Reinterpreting the French Revolution: A global-historical perspective (21 page)

by sponsoring candidates for that assembly, and by laying out an elaborate

program ofreforms during the electoral campaign in the spring of1789.

He was certainly bombarded by friendly counsel to all those effects. It

is also rather strange that a minister as familiar as Necker was with the

ambiguities ofconstitutional questions in this country should have exuded

such optimism regarding the allocation and delimitation ofexecutive and

legislative powers in the governing arrangements ofthe future. Finally, if

(as we know) the authorities in the summer of1788 had unabashedly sought

to foment discord among their critics as part of their effort to delay the

convocation ofthe Estates General, was not Necker, at least in theory, just

as capable ofresorting to divisive tactics the following spring?

Still, whatever justice may adhere to such criticisms, they may in a very

real sense be beside the point. For in the final analysis Necker, like any

other minister ofBourbon France, had to defer to his royal master; and

40 Ibid., pp. 434–35.

41 Necker’s characterization ofLouis XVI’s distrust ofall institutions British is cited by Egret,
Necker: Ministre de Louis XVI, 1776–1790
(Paris: Champion, 1975), p. 323.

See also, on the same subject, ibid., p. 351.

42 See, for example, Doyle,
Origins of the French Revolution
, pp. 139, 150.

43 Consult, for instance, Fitzsimmons, “Privilege and the Polity in France,” pp. 278–79, regarding the crown’s issuance in January 1789 ofregulations for the convening ofthe Estates General.

82

Reinterpreting the French Revolution

there is simply no evidence that Louis XVI was at bottom prepared to

concede what it was probably necessary for him to concede on the cogent

sociopolitical issues ofthe day.

To be sure, the king and queen seem to have been sufficiently angered

by aristocratic opposition to the reforms of Brienne and Lamoignon in

the summer of1788 to have rallied to the Genevan at the summer’s end.

The king may have “welcomed” Necker back into the conclaves ofpower

at Versailles with palpable reluctance, but both he and Marie-Antoinette

could perceive that Necker’s enemies had also been Loménie de Brienne’s

detractors. They also knew that only this reputed master offinancial

wizardry could now lure French and foreign funds back to the thoroughly

discredited “arbiter ofEurope.” Hence, the Genevan, at least for the time

being, and above all for geopolitical reasons, was empowered once more

in France.

However, when push came to shove, what did this reinstatement actu-

ally amount to? As Louis XVI’s most recent biographer has had to admit,

the king in the wake ofthe
Résultat du Conseil
seemed utterly unprepared

to think in terms oftrying to influence the elections to the Estates General

by such concrete means as backing suitable candidates or overseeing the

drafting of model
cahiers de doléances
. To all those trying to fathom the

government’s intentions at this critical juncture, Louis remained obsti-

nately unapproachable and silent. “Silence was now not just to questions

but on questions.”44 Thus, to criticize Necker for failing to seize the

political initiative in late 1788 and early 1789 is, in the end, to ponder the

failings of the man he served.

Come the stalemate in the Estates General in June 1789, however, the

king had, finally, to divulge his deepest convictions. Georges Lefebvre

rightly observed that Louis XVI’s exposition ofthose reforms he deemed

acceptable for France at the
séance royale
staged in the Assembly on

23 June “is ofthe utmost interest because it shows clearly what was at

stake, not only in the following weeks but in the whole Revolution.”45

Whether, however, the monarch was as “willing to become a constitutional

monarch” as Lefebvre claimed he was, and hence betrayed inflexibility only

on
social
questions, is less certain. We can most fully elucidate this matter by contrasting Necker’s ideas on reform, submitted to the royal Council

on 19 June, with those articulated by the king at the royal session four days

later.

Necker was assuredly not at this moment oftruth calling for an uncondi-

tional surrender by the crown on all substantive points raised in recent days

44 John Hardman,
Louis XVI
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993), p. 145.

45 Lefebvre,
Coming of the French Revolution
, p. 87.

The descent into revolution

83

by reformist Assemblymen and publicists.46 He would, for instance, have

had the king insist that the future legislature be bicameral, require royal

sanction for all its acts, and acknowledge royal retention of the “plenitude

ofexecutive power.” The finance minister suggested, moreover, that the

public be barred from the Assembly’s deliberations and urged that the hon-

orific privileges ofthe nobility be declared sacrosanct. Yet in other respects

the Genevan called for a fundamental break with the past. The king would

command that the bickering delegates ofthe three orders reassemble and

vote in common, that is, by head, on all questions of“general interest.”

These would include “the financial measures, taxes and loans, and

accountability.” No more would the king ask that the “privileged orders”

surrender their financial prerogatives; he would summarily abrogate them

himself. “Also, and the most significant clause, the deliberations on the new

constitution would be done in the common assembly and the vote taken

by head.” Necker also would have had the king satisfy many of the most

salient demands in the Third Estate’s
cahiers
. Thus, Louis XVI should ad-

mit qualified commoners to all civilian and military employments, abolish

the tax (
franc fief
) on plebeian owners of fiefs, and make it possible for peasants to redeem the feudal payments they owed to their seigneurs. In

addition, Necker wanted the king to recognize each individual’s rights to

security and property, freedom ofassembly and ofthe press, and in fact

“all the rights later appearing in the Charter of1814.”

Had the French sovereign announced these changes to the self-

proclaimed National Assembly on 23 June 1789, and stood by them

thereafter, the whole course of the Revolution might have been different.

