table 6 Pariementary reforms Nobles Third Estate Grievances/demands No /% No /% 1 Parlements to lose rights of remonstrance and must register laws 44/34 41/28 without modification or delay 2 Provincial estates to register laws in future 11/9 13/9 3 Partements to remain a secondary bulwark against tyranny, beneath 42/32 20/14 Estates General 4 Partements to be responsible to Estates General for their actions 6/5 4/3 5 Estates General ranked above Parlements in government 1/1 2/1 6 All courts to be reorganized to have half of members come from third 2/2 27/19 estate 7 Judges to be appointed according to their knowledge and merit 9/7 26/18 Sources Archives pariementaires, Hyslop, Guide to the general cabiers

As one can see in Table 6, 34 per cent of noble cabiers and 28 per cent of third estate cabiers asked that the king remove from the Parlements their right of remonstrance and subordinate the courts to the Estates General. This is best shown in the cabier of the third estate of Toulon, which states that ' [ni] les cours superieures ni aucune autorite representative de l'autorite souveraine, ne pourront modifier, interpreter, [eteindre] ou [restreindre] la loi, ni moins encore en promulguer de [leur] chef sous le titre d'arrets, reglemen[t]s, et autres dispositions imperatives, toute loi derivant essentiallement de la nation et de son Chef.44 This is unambiguous in its separation of the courts from any representative or legislative function, a challenge to the administrative elites who governed in the monarch's name and claimed to represent the people within their jurisdiction to the king. And yet, it defends the role of the king himself in creating the law. hi a few cases (less than 10 per cent of the cabiers of either order), the function of registering new laws was to be transferred to the provincial assemblies, taking all legislative power away from the courts. One-tenth of the noble or third estate cabiers demanded that the courts be interested only in the administration of justice, one of the very few clear indications that a separation of powers was to be pursued.

•" Hyslop, Guide, p 421 See also the cabier of the third estate of Brest, AP ii. 470. It is interesting to note that the cabiers of the third estate were seldom more radical In this respect than the very conservative cabiers of the nobles of Nancy. ROBERT H. BLACKMAN 175 As we see in Table 7, 43 per cent (19 out of 44) of those noble cabiers that would strip the Pariements of their right of remonstrance did so in a limited way, retaining the Pariements as a secondary constitutional safeguard when the Estates General was not in session. While the Pariements were forbidden to modify or remonstrate against laws approved by the Estates General, they were likewise forbidden to register any law promulgated by the king that had not been so approved. The ability to reject decrees unless approved by the

Estates General would potentially transform the Pariements into a kind of Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 'supreme court', preventing breaches of the constitution without threatening to usurp the representative role of the Estates General The nobles of Etain, in Lorraine, expressed this well, writing that the laws, 'pendant la tenue meme de l'Assemblee nationale, soient envoyees au Parlement de Paris, les pairs y seant, et a tous les autres pariements du royaume pour y etre publiees et inscrites sur leurs registres et placees sous la garde de ces cours souveraines, lesquelles ne pourront se permettre d'y faire aucune modification, mais qui continueront comme ci-devant a etre chargees des ordonnances du royaume, du maintien de la constitution et des droits nationaux', and when the Estates General was in recess, the courts would retain the right of remonstrance.45 Thus, the Estates General would be the premier representative body, but it would rely on the courts to protect its prerogatives when it was not in session.46 This system, proposed in only nineteen noble cabiers and eight third estate cabiers, would have gone further towards creating a separation of powers than the primarily consultative role envisaged for the Estates General. A different tactic to change the role of the sovereign courts was to alter their composition rather than limit their powers. As we see in Table 6, one-fifth of third estate cabiers demanded a reorganization of the courts to include qualified men from the third estate, in most cases fillinghal f of the seats of each court. For example, the third estate of Aval, in Franche-Comte, asked that the sovereign courts be formally suppressed and replaced with courts having at least half of their members drawn from the third estate.47 Notably, very few noble cabiers endorsed this idea.48 The issue of juridical competence as a prerequisite for entering the Pariements aroused more interest from the nobles (though still only 7 per cent of the cabiers demanded it), and it was also important to the third estate (with 18 per cent of the cabiers seeking it). The nobles of Charolles, in Burgundy, gave a typical formulation of this demand, asking that 'les pouvoirs de magistrats et de juges ne soient conferes qu'apres un examen public et rigoureux' as well as asking for eight years' experience as

