Disgrace without dishonour: the internal exile of magistrates in eighteenth century France (original) (raw)
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The Seventeenth Century, 2017
While historians have considered the pamphlets attacking the sacrality of the monarchy to be a major cause of the French Revolution, they have largely overlooked the fact that such criticisms went back much further. Additionally, studies of Louis XIV have primarily explored the fabrication of the king's image, but largely neglected the discourse produced by his critics, because they have mistakenly attributed the underground literature to Huguenots in exile. By analysing four libelles in particular, this article demonstrates that there was a desacralization campaign around 1690 and asks why. It proposes three reasons for these attacks on religious legitimacy. First, the king himself violated in several ways norms upon which the sacral monarchy had been built in the first half of the seventeenth century. Secondly, moral rigorism was rising after 1650. Thirdly, a new court faction emerged around Louis XIV's son, Louis de France, better known as Monseigneur le Dauphin (1661-1711). This faction, whose role has been greatly neglected in recent historiography, brought together several groups critical of the king and used the monarchy's break with established religious norms to develop their political arguments. 1 P. Burke, The Fabrication of Louis XIV (New Haven, 1992); G. Sabatier, Versailles ou la figure du roi (Paris, 1999). 2 There are numerous studies deconstructing the myth of absolutism, including R. Mettam,
History, 2013
Monarchy and Exile: The Politics of Legitimacy from Marie de Medicis to Wilhelm II. Edited by Philip Mansel and Torsten Riotte. Palgrave Macmillan. 2011. 376pp. £65.00. Monarchies are expert at the art of presentation. But there is no established iconography for an exiled monarch. They are seen as a dangerous anomaly. However, Philip Mansel and Torsten Riotte show that exile was a much more common experience than one would expect. During the long nineteenth century alone, forty monarchs had to leave their country involuntarily. So far elites in exile have not attracted much attention. Apart from single studies on famous exiles, only Susan Richter and Dirk Dirbach have looked at the first step into exile-voluntary or forced abdication-through the centuries (Thronverzicht: Die Abdankung in Monarchien vom Mittelalter bis in die Neuzeit, ed. Susan Richter and Dirk Dirbach (Cologne, 2010)). Like Mansel and Riotte they faced the problem that the reasons for abdication varied considerably (from dynastic infighting over lost wars to revolutions) and every exiled monarch reacted differently to the challenge. Mansel and Riotte are aware of this and therefore show the kaleidoscopic range of experience of exile. Their main aim is to understand the cultural and political aspects of exile. They are interested in how ceremonies and customs survived or changed. They also ask the vital question how the exiled monarchs ran their campaigns to return: whom they stayed in touch with at home, whom they won over and whom they lost to their cause and why. The monarchical system treated its exiled cousins seldom well. Whether a dynasty survived or not had more to do with international relations than with family ties or the concept of legitimacy. That Britain supported the Bourbons, for example, was a strategic political decision and not based on monarchical 'cousinhood'. The exiled king of Hanover could not hope for support from his cousin Queen Victoria. Her grandson George V's behaviour towards his Russian relatives in 1917 was therefore not unusual. To give asylum to a dethroned monarch was always a political and often a financial burden reigning monarchs dreaded. Mansel and Riotte conclude that 'solidarity between monarchs was generally weak. Legitimacy was less important than strategy' (p. 6).
Conscience and Confession: Penitential Practice in the Kingship of Louis IX
International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 2018
In the thirteenth century, Dominican works on confession gradually incorporated theological discussions of ethics, morality, and conscience into the general practice of confession, emphasizing penitents’ responsibility for their own moral judgements and actions. This shift impacted not only the confessors trained and educated in these texts, but also the penitents who came to them: the very act of confession encouraged a regular examination of conscience and internal deliberation, as well as an attitude of humility and a willingness to accept counsel and reproof. What impact might these regular practices have had on penitents who were in power? Through an examination of the role of confession in the kingship of Louis IX of France (r. 1226-70), this paper argues that the practice of confession had the potential not only to shape behaviours and attitudes but also to become an influential factor in political decision-making. Confession was a significant part of the religious rhythm of Louis’s life, one guided primarily by Dominicans. The account of his confessor, Geoffrey of Beaulieu, emphasizes the frequency of the king’s confession as well as his humility towards his confessor and his willingness to receive correction. Strikingly, both mendicant and lay chronicles concerning Louis’s life also recount a similar attitude of humility and openness to reproof impacting Louis’ relationships outside of confession. Louis actively solicited criticism from among his inner circle, intentionally choosing individuals besides his confessors on whom he could rely to offer him correction whenever necessary. This same emphasis on humility and openness to moral counsel can also be found in the Enseignements Louis wrote for his children. At the same time, however, Louis’s kingship also laid emphasis on the conscience of the ruler, allowing him to follow the same path of internal deliberation to make decisions against the advice of his counsellors.
1999
The periodic disputes between the FrenchParlements and the monarchy played a vital role in the unravelling of the ancien régime and the origins of the French Revolution. In recent years historians have looked towards the study of the ideological arguments put forward by the parlementaires to assert their importance and autonomy. This article focuses on the ideology and rhetoric of the Paris Parlement, during the period of the most intense dispute between crown and parlements prior to the Revolution, that is, the Maupeou crisis of 1770 to 1774. In 1771 Paris Parlement was abolished, although this decision was reversed in 1774 after the death of Louis XV. The rhetoric of the magistrates themselves is examined, as well as that of lawyers, journalists and other polemicists who engaged in the debate on behalf of the Parlement. The language of civic virtue played a significant role in the debates, expressed as the idea of virtuous magistrates who were acting to defend the public interest. This article examines how virtue came to be part of a rhetoric associated with the parlements. It then goes on to consider the protests, from the magistrates themselves in their remonstrances, from the lawyers attached to the Parlements, and from many observers of events. Supporters of the parlements saw the coup not simply as a power struggle between king and magistrates, but as confirmation that the government was ‘despotic’ and that the parlements were heroic - and virtuous - defenders of the liberties of the nation. For the great majority of the magistrates, the issue of ‘parlementary constitutionalism’ seems to have been one towards which they retained a strong degree of ambiguity, as is suggested by their relative calm in the years after 1775 when their own jurisdictional authority was left relatively secure. But it is neverthess clear that from the time of the Maupeou coup, the jurisdictional quarrel between parlements and ministers had generated the idea of the legitimacy of civic virtue as an authority for political participation in the minds of people who followed the debate. The egalitarianism and moral authority implicit in the concept of civic virtue became, in the context of the final crisis of the ancien régime, a veritable Pandora’s box.