The idea of the States-General was, therefore, in all men's heads; only they did not see whither it would lead them. It was the question, for the crowd, how to make up a deficit which the smallest banker of today would undertake to remove. The application of so violent a remedy to so small an evil proves that the public was being carried towards unknown political regions. For the year 1786, the only year of which the financial state has been affirmed, the revenue amounted to 412,924,000, the expenditure to 593,542,000 livres, leaving a deficit of 180,618,000 livres, which was reduced to 140 millions through economies amounting to 40,618,000 livres. In this budget, the Royal Household figures for the immense sum of 37,200,000 livres: the Princes' debts, the purchase of country-seats, and the Court malversations were the cause of this additional burden.
It was desired to have the States-General in the form they assumed in 1614. The historians always quote this form as though one had never heard speak of States-General or of a demand for their convocation since 1614. And yet in 1651 the orders of the nobility and the clergy, meeting in Paris, demanded States-General. A bulky collection of acts passed and speeches delivered on that occasion exists. The Parliament of Paris, which was then all-powerful, far from seconding the wishes of the two upper orders, quashed their meetings as illegal: as indeed they were.
And since I am treating of this subject, I wish to note another serious fact which has escaped those who have concerned, and are still concerning, themselves with writing the history of France, without knowing it. People talk of "the three orders" as being essential to the constitution of the States known as States-General. Well, it often happened that bailiwicks appointed deputies for only one or two orders. In 1614, the bailiwick of Amboise appointed none for either the clergy or the nobility; the bailiwick of Châteauneuf-en-Thimerais sent none for the clergy nor for the third estate; the Puy, the Rochelle, the Lauraguais, Calais, the Haute-Marche, Châtellerault sent none for the clergy, and Montdidier and Roye none for the nobility. Nevertheless, the States of 1614 were called States-General. Thus the ancient chronicles express themselves more correctly when they say, in speaking of our national assemblies, "the three estates," or "the burgess notables," or "the barons and bishops" as the case may be, and they attribute the same legislative power to the assemblies thus composed. In the different provinces, the third estate, even though convoked, often refrained from deputing representatives, and this for an unheeded but very natural reason. The third estate had taken possession of the magistracy, from which it had driven out the men-at-arms; it held absolute sway, except in a few parliaments, in the offices of judge, advocate, procurator, registrar, clerk, and so forth; it made civil and criminal laws, and, thanks to its parliamentary usurpation, it exercised even the political power. The fortune, honour, and lives of the citizens depended upon the third estate: all obeyed its decrees, every head fell beneath the sword of its justices. Seeing, therefore, that it enjoyed unlimited power, to the exclusion of the other estates, what need had it to go begging for a portion of that power in assemblies in which it appeared upon its knees?
The people, metamorphosed into monks, had resorted to the cloisters, and governed society through the power of religious opinion; the people, metamorphosed into tax-gatherers and bankers, had resorted to finance, and governed society through the power of money; the people, metamorphosed into magistrates, had resorted to the tribunals, and governed society through the power of the law. This great Realm of France, so aristocratic in its parties and in its provinces, was democratic when taken as a whole, under the direction of its King, with whom it acted in admirable concert and nearly always went hand in hand. This is the explanation of its long existence. There is an entirely new history of France to be written, or rather, the history of France has not yet been written.
All the above-mentioned important questions were especially vexed in the years 1786, 1787, and 1788. The heads of my fellow-Bretons found abundant cause for excitement in their natural vivacity, in the privileges of the province, the clergy, and the nobles, in the collisions between the Parliament and the States. M. de Calonne[272], for a short while Intendant of Brittany, had increased the internal strife by favouring the cause of the third estate. M. de Montmorin[273] and M. de Thiard were not sufficiently strong leaders to ensure the ascendency of the Court party. The nobility entered into a coalition with the Parliament, which was itself noble; now it opposed M. Necker, M. de Calonne, the Archbishop of Sens[274]; now it thrust back the popular movement, which its own early resistance had favoured. It assembled, deliberated, and protested; the communes or municipalities assembled, deliberated and protested in opposition. The private question of hearth-money was mixed up with the general questions and increased the reigning ill-will. To understand this, it is necessary to explain the constitution of the Duchy of Brittany.
The States of Brittany.
The States of Brittany varied more or less in their formation, in common with all the States of Feudal Europe, which they resembled. The Kings of France were established into the rights of the Dukes of Brittany. The marriage-contract of the Duchess Anne[275], in 1491, not only brought Brittany by way of dower to the crown of Charles VIII. and Louis XII., but contained a covenant by virtue of which an end was put to a contention which traced its origin to Charles of Blois[276] and the Count of Montfort[277]. Brittany contended that daughters were entitled to inherit the Duchy; France maintained that the succession could take place only in the main line, and that when this line came to be extinguished, Brittany, as a great feud, returned to the Crown. Charles VIII. and Anne, and subsequently Anne and Louis XII., mutually surrendered their rights or claims to each other. Claudia, daughter of Anne and Louis XII., who became the wife of François I., on her death left the Duchy of Brittany to François I., her husband, upon the petition of the States assembled at Vannes, and by an edict published at Nantes in 1532 united the Duchy to the Crown of France, guaranteeing the Duchy's rights and privileges.
At that time the States of Brittany were summoned every year; but in 1630 the sittings became biennial. The Governor proclaimed the opening of the States. The three orders sat, according to the place, in a church or in the halls of a convent. Each order deliberated apart: they formed three separate assemblies with their various tempests, which turned into a general hurricane when the clergy, the nobles, and the third estate came to meet together. The Court breathed discord, and talents, vanities and ambitions came into play in this restricted field as in any more extended arena.
The Père Grégoire de Rostrenen, a Capuchin friar, in the dedication to his Dictionnaire françois-breton, addresses Their Lordships the States of Brittany as follows: