A prominent scholar studying 18th c. France, Catherine Behrens, defines it more narrowly: that period when the system was in obvious decline and under severe criticism. I.e., 1748-1789, from the humiliating defeat of France in the War of the Austrian Succession, to the beginning of the Revolution.

In other words, discontent with absolutism defines the Old Regime. What was unique about French discontent is that it produced articulate opposition and the possibility of revolution.

In this lecture we're going to follow C. Behrens' analysis and talk about some of the psychological effects of the perception of decline.

Causes of the crisis in France included:

• Population growth combined with rural stagnation.
• Military defeat
• Arbitrary but extremely inefficient government.

Taxes were high: As in every preceding century, tax on land was the most important part of government finance. The expensive projects of Louis XIV and XV were paid for by the countryside.

Taxes starved peasants and made innovation impossible. Same taxes reduced many landlords to poverty, especially in backward areas. Merciless taxation of the peasantry reduced landlords' profits.

There was no class of prosperous owner-occupiers (people who managed their own land and had money to invest) interested in innovation. An unfair tax system further discouraged innovation. Anyone with money to invest put it into something besides ag. innovation. That was privilege; most privilege involved avoidance of taxes that other people had to pay.

People pursued privilege not in hopes of great gain, but to avoid ruin at the hands of a brutally oppressive tax system.

For much of the 18th c., privileges were available to those with ready cash. Competition for privileges.

Effects of the race for privilege on the French economy:

1. Much money needed for reform of agriculture went into the royal treasury.
   • In 1789, English land had 3 times as much capital per acre invested in it as French land.
   • In 1680s, Colbert had believed that capital invested in privilege exceeded the value of all land in the kingdom.
2. More prosperous people pulled out of land and went into towns, in part to avoid rural taxation. Also lower level privileged offices tended to be located in towns. A flight of prosperous peasants to buy offices in town a very important factor.
3. People going to town not necessarily a bad thing for the economy, but once there, they continued the pursuit of privileges. Little urban wealth went into productive investment.

It is commonplace for people to rate a victorious regime as a success; defeat often leads to a search for scapegoats.

It was easy to blame Louis XV (reigned 1715-74) personally. He was the first king raised at Versailles, became king at the age of five, and was a spoiled pleasure-loving character. "Après moi le déluge." When he did work, he often undermined his own ministers.

To contemporary observers, Louis XIV had stood for something, and accomplished something; Louis XV stood for nothing, and his accomplishments reflected that.

It was in this atmosphere that Enlightenment reformers got a significant audience within the French establishment.

Their prescriptions: tearing down privilege, to make way for scientifically-trained leaders of talent to rise to the top, and lead a thorough-going reform. Their slogan: "Careers open to talents."

Yet the many vested interests of French society feared reform as just another excuse for arbitrary measures. Fear and resistance seen in the peasantry (Turgot said, they will not cooperate but nothing can be done without their cooperation) and even more in the "middle class" of townsmen, poor and middling nobles, lesser owners of offices, who had an insecure foothold and feared to lose it.

They were sure from long experience that any reform, no matter how high-minded would end up as a tax-grab at their expense.

Result: an unhappy debate about "rights" and "constitutionalism," and "privilege." These words meant something different then than now: "Rights" were one's specific "privileges" that set one or one's group aside from everyone else, not something all French people shared. "Constitutionalism" protected the privileged (one's rights) from arbitrary government.

In this last generation before the revolution, though, reformers began redefining "privilege" to mean "wealth unjustified by service to the community." Privilege was getting a bad name because it was supposed to be justified by service to the community, but now was all-too-freely for sale.

Who condemned "privilege"?

1. Well educated philosophes and their followers, who thought they would benefit from the elimination of privilege.
2. Very-rich, well-established noblemen with a taste for progress, who knew they would be the natural leaders of an Enlightened France.

All who feared the arbitrary exercise of royal power -- not by the king, but by thousands of petty officials. Against these petty tyrants, privilege, constitutionalism, the defense of rights was a necessity.

• France was despite its problems a very advanced country
• Prosperous urbanites had a taste for culture and advanced ideas: journals, newspapers proliferated, men's clubs and Masonic lodges gave a venue for discussion.

Some historians have concluded that this discussion was more divisive than helpful. Others have concluded that peaceful reform was impossible and that Napoleon was necessary (the same has been said about Stalin). Certainly discussion without any possibility of practical action was not a great preparation for making needed changes.

As in the case of the USSR, one of the most interesting things is how utterly people lost faith in the old social structure once it started to fail.

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