Revolt stamped paper

Context

The War of Holland

Louis XIV declares the war with the United Provinces in 1672. But, contrary to the War of Devolution, after a fast progression, the French Army is stopped by the voluntary floods of the Dutchmen, and the war lasts for ever.

The Dutch fleet threatens the French coasts, and in particular Brittany, while crossing on its coasts in April - May (after a descent on Belle-Île in 1673 and another on Groix in 1674), which obstructs the Breton trade.

To finance the war, of new taxes are raised:

initially a tax on the stamped paper, in April 1674, paper made compulsory for all the acts likely to be used in justice (of which wills, sale contracts and incidentally, the registers of registry office), which increases the price of the acts for the private individuals, while being likely to decrease the number of businesses for the professionals, from where a general dissatisfaction;
on September 27th, 1674, the sale of Tabac is reserved to the king, who takes a tax and in the sale leases. The people authorized to resell the tobacco (farmers and clerk) repurchase stocks with the tradesmen who sold some before. The reorganization of the circuits of sale involves a temporary interruption of the distribution of tobacco to be smoked and chew, from where another source of dissatisfaction;
at the same period, a new tax strikes all the objects in tin (even bought a long time front), which dissatisfied easy peasants, as well as the innkeepers who reflect the tax, from where a big rise on the prices of consumption;
finally, another tax, concerning less world, obliges the commoners having a noble Fief to pour a tax every twenty years.

Situation in Brittany

These new taxes and these threats are added to a difficult economic situation in Brittany.

Brittany then is very populated (approximately 10 % of the population of the kingdom), and saved by the food shortages and the epidemics since the Years 1640. The years 1660-1670, it enters a phase of economic difficulties, largely related to the first effects of the policy of war economic of Louis XIV, slight increase and simultaneous of the taxes, and structural weaknesses: for example, reduction in two thirds of the trade of the Wine and the fabrics according to the duke of Chaulnes (called " year hoc' H lart": the large pig , in Breton), governor of Brittany, the incomes resulting from the ground (Tenant farming S) also decrease them by a third, involving a Déflation generalized, excluded offices.

Moreover, the system of the Domaine congéable, which governs the reports/ratios of part of the peasants cultivating the ground and owners, antiquated, and is led to an absence of investment and improvements of the methods of culture, as well on behalf of the peasants as of the lords. Those, on the other hand, in front of the fall of their incomes since 1670, require in a more fastidious way their other rights (see reaction seigneuriale). But this point of view is disputed by Jean Meyer who says that the superposition of the chart of the revolt with the areas of congéable field is “doubtful”. One can indeed notice that parishes except congéable field are raised, whereas others, which form part of it, are not raised. One can add that the suppression of the system is not approached in the codes which reached us.

The revolt is very often carried out by women. At that time, the royal legislation is increasingly Draconian against the women, all their rights are decreased, as well their economic rights as civil (it cannot choose their husband any more for example). This runs up in a country where the woman occupies a very important place traditionally, and one finds mention in the country codes of it.

Finally Brittany is a Pays of States, where the tax on the salt, the Gabelle does not exist, and where the new taxes must be accepted by the States since the act of Union of Brittany in France. In 1673, the States had, in addition to a Don free of 2,6 million books, bought the suppression of the Chambre of the fields (which deprived certain noble of right of justice) for the same amount and repurchased the royal edicts instituting the new taxes, more various other expenditure in favor it royal capacity for an enormous total of 6,3 million books. One year afterwards, the same edicts are restored, without consultation of the States. And it is by the Parlement of Brittany that Louis XIV fact of recording the tax on the stamped paper in August 1673, and taxes it on the tobacco in November 1674, with the contempt of the “Breton freedoms” (thus the Breton ones of the time called their privileges under the terms of the Traité union of Brittany with France).

The new taxes touch more the peasants and the small people of the cities which the privileged people, and make fear an introduction of the gabelle one. All that creates a broad face of dissatisfaction against new brutality with the royal State.

