Power and Politics in Old Regime France, 1720-1745

Peter Campbell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134923540
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire du monde

First Published in 2004. Power and Politics in Old Regime France is a major history of the politics of the first half of the reign of Louis XV. It is based on exhaustive archival research and offers the first comprehensive analysis of the neglected ministries of the duc de Bourbon and the cardinal de Fleury. Peter R. Campbell deals first with court, faction and policy. A second section offers new interpretations of the crises provoked by Jansenism and the Paris parlement. By contrasting the methods and practices of political management in this period of successful government with the crisis of the old regime in the 1780s, he illuminates the underlying character of politics in the old regime and raises new questions about its collapse. An unusually substantial bibliography represents an invaluable resource to the researcher.

Part 1
POLITICS IN A COURT SOCIETY

1
THE RISE TO POWER OF ANDRE-HERCULE DE FLEURY

An ecclesiastical career: a family strategy; provincial patrons; royal almoner; bishop of Fréjus; appointment as preceptor. From preceptor to religious adviser, 1715–21: educating Louis XV; court politics in 1720; the conseil ecclésiastique; the affair of Louis’ betrothal; Fleury’s strong position.

AN ECCLESIASTICAL CAREER

In 1720, when the political career of the future cardinal de Fleury began in earnest, he had been preceptor to Louis XV for five years, actively educating the young King since 1717. His rise to this position of trust in the royal entourage had been anything but swift; and yet, contrary to expectations, this appointment was to be the beginning of a great career as a statesman. By 1723 he was a minister of state, and in 1726—just before his seventy-third birthday—he took over the reins of government from a prince of the blood, the due de Bourbon. When he died in 1743 he had exercised all the functions of a premier ministre for nearly seventeen years: managing the court, distributing patronage, deciding on foreign, domestic and religious policy and choosing ministers, members of the episcopate and court officers. In foreign affairs his deft but traditional policies saw French emancipation from English tutelage, the acquisition of Lorraine, a province long desired by the kings of France, and the reluctant entry into the War of the Austrian Succession. Within France he was successful in limiting the scope of the religious problems associated with Jansenism and involving the Paris parlement, and in containing the disruptive effects of faction. In 1743 Louis XV sat firmly on the throne, having benefited from a period secure from the worst excesses of factional rivalry that threatened to undermine consistent policies and create internal turmoil. The failures of Louis XV during the later part of the reign to 1774 only serve to highlight the earlier successes of Fleury.

This was an achievement by any standards, but for an outsider whose origins lay with a family of modest provincial origins, it was extraordinary. The rise to power of the cardinal de Fleury is an instructive example of social mobility within the parameters of the socio-political system of the ancien régime. Unusual in that he came further on a longer trajectory than his contemporaries, it nevertheless involved all those elements necessary, in that political system, for advancement.

Unlike Fleury, most ministers in the later sevententh and the eighteenth centuries were born to wield a measure of power. Many nobles were destined for high office from birth, whether as members of the noblesse de robe or the noblesse de cour. Elder sons in families such as the Phélypeaux with its branches of Pontchartrain and La Vrillière, or the Noailles, the Lévis-Ventadour, the Rohan, or even on a lower echelon the d’Aligre, the d’Argenson, and the Daguesseau, all formed a part of that inner core of the nobility that exercised real power and influence under Louis XIV or even before his reign. Of those families which were not already of high rank and influence in the mid-sixteenth century, their successful ascension had almost invariably begun in the late sixteenth century.¹ Loyalty to the monarchy at three critical stages, in the wars of religion, in the reign of Louis XIII and during the Frondes was an important factor in their rise, for Louis XIV seemed to chose his servants from this group.

André-Hercule de Fleury is therefore untypical in that he was an outsider: his family was small-fry in Languedoc, barely discernible before the 1630s. He also had to climb many more rungs of the ladder before he arrived at a position of power. He was not born with courtly protectors, he had to acquire or earn them. For that very reason the story of his rise has much to reveal about a wider range of aspects than the history of most other individuals. He and his family had to negotiate all the ‘bottlenecks’ that normally held up social mobility in this period. If a comparison is to be made with anyone, it would not be with Mazarin, nor with Richelieu; it would have to be with cardinal Dubois, whose political career began as preceptor to the future Regent.

Fleury was born in Languedoc on 22 June 1653.² His family was of that ‘ancient and illustrious nobility’ which abounded in Languedoc³ and was of considerable stature in the town of Lodève and modestly successful in provincial terms. The prosperity of this cathedral town was based upon the manufacture of cloth, a manufacture in which the Fleury had been involved for generations. Lucrèce de Rosset, his maternal grandmother, was descended from the foremost drapers of Lodève and her husband was of merchant stock. On his father’s side the family was involved with the financial administration of the province. His uncle, Pierre de Fleury, was the leading light of the family, being chief treasurer general of the finances of Montpellier, and intendant for the gabelles of Languedoc.⁴ Fleury’s father held the office of receiver of tithes for the diocese of Lodève, for which a certain degree of wealth was essential.⁵

These two families, united in the parents of André-Hercule, appear to have had a definite policy of marriage alliances designed to link their mutual wealth indissolubly.⁶ The shrewd family was about to attempt to enlarge its sphere of action by sending a representative to court. More than usual effort was made to further André-Hercule the second son. The family made full use of its important connections to advance their son’s career, probably because he was seen to be exceptionally bright.

The education of Fleury was therefore a matter for strategic planning. Rather than send him to one of the provincial colleges that were opening their doors, his rich uncle sent him to the collège de Navarre in Paris, the only school to give its students a full general education comprising theology, philosophy and the humanities. He went on to attend the collège d’Harcourt and continued his education at the Sorbonne.⁷ His intellectual merit is attested by a letter from a fellow canon of Montpellier, who remarked that he combined ‘an acute and penetrating intelligence with the greatest finesse and subtlety of observation’; he was popular and much praised.⁸ He obtained his licence in theology in January 1676 and in July of the same year was ordained first a deacon and then a priest.⁹ Civility was now recognised as an essential element in a noble’s education, and true civility could only be acquired in the company of the higher nobility. In a sense, salon culture was the very essence of civility.¹⁰ He was in frequent attendance at the salons of Guillaume de Lamoignon, and at the hôtel de Bouillon,¹¹ also at the house of the Noailles.¹²

Provincial families had restricted opportunities for advancement beyond the confines of the province. Patronage and the active intervention of courtiers was therefore crucially important. A talented young man could hope to be helped by influential courtiers who did not necessarily expect to receive anything more tangible than prestige in return. Saint-Simon’s memoirs are peppered with instances of courtiers giving a helping hand to clients, if not for altruistic reasons, then because it was a source of personal honour. In Fleury’s case, the patrons came from the natural allies of lesser provincial families: the governing elite. Fleury’s own experience reveals an interlocking network of patronage brokers with leading positions in the governance of the province and influence at court. These families were the Castries,¹³ the Noailles¹⁴ and the Bonsy.

Every stage of his education and career reveals the importance of patronage—and at first his career progressed well. Most of the evidence indicates that Bonsy was the principal patron of the youthful Fleury, especially in the 1670s.¹⁵ The Italian-born Bonsy, later to become a cardinal and, as archbishop of Narbonne, president of the estates of Languedoc, was at this time a successful ambassador and bishop of Béziers. Bonsy was responsible for his becoming in 1667 a canon in the cathedral of Montpellier; in 1675 he was allowed to purchase one of the eight offices of Queen’s almoner;¹⁶ and before 1680 Bonsy had him preferred to the King’s chapel, still as an almoner.¹⁷ He thus gained a new patron in the person of the cardinal de Bouillon, Grand Almoner, director of the King’s chapel.¹⁸ In 1680 the Queen solicited his deputation to the Assembly of Clergy, invaluable experience for a future bishop.¹⁹ In 1690 Fleury left for Rome with the cardinal de Forbin-Janson who had been raised to the purple in February of that year by the new Pope, Alexander VIII. It transpires from a letter by the marquis de Lassay to Madame de La Fayette, on the subject of her son’s visit to Italy, that such a visit was necessary for any cleric hoping to succeed in his career: ‘Nearly all those of his quality and profession take the time to see Italy; the voyage is almost vital to them later in life; for on a thousand occasions it is a question of the Court of Rome, which it is most useful to have known.’²⁰

The rise of the young cleric had been unusually rapid. The office as almoner was generally regarded as providing a sure entry to the episcopate, as the duchesse de Brancas explains in her memoirs.²¹ Fleury would normally have expected to move on rapidly to a distinguished episcopal career. But capricious conduct by Louis XIV made him waste certainly above a decade before he was able to acquire a bishopric. The ultimate importance of Louis XIV is amply demonstrated by Fleury’s experience. At a time when Dubois, preceptor to the due de Chartres, was able to accumulate rich abbeys without even being a priest, Fleury was constantly overlooked. However, it was not unknown for the sovereign to delay the reward of some meritorious subject merely to emphasise his own ultimate authority.²² Upon the cleric’s return from Rome, he was granted his first benefice, the abbey of La Rivoure, worth 8,000 livres a year. Only in 1699, at the age of 47, was he able to acquire a bishopric, through the determined efforts of influential and devout women. Mme de Caylus, who was Maintenon’s niece, and the maréchale de Villeroy, approached Maintenon, and madame de Noailles urged her brother-in-law, Noailles, the archbishop of Paris, to make another attempt to persuade the King. Louis agreed to grant the see of Fréjus, on the coast in Provence.²³ The manner of his appointment reveals the truth of Mousnier’s dictum about the absolute necessity of courtly patronage to get through the bottleneck of seekers of office.

Bishops, of course, during the ancien régime often fulfilled administrative functions on behalf of the monarchy ranging from the management of a town or province (as in the case of the archbishop of Aix for Provence or of Narbonne for Languedoc) to more humble tasks such as providing information for the central government. There is little documentation of this in the case of Fleury, except for 1707–8 and an interesting attempt by Villars in 1713 to have him made procureur joint for the Assembly of Communities of Provence.²⁴ We do know that in 1707 when Provence was invaded he played an honourable role. His correspondence with the secrétaire d’état reveals him doing his best for Fréjus and for France, giving details of the foreign army and collecting money for the occupied town from Aix and Marseille.²⁵ Chamillart’s letter to Fleury shows how well thought of he was by Louis XIV: ‘it appears to me that He [Louis XIV] is very happy with all you are sending me, and with your conduct’.²⁶

In his episcopal activities, Fleury displayed his religious orthodoxy. In Fréjus he proved himself to be one of the many members of the Catholic reform movement now well under way in France, expanding the seminary and attacking ‘paganism’ in the diocese.²⁷ Contrary to what has long been written, Fleury was not a religious bigot, nor was he ultramontane or ‘Molinist’ in his anti-Jansenist stance. Anti-Jansenist Fleury certainly was, but he was not entirely in sympathy with the Jesuits, and his position might be described as ‘politique’. Surviving original letters and minutes to his former patron cardinal de Noailles, from 1711 to 1714, and his own pastoral letter of 1714, reveal his attitude clearly.²⁸ The following passage from a letter of 11 July 1711 is the clearest expression of his views at the time:

I can assure you with the utmost sincerity that I distanced myself from all prejudice when reading Father Quesnel, and that I am no less on my guard against Molinist opinions than against Jansenist ones. I am quite convinced that the decisions of the Church alone should guide us in everything, and that we should proscribe anything to the contrary…[the Church] is attacked from many sides, and that should oblige those who are truly obedient to come together and do no more than defend its decisions without entering into contested decisions. That is the only effective way to support it, as we ought, for there’ll be no end to it otherwise.²⁹

