The absolutism of Louis XIV as social collaboration

Past and Present

Volumn 188, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 195-224

  Beik, William ^a  

^a EMORY UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 33750114350     PISSN: 00312746     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/pastj/gti019     Document Type: Review

References (140)

1. John J. Hurt, Louis XIV and the Parlements: The Assertion of Royal Authority (Manchester, 2002), p. ix. For other critiques, see the introductions to the works cited below by Campbell, Chapman, Nachison, Potter, Rowlands or Swann.
2. Georges Pagès, La Monarchie d'ancien régime en France (de Henri IV à Louis XIV), 4th edn (Paris, 1946)
3. Roland Mousnier, La Vénalité des offices sous Henri, IV et Louis XIII (Paris, 1971)
4. Roland Mousnier, The Institutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy, 1598-1789, trans. Brian Pearce, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1979-84)
5. Ernest Lavisse, Histoire de France depuis les origines jusqu'à la Révolution, 9 vols. (Paris, 1900-11), vii (pts 1-2) viii (pt 1)
6. François Bluche, Louis XIV, trans. Mark Greengrass (Oxford, 1990)
7. Michel Antoine, 'La Monarchie absolue', in Keith Baker (ed.), The Political Culture of the Old Régime (Oxford, 1987)
8. John B. Wolf, Louis XIV (New York, 1968)
9. William F. Church, Louis XIV in Historical Thought (New York, 1976)
10. Herbert H. Rowen, The King's State: Proprietary Dynasticism in Early Modern France (New Brunswick, 1980)
11. Richard Bonney, Political Change in France under Richelieu and Mazarin, 1624-1661 (Oxford, 1978)
12. Richard Bonney, The Limits of Absolutism in Ancien Régime France (Aldershot, 1995).
13. On the Annales School, see Peter Burke, The French Historical Revolution: The Annales School, 1929-1989 (Stanford, 1990)
14. François Dosse, New History in France: The Triumph of the Annales, trans. Peter V. Conroy, Jr (Urbana, 1994).
15. Some recent surveys by French scholars are: Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The Ancien Régime: A History of France, 1610-1774, trans. Mark Greengrass (Oxford, 1996)
16. Joël Cornette (ed.), La France de la monarchie absolue (Paris, 1997).
17. Some surveys in English are: James B. Collins, The State in Early Modern France (Cambridge, 1995)
18. David J. Sturdy, Louis XIV (London, 1998)
19. Peter Robert Campbell, Louis XIV, 1661-1715 (London, 1993)
20. Geoffrey Treasure, Louis XIV (London, 2001).
21. Fanny Cosandey and Robert Descimon, L'Absolutisme en France: Histoire et historiographie (Paris, 2002).
22. See Joël Cornette, Le Roi de guerre: Essai sur la souveraineté dans la France du Grand Siècle (Paris, 1993).
23. The pioneers in interpreting the theory of absolutism as limited monarchy were Fritz Hartung and Roland Mousnier, 'Quelques problèmes concernant la monarchie absolue', Comitato internazionale di scienze storiche, X Congresso internazionale de scienze storiche (Roma, 1955), Relazione Vol. 5 (Storia moderna) (Florence, 1955).
24. Another pioneer was Andrew Lossky, who summed up his views in his 'The Absolutism of Louis XIV: Myth or Reality?', Canadian Jl Hist., xix (1984).
25. fine examination of the history of the concept of absolutism is Richard Bonney, L'Absolutisme (Paris, 1989).
26. It was J. Russell Major who emphasized the concept of the monarchy accommodating the nobility. However, his political view of consultation led him to see Louis XIV's absolutism as something different from the 'renaissance' or 'consultative' monarchy, thus he adopted the traditional, not the revisionist-social, interpretation of Louis XIV: J. Russell Major, From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy: French Kings, Nobles, and Estates (Baltimore, 1994).
27. e siècle (France, Espagne, Amérique) (Aix-en-Provence, 1981).
28. William Beik, Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth-Century France: State Power and Provincial Aristocracy in Languedoc (Cambridge, 1985).
29. Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London, 1974).
30. James B. Collins, Classes, Estates, and Order in Early Modern Brittany (Cambridge, 1994).
31. David Parker, Class and State in Ancien Régime France: The Road to Modernity? (London, 1996), 268.
32. Albert N. Hamscher, The Parlement of Paris after the Fronde, 1653-1673 (Pittsburgh, 1976)
33. Albert N. Hamscher, The Conseil Privé and the Parlements in the Age of Louis XIV: A Study in French Absolutism (Philadelphia, 1987).
34. Sharon Kettering, Patrons, Brokers and Clients in Seventeenth-Century France (Oxford, 1987).
35. See also her essays in her Patronage in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France (Aldershot, 2002).
36. See four articles by Sarah Hanley: 'Engendering the State: Family Formation and State Building in Early Modern France', French Hist. Studies, xvi (1989)
37. 'Social Sites of Political Practice in France: Lawsuits, Civil Rights, and the Separation of Powers in Domestic and State Government, 1500-1800', Amer. Hist. Rev., cii (1997)
38. 'The Monarchic State in Early Modern France: Marital Regime Government and Male Right', in Adrianna Bakos (ed.), Politics, Ideology and the Law in Early Modern Europe (Rochester, NY, 1994)
39. 'The Jurisprudence of the Arrêts: Marital Union, Civil Society and State Formation in France, 1550-1650', Law and History Rev., xxi (2003).
40. On the law and absolutism, see also David Parker, 'Sovereignty, Absolutism and the Function of the Law in Seventeenth-Century France', Past and Present, no. 122 (Feb. 1989).
41. e siècles', Annales ESC, xlvii (1992)
42. e siècle (Paris, 2000).
43. Daniel Dessert, Argent, pouvoir et société au Grand Siècle (Paris, 1984)
44. e siècle (Paris, 1988)
45. e siècles (Paris, 1991).
46. Roger Mettam, Power and Faction in Louis XIV's France (Oxford, 1988).
47. A concise statement of Mettam's position is Roger Mettam, 'France', in John Miller (ed.), Absolutism in Seventeeenth-Century Europe (New York, 1990).
48. Nicholas Henshall, The Myth of Absolutism: Change and Continuity in Early Modern European Monarchy (London, 1992).
49. I should inform the reader that I have published elsewhere somewhat different reviews of five of the books discussed (see below for complete citations of the books). The reviews are: Marie-Laure Legay, Les États provinciaux, in Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, 1 (2003), 206-9
50. John Lynn, Giant of the Grand Sièecle, in Jl Interdisciplinary Hist., xxx (1999), 122-3
51. David Parrott, Richelieu's Army, in Jl Interdiciplinary Hist., xxxiii (2003), 629-31
52. Julian Swann, Provincial Power and Absolute Monarchy, on-line, H-France Review, iv (May 2004), no. 52
53. Guy Rowlands, The Dynastic State and the Army, in Amer. Hist. Rev., cix (2004), 262.
54. Mark Potter, Corps and Clienteles: Public Finance and Political Change in France, 1688-1715 (Aldershot, 2003)
55. Julian Swann, Provincial Power and Absolute Monarchy: The Estates-General of Burgundy, 1661-1790 (Cambridge, 2003)
56. e siècles (Geneva, 2001).
57. Here Potter is working with arguments first used by David D. Bien, 'Offices, Corns, and a System of State Credit: The Uses of Privilege under the Ancien Régime', in Baker (ed.), Political Culture of the Old Régime.
58. See also Mark Potter and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, 'Politics and Public Finance in France: The Estates of Burgundy, 1660-1790', Jl Interdisciplinary Hist., xxvii (1997)
59. William Doyle, Venality: The Sale of Offices in Eighteenth-Century France (Oxford, 1996).
60. High officeholders included the judges of the Parlement and the Chambre des Comptes, and possibly some other royal officials who owned their offices. For the membership of the Estates, see the discussion of Swann which follows.
61. If the annual interest, plus a fund to repay the capital, was covered by the annual revenues of the tax, there would be no other cost to the province. This was essentially the same tactic used by the English Parliament in the 1690s in floating the national debt.
62. Louis XIV reportedly borrowed a total of 2,231 million livres from 1689 to1715 without arousing the turbulence that had accompanied similar measures during the reign of Louis XIII: See Potter, Corps and Clienteles, 13-14.
63. Ibid., 132.
64. Nachison describes how the Condés controlled appointments, masterminded the deliberations in the Estates and even collaborated with the intendants. She delineates the intensely personal quality of patron-client relations, the effect of personalities like Henri Jules, described by his chamberlain as 'feared by everyone, hated by his domestics and the horror of his family'. Beth Nachison, 'Provincial Government in the Ancien Régime: The Princes of Condé in Burgundy, 1660-1730' (Univ. of Iowa Ph.D. thesis, 1992), 38-9
65. Beth Nachison, 'Absentee Government and Provincial Governors in Early Modern France: The Princes of Condé and Burgundy, 1660-1720', French Hist. Studies, xxi (1998).
66. Swann, Provincial Power and Absolute Monarchy, 163-5.
67. Ibid., 299.
68. We might note here the undeniable bureaucratic development of the central state.
69. Darryl Dee, 'The Practice of Absolutism: Franche-Comté in the Kingdom of France, 1674-4715' (Emory Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 2004).
70. See also Darryl Dee, 'Judicial Politics, War Finance and Absolutism: The Parlement of Besançon and the Venality of Office, 1699-1705', forthcoming in French History. I was Dee's dissertation adviser.
71. Anette Smedley-Weill, Les Intendants de Louis XIV (Paris 1995).
72. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, with Jean-François Fitou, Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago, 2001); originally published as Saint-Simon, ou le système de la cour (Paris, 1997).
73. originally published as Saint-Simon, ou le système de la cour (Paris, 1997).
74. Le Roy Ladurie, Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV, 139.
75. Norbert Elias, The Court Society, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Oxford, 1983).
76. On the royal court, an important new contribution is Jeroen Duindam, Vienna and Versailles: The Courts of Europe's Dynastic Rivals, 1550-1780 (Cambridge, 2003).
77. See also Jean-François Solnon, La Cour de France (Paris, 1987)
78. e siècle (Paris, 2002).
79. Sara E. Chapman, Private Ambition and Political Alliances: The Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain Family and Louis XIV's Government, 1650-1715 (Rochester, NY, 2004).
80. David Kammerling Smith, '"Au Bien du Commerce": Economic Discourse and Visions of Society in France' (Univ. of Pennsylvania Ph.D. thesis, 1995)
81. see also David Kammerling Smith, 'Structuring Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century France: The Political Innovations of the French Council of Commerce', Jl Mod. Hist., lxxiv (2002).
82. The conseil had been the creation of Louis de Pontchartrain, but after he became chancellor in 1699 Michel de Chamillart took over as its head.
83. A study of the impact of Colbertism in the eighteenth century is Philippe Minard, La Fortune du colbertisme: état et industrie dans La France des Lumières (Paris, 1998).
84. Smith, '"Au Bien du Commerce"', 567.
85. Michael Kwass, Privilege and the Politics of Taxation in Eighteenth-Century France (Cambridge, 2000).
86. Two other works analyse the capitation of 1695: Alain Guéry, 'État, classification sociale et compromis sous Louis XIV: La capitation de 1695', Annales ESC, xli (1986)
87. François Bluche and Jean-François Solnon, La Véritable Hiérarchic sociale de l'ancienne France: Le tarif de La première capitation, 1695 (Geneva, 1983).
88. Kwass, Privilege and the Politics of Taxation, 95.
89. Peter Sahlins, Unnaturally French: Foreign Citizens in the Old Regime and After (Ithaca, 2004).
90. Ibid., 55.
91. Cartesian aspect is stressed in James E. King, Science and Rationalism in the Government of Louis XIV (Baltimore, 1949)
92. see also Albert Guérard, The Life and Death of an Ideal: France in the Classical Age (New York, 1928).
93. Jay M. Smith, The Culture of Merit: Nobility, Royal Service, and the Making of Absolute Monarchy in France, 1600-1789 (Ann Arbor, 1996): See ch. 4.
94. A good example of contrasting readings of noble mentality is provided by Smith, who sees noble attitudes as extensions of age-old habits, and Jonathan Dewald, who sees the same court nobles as displaying elements of modern individualism: Smith, Culture of Merit, 3 n. 3
95. Jonathan Dewald, Aristocratic Experience and the Origins of Modern Culture: France, 1570-1715 (Berkeley, 1993).
96. In a middle position, Mark Motley sees the nobles modifying their educational strategies to adapt old roles to new circumstances: Mark Motley, Becoming a French Aristocrat: The Education of the Court Nobility, 1580-1715 (Princeton, 1990).
97. Peter R. Campbell, Power and Politics in Old Regime France, 1720-1745 (London, 1996).
98. Ibid., 4.
99. See esp. ibid., 177-90.
100. The classic studies on the army are: André Corvisier, Louvois (Paris, 1983)
101. e siècle au ministère de Choiseul: Le soldat, 2 vols. (Paris, 1964).
102. John A. Lynn, Giant of the Grand Siècle: The French Army 1610-1715 (Cambridge, 1997)
103. David Parrott, Richelieu's Army: War, Government and Society in France, 1624-1642 (Cambridge, 2001)
104. Guy Rowlands, The Dynastic State and the Army under Louis XIV: Royal Service and Private Interest, 1661-1701 (Cambridge, 2002). Although these three books were published in succession by Cambridge University Press, this was not a collaborative project. However, the books are connected in that Lynn refers extensively to Parrott's doctoral thesis. Parrott was the thesis superviser of Rowlands, who is critical of some of Lynn's conclusions.
105. On the military revolution debate, see Michael Roberts, 'The Military Revolution, 1560-1660', in his Essays in Swedish History (London, 1967)
106. Jeremy Black, A Military Revolution? Military Change and European Society, 1550-1800 (New York, 1996)
107. Geoffrey Parker, 'The Military Revolution, 1560-1660: A Myth?', Jl Mod. Hist., xlviii (1976)
108. Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800 (Cambridge, 1988)
109. Parrott, Richelieu's Army, 19-83, 547-52. Lynn's discussion stresses gradual reform since the religious wars, rather than a military revolution.
110. Lynn discusses Parrott's argument: See Lynn, Giant of the Grand Siècle, 223.
111. Note also his short military history of the reign: John A. Lynn, The Wars of Louis XIV, 1667-1714 (London, 1999).
112. Lynn, Giant of the Grand Siècle, 208-11
113. Rowlands, Dynastic State and the Army under Louis XIV, 365-6.
114. Rowlands, Dynastic State and the Army under Louis XIV, 265-6.
115. See the discussion of Hurt below.
116. Lynn, Giant of the Grand Siècle, 430.
117. On Louis XIV and hospitals, see Daniel Hickey, Local Hospitals in Ancien Régime France: Rationalization, Resistance, Renewal, 1530-1789 (Montreal, 1997).
118. Rowlands, Dynastic State and the Army under Louis XIV, 361.
119. Ibid., 108.
120. Ibid., 335.
121. Hurt, Louis XIV and the Parlements, pp. ix, 12. I have never claimed that Louis XIV's rule was benign or nurturing!
122. The droit annuel, or paulette tax, was an annual payment by a venal officeholder which guaranteed that the office would remain the property of the family should the holder die, and that the heirs could dispose of it as private property. This tax was granted for a period of years, so there was opportunity for bargaining at renewal time.
123. Hurt, Louis XIV and the Parlements, 195.
124. Ibid., 196-8.
125. Potter addresses this point by noting that Hurt fails to deal with the widespread tendency for corps to borrow collectively: See Potter, Corps and Clienteles, 47.
126. Ibid., ch. 6.
127. Bien, 'Offices, Corps, and a System of State Credit'
128. Gail Bossenga, The Politics of Privilege: Old Regime and Revolution in Lille (Cambridge, 1991)
129. Hilton L. Root, The Fountain of Privilege: Political Foundations of Markets in Old Regime France and England (Berkeley, 1994).
130. To be fair, Hurt does not claim to be covering all these dimensions of the problem, nor does he reject all 'revisionism'. But his assertion that the oppression of the parlements undermines the collaboration thesis calls for a discussion of these broader dimensions of the issue. On the monarchy and Jansenism, the authoritative work is Dale Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560-1791 (New Haven, 1996).
131. Joseph Bergin, Crown, Church and Episcopate under Louis XIV (New Haven, 2004). This study appeared too late for review here.
132. For Hanley's work, see n. 13.
133. On women at court, see, for example, Vincent J. Pitts, La Grancie Mademoiselle at the Court of France, 1627-1693 (Baltimore, 2000)
134. A Woman's Life in the Court of the Sun King: Letters of Liselotte von der Pfalz, Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orléans, 1652-4722, ed. and trans. Elborg Forster (Baltimore, 1984).
135. For example Louis Marin, Le Portrait du roi (Paris, 1981)
136. Jean-Marie Apostolidès, Le Roi-machine: Spectacle et politique au temps de Louis XIV (Paris, 1981)
137. Abbey E. Zanger, Scenes from the Marriage of Louis XIV: Nuptial Fictions and the Making of Absolutist Power (Stanford, 1997)
138. Sara E. Melzer and Kathryn Norherg (eds.), From the Royal to the Republican Body (Berkeley, 1998).
139. A new study which aims to look at the eighteenth century from the perspective of the reign of Louis XIV is Cohn Jones, The Great Nation: France from Louis XIV to Napoleon (1715-1799) (London, 2002): See the points in his introduction.
140. Another new study is Gwynne Lewis, France, 1715-1814: Power and the People (London, 2004).