Unfolding

Urban riots

Rising begins with Bordeaux: from March 26th to 30th, the city is with the hands of the rioters. The insufficient garrisons prevent César d' Albret, governor of the city, to restore the order, the middle-class men refuse the lifting of the militia. From the 29, the peasants of the surroundings arrive at Bordeaux to lend hand-strong to the rioters. The Parliament of Bordeaux returns an injunction of the new taxes under the popular pressure. The news reaches quickly Rennes and Nantes which is raised at the beginning of April; other cities of south-west are also raised for the same reasons (riots with Bergerac May 3rd and 4th, etc). April 6th, the king makes a statement of Amnistie for the riots of Bordeaux, his governor not having the means of taking again the city in hand.

In Brittany, the really spontaneous urban riots are limited to the two big cities, Rennes and Nantes. Everywhere the diagram is the same one: the offices of stamped paper or marking of the tin crockery are plundered, of the confrontations take place to the cry of Vive the king without the gabelle one! the first rising takes place in Rennes on April 3rd, but the calm one is quickly brought back by the prosecutor to the Parliament. A new riot takes place on April 18th (at least ten dead), which is propagated the following day with Saint-Malo, where the disorders are " légers" according to Auguste Dupouy, which he explains by the fact that " the Terre-Neuvas had left or in partance" , then the 23 in Nantes, and again on May 3rd in Rennes and Nantes. Other cities are touched: Guingamp, Ferns, Dinan, Morlaix. The middle-class militia are not very reliable, and pass sometimes to the riot. June 8th, the troops sent to bring back the calm one cause the anger of Nantes (under the Old Mode, any troop is placed at the inhabitant, with his load: however, Nantes counted among its privileges the exemption of the housing of people of war), during three days (from June 9th to 11th): the duke of Chaulnes is besieged in his manor, but gives the order not to draw, then made evacuate the troops. He undergoes so important humiliations (insults, absence of possibility of reaction, the bishop is taken as an hostage and exchanged against a captive émeutière on May 3rd) which he hides, as from at the end of June, the reality of agitation to the king in his reports/ratios. Last once, the office of the stamped paper is put at bag on July 19th in Rennes.

Rising in the West of Brittany

The example of followed the east cities, starting from June 9th, by the campaigns of Low-Brittany: the revolt knows several hearths, of bay of Douarnenez to Rosporden, Briec and Châteaulin. The 3 July 4th, the revolt reaches the surroundings of Daoulas and Landerneau, the 6 it is in the neighborhoods of Carhaix, the 12 of Brasparts to Callac and Langonnet, and a last wave appears the 27-28 in the neighborhoods of the Faouët, with Lanvénégen for example, at the time of the Pardon of Saint-Urlo. The cities do not take part, but are attacked: Pontivy is taken the 21 " by 2000 peasants who absorb or spread the contents of 400 muids farm of the devoirs" , but delivered " by its bourgeois" June 21st; the duke of Chaulnes, governor of Brittany, is obliged to shelter with Port-Louis.

The peasants revolt when spreads the rumor that the gabelle one will be introduced into the province. The jacquerie bursts in the middle of the zone of the congéable field, precisely where this mode is hardest. The duke of Chaulnes recognizes that “the lords charge them much”. The castles are besieged and plundered, as well as the offices of the stamped paper or the duties (tax on drinks), the noble ones attacked and killed (the assessment is difficult to establish).

The maximum of violence is reached at the end of July - at the beginning of August in the Poher, where Carhaix and Pontivy, not-strengthened cities, are attacked and plundered. The peasants are ordered in this area by a notary, Sebastien Balp. At the beginning of September, it invests and plunders, with 600 Red Bonnets, the Château of Tymeur and burns all papers and files of them. It is killed by surprised of a blow of sword by Charles Maurice de Percin, marquis of Montgaillard, its prisoner, the night of September 3rd, the day before general rising envisaged. Its death puts an end to the insurrection.

