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2002

Republicanism in France

Paul R, Hanson Butler University, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Hanson, Paul R. "Republicanism in France," Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment (Oxford University Press, 2002). Available from: digitalcommons.butler.edu/facsch_papers/497/

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and martial citizenry. Acting upon the desire to promote Gibson, Alan. "Ancients, Moderns, and AmeIicans: The Republican­ Independenee, the Lockean natural rights philosophy embedded republican system of government. Given the excesses of homogeneity, states often passed laws excluding nonwhite ism·Liberalism Debate Revisited." History o{ Polítical Thought 21 in it, and the interactions within the founders' polítical thought of the Terror, which seemed to confirm in the minds of its (2000), 261-307. This essay examines the scholarly consensus that males from polítical participation. Meanwhile, women Lockean natural rights philosophy with other strains of American critics their skepticism about republican government, it were excluded from polítical participation on the beliefs has emerged in the last decade over the question of whether the polítical thought. political thought of the American founders is best described as a Zuekert, Miehael. Natural Rights and the New Republicanism. Prince­ is remarkable that the ideal of a republic has remained that they would be corrupted by politics, could not meet species of liberalism or republicanism. ton, N.J., 1994. Thís study criticizes proponents of the republican so enduring ever since, not only among French men and the republican requirements of economic independence Kerber, Linda. Women of the Republic. Chapel HiIl, N.C., 1980. synthesis for misunderstanding the character of comrnonwealth women but for much of the rest of the world as well. and martial virtue, and were naturally suited as "republi­ Documents the ideology of "republican motherhood" and the legal ideology and proposes that the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century The Idea of Republicanism before the Revolution. and social status ofwomen in the early republic. English radical s (and subsequently the AmeIican founders) com­ can mothers" who could best serve the nation by preparing Enlightenment thinkers and French revolutionaries may their male children for polítical participation. Lutz, Donald S. Popular Consent and Popular Control: Whig Politieal bined Locke's understanding of the ends of government with a Theory in the Early State Constitutions. Baton Rouge, La .. 1980. republican scicnce of polities. have been skeptical about republicanism, but that is not More commonly, though, strains within the unique Lutz establishes the differences between the understandings of ALAN GIBSON to say that they never discussed it. Before the eighteenth amalgam of America's republicanism have also provided consent embodied in the state constitutions written from 1776 to century, however, Catholic political theorists in France an inspiration for democratic reform and a perfectionistic 1787 and the Federalist conception of consent wrltten into the U.S. made reference to republícanism chiefly to castigate the Constitution oE 1788. impulse within American political thought. The Lockean France Huguenot (Protestant) minority for their alleged disloy­ liberal strain within American republicanism has forced McCoy, Drew. The Elusive Republic: Po/itical Economy in Jeffersonian America. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1980. Definitive study of the political alty to the monarchy. Across the Channel, the English repeated confrontations between Americans' professed Early in July 1791, just weeks after Louis XVI' s failed flight economy of the American founders and their understandings of the to Varennes, the marquis de Condorcet gave a speech to Civil War, the executíon of Charles 1, and the eventual beliefs in natural equalíty and the equal rights ofall and íts social and economic conditions necessary for the maintenance of emergence of Oliver Cromwell as a despotic ruler did republican governments. the Cercle Social, a Parisian polítical club, advocating the exclusionary policies. Meanwhile, Country Party ideology much to confirm the impression among French thinkers Pocock, J. G. A. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Po/itical creation of a republic in France. This speech, in the words has reenforced Americans' suspicions about governmental that republics were not a stable form of government. corruption and their beliefs in the necessity of virtue and Thought and the Atlantic Republic Tradition. Princeton, N.J., 1975. of Pi erre Nora, "marked the conversion of the Enlighten­ Along with the studies ofBailyn and Wood, one of the masterworks ment to the republican ideal." This trenchant observation Out of that political instability, however, carne the writ­ vigilance in both public officials and the citizenry. of the "republican synthesis." suggests a number of themes to explore. The first and ings of polítical theorists such as Locke, Shaftesbury, and Rahe, Paul. Republics: Anden! and Modern: Classical Republicanism [See also Adams, John; American Revolution; Bill of most obvious is that the declaration of the first French Bolingbroke, and these drew the attention ofFrench intel­ and the American Revolution. Chapel HiIl, N.C .. 1992. Encyclopedic lectuals in the eighteenth century. The new century also Rights; Constitution of the United States; Declaration analysis of the history of republicanism from the ancíents to Republic in September 1792 was not a logical outgrowth of Independence; Democracy; Federalist, The; Federalists the American Revolution, stressing the fundamental differences of Enlíghtenment philosophy. Indeed, for most thinkers brought a revival of interest in the Greek and Roman and Antifederalists; Jefferson, Thomas; Natural Rights; between andent and American republicanismo of the French Enlightenment, republicanism was not an classics. These influences are apparent in the works of and Polítical Philosophy.] Rodgers, Daniel T. "Republicanism: The Career of a Concept." ideal at all, but rather a discredited form of government Montesquieu, most notably in L'esprit des loís (1748). A Journal of American History 79 (June 1992), 11-38. A definitive nobleman himself and a member of the parlement of historiographical essay on the emergence of the republican inter­ that had been shown historically to lead either to mob BIBLIOGRAPHY Bordeaux, Montesquieu ultimately carne to be seen in pretation, the methodological assumptions underlying it, and its rule and anarchy or to tyranny. Second, among the revo­ Appleby, Joyce. "Republicanism in OId and New Contexts." Willwm transformation. lutionaries themselves, there were still very few committed France principally as an advocate of aristocratic restraint and Mary Quarterly 42 (1982), 20-34. Here, and in her other Shalhope, Robert. "Toward a Republican Synthesis: The Emergence of on the despotic tendencies of monarchical power. In his writings, Appleby has called for the interpretation of Jeffersonian republicans as late as the summer of 1791. Even in the an Understanding of Republicanism in American Historiography." politicaI and economic ideas as a species of Lockean liberalismo midst of the crisis triggered by the king's flight, a num­ theoretical discussion of different forms of government, William and Mary Quarterly 29 (1972), 49-80. Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins o{ the American Revolution. however, he devoted considerable attention to republican­ Shalhope. Robert. "Republicanism and Early American Historiogra­ ber of revolutionaries whom we would today consider Cambridge, Mass., 1967; repr., 1992. Bailyn's pathbreaking study phy." Willwm and Mary Quarterly 39 (1982), 334-356. In these two radicals publicly disavowed the idea of a republic, and ism, describing at length its "ideal type" - the participatory traced out the importance of "commonwealth ideology" to Ameri­ essays, Shalhope analyzes the body of scholarship that created the the deputies of the Constituent Assembly presented to republic exemplified by the ancient Greek polis-as well can Revolutionaries and launched a historiographical revolution. "republican synthesis." as the modern liberal republíc that he had observed at first Banning, Lance. The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ide. the French people the fiction that the king had been kid­ Smith, Rogers. Civic ideals: Conflictíng Visions o{ Citizenship in ology. Ithaca, N.Y., 1978. Challenging Gordon Wood's contention napped, in an effort to preserve public confidence in the hand while living in England. Montesquieu contrasted the U.S. History. New Haven, Conn., 1997. A magisterial work that that the formation ofthe American Constitution of 1787 marked the virtue that he viewed as an essential attribute of the pop­ charts the importance of inegalitarian and aseriptive ideologies monarchy. At least sorne of the people of Paris refused to "end of classicaI politics," Banning