45 AP ii. 215 For another example, sec the combined cabier of the clergy and nobles of Uxheim, in Nancy, AP v. 715. 46 On attempts to set up such a power during the earty French Revolution. M Gauchet, La revolution des pouvoirs. la souverainteti, le people et la representation, 1789-1799 (1995) 47 Hyslop, Guide, p 209 It is worth noting the similarity between this demand and the judicial reforms attempted by both Maupeou and Lomenie de Brienne 48 Only 2 per cent of noble cabiers included this demand 176 REPRESENTATION WITHOUT REVOLUTION

Table 7 Pariements Noble Third Estate

Expected Observed Expected Observed Clusters of demands found in cabiers No/% No/% No /% No 1%

1 Pariements stripped of right of remonstrance 14/11 19/15 6/4 8/6 and Pariements as secondary bulwark against

tyranny Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 2 Pariements stripped of right of remonstrance 1/1 l/l 8/6 11/8 and courts must be reorganized to have half of members form third estate Sources- Archives parlementairer, Hyslop, Guide to the general cabiers an avocat, a minimum age of thirty, and requesting that all such offices cease to be venal.49 Requiring the sovereign courts to include commoners or limiting judicial careers to men experienced in the law can be seen as an attempt by the third estate to open judicial careers to talent or to change the court system so that they might be judged by their own peers. However, one may also view the desire to include commoners as an attempt by the third estate to gain access to representation by participating in a body which had claimed that it was (and was widely believed to be) a representative of the people to the king, and of the king to the people Including more commoners in the courts or replacing venal officials with those considered to have special merit would presumably alter the balance of power in the courts, allowing the third estate to be better represented to the government. While this is less dramatic than shifting all representative power to the Estates General, it does show the centrality of reforming political representation in the effort to change the composition and role of the sovereign courts. Central to the general desire for accountable representation in government was the demand that one be able to select one's own representatives. The cabiers evince widespread concern with the elective nature of local, provincial and national representative bodies. As Table 8 shows, over a half of the cabiers of either order mention free elections of one kind or another, with the third estate showing more interest than the nobles. The demands focus on restoring the elective status of municipal officials and replacing appointed members of the provincial assemblies with elected ones. Further, the cabiers over- whelmingly supported the creation or re-establishing of provincial assemblies, with over 80 per cent of either noble and third estate cabiers making this demand, though the third estate seemed much more concerned with making them elective.50 The demands were by no means uniform, with different bailliages asking for everything from the restoration of defunct provincial estates to the creation of new assemblies on the model of Dauphine to the

AP U 616 33 per cent of the third estate cabiers, compared to 19 per cent of the noble cabiers ROBERT H BLACKMAN 177

Table 8 Free elections Nobles Third Estate Grievances/demands No /% No /%

1. Free elections mentioned 72/56 94/65 2 Free elections to municipal bodies 39/30 68/47 3 Free elections to provincial estates or assemblies 25/19 48/33 4 Free elections to Estates General 28/22 29/20 5 Establish/restore provincial estates or assemblies