Country codes

The revolted peasants establish codes and payments, under several names ( country code , pessovat - what is good -…). One knows 8 of them. They precede, by their contents, the registers of grievances of the French revolution. The Payment of the 14 parishes , probably established with the church Notre-Dame de Tréminou, is most known. It seems to replace former text various. Written in French, it engages the inhabitants of fourteen parishes and must be posted with the crossroads and read at the time of the sermons of Sunday (like the royal proclamations). It does not call into question the political regime, but request which the peasants are represented with the provincial States (article 1); call at the return to a state of calm and the end of violences (articles 2 and 3), but the town of Quimper and the surrounding parishes are threatened of blockade if they do not ratify the code (article 13); in the name of armoric freedom , it proclaims the abolition of the right of Champart and Corvée claimed by the gentilhommes (article 4), measurements of most daring, the champart being the main resource of the lords; this article reflects also the recent degradation of the country situation in front of the increase in the requirements seigneuriales, going beyond the right and from the habits. In the following articles (6 to 9), the requests are especially anti-tax, a requirement of justice and of stop of the abuses is made, but within the framework of justice seigneuriale (article 10), therefore without questioning of the existing system. Article 5 requires even mixed marriages between noble and country, with the right for the noble women to choose their husband (the women's right to choose their husband had been abolished under the reign of Louis XIV). Article 11 is also notable, with a request for prohibition of hunting between on March 1st and mid-September.

Resumption in hand and repression

All the strengthened cities form as many pockets of resistance (Concarneau, Pont-l'Abbé, Quimper, Rosporden, Brest and Guingamp). In this last city, three rioters, whose woman, are hung. The “punishment” starts with Nantes, where the troops remain three weeks, and where the leader Goulven Salaün, a servant of low-Breton cabaret, is hung. The missionaries, in particular Julien Maunoir and the Jesuits are also used, and make hesitate many peasants, which makes it possible to await the arrival of the troops. Those arrive at the end of August, and operate starting from Hennebont and Quimperlé. With Combrit, 14 peasants are hung with the same oak. The captured chiefs are carried out after being tortured. The countryside lasts all September.

In France, in Aquitaine and Gascogne, the arrival of the troops and their stay of a few weeks is generally enough to bring back the calm one. To Bordeaux, the Parliament reconsiders its injunction of the taxes on November 18th: the city is punished by the obligation to accommodate eighteen regiments during the winter (the soldiers and the officers were placed at the inhabitant, with the truck load of the city), which would have cost nearly a million books the city. Moreover, the Château Trumpet is increased and its increased garrison, which increases the capacity symbolic system and soldier of the king on the city, which sees in addition the door Holy-Cross (in the south of the city) destroyed. Another symbolic system measurement: the bells of the Saint-Michel churches and Holy-Eulalie are confiscated

In Brittany, the assessment of repression is difficult to quantify, indeed the king orders the destruction of all the legal files concerning the rebellion and, from this point of view, this repression remains the least known of all the great rebellions of the 18th century, and no basic study on the subject was undertaken.

For Delumeau (1969), the promise of amnesty is rather largely applied and repression remains measured and less than 80 of the chiefs passed in justice, the duke of Chaulnes not believing in the effectiveness of a wild repression. Many required people flee in Paris or Jersey. Repression also perhaps less strong than is wished by fear of the insulation of the soldiers in scrap-metal country. Other authors, being pressed on other elements, judge that repression was wild. It is the case of J. Cornet, it is also the case of Garlan and Nières (1975), in their conclusion re-examined in 2004.

The principal persons in charge are sent before an extraordinary commission of the Parliament, the présidiaux being able to judge exceptionally in last spring, which leads to rapids death sentences. As of October 1676, judgments with the galère S and the Capital punishment are marked towards the persons in charge.

