Reinterpreting the French Revolution: A global-historical perspective by BAILEY STONE Page B
Authors: BAILEY STONE
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Chambres de justice in the French Monarchy,” in John Bosher, ed., French Government and Society 1500–1850: Essays in Memory of Alfred Cobban (London: Athlone Press, 1973), pp. 19–40.
94 The pertinent research is summarized in Bailey Stone, The French Parlements and the Crisis of the Old Regime (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), pp. 16–74.
95 See, on this point, Ralph Giesey, “State-Building in Early Modern France: The Role of Royal Officialdom,” Journal of Modern History 55 (1983): 191–207.
The ancien régime
45
for that role in the “society of orders”: namely, the sons of the proud but
penurious families of the provincial sword. As the novel geostrategic needs
of the state had to take precedence over old-fashioned considerations of
pedigree, France’s monarchs, after having turned to the old provincial no-
blesse and to sons of old and moneyed court families as well, had again and
again to avail themselves of the services of “new” nobles. The familial wealth
of the last-named individuals, amassed from financial, administrative, and
judicial service to the crown, and also from overseas trade and domestic
industry, enabled them to purchase commissions and lead the increasingly
luxurious style of life that seemed incumbent upon the king’s officers.
Moreover, the state had at times to reach out beyond even these circles to
enlist into officer ranks out-and-out commoners whose wealth, obtained
much as fortunes were obtained by nobles of recent vintage, accorded them
preference in the army over the impecunious sons of the country noblesse.
An additional factor favoring newer nobles and commoners was their abil-
ity to parlay personal wealth into the kind of formal education whose end
result – an enhanced mental discipline and specialized, technical knowl-
edge – was ever more in demand in military as in civilian state service.96
Such modernizing tendencies in recruitment, however, were bound to
foment discord among military men. With the spectacular defeats suffered
by French arms at Rossbach and elsewhere in midcentury, this discord
erupted into a major debate within military circles – and, to some extent,
within society as a whole – over how the French army’s officer ranks
should be composed and what values they should embody.97 If we set
aside the hopelessly anachronistic yearning of some commentators for an
army commanded exclusively by the sons of the old provincial “sword,”
three schools of thought on this divisive issue stand out. First, reformist
ministers like Choiseul and Saint-Germain and high-born essayists like
Vauvenargues and the chevalier d’Arc advocated a kind of Prussian-style
state-service military elite, rewarding its members (preferably but not nec-
essarily issuing from the “sword”) according to strictly defined criteria of
military function and merit. Second, spokesmen for rich noble courtiers
and bourgeois not unnaturally continued to chant the praises of venality in
the commissioned ranks. Finally, there were those publicists (among them,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau) who envisaged a citizen army, modeled along clas-
sical Greco-Roman or idealized modern Genevan lines, whose members,
hailing from all walks of society, would share an intense emotional identi-
fication with the patrie .
96 On this subject, see, most recently, Jay M. Smith, The Culture of Merit: Nobility, Royal Service, and the Making of Absolute Monarchy in France, 1600–1789 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996).
97 See, in addition to Jay Smith’s recent monograph, David D. Bien, “La Réaction aristocratique avant 1789: L’Example de l’armée,” Annales: E. S. C. 29 (1974): 23–48, 505–34.
46
Reinterpreting the French Revolution
Of course, whether one argued for a meritocratic, a monetary, or a
civic-republican criterion in visualizing the ideal French fighting force of
the future, one was conceding the
94 The pertinent research is summarized in Bailey Stone, The French Parlements and the Crisis of the Old Regime (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), pp. 16–74.
95 See, on this point, Ralph Giesey, “State-Building in Early Modern France: The Role of Royal Officialdom,” Journal of Modern History 55 (1983): 191–207.
The ancien régime
45
for that role in the “society of orders”: namely, the sons of the proud but
penurious families of the provincial sword. As the novel geostrategic needs
of the state had to take precedence over old-fashioned considerations of
pedigree, France’s monarchs, after having turned to the old provincial no-
blesse and to sons of old and moneyed court families as well, had again and
again to avail themselves of the services of “new” nobles. The familial wealth
of the last-named individuals, amassed from financial, administrative, and
judicial service to the crown, and also from overseas trade and domestic
industry, enabled them to purchase commissions and lead the increasingly
luxurious style of life that seemed incumbent upon the king’s officers.
Moreover, the state had at times to reach out beyond even these circles to
enlist into officer ranks out-and-out commoners whose wealth, obtained
much as fortunes were obtained by nobles of recent vintage, accorded them
preference in the army over the impecunious sons of the country noblesse.
An additional factor favoring newer nobles and commoners was their abil-
ity to parlay personal wealth into the kind of formal education whose end
result – an enhanced mental discipline and specialized, technical knowl-
edge – was ever more in demand in military as in civilian state service.96
Such modernizing tendencies in recruitment, however, were bound to
foment discord among military men. With the spectacular defeats suffered
by French arms at Rossbach and elsewhere in midcentury, this discord
erupted into a major debate within military circles – and, to some extent,
within society as a whole – over how the French army’s officer ranks
should be composed and what values they should embody.97 If we set
aside the hopelessly anachronistic yearning of some commentators for an
army commanded exclusively by the sons of the old provincial “sword,”
three schools of thought on this divisive issue stand out. First, reformist
ministers like Choiseul and Saint-Germain and high-born essayists like
Vauvenargues and the chevalier d’Arc advocated a kind of Prussian-style
state-service military elite, rewarding its members (preferably but not nec-
essarily issuing from the “sword”) according to strictly defined criteria of
military function and merit. Second, spokesmen for rich noble courtiers
and bourgeois not unnaturally continued to chant the praises of venality in
the commissioned ranks. Finally, there were those publicists (among them,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau) who envisaged a citizen army, modeled along clas-
sical Greco-Roman or idealized modern Genevan lines, whose members,
hailing from all walks of society, would share an intense emotional identi-
fication with the patrie .
96 On this subject, see, most recently, Jay M. Smith, The Culture of Merit: Nobility, Royal Service, and the Making of Absolute Monarchy in France, 1600–1789 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996).
97 See, in addition to Jay Smith’s recent monograph, David D. Bien, “La Réaction aristocratique avant 1789: L’Example de l’armée,” Annales: E. S. C. 29 (1974): 23–48, 505–34.
46
Reinterpreting the French Revolution
Of course, whether one argued for a meritocratic, a monetary, or a
civic-republican criterion in visualizing the ideal French fighting force of
the future, one was conceding the
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