The First Stages of the Revolution 441dilemma would lead to the events that constituted the first stages of the
French Revolution.
Convoking the Estates-GeneralThe “noble revolt” began the French Revolution. In response to the refusal
of the Parlement of Paris to register the land and stamp taxes, in August
1787 Louis XVI exiled its members to Troyes, a town east of Paris. Nobles
and high clergymen protested vigorously. The provincial parlements backed
up the Parlement of Paris. The Parlement of Grenoble refused to register
the new stamp and land taxes and convoked its provincial estates (the
assembly of nobles that represented the interests of the region) without
royal authorization. The “revolt of the nobility” against the monarchy’s
attempt to force nobles to pay taxes spread. Provincial parlements demanded
that the Estates-General be convoked. This revolt was not directed against
the institution of the monarchy itself, but against what the nobles consid
ered abuses of the rights and privileges of the nation committed by an
increasingly despotic crown.
The monarchy sought compromise. Lomenie de Brienne agreed to with
draw the new land and stamp taxes in exchange for maintaining the tax on
income (the vingtieme tax), which nobles and other privileged people had
first been assessed in the late 1750s to pay for the Seven Years’ War. He made
clear, however, that the crown would be forced to settle its debts in paper
money backed by royal decree. Louis XVI recalled the Parlement of Paris
from exile in November 1787. But the king ordered new loan edicts regis
tered without giving the parlement a chance to be heard. When the duke of
Orleans, the king’s cousin, interjected that such a procedure was illegal,
Louis replied, “That is of no importance to me ... it is legal because I will it.”
Louis XVI thus seemed to cross the line between absolutism and despotism.
In May 1788, the king ordered the arrest of two of the most radical mem
bers of the Parlement of Paris. He then suspended the parlements, estab
lishing new provincial courts to take their place and creating a single plenary
court that would register royal edicts. Resistance to the king’s acts against
the parlements came quickly. The Assembly of the Clergy, which had been
summoned to decide on the amount of its annual gift to the crown, protested
the abolition of the parlements. Riots in support of the parlements occurred
in several towns, including Grenoble, where crowds expressed support for
their parlement by pelting soldiers with stones and roof tiles.
On August 8, 1788, Louis XVI announced that he would convoke the
Estates-General on May 1 of the following year. He hoped that he could
avert royal bankruptcy if the Estates-General would agree to the imposi
tion of the new taxes. Two weeks later, he reappointed Necker as minister of
finance, a measure he believed would appease nobles, investors, and holders
of government bonds, who had never objected to unrestrained borrowing.