Prof. Mita Choudhury Stephen ChengHistory 332: Dangerous Ideas April-May 2010

Public opinion in France prior to the revolution

Introduction

The evolution and development of public opinion in France under the Old Regime

came to have revolutionary implications. The growth of public opinion manifested itself

in forms such as the establishment of a “Republic of Letters” (a phrase Dena Goodman

uses) and the development of credit in the economic sense of the term in the context of

Old Regime France.1 Since the Old Regime was dependent on notions such as divine

right of rule and absolutism so as to embody specific types of political and governmental

power and authority, the ramifications for public opinion included potential limits on the

power and authority of the French throne. For instance, then, public opinion represented a

check on the power and authority of the monarch since the latter had to take heed of the

former prior to making any decisions that should affect the rest of the monarchy.

Given the limits that public opinion places upon monarchical power and authority,

the notion and actuality of absolute monarchy undoubtedly fell under question. In

light of the Old Regime’s long life as a regime based on absolute power and authority as

embodied in one person, the mere possibility and reality of public opinion working as a

form of limitation would represent at the very least a chipping away of the image of the

Old Regime as a type of governance grounded in political and legal absolutism. In and of

itself, then, the concept of “public opinion,” and likewise related concepts and phrases

such as “public confiance,” “public sentiment,” “public sphere,” and “Republic of

Letters,” represented what would have been, in terms of France under the Old Regime,

1 Dena Goodman, The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1994), 12-13.

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“dangerous ideas.”

These “dangerous ideas” were “dangerous” in the sense that they challenged the

established order, such as the Old Regime, at the fundamental level. This sort of

challenge at the core thus pointed to the potential for sweeping, radical change so much

so that “revolution” would be an appropriate descriptive term. The challenge to the Old

Regime via the importance of public opinion became manifest in ways including the

creation of a Republic of Letters that served as the embodiment of an actually existing

public sphere in royal France and the establishment of credit as part of the French system

of finance.

For the Republic of Letters, public opinion established itself through written

communication and printed media such as books, journals and newspapers as people

were able to engage each other in discussion on public affairs and resultantly formulate

an opinion or a set of related opinions. Either way opinion in a public sense and context,

public opinion, began taking shape. As for credit and finance in monarchical France, the

institutionalization of a system by the Scottish political economist John Law entailed,

among other measures, the distribution and use of bank notes as a form of money and the

growing role of public trust as an economic asset. Public trust served as a basis for credit

in Law’s financial system and the French economy. Likewise, public trust also meant that

newly issued bank notes could work as money. Furthermore and finally, public trust was

correlated with public opinion. Public opinion had to be favorable, in this case with

regard to governmental decisions relating to finance and political economy, in order for

public trust to be retained so that credit can exist and bank notes issued by the monarchy

can have value.

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The Republic of Letters, the public sphere, and public opinion

Dena Goodman writes about and defines the Republic of Letters as such,

The Republic of Letters rose with the modern political state out of the religious wars of the sixteenth century, out of the articulation of public and private spheres, citizen and state, agent and critic.2

This “republic” evolved from an “articulation” that presupposed the existence of a

relationship between separate entities such as, again, the aforementioned “public and

private sphere, citizen and state, agent and critic.” The evolution of the Republic of

Letters from such related yet separate entities points to the existence of a discourse,

dialogue or discussion of some sort that could allow such a republic to exist in the first

place. For instance, written forms of communication allowed relationships to develop

among people with literacy, thus contributing to the building of a Republic of Letters.

The emergence and operation of the Republic of Letters relied on practical and

physical means such as media in print form. Examples of print media in this Republic of

Letters included publications, letters, et cetera. Publications such as the periodical

Nouvelles ecclésiastiques published news and commentary from a Jansenist point of

view.3 Additionally, the Republic of Letters allowed for academic and intellectual

endeavors to develop such as the Encyclopedie which Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond

d’Alembert edited.

The existence of these publications was a sign of a growing press which,

conceivably, had a role in the development of public opinion in France. Letters, likewise,

were a written means of communication that came to define the interpersonal and social

relationships within the Republic of Letters. Correspondence via letters included a wide 2 Goodman, 2. 3 Arlette Farge and Rosemary Morris (translator). Subversive Words: Public Opinion in Eighteenth-Century France (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 36-40.

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range of written communication that “ranged from short notes and letters of introduction

to lengthy newsletters and scientific reports, from the personal and private to the public

and published.”4 Since communication through letters entails a relationship among

correspondents that is akin to exchange (for instance, economic transaction, exchanging

one commodity for another) in which a letter first sent is followed by a letter in reply and

so on and so forth, reciprocity became a defining characteristic of the Republic of Letters.

Reciprocity via letters implied a form of equality between two correspondents;

correspondents relating to one another as separate persons holding forth on whatever

issues that are relevant to their dialogue.5 This kind of equality, additionally,

characterized how public opinion became established. Likewise, it pointed to how

participants in a public sphere could relate to one another as they shaped public opinion.

The public sphere provided an environment for people to communicate with each other

on public affairs on a voluntary and egalitarian basis without regard for social and

economic background.

Since a public sphere provides the contours in which public opinion is articulated,

a body of informed persons, constituting a public, formulates a collective opinion or a

collective set of opinions. Essentially, then, the public sphere serves as an environment

for public opinion to develop. Furthermore, this public opinion eventually had far-

reaching political implications since, during the decades leading to the French

Revolution, “it […] emerged as a central rhetorical figure in a new kind of politics.

Suddenly it designated a new source of authority, the supreme tribunal to which the

4 Goodman, 17-18. 5 Goodman, 18.

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absolute monarchy, no less than its critics, was compelled to appeal.”6

In more concrete terms, such developments within prerevolutionary French

society manifested themselves in forms including salons and aforementioned print media.

In the case of the salons, they became meeting places for people to engage in discussions

over issues relating to public affairs. These salons provided, in Goodman’s words, a

“social base” for the Republic of Letters while also giving “the republic […] a source of

political order in the person of the salonniere. She gave order both to social relations

among salon guests and to the discourse in which they engaged.”7

Additionally, the salons made up an environment in which citizenship could take

shape. For example, then, between 1765 and 1776, “men of letters and those who wanted

to be counted among the citizens of their republic could meet in Parisian salons every day

of the week.”8 Furthermore, regarding the issue of citizenship, Denis Diderot supplies a

definition in the Encyclopedie, “[A] [c]itizen is someone who is a member of a free

society with many families, who shares in the rights of this society, and who benefits

from these freedoms.”9 A salon, and likewise the Republic of Letters and also the public

sphere, provided the space for just that kind of free society in which participants can

share in and benefit from the freedoms that that society gives.

Furthermore, the evolution of an embryonic and prototypical version of

citizenship within the salons pointed to new potential ways in which people were to relate

to one another as citizens. According to Diderot again, “The name citizen corresponds

6 Keith Michael Baker, Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 168.7 Goodman, 99. 8 Goodman, 99. 9 Denis Diderot, “Citizen (Ancient history. Modern history. Public law).” Encyclopedie Vol. 3 (1753): 488-489.

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neither to those who live subjugated, nor to those who live isolated […]”.10 The

implication here, then, is that a citizen is an individual who is able to engage with the

other members of society on a consensual and liberated basis. She or he is able to be a

freely social individual. Similarly, other citizens are able to be such social individuals.

These citizens, as social individuals, necessarily relate to one another on an

egalitarian and non-coercive footing if citizenship and free societies were to have any

meaning. These foundations of equality and consent were, furthermore, related to the

aforementioned notion of reciprocity within the Republic of Letters. Reciprocity in the

republic meant that writers of letters could expect replies, thus involving themselves in

relationships that revolve around a dialogue in which those communicating can,

conceivably, interact on a roughly equal basis. Among citizens, such reciprocity would

find its expression in forms such as etiquette.

In the case of etiquette in a free society of citizens, another entry from the

Encyclopedie on “Civility, Politeness, Affability” proves relevant. For instance,

“affability,” defined as “consisting of a suggestion of the kindness with which a superior

receives his inferior, is rarely used from equal to equal, and never from inferior to

superior.”11 With regard to the Old Regime, affability would flow from the king, the

superior, to the subjects, all inferiors. But within the Republic of Letters, and in an actual

republic for that matter, such a relationship would run counter to its principles. As for

civility and politeness, they “represent a certain propriety in manners and speech that

tends to please and which demonstrates the respect we have for each other.”12

This respect, which can be considered a kind of reciprocity, would conceivably

10 Diderot, 488-489. 11 Louis, chevalier de Jaucourt. “Civility, Politeness, Affability.” Encyclopedie Vol. 3 (1753): 497.12 Louis, chevalier de Jaucourt, 497.

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help constitute a more ideal kind of relationship, or a more ideal set of relationships,

between citizens. And indeed, furthermore, there is a crucial distinction between

politeness and civility, with the former meant for “courtiers and persons of quality” and

the latter to be for “persons of a lower rank, for the largest number of citizens.”13 In light

of the status and role of participants in a republic, metaphorical and/or real, “civility”

would be rather apt. Likewise, the existence of such “civility” would entail citizens

relating to each other as equals with agency in a free society.

Additionally, these relations among citizens illustrate how participants in the

public sphere interact, given that the public sphere provides an environment for

participants to engage in conversation on an egalitarian basis which ignores the different

social and economic backgrounds that its participants no doubt have. It is this public

sphere, which the Republic of Letter is a representation of, with its practices of civility

grounded in ideas including reciprocity, equality, and consent that would prove to be a

growing and eventual challenge to the legitimacy of the Old Regime at the most basic

level. Therein lies the potential for revolution.

With the construction of a public sphere, the evolution of a public and the

voicing of public opinion in France there were, ultimately and in the long term,

revolutionary implications. Such revolutionary implications were “revolutionary” in

social, political and economic terms. In social terms, it pointed to the development of

new groups in society whose members had professional occupational backgrounds.

Regarding politics, the Republic of Letters provided a blueprint for government in a post-

Old Regime France. Finally, the economic aspects reflected the reciprocity among

13 Louis, chevalier de Jaucourt, 497.

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participants in the Republic of Letters, as market-based exchange processes became

prominent in the political economy of a royal-turned-revolutionary France. Likewise,

France also witnessed some key political economic changes, as can be seen in terms of

finance.

The application of John Law’s system of finance and the development of credit in Old Regime France

With regard to the finances of France under the Old Regime, there was a strong,

essential relationship between credit and public trust. Jacques Necker understood this

connection, given that he made public the financial records of the French throne in 1781.

In his preface to the King’s Accounts, Necker writes on the necessity of financial

transparency,

Shadows and obscurity favor negligence; publicity, on the contrary, can only become honor and recompense in proportion to the degree that one understands the importance of his duties and strives to fulfill them.14

Public knowledge of the financial state of the monarchy was necessary if finances were to

be handled with any integrity.

The financial and economic decisions of the French throne were thus subject to

scrutiny from the public. Should public opinion prove averse to a specific decision by the

monarch concerning finances, then such a financial decision will require some rethinking.

Likewise, if public opinion is amenable to a financial policy by the monarchy, then such

a policy is not likely to brook any substantial opposition. As per Necker’s statement,

then, public awareness, and by the same token public opinion, work to prevent financial

negligence and to promote trust in the finances of the French monarchy.

Public trust in the monarchy’s finances meant that some form of credit could

14 Jacques Necker, “Preface to the King’s Accounts (1781)” in Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo (editors) The French Revolution: A Document Collection (Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999), 29.

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exist. Here, the application of a financial system by John Law is relevant, given that

Law’s system saw implementation during the governance of King Louis XIV.15

According to Thomas E. Kaiser, Law’s system was “ultimately dependent upon the

public’s acceptance of royal paper” and therefore “tested the limits of the king’s capacity

to establish credibility in the eyes of his subjects and, hence, provides a major case study

in the politics of French absolutism.”16 Kaiser describes Law’s system as such,

In place of the traditional fiscal cures prescribed by Desmaretz and the duc de Noailles, such as the curtailment of royal expenditures, the use of chambres de justice to punish traitants who had bilked the government, and monetary revaluation, Law proposed to establish a royal bank that would function as the royal treasury and expand the money supply. By adding bank notes to the stock of metal coin, the bank would help the state pay back its debts, lower interest rates throughout the nation, and thereby generate economic growth.17

As shown by Kaiser, the issuance of bank notes as a form of money was a key part of

Law’s financial system.

The addition of bank notes to the money supply, a decision which in and of itself

undoubtedly represented a major modernization in the political economy of Old Regime

France, quite understandably presupposed a measure of public trust if such notes were to

be effective as money. This public trust in the financial realm became more important as

Law’s system became more extensive. According to Kaiser again,

As holders of government paper, ordinary citizens with no previous experience in government finance became, in effect, members of the financial public. In so doing, they also became judges of the crown’s financial conduct, rendering verdict after verdict through their decisions to purchase or sell Bank notes and Company [of the West] shares.18

The French public’s involvement in the finances of the monarchy via the use and

15 Thomas E. Kaiser, “Money, Despotism, and Public Opinion in Early Eighteenth-Century France: John Law and the Debate on Royal Credit”, The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 63, No. 1 (Mar., 1991): 2. 16 Kaiser, 2. 17 Kaiser, 3. 18 Kaiser, 4.

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circulation of paper money meant that public trust had to exist on financial grounds.

This kind of financially based public trust translated into the existence of credit as

a core feature of Law’s system. As a matter of fact, Law considered credit to be the

“soul” of his system.19 Law himself writes about the central importance and high value of

credit in a letter “about credit, and its use,”

It is a Maxim almost generally receiv’d amongst Bankers and Traders, That Credit well manag’d, is worth Ten times their Capital Stock; that is to say, That, with Credit, they gain as much, as if they had Ten times their Capital Stock. The Reason of it is, because their Credit brings into their Cash considerable Sums, out of which great Profits remain in their Hands, even after Deduction of the Interests due to their Creditors.20

He goes on to describe support for the monarchy’s credit as “Publick Confidence

and Trust.”21 Of course, the lack of such support would point to the dearth of public

confidence and trust, which would mean that the monarchy had no credit to speak of.

Law was not the only person to emphasize the importance of public opinion and public

trust either, given that Jean-Baptiste Colbert and the duc de Saint-Simon Louis de

Rouvroy have made similar points on the royal government’s credit, or lack thereof.22 In

Colbert’s case, royal credit became forfeit due to the government’s bankruptcy during the

mid-to-late seventeenth century. As for Saint-Simon, finance in France had the dubious

distinction of being subject to the arbitrary whims of the monarch. Here, financial public

opinion could prove to be a threat to the power and authority of the king, given that the

withdrawal of public support could easily plunge the monarchy into an economic and financial crisis. Such a crisis transpired in the twilight of the Old Regime while the

19 Kaiser, 4. 20 John Law and Sir J- E- (translator). Observations on the new system of the finances of France.: Particularly, on the repurchase or paying off the annuities: and on credit, and its use. In two letters to a friend. (London, 1720), 9-10. 21 Law, 10. 22 Jean-Baptiste Colbert, “Memoire” (October 1, 1659), in Lettres, instructions, et memoires de Colbert, ed. Pierre Clement (Paris, 1681-83), 7: 181 and Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon, Memoires, ed. A. de Boislisle (Paris, 1879-1928), 27: 178-79.

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French Revolution began taking place.

Law himself had a counterpoint to this sort of contingency. Given that

“[e]stablishing royal credit was, in sum, not merely a fiscal problem, but in the

profoundest sense a political one as well[,]” the question of what kind of political-legal

system should accompany Law’s financial program was a crucial question.23 In Law’s

own case, he argued that an absolute monarchy was the ideally suited kind of government

for his financial and economic system. Kaiser supplies the reason for Law’s opinion,

No public administration of credit could be as strong as that of an absolute monarchy, Law claimed, because only in such a government could fiscal policies be effectively coordinated by one sovereign will. “In credit as in military and legislative authorities,” he argued, “supreme power must reside in only one person and all inferior powers must be united with it, because on the unity of a single will depends the secrecy, the obedience, and expeditiousness, the order, and the union so necessary in the administration of the state.” […] Incorporating a credit-issuing bank within an absolute monarchy and amalgamating the king’s personal funds with those of the bank would insure that the king never undermined the bank’s credit, for to do so, Law insisted, would run contrary to the king’s own interests in maintaining the credibility of a public bank.24

Although the monarch’s own self-interest prevented him or her from tampering with the

kingdom’s finances, Law also added that the monarch had to be informed via principles grounded in reason and, yet again, public opinion (also known as “public

confiance,” “public sentiment”).25 Given that Law was in favor of absolute monarchy as

the ideal political and legal regime to coexist with a financial system based on the

provision and circulation of credit and government paper yet saw the need for rational

governance and public opinion for political and economic purposes (thus giving the term

“political economy” a rather literal meaning), he was essentially calling for an

enlightened absolute monarchy. Whether enlightened despotism could have saved the

monarchy from revolution is an open question, but so far as Law was concerned there

23 Kaiser, 5. 24 Kaiser, 6. 25 Kaiser, 7-8.

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was no question as to the importance of public opinion, among other things, such a

proposed monarchy.

Public opinion in relation to finance thus served an essential and dual function

within the political economy of royal France, in which it served as a means of checking

the king’s financial decision making power and works as a basis for credit to exist and for

paper currency to be legal tender. Public opinion, more over, served as a factor for the

development of public trust, a necessary element for credit to exist. Furthermore, it could

influence and inquire upon the monarchy’s decisions with regard to finance, thus placing

a practical limitation on the power an authority of the throne and setting a potential

precedent for the enlightened absolute monarchies.

Conclusions

The construction of a Republic of Letters as a public sphere in royal France and

the role of public trust as a basis for credit and monetary paper notes demonstrate the

increasing importance of public opinion. Public opinion, and the necessity of the

monarchy to make some kind of effort in engaging it, challenged the idea of absolute

rule. In the process, the potential and actuality of the French Revolution emerged.

Although the road to republicanism in France was in no way guaranteed with the

emergence of public opinion, the monarchy nonetheless had to contend with it by

possibly evolving into an enlightened absolute monarchy or a limited constitutional

monarchy. But in any case, public opinion as manifested in the Republic of Letters

brought forth novel concepts such as equality and citizenship via practices such as

reciprocity in correspondence while the evolution of modern finance in royal France

entailed that the public take on a greater role of rendering trust in terms of involvement in

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issues pertaining to political economy. All these examples of public opinion in specific,

concrete, and practical contexts were just as well examples of “dangerous ideas” in

France prior to the revolution. By the time of the French Revolution, public opinion

certainly became “an impersonal and anonymous tribunal,” before which the absolute

monarchy under King Louis XVI was found wanting.26

26 Mona Ozouf, “’Public Opinion’ at the End of the Old Regime,” The Journal of Modern History Vol. 60,

Supplement: Rethinking French Politics in 1788 (Sep., 1988): S11.

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References

Secondary sources

Baker, Keith Michael. Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Farge, Arlette and Rosemary Morris (translator). Subversive Words: Public Opinion in Eighteenth-Century France. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.

Goodman, Dena. The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1994.

Kaiser, Thomas E. “Money, Despotism, and Public Opinion in Early Eighteenth-Century France: John Law and the Debate on Royal Credit”, The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 63, No. 1 (Mar., 1991): 1-28.

Ozouf, Mona. “’Public Opinion’ at the End of the Old Regime,” The Journal of Modern History Vol. 60, Supplement: Rethinking French Politics in 1788 (Sep., 1988): S1-S21.

Primary sources

Colbert, Jean-Baptiste. “Memoire” (October 1, 1659), in Lettres, instructions, et memoires de Colbert, ed. Pierre Clement (Paris, 1681-83).

Diderot, Denis. “Citizen (Ancient history. Modern history. Public law).” Encyclopedie Vol. 3 (1753).

Law, John and Sir J- E- (translator). Observations on the new system of the finances of France.: Particularly, on the repurchase or paying off the annuities: and on credit, and its use. In two letters to a friend. (London, 1720).

Louis, chevalier de Jaucourt. “Civility, Politeness, Affability.” Encyclopedie Vol. 3 (1753).

Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon. Memoires, ed. A. de Boislisle (Paris, 1879-1928).

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Necker, Jacques. “Preface to the King’s Accounts (1781)” in Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo (editors) The French Revolution: A Document Collection (Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999).

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