[Sidenote: The Problem of Taxation]
To tax the so-called privileged classes—the clergy and the nobles— might have helped; and successive finance ministers so counseled the king. But it was absolutely against the spirit of the "old régime." What was the good of being a clergyman or a noble, if one had no privileges and was obliged to pay taxes like the rest? To tax all alike would be in itself a revolution, and the tottering divine-right monarchy sought reform, not revolution.
[Sidenote: The Assembly of Notables, 1787]
Yet in 1786 the interest-bearing debt had mounted to $600,000,000, the government was running in debt at least $25,000,000 a year, and the treasury-officials were experiencing the utmost difficulty in negotiating new loans. Something had to be done. As a last resort, the king convened (1787) an Assembly of Notables—145 of the chief nobles, bishops, and magistrates—in the vain hope that they would consent to the taxation of the privileged and unprivileged alike. The Notables were not so self-sacrificing, however, and contented themselves with abolishing compulsory labor on the roads, voting to have provincial assemblies established, and demanding the dismissal of Calonne, the minister of finance. The question of taxation, they said, should be referred to the Estates-General. All this helped the treasury in no material way.
[Sidenote: Convocation of the Estates-General]
A new minister of finance, who succeeded Calonne,—Archbishop Loménie de Brienne,—politely thanked the Notables and sent them home. He made so many fine promises that hope temporarily revived, and a new loan was raised. But the Parlement of Paris, which together with the other Parlements had been restored early in the reign of Louis XVI, soon saw through the artifices of the suave minister, and positively refused to register further loans or taxes. Encouraged by popular approval, the Parlement went on to draw up a declaration of rights, and to assert that subsidies could constitutionally be granted only by the nation's representatives—the ancient Estates-General. This sounded to the government like revolution, and the Parlements were again abolished. The abolition of the Parlements raised a great cry of indignation; excited crowds assembled in Paris and other cities; and the soldiers refused to arrest the judges. Here was real revolution, and Louis XVI, frightened and anxious, yielded to the popular demand for the Estates- General.
In spite of the fact that every one talked so glibly about the Estates- General and of the great things that body would do, few knew just what the Estates-General was. Most people had heard that once upon a time France had had a representative body of clergy, nobility, and commoners, somewhat like the British Parliament. But no such assembly had been convoked for almost two centuries, and only scholars and lawyers knew what the old Estates-General had been. Nevertheless, it was believed that nothing else could save France from ruin; and in August, 1788, Louis XVI, after consulting the learned men, issued a summons for the election of the Estates-General, to meet in May of the following year.
[Sidenote: Failure of Absolutism in France]
The convocation of the Estates-General was the death-warrant of divine- right monarchy in France. It meant that absolutism had failed. The king was bankrupt. No half-way reforms or pitiful economies would do now. The Revolution was at hand.