108/84 118/82 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 6 Replace intendants with provincial estates or assemblies 21/16 23/16 Sources: Archives patiementaires; Hyslop, Guide to the general cabiers simple request that the assemblies created by Lomenie de Brienne in 1788 be made elective ahead of schedule. One-sixth of the noble and third estate cabiers went so far as to demand that the new provincial assemblies replace the intendants. For example, the third estate of La Rochelle wrote: 'Le Roi sera supplie d'attribuer aux Etats provinciaux toutes les Sanctions d'administration, indistinctement, et de restituer les fonctions sur le contentieux aux tribunaux qui en etaient originairement charges; ce qui rend indispensable la suppression des intendants.'51 This would place local administration in a body responsible to the local electors, guaranteeing adequate representation at a local level, much as the Estates General would do at the national level Nevertheless, allowing any number of offices to be elective, co-opted or appointed locally might have done little to undermine the authority of the monarchy. The powers sought for the provincial assemblies were seldom more than those held by the intendants and never more than those of the intendant's office combined with the right of remonstrance. In replacing them, the elected bodies would have had a function in the administration of the king's will, though by no means a direct role in its creation. Presumably, the deputies to the provincial estates would have been much more qualified to understand and act on the needs and desires of local constituencies than had been the intendants appointed by the monarchy. As their function would have been to transmit more efficiently the king's will to his subjects, and the needs of his subjects to the king, the system of provincial estates could only aid the monarchy to rule more effectively. The right to elect deputies to the Estates General was also held to be very important, with over 20 per cent of the cabiers from both orders demanding it.52 On elections to the Estates General, the cabiers revealed concern with the honesty of the proceedings: those that mentioned free elections often asked that their deputy ascertain that all other deputies were freely elected before proceeding to constitute the Estates General Clearly, the electors feared that

51 AP ill 479. 52 The number may seem small, but the drafting of the cabiers and selection of deputies to carry them implied that elections would henceforth be a normal feature of the Estates Genera). That one in five of the cabiers demanded a continuation of free elections is therefore quite significant, as they sought to define a departure from tradition granted by the monarchy as part of the constitution. 178 REPRESENTATION WITHOUT REVOLUTION the representatives of other bailliages might not be trustworthy, and that the presence of deputies who did not properly represent their constituencies would pollute the representative status of the Estates General. If one takes into account the large numbers of binding mandates given to the deputies by their electors, one can see that many electoral assemblies feared that their representatives might become compromised once they reached Versailles (Table 9).53 The bearer of an imperative mandate only represented his constituents in Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 so far as he adhered to their wishes as expressed in the cahier he carried. If he strayed from the powers he had been given, his constituents declared their intention to disown him, and to refuse to recognize any contract entered into by their former representative. A less common tactic simply forbade deputies to accept titles and rewards from the monarch while sitting in the Estates General. Five per cent of noble cabiers so constrain their deputies, and 3 per cent of third estate cabiers do likewise. The cabier of the third estate of Ploermel, in Brittany, is representative of these cabiers. The electors stated that 'les deputes qui seront nommes par l'assemblee ne puissent, pendant la duree des Etats generaux, accepter aucuns dons, pensions ou gratifications extraordinaires, ni meme des lettres d'anoblissement, afin d'eloigner tout ce qui pourrait alterer la confiance qui leur a merite les suffrages de leur concitoyens'.54 Other electoral bodies declared that their deputies would be directly accountable to them for their actions in Versailles, or established a formal correspondence committee to oversee their behaviour. It is worth noting that only 5 per cent of the noble or third estate cabiers declared that the deputies to the Estates General represented, and were accountable, to the nation as a whole: instead, most deputies were meant to represent their order and their specific locale. Clearly, the deputies were meant to have one task only, that of representing their constituents.

IV Demands in the cabiers for the accountability of their representatives in government were only indirectly linked to Enlightenment rhetoric.55 Unambiguous evidence of liberal politics appears only in the demand for a free press, and even here caution outweighed any absolute defence of abstract rights. Though Chaussinand-Nogaret has claimed that the nobles sent to

53 Hyslop, Guide, pp 99-105 Of the 522 cabiers that Hyslop surveyed, 251 (48 per cent) had an imperative mandate These cabiers break down as 40 (25 per cent) from the clergy, 126 (82 per cent) from the nobles, 73 (38 per cent) from the third estate, 7 (50 per cent) from the united orders, 2 (100 per cent) of noble/third estate combined orders, 2 (67 per cent) of clergy/nobles combined orders, and 1 (100 per cent) of clergy/third estate combined orders Taken from Hyslop, Nationalism, p 245 M AP v 385. For a less explicit example see the cabier of the third estate from Nantes, in Brittany, AP iv 94 " R. Chartier, The cultural origins of the French Revolution (Durham, N C , 1991), pp 172-7. ROBERT H. BLACKMAN 179

Table 9 Accountability of deputies

Nobles Third Estate Grievances/demands No /% No /%

1 Deputies accountable to electoral body 9/7 2/1 2 Deputies must correspond with electoral body 4/3 8/6 3 Deputies prohibited from taking bribes 6/5 5/3 4 Deputies represent nation, not any particular interest or area 6/5 7/5 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 Sources- Archives pariementaires; Hyslop, Guide to the general cabiers

Versailles were 'preoccupied with safeguarding total freedom of expression',56 we see in Table 10 that almost all cabiers which demanded freedom of the press asked that this freedom be limited either by the king or the Estates General to preserve decency. Apart from the clerical cabiers, not one electoral assembly asked for more censorship, however.57 It is not entirely clear what 'free' meant in this context, though it certainly meant 'different from the current situation'. Nevertheless, calls for freedom of the press rested on the belief that the best ideas were forged in the market-place of ideas rather than within the secret councils of the monarchy. This implied that the knowledge of the monarch was finite, and that there were French subjects who knew more than their monarch. A free press, in opening up the market of ideas, was part of the attempt to broaden the base of the king's advisers theoretically (and very indirectly) to include all literate citizens. This very stance had been treated as lese-majeste in the recent past,58 when the division between the Republic of Letters and the advisers of the king had been an absolute one. In practice, while only the Estates General would directly advise the king, through the mechanism of a free press the entire Republic of Letters would provide counsel. This very indirect criticism of the monarch - the implication that his knowledge was finite, also found in the desire of the Estates General to advise the king on legislation - undermines a key feature the government Louis XTV had created, but falls very short of overturning it.59 Further, the lack of enthusiasm for publishing the debates of the Estates General seen in Table 10 makes it seem that a one-way stream of information was being preserved. The monarchy would benefit from the counsel of the Estates General, but the

56 Chaussinand-Nogaret, French nobility, p 164 57 In contrast, the clergy were much more interested in censorship Of the 147 clerical cabiers Tackett studied, 52 per cent demanded more censorship, and only 7 per cent wanted a free press 'in anything resembling the modern sense' Tackett, Religion, revolution, and reform, p 150 58 Certainly as late as the reign of Louis XV. Farge, Subversive words, p 138 59 The literature on the relationship between the Republic of Letters and public affairs is as vast as it is fascinating. See especially Chartler, Cultural origins, ch 2, J Habermas, The structural transformation of the public sphere (Cambridge, Mass., 1992); and R. Kosclleck, Critique and crisis (Cambridge, Mass , 1988) For apt criticism of the above works. K. M. Baker, 'Defining the public sphere in eighteenth-century France variations on a theme by Habermas', Habermas and the public sphere, ed C Calhoun (Cambridge, Mass , 1992), ch 8, B Nathans, 'Habermas's "public sphere" in the era of the French Revolution', Fr Hist Stud, 16 (1990), 620-44. See also D Goodman, The Republic of Letters (Ithaca, N.Y , 1994), and Gordon, Citizens without sovereignty. 180 REPRESENTATION WITHOUT REVOLUTION

Table 10 Free press and publicity

Nobles Third Estate Grievances/demands No7% No /%

1 Free press to be established with various limitations 99/77 105/73 2 More censorship needed to protect morals 0/0 0/0 3 Deliberations of Estates General to be made public 5/4 9/6 4 State finances to be made public 44/34 59/41

