344 Chapter XIV
North of Provence, in Dauphiny, much the same happened, with significant dif-
ferences. The Parlement of Grenoble, to defend itself against the May Edicts, took
the lead in organizing the nobility of the province, along with various lawyers and
notables of the bourgeois class, in a revival of the Provincial Estates. These met at
Vizille, where they showed themselves more open to new ideas than those of
Provence, in that they organized with double representation for the Third Estate,
and vote by head, not by order. The Vizille assembly was thus something like a
modern parliamentary body, and it set a precedent that was to be of great impor-
tance at the national level in 1789. Nevertheless, the insurgents in Dauphiny had
in mind certain of their own privileges also, hoping to preserve tax advantages for
noble land that resembled those of Provence, or at least not to lose them without
compensation. The leading representative of Dauphiny in the Estates General of
1789 was to be J. J. Mounier, of whom more will be said.^18
Brittany was an old irritant to the monarchy, and now became a hotbed of class
conflict and incipient revolution. Its parlement was the most exclusively noble in
all France. In its estates, which were very active, some 3,000 seigneurs and gentry
enjoyed the personal right to sit in the noble chamber, and hundreds came to every
meeting. In the inaccessible interior of the peninsula, these gentry retained more
of an ascendancy over the peasants than was now found in most parts of France.
At Rennes, much of the population lived by service to the parlementary and noble
families who congregated there on public business. On the other hand, in the port
towns, such as Saint- Malo and Nantes, an important commercial bourgeoisie had
grown up, less wedded to the historic liberties and established authorities of the
province.
After the May Edicts, the Breton parlement and estates rushed anew to the
defense of provincial liberties against the central power. They warmly upheld the
old Breton constitution, by which they enjoyed a good deal of autonomy, and the
lowest per capita tax burden of all France, less than half that of neighboring Nor-
mandy and Touraine. The nobles, as elsewhere, sought the support of the bourgeoi-
sie against the crown, but were less successful in obtaining it. Provincial liberties
were by no means of equal advantage to all persons within the province; as in
Hungary, they favored the existing upper class. The merchants of Nantes, and
other bourgeois of modern views, while not opposed to provincial liberties as such,
complained that the Provincial Estates levied the taxes inequitably as between in-
dividuals, and that they were not really represented by the comfortable municipal
mandarins that sat ex officio for the Third Estate at Rennes. Inspired by the move-
ment in Dauphiny, they demanded a reorganization of the Provincial Estates on
the model of the Vizille assembly. The nobles of Brittany refused what those of
Dauphiny had conceded. Class struggle broke out; there was a pitched battle at
Rennes between university students and young gentlemen reinforced by their foot-
men, porters, and assorted retainers. Both sides developed an organization of cor-
respondence committees and exchanges of delegations. The Breton deputies sent
18 J. Egret, La Revolution des Notables: Mounter et les Monarchiens, 1789 (Paris, 1950); 7–50; and see
the same author’s “La Révolution aristocratique en Franche- Comté et son echec, 1788–89,” in Revue
d ’ histoire moderne et contemporaine, 1 (1954), pp. 245–71.