Convocation of the general states of 1789

The French revolution, extraordinary event if it is, is preceded and initiated by a less exceptional event hardly: the convocation of the representatives of the three Orders of the nation to general states. This National Assembly had not taken place since nearly two centuries, since 1614 precisely. Although no human memory kept itself of it the direct memory, the extraordinary character took part in the intensity of the hopes which this event raised and the awaited benefit were such as one provided already that is renewed regularly.

The formation or convocation of the general states , included/understood like the whole of the necessary actions to ensure the success of the General states, lasted overall a year, mid- 1788 with the first royal initiatives with the solemn opening on May 5th 1789.

This year was devoted to the collection of information on the States of 1614, with the publication of the directives as from January 1789, then with their application on all the territory, since it was understood that the inhabitant most distant from all the provinces would have the possibility of making hear his voice.

The gradual consensus around the convocation

During the 18th century, the difficulty then impossibility of curing in particular at the disastrous state of finances had suggested with some which the remedy could come only from the meeting of provincial States and General states. The writings of Malesherbes are in this respect very instructive in particular the “Remontrances of the Court of the Assistances of 1775”.

The word “revolution” was also employed without adding to the disorders of the spirits or the populations. It is however necessary to take care to interpret it by avoiding the anachronism.

Even the privileged orders, by principle hostile with any innovation but trustful in their supremacy, did not see in this operation a so great threat but on the contrary like the occasion to durably consolidate the essential principles of the company, principles subjected to a sabotage always growing.

However the king, still and always opposed by the Parliament S, took care well to prohibit with the advisers any legal intervention in the setting-in-work of the convocation. (Article 51 - Conclusion reached by the Council of the December 27th 1788).

In 1787, the idea of General states is already evoked in some edicts or stops of the Council, but remaining without continuation, one came from there to think of a tactic of diversion.

This idea takes consistency with the length of the following year and it is at the closing date of the Council of the July 5th that Armand Brette assigns the release of the convocation considered as a long process. This stop makes it possible to appreciate the royal intentions and the clearness of the king on the difficulties of not neglecting so that these intentions are concretized. These difficulties came mainly from the defect of knowledge unified of the political wheels, i.e. on diversity as much as the blur of the statutes of the provinces (for example those conquered since 1614) and also on the agents ready locally to guarantee the legitimacy of the operations, in particular elections of the deputies.

In fact thus at all the states embarrasses the king, but the convocation itself. Let us return to him the word one moment in this July 5th, 1788 when it calls upon the lights of the country and orders research in the files:

“Its Majesty will always seek to approach used in the past forms; but when they cannot be noted, She wants to compensate for the silence of the old monuments only by asking for, before any determination, the wish of her subjects, so that their confidence is more whole in a really national assembly, by her composition as by her effects. ”

Concretely the Public records preserve a great number of memories addressed to the king to satisfy his wish of a “assembly as national and as regular as it owes the being” and at the same time “the assembly of an big family having for chief the common father. ” These memories were to be pressed on the files of the Clerc's Offices of the cities and the jurisdictions, then to be validated by the provincial states.

As of the August 8th and without awaiting this information, the king fixes the opening at May 1st 1789 by stressing that he “enjoys in advance comforting hope to be born serene and quiet to succeed days of storm and concern. ”

To still secure unforeseen difficulties, the king convenes the Assemblée of notable the on November 3rd.

The theory of the convocation

If the project achieves the unanimity - at least as long as its conditions remain vague - and if the principle is known, the royal administration is deprived of any experiment of implementation. Which is the situation at the conclusion of the phase of recourse to the memory-even of the country for the greatest guarantees of success?

Constitutionally, the convocation is a “royal act”; that will import thereafter at the time of the operation of recording of the royal letters of January 1789.

It is in addition a concerning act legal administration, with the direction where, in absence of separation of the capacities and spite of the prohibition made at the Parliaments, the legal structure is only suited and qualified for its execution. Without that being clarified by the king, it is undoubtedly for lack of any other possible way that it must entrust the success of the company to the very first cause of embarrassment in his kingdom, moreover to hear the essential Doléances of its subjects. In its letter of the relatively short August 8th 1788, it devotes a paragraph to the question of the distance of justiciable and judges.

On the interest to bring together the representatives of the country, one cannot take at fault Louis XVI or the texts of his ministers, it does not have there the shade of a duplicity, of an essential compromise, a judicious extension. This purity of intention will be found in filigree of the multiple later difficulties, for example, the deputies died before the opening of the States or during their behavior will have to be replaced and that only by new elections.

