A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

Challenges to Established Authority 423

But like Louis XV’s attempts to override the traditional role of the par­
lements, Turgot’s reforms aroused vociferous opposition. Nobles—with
some significant exceptions—rallied against the proposed financial reforms.
The parlements, still smoldering over their treatment by Maupeou and
Louis XV several years earlier, refused to register—and thereby give the sta­
tus of law to—the reforms of Turgot, who had supported Maupeou. Grain
merchants and guilds voiced strident opposition. Ordinary people rose up
in protest, blaming the freeing of the grain trade for the higher prices of
flour and bread in a period of dearth. Accusations of hoarding abounded.
Grain riots, in which women played the leading roles, swept across the
country during the spring “flour war’’ of 1775. Lawyers once again insisted
on the difference between absolute and despotic rule.
The king ended the most significant reform effort on the continent by
dismissing Turgot in 1776. When the American colonists declared their in­
dependence from Britain, France allied with them, forcing Louis XVI to
borrow ever more money at high interest rates and to sell more offices and
titles (about 3,700 venal offices conferred noble title). This helped shift
power within the nobility from the embittered “nobles of the sword’’ to
“nobles of the robe,’’ ennobled through the purchase of office or title. The lat­
ter had a different way of looking at the world, even as they embraced aristo­
cratic privilege. The more recently ennobled families remained in some ways
outsiders, their titles the result of worldly achievements, thus undercutting
the very essence of noble status passed down by heredity. In the meantime,
the French monarchy slid into an even deeper financial crisis.

Other Movements for Reform

In other cases, movements for reform came from below. In the Swiss Repub­

lic of Geneva, native-born artisans during 1765-1768 demanded equality

with the citizens possessing political rights. They were rebuffed by wealthy

Genevans, who tried to placate them with reductions in their taxes. An

uprising in 1782 unseated the ruling oligarchy before the intervention of

France, Sardinia, and the Swiss canton of Bern put an end to it.

In 1761, an uprising on the Mediterranean island of Corsica in the name

of “fatherland and liberty’’ ended rule by the northern Italian port city of

Genoa. France occupied Corsica seven years later. In 1770, the Greeks, with

Russian assistance, rose up against Turkish domination. Russia was eager to

enter the world of Mediterranean politics because it desired ultimately to

conquer Constantinople. The accession of Catherine the Great in 1762 had

ended a long succession crisis, palace plots, and assassinations, bringing sta­

bility to the Russian Empire. She sent an army and a small fleet in the hope

that Greek success might encourage other peoples to rise up against

Ottoman rule. Turkish troops crushed the revolt, but the Greek movement

for independence, by virtue of the special place of classical Greece in the

development of Western civilization, helped ignite Panhellenism.