~ Chapter 13: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death ~
During the last decades of the 18th century France was a nation verging on economic ruin. The vast series of wars France had taken part in since the reign of Louis XIV almost a century ago had driven the treasury almost empty, and France was spending massive amounts of money to keep its military prowess afloat, as well as having to pay the debt the crown had been amassing since the Seven Years’ War, the payment of which reached almost half of the earnings of the crown in some years. This is not because France had a lack of resources, on the contrary, but a symptom of the ineffectiveness of the taxation system in France. Many groups of people and entire regions barely paid taxes, the “pays d’états” could control their own taxes resulting in less revenue for the crown, and many cities or groups were exempt from the “taille” (the most important tax). The nobility was also exempt from the “taille”, albeit they had to pay their own, less onerous, taxes such as the “capitation” and the “vingtième” (5% of their income). The size of the nobility was also disproportionate, with nobility titles being sold by the monarchy for ages as a way to gain money in the short term, but that hampered their finances in the long run. With the nobility controlling a quarter of the land, the church another 10% [1], and with the economy in tatters, France could not kick the can any further.
French spending in the American Revolutionary War had been supported with loans taken with an interest between 8% and 10% that now had to be repaid and required new taxes. Most of the king’s ministers were aware of this situation and tried to push for a tax reform, but every time this was blocked by the nobility, that did not want to see its possessions taken over by an absolutist monarchy that had expelled them from power a century ago, and the aristocracy began to take a more offensive approach to the situation, siding with the French parliaments [2]. Louis XV got tired of the parliaments and suppressed them, but died shortly after and his grandson Louis XVI [3] restored them, and the parliaments argued that only the Estates General could ratify new taxes, and continued to obstruct any attempted tax reform. Controller-General of Finances, Charles Alexandre de Calonne initially obtained success with his reforms, but in 1786 the economy crashed again, and he proposed abolishing tax exemptions based on status, with the base for taxation being instead on how rich a person was, as well as proposing to abolish the internal customs between the kingdom’s provinces. The Assembly of Notables took down Calonne’s proposals and the king dismissed him.
Louis XVI, King of France
Calonne’s successor, Loménie de Brienne, was equally unsuccessful when trying to doublegate the nobility, resorting to clausuring the parliaments, an act which was met with resistance as the parliaments were considered (erroneously) as a dike against tyranny, such was the case of Grenoble, where a popular mob prevented the troops from closing the Dauphiné parliament. Seeing no other way around, Louis XVI called the Estates General for a session in May 1789 after Brienne resigned and was replaced by the protestant Jacques Necker after Brienne declared France to be bankrupt [4]. The aristocracy and the common folk were collaborating to restrict the powers of the monarchy, however that alliance broke down after a decision by the parliament of Paris supporting aristocratic interests. Popular works, such as those of Siéyes assisted in building a “third estate consciousness” and the king agreed to duplicate the third estate’s representatives in December 1788.
The choice of representatives for the Estates General was a direct one in the first and second estates, but for the third estate chose its representatives through an indirect voting, resulting in men with a good oratory and cultured to come to the forefront of politics, such as Robespierre or Mounier. However the third estate was still considered inferior, with their representatives forced to dress in black, not to wear a hat and they were to meet in a different room while the first and second estates would meet in another room and would have none of those conditions imposed on them. The third estate would take a more offensive approach, refusing to accept any proposal, and on June 17 they declared themselves as the “National Assembly” [5], and when they found their room closed three days later they took over a tennis court and took a collective oath “not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established”.
Members of the first and second estates defected to the National Assembly and an alarmed Louis decreed on July 1 that all estates were to meet in the same room. The king dismissed Necker soon after following the advice of his younger brother Charles, and rumors spread that the king was to employ the Swiss Guard to shut down the National Assembly, so a group of rebels stormed the Bastille to seize weapons, with the soldiers offering meager resistance after the French Guards (an elite infantry unit) sided with them. Fearing to lose the capital, Louis headed to the city, where on July 19 he accepted a tricolour cocade, with the colours of the flag of Paris separated by a white stripe representing the monarchy. However, the power had shifted from the court to the Assembly, as Louis was received as “father of the French and king of a free people”. The rapid developments in Paris caused a panic outbreak in rural areas, and many lords began to flee France, forming the “Émigrés”, a group that would aim to restore absolutist rule in France and that would be operative for years to come.
The National Assembly passed the Declarations of the Rights of Man and of the Citizens [6] in the midst of a tense atmosphere in Paris, as groups such as the sans-culottes. The economic situation kept deteriorating, with the price of bread skyrocketing through the autumn and a group of over 6,000 women marched on Versailles demanding more bread and a lower price, Lafayette tried to restore order but his soldiers threatened to desert. Louis finally agreed to recognise the Declaration of the Rights of Man and officially became a Constitutional Monarch, changing the title of “King of France” for that of “King of the French”. The clergy was attacked intensely by the National Assembly and their properties were seized with their value serving as a base for a new paper currency, the assignat, which initially operated as a bond but was redefined as a legal tender to deal with a liquidity crisis, however its value kept decreasing. Another attempt at refloating the economy passed by removing the East India Company’s monopoly, however that failed to bear results as the company was so powerful that it obstructed other merchants, despite taking a big blow [7].
La Fayette opening the Feast of the Federation
The Feast of the Federation in 1790 opened to commemorate the Storming of the Bastille, and was assisted by Louis XVI and the entire royal family, with Talleyrand performing a mass and La Fayette leading an oath to the constitution which was followed by a similar one recited by Louis XVI. Everything seemed to go well, but divisions were appearing as the Jacobins split up from the main group of revolutionaries, and heavily criticised General Bouillé’s suppression of the Nancy Revolt. Bouillé himself was a hardcore royalist and traditionalist, and considering that the atmosphere in Paris was too radical, offered Louis XVI to come to his headquarters at Montmédy and restore order with 10,000 loyal soldiers, but the king was (allegedly) recognised by a soldier at Varennes when he compared his face to that of a coin, and the king was taken back to Paris. Meanwhile, as Prussia and Austria were negotiating the Second Partition of Poland, the Count of Artois (Louis XVI’s younger brother, the same man behind Necker’s dismissal) talked to both monarchs and they both signed the Pillnitz Declaration supporting the crown [8].
The Constituent Assembly, the legal successor to the National Assembly, dissolved itself and was replaced by the Legislative Assembly, which limited the vote excluding the sans-culottes and proved to be an ineffective body. On September 14 a new Constitution was passed and Louis, who was pretty much a prisoner at the Palace of the Tuileries, accepted it, but he vetoed almost every resolution coming from the new assembly. The figure of Jacques Pierre Brissot began to gain momentum as his supporters considered the Pillnitz Declaration as a declaration of war and believed that the values of the French Revolution had to be expanded internationally, by force if necessary. Pressured by the new Brissotin-dominated assembly [9], Louis decreed in December 1791 that foreign powers were to disband Émigré forces within a month or face war. Finally, on April 20 1792, the Legislative Assembly declared war on the Habsburgs after foreign secretary Dumoriez presented the Assembly with a long list of grievances.
[1] - Those church lands were quite profitable, but their only payment to the crown consisted of voluntary apportations.
[2] - Which had no real power as the monarch could simply ignore them, they were more of a consultative institution.
[3] - Louis, the Dauphin, died of tuberculosis in 1765 both IOTL and ITTL. I got you there with the note in the text, for a split second you thought this Louis XVI was not OTL’s Louis. I don't intend to mess with royal family trees because it's far from my specialty, but I will change some lineages.
[4] - The extra credit from French India and the Caribbeans goes mostly to the private hands of companies. While France’s economic situation is better than IOTL, it’s not enough to stop a bankruptcy.
[5] - This National Assembly, according to them, superseded the Estates General.
[6] - A different version, with almost no influence from Jefferson, he’s pretty busy tweaking the Virginian Constitution.
[7] - IOTL the French East India Company almost collapsed after that decree, only surviving barely and being finally liquidated in 1794, which caused a political scandal and the downfall of the montagnard faction and of Georges Danton.
[8] - Allegedly, Charles was so annoying that both monarchs only complied so he would shut up.
[9] - Another term for the Girondins, which stuck ITTL.