History Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread VI

[Louis XXIV]

Being taxed without representation was one thing, but giving equal rights to Papists is the last straw!

(Of course, the USA ended up guaranteeing freedom of religion. The alliance with the French during the Revolution might have had something to do with that.)

To be fair, there's a good argument that what the First Amendment did was guarantee local autonomy of religion much like the treaty of Westphalia. It was only later that it was applied to the states.

 

[Tahuti]

Does anyone here think that Louis XIV placed a timebomb on the monarchy by centralizing the French state, thus creating a single-point-of-failure that would be exploited by the revolutionaries in 1789, or was it more complex?

 

[Agent327]

I don't think it's fair to say centralization started with Louis XIV; his army enlargement also only enhanced a trend already in existence - the continuous need for money by any state (whether French or not).

 

[Tahuti]

I don't think it's fair to say centralization started with Louis XIV; his army enlargement also only enhanced a trend already in existence - the continuous need for money by any state (whether French or not).

That wasn't a helpful response, considering it was pretty common knowledge that the bulk of the centralization before the onset of the French revolution was carried out by Louis XIV in response to the Fronde rebellions.

 

[Flying Pig]

If it had got to the point where the only response to rebellion was to centralise so far as to make revolution inevitable, then we can hardly blame Louis for doing so. Furthermore I'm not sure that centralised monarchies are any less stable than decentralised ones, nor that revolutions need a single point of grievance. Unless of course you wish to argue that the US would not exist were it not for taxes on tea.

 

[Tahuti]

If it had got to the point where the only response to rebellion was to centralise so far as to make revolution inevitable, then we can hardly blame Louis for doing so.

I wouldn't say centralisation was the only viable response to the Fronde rebellions.

 

[Flying Pig]

I'm still unconvinced that oppression by the king's government is in any way more likely to trigger revolution than oppression by local lords.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Indeed, I'm not convinced oppression by the King's government actually was the cause of the French Revolution, or that the French Revolution turning on the king was inevitable.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm still unconvinced that oppression by the king's government is in any way more likely to trigger revolution than oppression by local lords.

I think Kaiserguard has a point when he talks a the monarch acting as a central point-of-failure. There's very little redundancy in an absolute monarchy, no way to appeal over the head of an incompetent or obnoxious ruler as one might appeal over the head of a lord or governor, and when the regime and the individual are identified so personally, reform and regime change become difficult to separate. I wouldn't say that Bourbon centralisation was a cause of the French Revolution, but I think there's a strong case that it was a necessary condition.

 

[ParkCungHee]

For a central-point-of-failure with nothing else to appeal to, the Monarchy stuck around remarkably long through reform and revolution.

 

[Traitorfish]

Well, I don't share Kaiserguard's view that it was a "time-bomb". I mean, you see broadly similar centralising projects in Spain, Prussia and Britain, but we don't see anything equivalent to the French Revolution, at least not until well into the 19th century. All I'd argue is that a centralised bureaucratic state is a prerequisite for the sort of "national" revolutions we see after 1789.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Technically, isn't Britain a constitutional monarchy? And there was a time during 1640 when the King tried to rule without the parliament.

Needless to say, it backfired terribly.

 

[ParkCungHee]

1640 didn't do much in the long term to stifle the power of British Monarchy in the longterm. You have a civil war, and then it's business as usual afterwards.

 

[Masada]

Technically, isn't Britain a constitutional monarchy? And there was a time during 1640 when the King tried to rule without the parliament.

No, there was a time where the King tried to raise taxes without Parliaments consent. The ruling part wasn't in the least bit controversial.

 

[sophie]

Technically, isn't Britain a constitutional monarchy? And there was a time during 1640 when the King tried to rule without the parliament.

Needless to say, it backfired terribly.

The Stuarts went through long periods of time ruling without parliament. "Parliament" in the 17th century was a wholly different beast than it was in the 18th. Essentially Elizabeth I had bankrupted the English Monarchy through pointless wars on the continent and in Ireland. The debts were sufficiently high that the king couldn't sustain payments on his own land rents, which means he had to levy taxes. Levying taxes required approval from Parliament. Parliament demanded concessions in return for their approval, which James (and later Charles) were not willing to accede to. So they dismissed parliament and tried to make do on their own, usually through manipulation of those taxes which were still under their control (such as export taxes).

What's different in 1640 was that the Scots had become fed up with the direction the Anglican Church was taking and the movements Charles had been taking to further centralize and unify the dual monarchy. The Scots, having acquired a reputation as some of the most veteran and skilled fighters during the 30 Years War marched south. Fighting a war requires money, which necessitates taxes, so repeat parliament cycle. Only this time Charles has to deal with an army, and he gets destroyed.

It wasn't really the not calling parliament that was the problem, well, not exactly. Rather the crippling debts from his forebears, combined with other circumstances.

 

[Quackers]

What's the view on Toynbee's "A Study of History"?

 

[Wrymouth3]

What's the view on Toynbee's "A Study of History"?

He's an interesting historian, he generally does a decent job at least getting the facts down and what not. His problem is that he generally ignores facts like natural disasters and domestic oppression by certain governments as to why societies fail. His opinion is that war and serial killings cause societies to fall, which is right to some extent, but ultimately ignores other more important factors.

 

[Tahuti]

I think Kaiserguard has a point when he talks a the monarch acting as a central point-of-failure. There's very little redundancy in an absolute monarchy, no way to appeal over the head of an incompetent or obnoxious ruler as one might appeal over the head of a lord or governor, and when the regime and the individual are identified so personally, reform and regime change become difficult to separate. I wouldn't say that Bourbon centralisation was a cause of the French Revolution, but I think there's a strong case that it was a necessary condition.

All I'd argue is that a centralised bureaucratic state is a prerequisite for the sort of "national" revolutions we see after 1789.

Well, that's pretty much my line of reasoning as well that underlied the question whether Louis XIV's reforms laid the seeds that would cause the collapse of the French monarchy. The real problem is that the all the people who matter are at one location (namely, Versailles) and could all be captured at once, and thus don't capabilities to appeal to their locality to come to the aid of the regime, something which was possible in more traditional feudal arrangements.

If bureaucratic centralisation is a prerequisite for a "national" revolution, what would be the other ones, if any?

 

[Masada]

The real problem is that the all the people who matter are at one location (namely, Versailles) and could all be captured at once

That would have been true for most European states though.

 

[Tahuti]

That would have been true for most European states though.

Fair enough. And there are definitely histories of states that collapsed for granting too much power to the aristocracy at the expense of the monarch, such as the Polish-Lithuanian liberum veto.