European Political Organizations Before the French Revolution

Overview of Pre-Revolutionary Political Organizations in Europe

• Timeline Context: The discussion focuses on the period in Europe leading up to the year $1789$, the commencement of the French Revolution.
• Three Main Political Forms:
  • Absolute Monarchies: Characterized by centralized power held by the monarch without legislative checks.
  • Constitutional Monarchies: Characterized by a balance of power between the monarch and a parliament, defined by a written constitution.
  • Republics: Characterized by the absence of a monarch and the election of representatives.

Absolute Monarchies in Early Modern Europe

• Geographic Prevalence: Absolute monarchies were the dominant form of government in several major European powers before $1789$, including:
  • France
  • Russia
  • Spain
  • Portugal
  • The Habsburg Empire
• Historical Competition for Power: Since the era of feudalism, monarchs (kings and queens) were in a persistent struggle for authority against two major rivals:
  • The Nobility and Elites: Groups including dukes, earls, counts, and barons.
  • The Church: Religious institutions that held significant land and influence.
• Traditional Noble Influence (Pre-1600):
  • Kings relied heavily on nobles for advice and the day-to-day management of the kingdom.
  • Nobles leveraged this reliance to increase their own power at the expense of the king.
  • Parliaments and Congresses: Most kingdoms had legislative bodies where nobles held seats through inheritance or appointment rather than election. These bodies were tools used by nobles to limit the king's power and pass laws favoring the aristocracy.
  • Conflict: Before the $1600s$, nobles frequently waged war against their own kings to assert authority.

Mechanisms of Creating Absolutism

• Legislative Suppression: Starting in the $1600s$, monarchs began refusing to call parliaments to meet. Without these meetings, nobles could not pass laws, effectively granting the king the power to legislate on his own authority.
• Judicial Control: Kings overhauled the court systems by appointing judges directly and maintaining the right to dismiss any judge they disliked.
• Centralization of Revenue (Taxation):
  • Hiring Commoners: Kings shifted away from allowing nobles to collect taxes (a practice that had existed for centuries). Instead, they hired their own tax collectors, often educated commoners.
  • Preventing Embezzlement: This bypass prevented nobles from siphoning tax money to build their own private power bases.
  • Controlling the Church: By controlling tax collection, kings could deny funds to the church.
  • The Tithe: Historically, the church collected its own tax called the tithe, which was approximately $10\%$ of a follower's wealth. Under absolutism, the church became dependent on state funds, forcing them to obey the king to maintain access to money.

Case Study: King Louis XIV of France

• Reign (1643–1715): Louis XIV is considered the quintessential absolute monarch.
• The Fronde Influence: When Louis was a child, French nobles revolted in an attempt to seize power from his father. This lived experience made Louis determined to achieve absolute power as an adult.
• Strategic Bureaucracy:
  • In the $1660s$, he dismissed nobles from inherited roles such as advisors, military officers, and government officials.
  • He rehired only those who demonstrated absolute loyalty. Disloyalty resulted in the loss of their position, though they kept their titles (e.g., baron or duke).
  • This reduced the meaningful influence of the nobility over the government.
• The Estates General: This was the French parliament. Under Louis XIV, it was never called into session. It had not met since the year $1614$. This allowed him to pass any law or order the arrest of any person without them having broken a law.
• Tax Collection Shifts: Louis sold the right to collect taxes to educated non-nobles (commoners). This created a class of officials whose authority was entirely dependent on the king, while simultaneously undercutting the church's financial independence.

The Palace of Versailles as a Political Tool

• Location: Built $20\,\text{miles}$ outside of Paris.
• Strategic Isolation: Louis required all nobles to live at Versailles for at least part of the year. This allowed the king to keep a close watch on them.
• Social and Political Exclusion: If a noble did not attend court, Louis would famously remark, "I do not know him." Being unknown by the king meant the noble and his family were denied access to any official government positions, power, or prestige.
• The Sun King Symbolism: Louis XIV was known as the "Sun King" because everything in France and at court revolved around him, much like the planets revolve around the sun.
• Court Rituals: Life at Versailles was highly regimented with ceremonies designed to turn nobles into servants who competed for the king’s favor.
  • The Levee: The waking-up ceremony.
  • The Gouje: The going-to-bed ceremony.
  • Examples of "Honorable" Tasks: Holding the king’s washbasin, helping him put on shoes, or even emptying the royal chamber pot were considered high honors because they provided an audience with the king to ask for favors.
• The "Evil High School" Dynamic: The nobles became more interested in "schmoozing" the king and impressing him with expensive clothes and parties than in hiring armies to overthrow him.

Fiscal Limits and Indirect Taxation

• Tradition as a Limit: Even absolute monarchs were bound by some traditions. In France, the king was not permitted to increase taxes on property.
• Workarounds: To fund Versailles and his various wars, Louis XIV and his heirs (Louis XV and Louis XVI) implemented indirect taxes on commodities and services, including:
  • Wine
  • Beer
  • Tobacco
  • Salt
  • Toll roads
  • Imports

Constitutional Monarchies: The British Model

• Defining Feature: Control is taken from the ruler and given to a parliament. The powers of both the king and the parliament are codified in a constitution.
• Legislative Authority: In this system, the parliament passes laws. While the king may have a veto, the parliament typically has the power to override it.
• Role of the Nobility: In Britain, the nobility won the struggle for power against the crown.
• The Glorious Revolution (1688):
  • The Conflict: King James II attempted to rule as an absolute monarch and desired to return Britain to Catholicism, which conflicted with laws requiring the monarch to be Protestant.
  • James II’s Tactics: He attempted to "pack" parliament with loyalists, similar to Louis XIV's methods.
  • The Succession: The nobility invited James II’s Protestant daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange (from Dutch territory), to take the throne.
  • Outcome: Mary landed with an army, but James II’s own army deserted him. There was very little bloodshed, hence the name "Glorious Revolution."
  • The Bill of Rights (1689): In exchange for the throne, William and Mary agreed to this constitution, which limited their power and gave Parliament control over lawmaking and foreign policy.
  • Fate of James II: He eventually moved to Versailles to live under the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV.

Republics: The Case of the Netherlands

• Structure: There is no king or queen. Government is managed by a congress of representatives.
• The Dutch Republic: In the $1600s$, this was the only major republic in the world. It was a small nation with a significant colonial empire built on maritime trade.
• Voting Rights: Only a very small number of wealthy men had the right to elect representatives.
• Contemporary Perception: During the $1600s$, republics were considered extremely "weird" and "odd" because the idea of ruling without a monarch through elections was contrary to the prevailing European norm.
• Legacy: While rare in the $1600s$, the republic model (notably adopted later by the United States) eventually spread to become the dominant form of government in modern Europe.