One of the focal points of political tension in France for the first two thirds of the century was the controversy over Jansenism. Fleury felt that the church in France was threatened, and so the developments of the policy of Louis XIV over the next two years had his support. When the cardinal de Noailles, in temporary submission to the will of Louis XIV, issued a mandement against Quesnel’s Moral Reflections on the New Testament, now the text most symbolic of Jansenism, the bishop of Fréjus was quick to congratulate him. His letter reveals his support for the papal Bull Unigenitus of 1713 which condemned 101 propositions to be found in Quesnel’s book.³⁰ Fleury was among the first bishops to publish the Bull Unigenitus in his diocese. Shortly afterwards he published his own severe criticism of the Moral Reflections, in which he expressed himself in perfect agreement with the recent Assembly of Clergy and condemned what he regarded as Jansenist poison.³¹ His eloquent exhortation attracted public attention and he was asked for many copies. His activity brought him into contact with the cardinal de Rohan at Versailles.³²

The religious position of Fleury before the 1720s can therefore be summarised as follows. He regarded a united episcopate as being of fundamental importance for the church of France, which risked schism because of differences of opinion over Jansenism. The best way to ensure the safety of the church was to be found in supporting the policy of Louis XIV against the Jansenists, and therefore in condemning Quesnel and accepting without question the Bull Unigenitus. Fleury was expressing a strong belief in the hierarchy of power in the church. He felt that bishops should use their power over the lower clergy to prevent them from espousing the Jansenist cause.

There is no clear and accurate account of the exact steps Fleury took to become tutor to Louis XV. His appointment cannot be explained without understanding the growing vehemence of the conflict over Jansenism in the French church and the importance of this issue at court. His attitude to Jansenism is a thread that runs through the whole of his ministerial career from 1723 onwards. During the later years of Louis XIV’s life, the Very Christian King became increasingly determined to bequeath to his heirs one entirely united Catholic church. This desire, combined with his personal devotion which became more pronounced with age, led him to try to eradicate the last vestiges of Jansenism; it was a sect regarded by himself and many of his religious advisers as schismatic and heretical. The dispersal of the remaining nuns at Port-Royal in 1709 and its razing to the ground in 1711 were a prelude to what Louis XIV supposed to be the ‘coup de grâce’, a Bull from Rome. In 1713 a somewhat reluctant Pope finally produced the Bull Unigenitus which condemned the ideas put forward in Quesnel’s work. For a combination of theological and political reasons, the Bull Unigenitus sparked off a controversy that was to remain bitter for more than half a century. The problem of Jansenism thus became one of the major political problems of the age, and is contentious and complex enough to warrant a full exploration in a later chapter.³³ At the forefront of the anti-Jansenist campaign were the Jesuits who were led at Versailles by Père Le Tellier, the King’s confessor. From 1713 the cardinal de Rohan, who was appointed Grand Almoner in June, also distinguished himself as a supporter of the policy of Louis XIV. As the issue became more embittered, it became more and more important for courtiers to be on the right side—especially ecclesiastics. Saint-Simon, relating how the duc de Tallard pushed Rohan into assuming the leadership of the anti-Jansenist party by allying with Le Tellier, leaves no doubt about the attitude of the King to the Jesuits and their opponents.

The King, who had vigorously adopted this [the Jesuits’] opinion, who was entirely resolved to listen to none but the most heated of them, who had invested his authority and conscience in it, who busied and sustained himself with nothing else, regarded the opposing parti [the Jansenists] as enemies of church and State, as republicans, as enemies of his authority and his person.³⁴

Once again, the mobilisation of patrons was essential to success. Several visits to Paris and the court had enabled him to conserve and enlarge his circle of friends and patrons during his wilderness years in Provence. The office of preceptor was, like all offices at Versailles, the object of some intrigue. On the one hand were the Jesuits led by Père Le Tellier who wanted to choose the preceptor himself in order to increase his religious control over the future King; in view of th...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• ILLUSTRATIONS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• Part 1: POLITICS IN A COURT SOCIETY
• Part 2: JANSENISM, POLITICS AND THE PARLEMENT OF PARIS
• APPENDIX 1
• APPENDIX 2
• APPENDIX 3
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY