Assembly of Notables

An Assembly of Notables (French: Assemblée des notables)

was a group of high-ranking nobles, ecclesiastics, and state
functionaries convened by the King of France on extraordinary
occasions to consult on matters of state. Assemblymen were
prominent men, usually of the aristocracy, and included royal
princes, peers, archbishops, high-ranking judges, and, in some
cases, major town officials. The king would issue one or more
reforming edicts after hearing their advice.[1]

This group met in 1560, 1583, 1596–97, 1617, 1626, 1787, and
1788. Like the Estates-General, they served a consultative
purpose only. But unlike the Estates-General, whose members
were elected by the subjects of the realm, the assemblymen
were selected by the king for their "zeal", "devotion", and their
"trustworthiness" toward the sovereign.[2]
1822 depiction of the 1596
In addition, assembly of notables can refer to an expanded Assembly of Notables in Rouen
version of the King's Council (Curia regis). Several times a
year, whenever the king needed to cast a wider net to gather
information for making important decisions or preparing edicts
and ordinances, he would enlarge his Council with prominent
men chosen for their social and professional standing or their
skills to give counsel on the matters at hand. The role of the
assembly was to advise the king on how to remedy governance
issues in conflict with or brought up by the parlements or the
Estates-General.

1560 assembly Engraving showing the Assembly of

Notables of 1787 in Versailles
In 1560, in the wake of the Conspiracy of Amboise the Guise
government was moved towards the need to call an Assembly
of Notables to address the religious problems of the kingdom that the conspiracy had laid bare and
also the financial problems that had been pressuring the kingdom since the death of Henri II. All
the leading nobles of the kingdom were in attendance, with the exception of the princes of
Bourbon-Vendôme, Antoine of Navarre and Louis, Prince of Condé who were conscious that they
would likely be arrested if they attended. The 40 grandees in attendance agreed to a package of
reforms put forward by the Guise government, and supported the calling of an Estates General to
meet at Meaux later that year.[3][4] The matter of religion was also discussed, and after being taken
off plan by Coligny, who proposed temporary coexistence between Catholicism and Protestantism,
much to the ire of the Guise, the assembly settled on the plan proposed by Charles, Cardinal of
Lorraine to call for a national religious council to address the issue, and propose reforms as
necessary.[5]

1583 assembly
In November 1583, Henry convened an assembly of notables at Saint Germain-en-Laye to address
religious demonstrations that threatened the collapse of the State. In the assembly, Cardinal de
Bourbon called for France to tolerate one faith, Catholicism; he said that if this was offered, the
clergy would sell their shirts to support the king.[6] Henry, however, angrily interrupted him
informing the Cardinal that any attempt to impose uniform Catholicism was unthinkable to his
brother the duke of Anjou. Henry continued that he had already risked his life and estate to
establish Catholicism as the sole religion, but since he had been forced to sue for peace, he would
not breach it.[6]

1596 assembly
Following the regicide of Henry III, his successor was Henry IV who learned from the experience of
Henry III. He himself had called on the assembly's assistance in 1596–97 at Rouen. The
assemblymen were summoned to assist in developing and authorizing new taxation plans for the
country to tackle the debt. There were 95 notables present, and they recommended that the king
levy a special sales tax of 5% on all sales—with the exception of wheat, to avoid bread riots. It was
estimated that this pancarte would raise 5 million French pounds (livres), but in its best year it
raised only 1.56 million pounds. Although the tax raised less than predicted, it did restore the royal
budget to solvency. King Henry and the Duke of Sully had come up with many other possible ways
to raise money, but the key to rescuing the monarchy from bankruptcy was simply to ensure that
the system of taxation worked efficiently.[7]

1626 assembly
In 1626 Louis XIII called together an assembly consisting of the government's ruling elite—13
grandees, 13 bishops, and 29 judges. Many historians have regarded this assembly, and its
predecessors, as unsuccessful because they failed to enact specific reforms, but this view fails to
consider the assemblies' role. The assemblies had no legislative or administrative powers; instead,
they served to provide government reform proposals and to make appropriate counter-proposals.
In the case of every successful assembly, the king himself would issue a major ordinance or enact
significant reforms, most notably the Edict of Blois 1579, in response to the Estates-General of
1576, and the great Code Michau 1629, in response to the Assembly of Notables of 1626–27.[8]

The king and the notables agreed on four basic changes in French government. First, they agreed
that Protestant power had to be broken. There was no specific discussion of a march on La
Rochelle, but the notables firmly supported the king's desire to destroy the network of independent
Huguenot fortresses. Second, the notables, like those of 1596 and 1617, strongly criticized the
grandees, particularly provincial governors. In 1626–27, the notables insisted in particular that the
king should regain full control of the military. Third, everyone agreed that the basic administration
of the kingdom lay in disarray, so that a strong statement from the central government was needed
to reestablish order. In most cases, this reaffirmation of government control required only the
restatement of pre-existing ordinances. Fourth, everyone agreed that the fiscal situation was
catastrophic. The overwhelming majority of the assembly's deliberations focused on this last
issue.[9]

1787 assembly
The final appearance of the Assembly of Notables began in February 1787 during Louis XVI's reign.
France’s finances were in a desperate situation and the finance ministers of the day (Turgot,
Necker, Calonne) all believed that tax reform was vital if France was going to pay off its debt and
bring government expenditure back into line with government income. However, before any new
tax laws could be passed, they first had to be registered with the French parlements (which were
high courts, not legislatures, but that possessed a limited veto power on new laws).[10]

Repeated attempts to implement tax reform failed due to lack of parlement support, as parlement
judges felt that any increase in tax would have a direct negative effect on their own income. In
response to this opposition, the finance minister at the time, Calonne, suggested that Louis XVI
call an Assembly of Notables. While the Assembly of Notables had no legislative power in its own
right, Calonne hoped that if the Assembly of Notables could be made to support the proposed
reforms then this would apply pressure on parlement to register them.

Calonne proposed four major reforms:[11]

1. a single land-value tax

2. the conversion of the corvée into a money tax
3. the abolition of internal tariffs
4. the creation of elected provincial assemblies

In the traditional view, the plan failed because the 144 assemblymen, who included princes of the
blood, archbishops, noblemen and other people from the traditional elite, did not wish to bear the
burden of increased taxation.

However, Simon Schama has argued that the notables in fact were quite open to radical political
changes; for example, some proposed the elimination of all the tax exemptions conferred by noble
status; others proposed lowering the income qualifications for voting for members of the proposed
provincial assemblies.[11] Schama wrote:

Yet what was truly astonishing about the debates of the Assembly is that they were
marked by a conspicuous acceptance of principles like fiscal equality that even a few
years before would have been unthinkable....Where disagreement occurred, it was not
because Calonne had shocked the Notables with his announcement of a new fiscal and
political world; it was either because he had not gone far enough or because they
disliked the operational methods built into the program.[11]

With the Assembly being uncooperative Calonne decided to instead appeal straight to the people
and put pressure on the Notables with his essay The Avertissement or "The Warning." Where he
depicted the members of the Assembly as simply trying to defend their privileges at the expense of
the people. However this did not rally the people or bring the Notables in line. Instead this angered
the Notables as now they saw Calonne trying to subvert their power.[12] In response to this
perceived over reach by Calonne multiple members of the Assembly formed a plot to see Calonne
removed from his position. To do this though they needed to convince Louis XVI himself to get rid
of Calonne. With one of the members to play a crucial role in this plot being Marie Antoinette, who
with other members would sow distrust of Calonne to the King until on 8 April 1787 Calonne would
be dismissed from his role by the King.[13]

Following the removal of Calonne two more people would lead the Assembly until its end. Those
being Bouvard de Fourqueux who lead the assembly from 9 April to 1 May 1787, then Loménie de
Brienne who would lead from 1 May to 25 May. During this period of the Assembly the Notables
would seek to impose greater checks upon the Kings power, and would see many claim the
Assembly did not have the authority to implement reform and that only the Estates-General had
such power. [14] While the king sought to take power and privileges from the Notables. This would
create a stalemate within the body that bred discontent and a desire to see the Assembly end from
both sides. So with the desire to continue the Assembly waning it would be dissolved on 25 May.[15]
In addition to tax reform, the Assembly also discussed other issues. The result was that the
Assembly assisted the Parlement in creating provincial assemblies, reestablished free trade in
grain, converted the corvée (a feudal duty in the form of forced labour) into a cash payment, and
generated short-term loans.[16]

See also
An Assembly of Jewish Notables which convened the Grand Sanhedrin in 1807, as decreed by
Napoleon in 1806.

Notes
1. Collins, p. xix
2. Mousnier, p. 229
3. Carroll 2009, p. 124.
4. Knecht 2010, p. 27.
5. Carroll 2009, p. 137.
6. Sutherland, p. 54
7. Baumgartner, p. 233
8. Collins, p. 47
9. Collins, pp. 47–48
10. Doyle, William (2001). The French Revolution. Oxford University Press. p. 23.
11. Schama, Simon (1989). Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. Random House.
pp. 287–92, 310.
12. Hardman, John (2010). Overture to revolution : the 1787 Assembly of Notables and the crisis of
France’s old regime. Oxford University Press. pp. 199–209.
13. Hardman, John (1993). Louis XVI. Yale University Press. pp. 120–121.
14. Doyle, William (2001). The French Revolution. Oxford University Press. p. 35.
15. Hardman, John (2010). Overture to revolution : the 1787 Assembly of Notables and the crisis of
France’s old regime. Oxford University Press. pp. 280–284.
16. Collins, p. 258

References
John Hardman, Overture to Revolution: The 1787 Assembly of Notables and the Crisis of
France's Old Regime. Oxford University Press, 2010
Vivian R. Gruder, The Notables and the Nation: The Political Schooling of the French, 1787–
1788. Harvard University Press, 2008.
Collins, James; The State in Early Modern France. New York: Cambridge University Press
1995.
Knecht, Robert (2010). The French Wars of Religion 1559–98. Routledge.
ISBN 9781408228197.
Mousnier, Roland; The Institutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy 1598–1789, Volume
II: The Organs of State & Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1979.
Sutherland, N.M.; Henry IV of France and The Politics of Religion. London: Intellect Books
2004.
Baumgartner, Frederic; France in the Sixteenth Century. New York: St. Martin's Press 1995.
Lefebvre, Georges; The French Revolution, Volume I: From its Origins to 1793. New York:
Columbia University Press 1962.
 Carroll, Stuart (2009). Martyrs and Murderers: The Guise Family and the Making of Europe.
Oxford University Press.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wood, James, ed.
(1907). The Nuttall Encyclopædia. London and New York: Frederick Warne. {{cite
encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
Doyle, William (2001). The French Revolution. Oxford University Press.
John Hardman, Louis XVI. Yale University Press, 1993.

External links
Media related to Assembly of Notables at Wikimedia Commons

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Assembly_of_Notables&oldid=1191312436"