The Night the Old Regime Ended: August 4,1789, and the French Revolution

256 Pages·2003·1.733 MB·English

by  Michael P. Fitzsimmons

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The Night the Old Regime Ended
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M I C H A E L P . F I T Z S I M M O N S
The Night the Old Regime Ended
AUGUST 4, 1789, AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
The Pennsylvania State University Press
University Park, Pennsylvania
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To the Belmont Abbey College Class of 1971
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fizsimmons,Michael P.,1949–
The night the Old Regime ended : August 4,1789 and the French Revolution /
Michael P.Fitzsimmons.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-271-02233-7 (alk.paper)
1. French—History—Revolution,1789–1799. 2. Feudalism—France.
I. Title
DC168.0804.F57 2002
944.04'1—dc21 2002012192
Copyright© 2003The Pennsylvania State University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,
University Park,PA 16802-1003
It is the policyof The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper.
Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48–1992.
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Contents
Preface ix
One The National Assembly and the Night of August 4 1
Two The Impact on the Church 47
Three The Abolition of Nobility 93
Four The Ramifications in the Countryside 137
Five The Reverberation in the Cities 173
Conclusion 215
Bibliography 223
Index 237
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And this,
repeated I with exultation to myself,this is the
National Assembly of France! Those men now before my eyes are
the men who engross the attention,the astonishment of Europe;
for the issue of whose decrees surrounding nations wait in sus-
pense,and whose fame has already extended through every civi-
lized region of the globe:the men whose magnanimity invested
them with the power to destroy the old constitution,and whose
wisdom is erecting the new,on a principle of perfection which
has hitherto been thought chimerical,and has only served to adorn
the page of the philosopher; but which they believe may be
reduced to practice,and have therefore the courage to attempt.
Helen Maria Williams,
LETTERS WRITTEN IN FRANCE (1790)
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Preface
Of the major turning points of the French Revolution universally recog-
nized by day and month alone,few have a more indeterminate legacy than
the night of August 4.Although the question of their relative significance
might occasionally be debated,July 14,August 10,9Thermidor,and oth-
ers have a relatively unambiguous standing.The meeting of the National
Assembly at Versailles on the night of August 4,1789,however,has a far
more equivocal heritage.
The unsettled legacy of the night of August 4 stems in large measure
from the ambiguity of both the origin and the outcome of the meeting of
that evening;events did not proceed as planned.The calculated nature of
the event,with deputies planning to renounce certain rights in return for
cash compensation in an effort to appease the serious unrest in the country-
side,has caused scholars to question the sincerity of the participants.The
original plan went awry,and the initial relinquishments became the cata-
lyst for a wholly unanticipated and emotional surrender of privileges of
every sort.Members of all three orders—clergy,nobility,and commoners—
spent hours renouncing an extraordinary array of exemptions,prerogatives,
and privileges,and the relinquishments were so extensive that deputies
could not recall all of them.Indeed,whereas the minutes of previous meet-
ings of the Assembly had been prepared within a day or two of each
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Preface
session and were generally eight to twelve pages in length,those for the
meeting of August 4 took two weeks to appear and comprised more than
forty pages.The ultimate outcome of these renunciations would take two
years to be realized and was not what a relatively large proportion of the
clergy and nobility had expected when they agreed to the abolition of priv-
ileges.Nevertheless,the meeting of the night of August 4 provided a pro-
gram and guiding principles for discussion and debate,whereas heretofore
an agenda had been lacking.
Just as the origin of the meeting was ambiguous,so,too,was the out-
come.To the deputies of the National Assembly,particularly those who had
been in attendance,the meeting of the night of August 4 and the princi-
ples that it instilled were beyond reproach.To many of those who were
affected by the measures enacted by the National Assembly in the after-
math of August 4,however,the results of the session were not above crit-
icism.Most elements in French society were prepared to participate in the
spirit of sacrifice that the meeting represented,but the ultimate outcome
produced sharp disillusionment,particularly among the First and Second
Estates.
In the case of the First Estate,the church believed that it was joining in
the spirit of sacrifice by relinquishing the tithe,a tax that the church levied
on lay landowners to support the clergy.But the renunciation of the tithe
mandated a new method of financing the church,which ultimately led to
the nationalization of church lands.The need to turn clergymen into
salaried public officials,who,like all other public officials,would be elected,
produced the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.This document was drafted
without consulting the church,however,which provoked substantial oppo-
sition,and the subsequent requirement by the Assembly of an oath of loy-
alty to the Civil Constitution led to a bitter schism in French society.
With respect to the nobility,the sense of fraternity that emerged from
the relinquishments made during the night of August 4 led to the dissolu-
tion of orders in French society,a measure formally enacted in October
1789.The nobility acquiesced to the dismantling of orders in the political
sphere,but the abolition of nobility in June 1790,after the nobility had
accepted political and fiscal equality,struck many of its members as gratu-
itous and excessive.
The meeting also deeply affected the Third Estate,both the peasantry
and urban inhabitants.Relinquishments made during the meeting utterly
transformed the situation of the peasantry and began their politicization.
Although somewhat less apparent,the meeting also had a major impact on
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Preface
the urban inhabitants of France.The renunciation of venality of office,
under which many municipal officers had purchased their posts,led to a
new structure of municipal government,and guilds,a fixture of urban life
since the medieval era,were abolished.
The National Assembly sought to codify the results of the meeting of
the night of August 4in the Constitution of 1791.Indeed,the preamble to
the Constitution of 1791 recapitulates,in essence,the renunciations made
during the meeting of the night of August 4,highlighting the centrality of
that meeting to the revolutionary agenda.
The night of August 4,1789,with its abolition of the major attributes
of French Old Regime society,was clearly the night that the Old Regime
ended,but although the events of that night have often been characterized
in general terms,they have received surprisingly little attention from his-
torians.Patrick Kessel produced an analysis based on a thorough compila-
tion of sources,and Jean-Pierre Hirsch edited a documentary collection of
the meeting.Both books are useful,but they consist largely of documen-
tation of the meeting and its immediate aftermath.A significant void in
interpretation remains.What has been particularly lacking is a considera-
tion of how the meeting inspired the deputies of the National Assembly to
embrace a new ideal of the polity and an assessment of the vast social con-
sequences of that new ideal for French society.
This study considers the manner in which the renunciations of privi-
leges made during the meeting of the night of August 4formed the agenda
for the National Assembly during the remainder of its existence.After exam-
ining the manner in which the meeting affected the National Assembly
itself,this study analyzes the manner in which each of the three orders or
estates in the kingdom was transformed as a result of the meeting of the
night of August 4 and the legacy of that transformation not only for the
early period of the Revolution,but also beyond.
Happily,the field of the French Revolution,despite the passionate nature
of our debates,is,with a few exceptions,suffused with a spirit of fraternité
and scholarly generosity that I have always valued.Many colleagues have
read portions of this manuscript and have contributed significantly to it,
and I am delighted to have this opportunity to express my gratitude.I wish
to thank Nigel Aston,William Doyle,Alan Forrest,Robert Griffiths,Peter
Jones,Colin Lucas,Kenneth Margerison,Jay Smith,and Frank Tallett for
their insightful criticisms.Rory Browne kindly provided logistical support,
and Rafe Blaufarb and Melvin Edelstein shared unpublished work.William
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