Provence: The Opportunities of Factionalism

Abstract

Living at the Mediterranean fringe of the realm, the inhabitants of scenic Provence fought valiantly in the seventeenth century to prevent the encroachment of royal authority and the erosion of provincial liberties. Provence was not like other parts of France. Of course, the same is true to some extent for all the French provinces, but it is particularly true for those that lay at the periphery. Deeply imbedded in the regional identity of Provence was the belief that its residents had their own special rights and privileges, the most important of which was the right of provincial estates to approve, apportion, and collect taxes. In short, Provence was a pays d’états, and in the seventeenth century its nobility would instigate and lead popular rebellions protesting the introduction of royal agents and authority. But it was also the same nobility that, in its complicity, would assist the crown finally in establishing greater control over the province. State-building in Provence, and elsewhere in the pays d’états, rested on a collaborative relationship forged by the crown and its ministers with the provincial nobility. This relationship between the province and the crown, or, more specifically, between the elites and the crown, bore the character of clientelism, and the construction of royal clienteles proceeded rather differently from one province to the next. In this great effort to infiltrate the outlying provinces, the crown confronted the legendary regional diversity that has become a sine qua non for French historians.