contends that cornmonwealth in AmeIican history and examines their relationship to America's accept that fiction, but when they gathered on the Champ ulace of a republic to the honor among subjects of a ideology continued to be an impOltant dimension of Jeffersonian liberal republicanism. de Mars on 17 July 1791 to sign petitions calling for the monarchy and the fear that prevailed under despotismo opposition ideology even as the Jeffersonians modernized and Wood, Gordon S. The Creatíon ofthe American Republic, 1776-1787. Although Montesquieu concluded a republican form adapted the ideas that they inherited. king's abdication, the marquis de Lafayette ordered the that Chapcl HiIl, N.C., 1969; repr., 1998. Wood's c1assic study of the Banning, Lance. "Jeffersonian Ideology Revisited: Liberal and Clas­ National Guard to open fire on the crowd. In the after­ of government was ill suited to a country like France, his transformation of American political thought from the republi­ sicaI Ideas in the New American Republic." William and Mary emphasis on civic virtue stands as an important contribu­ canism of the American Revolution to the formation of a "new math of this massacre, those who had most actively rallied Quarterly 39 (1982), 3-19. Banning counters Appleby's liberal science of politics" based upon self-interest at the framíng of the the people against the king were forced into hiding, and tion to the French republican tradition. interpretation by urging scholars to understand Jeffersonian Constitutíon. Wood's study is partícularly strong in its analysís the idea of a republic became once again disreputable. The figure who looms largest in the eighteenth-century ideas as a complex blend of modern liberalism and classical of the formation of state constitutions in the period between the republicanismo It was another year until a popular insurrection toppled development ofrepublican ideas in France is Jean-Jacques Revolution and the formation of the Constitution. Cornell, Saul. The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting the monarchy (10 August 1792), leading to the declara­ Rousseau. In his Discours sur ['origine et les fondemens Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalísm of the American Revolution. New Tradition in America, 1788-1828. Chapel Hil!, N.C., 1999. ExcelIent de l'inégalite parmi les hommes (Discourse on the Ori­ York, 1992. This Pulitzer pIize-winning study examines the tion of the first French Republic on 22 September 1792, study of Antífederalist thought in general and in parti(:ular of the democratization of American politics during the age of rcvolution. despite the best efforts of the revolutionary leadership to gins of Inequality, 1755) and Du contraet social (The Antifederalists' legacy of the sU5picion of centralized power. Wood argucs that the "monarchical" culture of colonial society was preserve the constitutional monarchy. This first French Social Contract, 1762), Rousseau called into question the Elkins, Stanley, and EIic McKitrick. The Age of Federalism: The Early republicanized as a result of the AmeIican Revolution and that divine right of monarchs and presented a theoretical argu­ American Republic, 1788-1800. New York, 1993. The definitive Republíc was short-lived (though Napoleon preserved the this unintentional1y led to the formation of a modern, democratic, name even after declaring himself emperor), this ment that all legitimate government must derive from histoIical narrative of the 17905, this work is especially important capitalistic Arnerica. and popular sovereignty, as expressed through the general for its exploration ofthe conflícting understandings of the character Zuckert, Michael. The Natural Rights Republic: Studies in the Founda­suggests a final theme: the difficulty that the deputies of American republicanism held by the Jeffersonian Republicans tion of the American Political Tradition. Notre Dame, Ind., 1996. encountered in reaching consensus on a republican con­ will. Rousseau idealized the Greek city-states, particu­ and the Federalists. One of the best interpretations in print of the Declaration of stitution, and their inability to put into practice a workable larly Sparta, but he joined Montesquieu in doubting the 432 REPUBLlCANISM: France applicability of the republican forms of the ancíent world by creating new royal courts, the religious controversy that that "the pril to the modern French state. Specifically, Rousseau ínsisted had simmered for twenty years became an open political nation." Whi on the incompatibility between popular