Source? Archives pariementaires, Hyslop, Guide to the general cabiers Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 government's affairs would not necessarily be made public in a nominally free press An obvious use for a free press would have been to provide commentary on financial matters, so that a well-informed Estates General could advise the king. Electoral assemblies throughout France recognized that the serious and continuing problems of the rise had led to the summoning of the Estates General, and over one-third of the noble cabiers and two-fifths of the third estate cabiers asked that the financialaffair s of the monarchy be made public. However, despite demands that the Estates General gain access to and influence over the king, the cabiers evinced surprisingly little desire go beyond the right to approve of new taxes Fiscal oversight was to be established - as had been promised to the Assembly of Notables in 178760 - but this seems to have been aimed towards preventing fraud rather than establishing control of policy. Taxes were to be approved by the Estates General, but the king was implicitly or explicitly left complete discretion over how to spend whatever money he received. As we can see in Table 11, fewer than 10 per cent of the cabiers sought control over the budget by the Estates General. The rest of the cabiers sought to regulate the finances of the monarchy indirectly by assuring that there was a periodic Estates General to advise the king. That the elites who sat in the electoral assemblies of early 1789 sought fiscal prudence based on counsel rather than control should come as no surprise to those familiar with Reinhardt Koselleck's idea of the growing sense of moral legitimacy among those elite groups excluded from governing. If the king's ministers had proved themselves unable to manage the king's financial affairs, the nation would have to aid them to make certain that they were more prudent.61 Note, however, that ensuring prudence in spending is quite different from seeking to control it. Nevertheless, 6 per cent of noble or third estate cabiers demanded that the Estates General have complete control of the budget, including the king's household expenses. This degree of control over the budget would have gready limited the sovereignty of the monarch. Overall, however, consent figures more prominently than outright control in matters of taxation. More than 10 per cent of noble cabiers denied the validity of all taxes enacted since 1614 (including a handful of cabiers that used language similar to that in the

60 Egret, Prerevolution, pp 62, 99 61 Koselleck, Critique and crisis, ch 10 and passim ROBERT H. BLACKMAN 181

Table 11 Finances

Nobles Third Estate Grievances/demands No /% No /%

1 Estates General to decide all spending, including the king's household 8/6 8/6 budget 2 All taxes passed since 1614 declared invalid and to be renewed on a 13/10 9/6 provisional basis only

Sources- Archives parlementaires, Hyslop, Guide to tbe general cabiers Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 laws passed in the National Assembly on 17 June 1789) based on the argument that if taxes had not been consented to, they were not legal.62 Under 5 per cent of third estate cabiers contain similar claims It is interesting to note that the demands for the repeal of all taxes appeared in some of the noble cabiers most dedicated to preserving privilege, while demands for the verification and nationalization of the debt appear in a wide cross-section of cabiers from both orders. Given that demands for fiscal responsibility had been made first by the Assembly of Notables, it seems odd that demands for the repeal of existing taxes were not present in more cabiers. Further, their appearance juxtaposed with a wide spectrum of other demands should make us more cautious about locating the origins of major revolutionary reforms within a narrowly defined 'radical' group centred around the Breton and Dijonnais deputies Nobles who sought to protect their privileges, who had no interest in founding a liberal, participatory monarchy were also interested in protecting the moral and fiscal rights of the 'nation'. They made demands for fiscal control and responsibility which have in the past been taken as proof of the revolutionary intentions of the third estate.63 These demands for the repeal of existing taxes or seeking financial oversight probably show more concern with ensuring honesty and responsibility in government than with taking control over policy. However revolutionary any of the above demands may seem, they must be viewed in the context of the frequency and duration of the meetings demanded for the Estates General. The Estates General could only act as a regulatory or legislative body if it was in session, and the length of the period between meetings changes the way in which we must view its anticipated role in governing. In 1614, the general cabier of the third estate had asked that the Estates General be summoned at least once every ten years, a perennial desire on the part of all three orders M The monarchy had traditionally summoned the

62 For examples, see the cabiers of the nobles of Alenijon in Alencon (AP i 715) and of Dourdan in Orleans (AP ill 249) Given the variety of claims made regarding the rights of the Estates General to oversee the legislative process and give or withhold its consent, it should come as no surprise that some 2 per cent of the cabiers deny the validity of all laws passed since 1614 63 Francois Furet claimed that the decision to guarantee the monarchy's debt and repeal of existing taxes by the National Assembly on 17 June 1789 represented the 'birth of the Revolution' F Furet, Revolutionary France 1770-1880 (Oxford, 1992), p 63, see also Doyle, Oxford history, p. 105. M Hayden, Estates General, pp 188, 212 182 REPRESENTATION WITHOUT REVOLUTION

Table 12 Periodicity of Estates General

Nobles Third Estate Grievances/demands No /" No./%

1 Estates General to be regularly convened at an interval of two or 122/95 130/90 more years 2 Estates General to be convened yearly or sit permanently 8/6 3/2

Sources: Archives pariementaires; Hyslop, Guide to the general cabiers Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021

Estates General in in ad hoc manner, and the desire to transform it into a body meeting at regular intervals revealed a fundamental disagreement between the monarchy and the Estates. This was a traditional disagreement, however, dating back to the earliest days of the Estates. Demanding a regularly convened assembly was not necessarily a revolutionary act. In the cabiers of 1789 the three orders overwhelmingly demanded a periodic return for the assembly, with the vast majority requesting an interval of two or more years, as we see in Table 12.65 Demands that the Estates General meet annually or remain sitting indefinitely certainly posed a challenge to the sovereignty of the monarch. A permanent Estates General could have meant the transformation of an ad hoc consultative body into a regular, post-1688 English-style Parliament. This would have dramatically altered the way in which the French government functioned. To Chaussinand-Nogaret, the demand in so many noble cabiers for permanent or periodic assemblies was meant to end the monarch's great powers to govern, creating a constitutional monarchy.66 However, as we see in Table 12, only 6 per cent of the noble cabiers, and only 2 per cent of those of the third estate, favoured a permanent assembly or annual meetings. The rest that mention a specific frequency for meetings opt for a longer interval between them. The longer interval is the key to understanding the relationship of the Estates General to the king as expressed in the cabiers. A longer interval left the king's authority largely intact, as he was required only to seek the advice of the Estates General when they were in session, and to bear in mind their interests when they were not. All of the demands for publicity, accountability, participation and consultation in the cabiers add up to traditional reformist claims if there were to be up to ten years between meetings. Oversight by the Estates General would have impinged little on the king's political authority. Rather, it was intended to ensure that the Estates General could provide the king with moral guidance while ensuring that the monarch would be more responsive to his subjects' needs. While the system of political representation envisaged in the cabiers of 1789 was different in many ways, the basic demands of the cabiers were much in line with those of 1614 and hardly

65 Tackett noted that 76 per cent of clerical cabiers asked for a permanent or periodic Estates General. Tackett, Religion, revolution and regional culture, p 148 n. 77 66 Chaussinand-Nogaret, French nobility, p 157. ROBERT H. BLACKMAN 183 indicate an unprecedented revolutionary effort on the part of the electoral assemblies.

As we have seen, there -were remarkable similarities between noble and third

estate demands concerning the future role of the Estates General and reforms Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 in political representation. While the noble and third estate cabiers often disagree on the internal policing of the Estates General (particularly on questions of meeting and voting), there exists much agreement on the relationship of the Estates General to the king, the ministers and the sovereign courts. There was also broad agreement on the need for free speech, free elections and financial reforms. A substantial minority of the cabiers of the nobility and third estate agreed that there needed to be a change in the way the nation was represented to its government First and most importantly, over a third of the cabiers, noble or third estate, placed the Estates General in a position of authority over either the sovereign courts or the ministers.67 One- fifth of the noble and a tenth of the third estate cabiers asked for both, reserving representative roles in government to the Estates General and the monarch alone. The cabiers also show that many electoral assemblies intended to replace the Parlements with the Estates General as the primary line of defence against tyranny, not to create strong new checks on the king's authority.68 Second, the deputies to the Estates General of 1789 did not see themselves as simple servants of the king who had come passively to consent to government- sponsored reform. The king had summoned a body to garner support for his policies and provide him with information about his kingdom. What arrived was a body dedicated to serving those who had sent them. They intended to take back from appointed officials the right of the Estates General to represent the dispersed peoples of France to their monarch. While there was no single programme of reform, there was a widespread desire to reorganize the representative practices of the late eighteenth

67 As we have seen In Tables 5 and 6, 34 per cent of noble cabiers required Parlements to register new laws without reservation if they came from the Estates General, and 45 per cent demanded that the ministers be accountable to the Estates General for affairs beyond the royal finances For the third estate, the proportions are 28 and 38 per cent, respectively The number of cabiers which carry both demands is consistent with what one would expect from a random distribution of demands - 21 per cent of the noble cabiers, and 11 per cent of third estate ones 68 Indeed, the rhetoric of independence and defiance found in the cabiers echoed previous parlementary resistance to the monarch. Particularly pronounced were echoes of demands made during the Fronde. R Mousnier, The Fronde', Preconditions of revolutions in early modem Europe, ed R. ForsterandJ Greene (Baltimore, Md, 1970), pp 131-59 184 REPRESENTATION WITHOUT REVOLUTION likely to present accurately the grievances of the governed and to administer fairly - and legally - the orders of the king. The cabiers do not support claims that the deputies arrived in Versailles ready to install a constitutional monarchy on the British model. Many cahiers demanded that the king share legislative power •with the Estates General, but they reserved the executive power for the king, and often allowed the king to legislate in the absence of the Estates General, subject to their eventual verification.69 That the majority of cabiers asked for the right to consent to new Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 laws, rather than for the power unilaterally to create them, implies that these demands sought to establish or restore the right of the Estates General to advise the monarch, rather than to bypass him and rule the nation in his name. The legislative role of the king was almost entirely preserved, as the Estates General sought only the guarantee that they would be consulted in legislation, not that they be its source Cabiers which asked for the destruction of major features of the ancien regime system of privilege often took a quite moderate stance vis-a- vis the monarchy, seeking to guarantee the role of the Estates General without unduly restricting the activities of the king. As with the cabier of the third estate of Bar-le-Duc discussed above, the goal seems to have been to ensure that the Estates General could advise the king prior to the implementation of new laws Even with the powers of government theoretically divided into executive, judicial and legislative fields, the responsibility for the first two mixed in the body of the king, and he either monopolized or shared (often retaining the lion's share) in the function of the third.70 With veto power over legislation, the right to initiate legislation, the right to legislate in the Estates General's absence, and control of the central administration, the king would have retained much more power in office than his English counterpart or the American President. The deputies were to replace the non-elected representatives of the people in government, but they were to continue a system in which the executive power, the judicial power and a majority share of the legislative power - the right of consent to and/or creation of all legislation - were all maintained in the hands of the king. In May 1789, a significant minority of the noble and third estate deputies arrived in Versailles prepared to replace the rule of ministers by the rule of a king advised by the Estates General. Let there be no doubt that such a demand was a call for serious change, but it was not the full-blown revolution envisaged by the abbe Sieyes or the deputies who would later form die Breton club. Given that the estates had long desired regular meetings in order to gain the ear of the king, it is difficult to place demands that the king be advised by the estates as 'revolutionary' in the modern sense of that word. More than

" For examples, see the cabiers of the nobles of Etain in Nancy (AP il 214-20), the third estate of Metz (AP ill 765-71) and the third estate of Audi (AP U 96-9) 70 Confusion over the separation of powers was widespread. For example, the cabier of the nobles of Etain, in Nancy, argued that judicial power was an extension of executive power, not that it was a separate power AP ii 216 ROBERT H. BLACKMAN 185 demanding an overthrow of the absolute monarchy created by Louis XIV, the cabiers showed a recognition that government under Louis XVI meant, for the most part, rule by ministers, subject to the approval of the king. Through the cabiers, the electoral assemblies sought to restrict the role of these ministers, diffusing their powers throughout the judicial and legislative branches of the government, while preserving the rights of the king, leaving him as the ultimate political authority: the primary legislator, sole executive and final source of justice. While this would amount to serious reform, it was Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/15/2/159/627887 by guest on 29 September 2021 hardly a revolutionary refiguring of government. As is so often the case, an attempt to clear up one question has left us with more problems to solve If, as demonstrated above, the cabiers show a profound interest in reform of government but do not seek revolutionary change or even a constitutional monarchy, as Chaussinand-Nogaret would have it, then perhaps Baker is right. Perhaps it was only once the deputies to the Estates General were willing to abandon the wishes of their constituents that the Revolution could proceed.