The General states of 1789 will be thus the only ones where the representativeness of the deputies ensured by the “freedom of the votes” will be posed like an undeniable requirement. Thus, there will be in spite of the requests no member of right, the king renonçant against the tradition with its “right of exclusion” of the deputies whom it would consider unworthy. This requirement will be confirmed and clarified in the royal Règlement of the January 24th 1789 and the decisions which will follow to the opening of the states; many being those which will seek in the weaknesses of the texts rather than of their spirit to cant the royal instructions.

Payments of the convocation

The December 19th 1788, it is made state of “the urgent need make dispatch the notices of meeting”.

The December 27th 1788, an important report/ratio of Necker accompanies and justifies the five briefs articles of the “Conclusion reached by the Council of State of the King, held in Versailles” on this date.

Briefs, but with how much determining, these articles order that:

the states will bring together at least thousand deputies;
these deputies will be in proportion of the “population and the contributions of each bailliage”;
“… the number of the deputies of the third state will be equal to that of the two other joined together orders and that this proportion will be established by the notices of meeting. ”

The memories provincial received and integrated, the crucial step is reached the January 24th news and promising year. Starting with the least complex, the king mobilizes like avant-garde the governors of the nineteen general information known as of elections: Alençon, Amiens, Auch, Bordeaux, Bourges, Caen, Châlons, Limoges, Lyon, Montauban, Mills, Orleans, Paris, Poitiers, Riom, La Rochelle, Rouen, Soissons, Turns.

The king recalls the aim of the future states:

“We need the contest of our faithful subjects to help Us to relative overcome all the difficulties where We are, with the state of our finances, and to establish, following our wishes, an order constant and invariable in all the parts of the government who interest the happiness of our subjects and the prosperity of our kingdom” and further the king invites to work with “the establishment of a fixed and durable order in all the parts of the administration. ” Letter of the King for the convocation of the general states with Versailles the April 27th 1789, preamble to the 51 articles of the general Payment of January 24th, 1789 .

This payment fixes the provisions essential regulating the elections and successive draftings of Registers of grievances until their presentation in Versailles. Various complements and minor corrective measures will be necessary so that the desire of the king is really satisfied vis-a-vis the opposition with many holders of privileges.

The payment of January 24th, 1789 intended initially for the quoted general information is adapted to the typical locations met in the remainder of the territory; the essential points are the following:

the bailliages and seneschalsies are the electoral constituencies of the more high level, therefore before Versailles; their assemblies will have to be held before March 16th;
Of the bailliages is known as “secondaries” when they are of less importance or less seniority; they form an intermediate level of election;
the orders hold of the distinct assemblies, in theory;
the Parish S and communities of countryside “having a separate role of impositions” are invited to write a “book of their complaints and complaints”;
Takes part in the elections of their representatives (“appointed”) the men old of more than 25 years and “included/understood with the role of the impositions”;
the elections are organized in the cities by corporation “arts and trades” or “liberal arts”; the city has a number of deputy fixed by an appendix at the payment;
Except corporations, the number of representatives (“appointed”) is of one or two percent voters present (it is only one order of magnitude);
the proportion is similar in the rural parishes but in proportion of “fires” (hearths) and not of the individual voters;
At the last stage with the chief town of the bailliage or equivalent, the various representatives elects their deputies for Versailles: the basic condition is to have a voice above half of the votes, if not another procedure must be followed as much once than necessary.

It is noticed that the “appointed” term apply indistinctly to the elected officials of a parish and the deputies in charge of the ultimate complaints; that the term “delegation” also intervenes to indicate a group of four deputies (two for the privileged Orders and two for the Third state); that the term “fires” is of a rare ambiguity…

The king and his agents of confidence do not want to mask the imperfection of this exceptional convocation:

“However the respect for the former practices and the need for reconciling them with the circumstances present, without wounding the principles of justice, returned the whole of the organization of the next General states, and all the preliminary, very difficult and often imperfect provisions. ”

But the king is so firm in his optimism which he entrusts by advance to the assembly envisaged in May “the care to cure the inequalities which one could not avoid, and to prepare for the future a more perfect system. ” since it will accommodate there necessarily only “the men of a wise spirit” to which each one of its subject will have given the preference.

Random links: