The Ancient Regime

The patriarchal feudalism imprinted deeply on the French social order helped justify the centralization of authority under a single sovereign. Ironically such centralization became a source of instability.

The French proscription against queens as sovereigns symbolized the larger tensions of a system based on overlapping inequalities of class, gender, age, and order of birth. The principle of obedience to one's superiors bound everyone but the King. In the late sixteenth century, the witch-hunter Jean Bodin defended slavery and urged re-enactment of an ancient Roman law that gave fathers the right of life and death over their offspring. Kings, after all, exercised such rights over their subjects. Neither fathers nor kings were likely to abuse such rights, Bodin continued, because of their natural love for those who they commanded.²

France was less susceptible than Britain to both markets and mobility. Its religious doctrines discouraged dissent.³ Its capital city was not a port. The country was large, heterogeneous, and difficult to get around in. An archaic social and political structure neutralized the potential benefits of rich natural endowments and easy access to the rapidly expanding commercial markets of Northwestern Europe. Many peasants lacked control over the products of their labor. A royalty more interested in waging war than in building roads discouraged the development of trade.⁴

While the propertied men of England were getting rid of a sovereign whose brother they had themselves placed upon the throne, those of France were dining and dancing with the Sun King at Versailles.

in a dominant position and the King enjoyed the strong material and ideological support of a large religious establishment, which virtually guar­anteed papal sanction for all his actions. His administrative efficiency was, however, undermined by costly military endeavors against the Spanish and Dutch, which would probably have been vetoed by taxpayers had anything resembling the English Parliament been in force.⁵

The common people of France seemed to respect Louis XIV despite the huge press of taxes he imposed upon them. He spoke of monarchy as an obligation as well as a privilege, and took at least some responsibility for meeting his subjects' subsistence needs. Master of the glorious gesture, he spent huge sums importing grain during the famines of the 1660s, describing himself as a father who provides for his children and his servants.⁶ Such investments may have paid off better politically than his military adventures, but they too were expensive. The King's Minister of Finance, Colbert, sought to promote economic development in order to increase tax revenues. Determined to increase French silk production, he insisted that farmers plant mulberry trees rather than grape vines, even where agricultural conditions were far better suited to the latter. He offered monopolies to some new trading companies, but not to others. On one of the rare occasions on which he actually asked merchants themselves what he could do to help them, they answered, ‘‘leave us alone.'' The French expression ‘‘laissez faire'' became a liberal catch phrase.

The tensions between paternalism and efficiency were particularly apparent in the regime's system for monitoring grain production. Bread was the basic stuff of subsistence in France. In ordinary times, most people spent about half of their income on it.

The crown monitored and regulated the grain trade in Britain as well as France, but the French system was particularly centralized.⁷ Louis XIV's successor forbade grain exports altogether. Grain merchants were required to register with the authorities. They could not conduct transactions any­where except in the public market. They were sometimes required to sell any grain they had purchased within three days. Such rules were designed to

38 GREED, LUST & GENDER discourage hoarding in anticipation of price increases, a self-interested practice that was considered distinctly anti-social. A vast bureaucracy emerged to monitor production and distribution, to watch for early signs of shortages, to plan imports and transportation of grain where necessary, and to slap limits on prices. Such policies discouraged grain production and probably slowed the progress of French agriculture. Their success in miti­gating famines remains unclear. In bad years, however, official policies had a soothing effect. When the price of bread grew unattainably high and political unrest grew, municipal officials would often re-establish calm by fixing grain prices below market levels.⁸

The absolutist state may also have hindered the development of a bour­geoisie by stipulating that any noble who engaged in trade must relinquish his title. Such rules were not, however, particularly binding, and the lines between classes were difficult to draw. Members of the nobility were forced to invest money in order to maintain their standard of living, and wealthy merchants could buy themselves noble titles.⁹ Positions in the government were routinely sold as a way of raising revenue. The potential to reap a high rate of return buying offices or tax exemptions discouraged riskier ventures; an entrepreneur who could simply buy into the established order was less likely to upset it.