sovereignty and controversy, with Jansenist parlementaires taking the lead to the peoplc representatíon. In a country of twenty million people, a in the pamphlet war against the Maupeou reforms. themonarch participatory republic was a virtual impossibility, and in Notable among these pamphlets was one published in vesting legis Rousseau's view, the general will could not be expressed Bordeaux by Guillaume-Joseph Saige, a young lawyer while granti through representatives. Unlike Montesquieu, Rousseau whose cousin sat on the parlement of Bordeaux. In so, the depu scorned the English system, asserting that the English his pamphlet, Catechisme du Citoyen, Saige combined which Robe were truly free only at the moment when they particípated Jansenist and Rousseauist ideas, arguing, on the one hand, monarch at in elections. that the conciliarist tradition within the French Catholic paid heed to Sorne historians have questioned the influence of Rous­ Church represented a kind of republicanism, and, on the be the embo seau on the eve of the Revolution, pointing out that, other, that the many communes of rural France repre­ granted the ] between 1762 and 1789, only two editions of Du contrae! sented "so many little republics within the great republic it ignored Re social were published. It is worth noting, however, that of the French nation." So incendiary was this pamphlet, not practical his novels lA nouvelle Heloi'se and Émile were enormously with its direct challenge to monarchical despotism and its would ultim, popularduringthoseyears and contained manyofhis polit­ insistence that sovereignty was embodied not in the king That Louü ical ideas. Moreover, between 1789 and 1799, Du contrae! but in the nation, that the parlement of Bordeaux itself role as cons1 social was republished thirty-two times, ample evidence of ordered it to be burned. ing, but the an extensive readingpublic, and Rousseau became a virtual The Estates-General. A vast array of pamphlets and the Legislati' patron saint of the influential Jacobin clubs. remonstrances defended the parlements as the legit­ ing to exerc Rousseau's visíon of the ideal republic placed more imate constitutional restraint on royal power at the they claimec demands on its citizens than did Montesquieu's, calling end of the ancien régime, but not all political theo­ monarch. It, on them to sacrifice individual interests to the civic com­ rists looked to those institutions for the solution to talions of M. munity of virtue, the res publica of the ancíent city-states. France's polítical woes. Two works by Gabriel Bonnot themonarch It was for this same reason, in part, that Denis Diderot, de Mably-Observations sur l'histoire de France (1765, TheRema coeditor of the Encyclopédie, considered the republic 1788) and Des Devoirs et des droits du citoyen (Duties as he called I unsuited to the modern nation-state. Human psychology and Rights of the Citizen, 1789)-were published at the expressed hi. had changed, in his view; modern men desired happiness very moment of the ancien régime's final constitutional taught what and self-fulfillment and were no longer willing to devote crisis and championed the Estates-General as the onIy Under the n themselves entirely to the common good. It is not surpris­ legitimate embodiment of the nation's sovereignty. Like the deputies, ing that the entry "Republic" in the Encyclopédie, written most of the other works cited here, Mably's writings were of the ideal by Louis Jaucourt, focused almost entirely on the ancient couched in the language of classical republicanismo whittled awa republics and described the form as historically outmoded. The Estates-General, convened by Louis XVI in late government Religion and Republicanism. We must look not only 1788, was a traditional institution, but it had not met since stability and to polítical philosophy for traces of republicanism in 1614. This lengthy adjournment, coinciding with the con­ of popular I eighteenth-century France. Sorne important recent schol­ solidation of royal absolutism, left much room for debate for the creal arship, in particular the work of Dale Van Kley, has about both the composition of the Estates-General and the of popular pointed to the Jansenist controversy within the French procedures for its deliberations. Six weeks of stalemate of Napoleon Catholic Church as an important source of progressive between aristocratic and commoner delegates followed thinkers tba political ideas critical of the excesses of absolutist monar­ the opening session on 5 May 1789; then the Estates­ France seerr chy. Beginning with the papal bull Unigenitus (1713) and General underwent a revolutionary transformation. On 17 [See also culminating with an order of the archbishop of Paris in June, the majority of delegates declared themselves to be losophy; ant the 1750s denying them the sacraments, Jansenists found a National Assembly, no longer meeting at the pleasure themselves the targets of concerted royal persecution. The of the king but rather as representatives of the nation Baker, Keith J itself. Faced with a financial crisis mobiliza­ response of the Jansenist minority to that persecution and popular See especia focused criticísm not onIy on the hierarchy of the Catholic tion throughout France, Louis XVI had no choice but to and intelle< Church (by appealing to the conciliar tradition within the accept this declaration. France now became a constitu­ ideas. church), but also on the sacred character of the monarchy tional monarchy. Baker, Keith 1 itself. Many Jansenists were prominent members of the The Role of the King. What was the place of the king 1987. Essa) frrst as pap parlement of Paris, the high court (largely aristocratic) to be in the new French polity? The preamble to the oftheFren responsible for registering royal edicts. When Louis XV's Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, adopted Bell, David A. chancellor, Maupeou, imposed reforms in 1770 that effec­ by the National Assembly in late August 1789, made no OldRegime tively stripped the parlements of much of their authority mentíon of the king, and Article III stated quite plaínIy the legalpr REPUBLICANISM: The Netherlands 433 432 REPUBLICANISM: France

Chartier, Roger. The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution. applicabilíty of the republican fonns of the ancient world by creating new royal courts, the religious controversy that that "the principIe of all sovereignty rests essentially in the nation." While sovereignty had now shifted from the king Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. Durham, N.e., 1991. A reflective to the modern French state. Specifically, Rousseau insisted had simmered for twenty years became an open political study by one of France's leading cultural historians. on the incompatibility between popular sovereignty and controversy, with Jansenist parlementaires taking the lead to the people, the deputies had no intention of abolishing Fontana, Biancamaria, ed. The lnvention ofthe Modern Republic. Cam­ representation. In a country of twenty míllion people, a in the pamphlet war against the Maupeou refonns. the monarchy. In September, the Assembly drafted articles bridge, t 994. A stimulating collection of essays byan internatíonal array of scholars of history and polítical theory. participatory republic was a virtual impossibility, and in Notable among these pamphlets was one published in vesting legislative authority in a unicameral legislature, while granting a suspensive veto to the king. In doing Hignonnet, Patrice. Sister Republics: lhe Origins of French and Ameri­ Rousseau's view, the general will could not be expressed Bordeaux by Guillaume-Joseph Saige, a young lawyer can Republicanism. Cambridge, Mass., 1988. Focuses principally on so, the deputies created an inherently unstable situation, through representatives. Unlike Montesquieu, Rousseau whose cousin sat on the parlement of Bordeaux. In the social and cultural contexts in which republican ideas emerged scorned the English system, asserting that the Englísh his pamphlet, Catechisme du Citoyen, Saige combined which Robespierre would later tenn a "republic with a in the two eountries. were truly free only at the moment when they participated Jansenist and Rousseauist ideas, arguing, on the one hand, monarch at its head." The constitution of 1791 elearly Hunt, Lynn A., David Lansky, and Paul Hanson. "The FailUl:e of the paid heed to unicamerallegislature was to Liberal Republic in Franee, 1795-1799: The Road to Brumaire." in elections. that the conciHarist tradition within the French Catholic Rousseau-the be the embodiment of the general will-but it seemingly JournalofModern History 51 (1979) 734-759. Sorne historians have questioned the influence of Rous­ Church represented a kind of republicanism, and, on the Lucas, Colín, ed. lhe Polítical Culture ofthe French Revolution. Oxford, granted the king the power to thwart the general will, and seau on the eve of the Revolution, pointing out that, other, that the many communes of rural Franee repre­ t 988. Essays by an intemational array ofleading seholars, delívered between 1762 and 1789, only two editions of Du contract sented "so many little republics within the great republic it ignored Rousseau's injunction that the general will could first as papers at a conference in conjunction with the Bicentennial social were published. It is worth noting, however, that of the French nation." So ineendiary was this pamphlet, not practically be represented. Those unresolved tensions of the French Revolution. Nicolet, Claude. L'idée républicaine en France, 1789-1924. París, 1982. his novels La nouvelle Heloise and Émíle were enonnously with its direct challenge to monarchical despotism and its would ultimately bring down the constitutional monarchy. That Louis XVI proved unwilling to accept his limited Focu.~esprincipally on the nineteenth century, but begins with an popularduring those years and containedmany ofhis poli t­ insistence that sovereignty was embodied not in the king overview of eighteenth-eentury currents. role as constitutional hardly be surpris­ ical ideas. Moreover, between 1789 and 1799, Du contract but in the nation, that the parlement of Bordeaux itself monarch should Nora, Píerre. "Republic." In A Critical Dictionary of the French ing, but the deputies of the Constituent Assembly, and social was republished thirty-two times, ample evidence of ordered it to be burned. Revolution, pp. 792-805, edited by Fran~oisFuret and Mona Ozouf. Cambridge, Mass., 1989. An exeellent short essay on the idea of the an extensive readingpublic, and Rousseau became a virtual The Estates·General. A vast array of pamphlets and the Legislative Assembly that followed, also were unwill­ republíc as it developed during the course of the Revolution. patron saint of the influential Jacobin clubs. remonstrances defended the parlements as the legit­ ing to exercise decisively the national sovereignty that they claimed to represent by deposing the recalcitrant Van Kley. Dale K. 1he Religious Origins of lhe French Revolution: From Rousseau's vision of the ideal republic placed more imate constitutional restraint on royal power at the Calvin 10 the Civil Constitution, 1560-1791. New Haven, Conn., monarch. was the people of Paris, joined by several bat­ demands on its citizens than did Montesquieu's, calling end of the anden régime, but not all polítical theo­ It t 996. A pathbreaking study that explores in detail the complícated talions of Marseillais and other provindals, who toppled on them to sacrifice individual interests to the civic com­ rists looked to those institutions for the solution to influence of Jansenism on eighteenth-eentury polítical eulture in the monarchy in a violent insurrection on 10 August 1792. Franee. munity of virtue, the res publica of the ancient city-states. France's political woes. Two works by Gabriel Bonnot The Remams of Republicanism. One year earlier, even Van Kley, Dale K., ed. 11ze French Idea of Freedom: n/e Old Regime It was for this same reason, in part, that Denis Diderot, de Mably-Observations sur l'histoire de France (1765, as he called for the creation of a republic, Condorcet had and the Declaration of Rights of 1789. Stanford, Calíf., 1994. A coeditor of the Encyclopédie, considered the republic 1788) and Des Devoirs et des droits du citoyen (Duties collection of essays by various scholars focusing on one aspeet of expressed his concern that the people would need to be unsuited to the modern nation-state. Human psychology and Rights of the Citizen, 1789)-were published at the the republíean ideal. taught what a republic was. But who was to teach them? had changed, in his view; modern men desired happiness very moment of the anden régime's final constitutional Vineent, K. Steven. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French Under the republican regime, even the most radical of Republican Socialism. Oxford, 1984. See especially pp. 34-41 for a and self-fulfillment and were no longer willing to devote crisis and championed the Estates-General as the only the deputies, the Jacobins, remained profoundly skeptical remarkably concise and insightful discussion of republíeanism in themselves entirely to the common good. It is not surpris­ legitimate embodiment of the nation's sovereignty. Like of the ideal of popular sovereignty. Each government the thought of Montesquieu and Rousseau. ing that the entry "Republic" in the Encyclopédie, written most of the other works cited here, Mably's writings were Wright, Johnson Kent. A Classical Republican in Eighteenth-Century whittled away at it, first in the name ofemergency wartime by Louis Jaucourt, focused almost entirely on the ancient couched in the language of classical republicanismo France: The Politicallhought of Mably. Cambridge, 1999. government under the Terror, and then in the name of republics and described the fonn as historically outmoded. The Estates-General, convened by Louis XVI in late PAUL R. HANSON stability and order under the Directory. If the mobilization Religion and Republicanism. We must look not only 1788, was a traditional institution, but it had not met since of popular politics was responsible, almost by accident, to poBtical philosophy for traces of republicanism in 1614. This lengthy adjournment, coinciding with the con­ The Netherlands for the creation of the French Republic, the suppression eighteenth-century France. Sorne important recent schol­ solidation of royal absolutism, left much room for debate of popular politics led, almost unwittingly, to the rise arship, in particular the work of Dale Van Kley, has about both the composition ofthe Estates-General and the Historians long believed that Dutch polítical thought of of Napoleon Bonaparte. The consensus of Enlightenment pointed to the Jansenist controversy within the French procedures for its deliberations. Six weeks of stalemate the eighteenth century was not worthy of a place in the thinkers that a republic was not suited to a country like Catholic Church as an important source of progressive between aristocratic and commoner delegates followed history of republicanismo Until the 1980s, there was a con­ France seemed to have been confinned. polítical ideas critical of the excesses of absolutist monar­ the opening session on 5 May 1789; then the Estates­ sensus in the historiography of republican thought that, in chy. Beginning with the papal bull Unigenitus (1713) and General underwent a revolutionary transfonnation. On 17 [See also French Revolution; Jansenism; Political Phi­ the Netherlands, serious theorizing about the republican culminating with an order of the archbishop of Paris in June, the majority of delegates declared themselves to be losophy; and Rousseau, Jean-Jacques.] state developed relatively late-from about 1650-and disappeared rather early, just before 1700. The "Golden the 1750s denying them the sacraments, Jansenists found a National Assembly, no longer meeting at the pleasure BIBLIOGRAPHY Age" of the Dutch was not only a flowering of achieve­ themselves the targets of concerted royal persecution. The of the king but rather as representatives of the nation Baker, Keith M. lnventing lhe French Revolulion. Cambridge, 1990. ments in trade, sciences, and arts, but also their finest response of the Jansenist minority to that persecution itself. Faced with a financial crisis and popular mobiliza­ See especially chaps. 4, 6, 9, 10, and 11 for discussion of thinkers hour in respect to republicanism, with contributions from focused criticism not only on the hierarchy of the Catholic tion throughout Franee, Louis XVI had no choice but to and intellectual currents related to the emergence of republícan Baruch de Spinoza, Pieter de la Court, and Johan de la Church (by appealing to the conciliar tradition within the accept this deelaration. Franee now became a constitu­ ideas. Court. After that time, however, the polítical Enlighten­ church), but also on the sacred character of the monarchy tional monarchy. Baker, Keith M., ed. The Political Culture of lhe Old Regime. Oxford, 1987. Essays by an intemational array of leading scholars, delívered ment in the Netherlands was perceived as no more than a itself. Many Jansenists were prominent meinbers of the The Role of the King. What was the plaee of the king first as papers at a conferenee in conjunetion with the Bicentennial flickering lampo parlement of Paris, the high court (largely aristocratic) to be in the new French polity? The preamble to the of the French Revolution. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, interest in the Dutch responsible for registering royal edicts. When Louis XV's Deelaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, adopted Bell, David A. Lawyers and Citizens: The Making of a Political Elite in Enlightenment intensified, with new research by Lynn chancellor, Maupeou, imposed refonns in 1770 that effec­ by the National Assembly in late August 1789, made no Old Regime France. Oxford, 1994. An examination of the impact of Hunt, Margaret Jacob, Keith Baker, Robert Darnton, tively stripped the parlements of much of their authority mention of the king, and Artiele III stated quite plainly the legal profession on the political culture of 18th-century Franee.