But, inevitably, he was lobbied by the queen, by his brothers, and by

conservative ministers and courtiers – all ofthem to one degree or another

caught up in the politics ofpolarization within the country’s social elite –

to follow what probably was in any case his own inclination and reject

Necker’s ideas. Indeed, Louis’s message to the Assemblymen on 23 June di-

verged markedly from that formulated by his director-general of finances.

At that fateful session, the king commanded the deputies ofthe “Estates

General” (as he continued to call this body) to retire to their respective

chambers. They were to deliberate and vote
by order
on all questions save

those for which the unanimous consent of the three estates and the monarch

secured discussion and suffrage in common and by head. Accordingly,

everything – the form ofthe constitution, the structure ofsociety, even

the fiscal immunities of the clergy and nobility – was effectively to be held

46 For this discussion ofNecker’s and the king’s ideas on reform in June 1789, see Harris,
Necker and the Revolution of 1789
, esp. pp. 506–7 and 514–18; Hardman,
Louis XVI
, pp. 149–53; and Munro Price, “The ‘Ministry ofthe Hundred Hours’: A Reappraisal,”

French History
4 (1990): 317–39. Direct quotes unless otherwise noted are from Harris.

84

Reinterpreting the French Revolution

hostage by the members ofthe first two orders. True, Louis did repeat his

“exhortation” of5 May that the three orders come together “for this session

ofthe States-General only” to discuss matters ofpublic interest. But he

expressly designated as off-limits to deliberation and suffrage in common

some ofthe most pivotal issues: “the feudal and seigneurial rights ofthe fief-

owners, the economic and honorific privileges ofthe first two orders, all

matters concerning religion and ecclesiastical organization,” and, perhaps

most sweepingly ofall, “the future organization ofthe States-General, in

other words, the Constitution.”

In light ofthese remarks, prescribing as they did restrictions upon

meaningful change in this war-prone realm, it simply was not enough

for Louis XVI to announce grandly that the “Estates General” would

henceforth be convened periodically; that it would supervise and control

the finances ofthe crown and discharge many administrative duties; and

that he, as king, would grant all the basic rights and liberties invoked in

the
cahiers
. It would have been truly astounding had the representatives

ofthe Third Estate not regarded the implementation ofsuch a program

as likely to curtail drastically their public roles in the new France. The

king’s parting threat – to send the deputies home ifthey should prove

recalcitrant and then take upon his own shoulders the task ofregenerating

the country – only added fuel to fires of legislative rebellion that, in

alliance with the blaze ofpopular rage in city and countryside, would

soon incinerate the sociopolitical institutions ofthe old France.

It is telling that even the most sympathetic scholarly interpretations of

Louis XVI’s stance at the
séance royale
of23 June 1789 have portrayed it as inadequate to the times. The king’s most recent biographer, though stoutly

contending that the royal address differed more in its emphases than in its

substance from what Necker would have had Louis say, has still allowed

that those changes in “emphasis” were in the circumstances fatal. In fact, if

this account is correct, the king wanted to hedge even further against dis-

ruptive reforms by requiring a two-thirds majority even to carry motions

discussed and voted on by all delegates in common sessions ofthe Estates.47

Louis XVI has fared no better at the hands of those revisionists who focus

narrowly on the issues ofthe
séance royale
. At best, they see the program

set forth on 23 June as a compromise between the position of the king and

queen, on the one hand, and that ofLouis XVI’s youngest brother, the

comte d’Artois, on the other. But this, unhappily, is not saying much for

the reformist cause! Artois emerges on the pages of revisionist historians,

as on those ofmost earlier scholars, as the most inflexible paladin ofancien

régime absolutism and privilege in the crisis of1789. His actions prevented

Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette from adopting bolder measures toward

47 Hardman,
Louis XVI
, p. 153.

The descent into revolution

85

conciliating the Third Estate, concede such revisionists, and thus helped to

deepen the sociopolitical crisis. In the end, the “glimmerings ofaccommo-

dation” offered by the king to the deputies at the
séance royale
“were not

enough to satisfy the third estate.”48

Another way to point up the inadequacy ofthe royal position on 23 June

1789 – and at the same time highlight the connections between geopolitical,

constitutional, and social issues – is to focus for a moment on the practical

and crucial question ofaccess to military employment. When Necker spoke

out on behalfofthe concept ofmeritocracy in the Council on 19 June, he

was immediately assailed by his more conservative colleagues. In particu-

lar, the war minister Puységur bitterly protested “against any measure by

which the king’s hands should be tied in the appointment ofarmy offi-

cers, and the king, much disturbed by this possibility, blamed Necker for

having even thought ofit.”49 Here we have both a constitutional question

of
power
– should the executive continue to monopolize control ofthe

kingdom’s armed forces? – and a social question of
defining that kingdom’s

power elite
– should all Frenchmen qualified to serve their country in its

positions ofpublic responsibility be permitted to do so irrespective oftheir

social origins? As we have seen, Louis XVI, at the behest ofconservatives

ofCouncil, Court, and countryside, chose to go against his finance min-

ister’s advice, answering the former query in the affirmative and the latter

query in the negative. In doing so, he was unwisely seeking to swim against

the current ofsociopolitical evolution in France. But the controversy over

appointments to the army in 1789 also draws our attention again to the old

issue transcending domestic matters: the connection between the foreign

and internal policies ofthe French state. The controversy reminds us that

behind the origins and process ofthe French Revolution lay the imperative

need ofFrance to harness its people’s aspirations, wealth, and talents to its

statist requirements – meaning, in the first instance, its geostrategic statist

requirements.

Over the next four months Louis XVI would be coerced on no fewer