The Government, the Parlements, and the Battle Over Liberty: II

Abstract

Unlike most of the great political battles of the old regime, the struggle over the liberal reforms did not find the government on one side and the parlements on the other. There were parlements on both sides of the question. Nor were the courts which took a stand against liberalization along with the Paris Parlement united in their views or bound by a sense of common interest. There is no evidence that the opposition companies of Dijon, Bordeaux, Rennes, Rouen and Paris coordinated their attacks or corresponded, as they did on many other issues, to plan strategy and exchange ideas. Each parlement was concerned specifically about the fate of its own ressort. The Breton magistrates appear to have calculated their policy without regard to the situation of the other courts. Liberalism had deep roots in the Rennes Parlement and it was vigorously seconded by the Estates of Brittany which had close ties with the court and which remained committed to the reforms at least until 1770.¹ The Parlement hesitated a long while before moving against liberalization and then tried to take a position which would not foreclose the possibility of a return to liberty when conditions improved. The Bordeaux court oscillated between liberal and police positions depending far less on a global conception of political economy and administration than on short-term factors which affected the supply situation of the territory.² If the Paris Parlement struck a more universal pose, it was because it habitually pretended to speak for the whole nation, to the chagrin of its sister-parlements, and because the provisioning of Paris depended upon circumstances throughout the kingdom.

On Brittany, see Letaconnoux, Commerce des grains en Bretagne, 41, 87–88, 91, 194–95, 197 and Bachaumont, Mémoires secrets, XIX, 74 (19 May 1769).

See, for example, a magistrate’s letter to the Bordeaux IN., 23 Sept. 1766, C. 1425, A.D. Gir.; Terray to First President, 26 July 1773, C. 1441, ibid.; M.-F. Pidansat de Mairobert, Journal historique de la révolution opérée dans la constitution de la monarchie françoise (London, 1776), IV, 401 (14 Dec. 1773).