The village communities are summoned to deliver the leaders under penalty of collective reprisals, the bells having sounded the alarm bell are deposited and several churches are decapitated with prohibition to go up them. October 12th, the duke of Chaulnes enters to Rennes, with 6000 men, placed at the inhabitant (see Dragonnade S): during one month, the city undergoes violences of the troop, then others take their winter quarters. The inhabitants of the High street are expelled, a third of the street is demolished. The Parliament is exiled with Vannes on October 16th (exile which lasts until 1690 and can go back to Rennes only against one extraordinary subsidy to the king of 500.000 books, just like the Parliament of Bordeaux, exiled with Condom on November 22nd, then with Marmande and Réole (he also returns to Bordeaux only in 1690). Any political resistance to the absolutism is destroyed. The States of Brittany accept the following year an increase in the free Don of 15%, and all the later financial requests of the government, without forgetting the gratifications with the ministers, in particular with Colbert and its family.

Brittany must provide entirely for the needs for the troops of repression, then of an army of 20 000 men (this last point in reprisals with the complaints of the States of November 1675).

February 5th, 1676 (recorded on March 2nd by the Parliament), Louis XIV grants his amnesty, with more than 150 exceptions distributed in almost all Low-Brittany. of which a third in Rennes, 4 in Nantes, and the other originating ones in 55 cities and parishes.

Transactions

The resolution of the revolt is also legal. In July 1675, the insurrectionists of twenty parishes of Scaër to Berrien, had besieged and plundered the castle of Kergoët, in Saint-Hernin, close to Carhaix. The owner, Moyne de Trévigny, lord of Kergoët, was considered related to those which had brought in Brittany the taxes of the stamp and the tobacco. A transaction between the parishes and Moyne de Trévigny is approved by the States of Brittany in October 1679.

In August 1675, seven inhabitants of Plomeur are elected to treat with Mister of Haffont to compensate it for the plundering of its manor located at Plonéour-Lanvern. The transaction leads to an agreement in front of notary. A similar agreement made with the inhabitants of Treffiagat. In June 1676, the sums due are reduced by half. The next month, of the inhabitants of Plonéour-Lanvern and Plobannalec is put in residence to provide 8 barrels of grains to replace plundered corn. In 1692, the son of Mister of Haffont, meanwhile deceased, complains still not to have received a penny of compensation. Other dispute of this type will trail in front of the courts until at least 1710.

Historical assessments

The extent of the revolt is exceptional for the reign of Louis XIV:

What occurs (…) is simply amazing in the context of the time. Conceivable at the time of Louis XIII, the events are not it any more since the come to power of Louis XIV, and remain absolutely single besides, on a kingdom scale, between the Sling and 1789, if one of course excludes the very particular case of the Cevennes camisards| Alain Croix

During the reign of Louis XIV, it is the revolt where the local authorities the most let make the rioters. Those are certainly spontaneous, but are organized quickly, and rejoin increasingly broad groups within the company. Beside plundering, one observes, which is singular, of the taking of hostages and the drafting of claims.

Arthur Moyne of Borderie sees in the revolt of the stamped paper a anti-tax revolt against the new taxes. He on the other hand challenges the explanations and the remarks of the duke of Chaulnes which brings back the “ ill treatments” of the Breton gentlemen towards the peasants. He explains why the anger of the revolted peasants are turned against the noble ones for two raisons : they constitute for a long time the only gripping force of the order available in the campaigns, and their castles are used as targets, for lack of tax officials.

Lastly, it brings closer certain observations made in 1675 ( bad passions, the extreme and subversive ideas which necessarily ferment in all the revolted masses who arrive from there with Communism and violences against the priests ) of the events which have occurred during the Common of Paris: As well it is true as nothing is new under the sun and that the popular passions, once freed from the social brake, precipitate of only one jump to the pit of cruelty , by quoting the priest of Plestin ( the peasants believed themselves very allowed, considered all community properties, and did not respect even any more their priests: in certain places, they wanted to cut the throat of them, in others, to expel them their parishes ): for him, the revolt of 1675 is also an episode of the Class struggle.

The Soviet historian Boris Porchnev worked primarily on the rich person funds Séguier, whom it had at his disposal with Leningrad. He describes to him also this revolt like anti-tax, key period of the Class struggle, but he widens of them the causes with a revolt against the taking away of the land lords (noble and religious orders). He also proposes a Breton patriotic analysis of this rising by quoting an article of NR. Ia. Marr which makes a parallel between the situation of Breton in France and Caucasian “aliens” in Russia tsarist. Boris Porchnev written: The final fastening of Brittany in France, confirmed by the States of Brittany, had taken place in 1532. Can one speak about national control and national liberation struggle of the Breton ones, since the Breton nobility had been already entirely francized and that, at the bottom, only remained Bretons the peasants? The answer is contained in the actual position of the Breton problem in France. In spite of a continuous denationalization of part of Breton, this problem remains typical " minorities nationales" and could not be solved under the conditions of a middle-class mode . Boris Porchnev is based on an article of NR. Ia. Marr " Speech of the national minority bretonne" who makes a parallel between the situation of Breton in France and the " allogènes" Caucasians in Russia tsarist where he writes: It is a problem of national minority, unless it is not indicated, as one had needed, straightforwardly national… But whatever the name which one gives to the Breton question: main road, national minority or alien, in our opinion, it is doubtful that it can be solved by amicable agreement or, rather, a solution by amicable agreement would not end in nothing. A fight is in sight whose active elements will come from the working masses of the population of Brittany, the peasants linked with the working class and their intelligentsia. Boris Porchnev concludes: " We precisely find in the XVIIème century the remote historical roots of this lutte". Lastly, for him, the revolt of 1675 announces 1789.

For Alain Croix, the revolt is a confrontation between the middle-class and its allies on the one hand, the Ancien Mode on the other hand, as at the time of the French revolution, “on a different scale. The pressure in favor of the change is modest in Brittany, and the originality of the situation of the province isolates it in any case in the vast kingdom from France: there is not besides elsewhere the equivalent of the revolts of 1675”. It also binds the revolt to the differences of the Breton economy, maritime and opened with the trade, and of the French economy, with the continental interests.

Roland Mousnier puts also ahead the archaism of the Breton system seigneurial as causes revolt, than he judges primarily anti-tax.

Consequences in the medium and long term

In addition to the reduction with the silence of the States and Parliament, the resumption in hand also allows the establishment of a Intendance of Brittany (Brittany was the last province not to know this institution representing of the central capacity) that the States of Brittany had hitherto always succeeded in avoiding.

Whole Brittany is ruined in 1679 by the military occupation depending on the States.

In Low-Brittany, the revolted zones are also those which were favorable to Blue at the time of the French revolution, and which transfer the most important crisis of the religious vocations at the 19th century. They also correspond to the zones of “Breton rural Communism”, as at the zones where the Breton language is most alive.

A forgiveness, celebrated fourth Sunday of September in the church Notre-Dame de Tréminou, commemorates this episode of the Breton history.

The image of the red Bonnets nowadays

In the Years 1970, the revolt of the red Bonnets was presented like a stage of the fight of the Breton people for his emancipation. It is accordingly “nationalist” which is located the part of Théâtre of Paol Keineg, the Spring of the red Bonnets (1975). The Communist party organizes a festival with Carhaix in order to celebrate tercentenary revolt.

In December 2005, the prefect of the Finistere refuses the installation of a tourist panel, presenting the town of Carhaix, on the edge of the trunk road, to the reason that it is there the representation of an insurrectionist of the Revolt of the red Bonnets.

See too

the Révolte of the red Bonnets gave its name to a beer of the Brasserie Lancelot.
the bulletin of the political movement Frankiz Breizh has as a title " The Rouges" Bonnets;.
Jacquerie

External bonds

complete Text of the country Code “of the 14 parishes”
Photos of vaults decapitated in the country bigouden

Random links: