Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 12, 2025
Is it nothing, pray, to be without Parliaments, without states-districts, without bodies of clergy, of privileged, of noblesse? The idea of forming but one single class of citizens would have delighted Richelieu. This even surface facilitates the exercise of power. Many years of absolute government could not have done so much as this single year of revolution for the kingly authority."
Unhappily few provinces enjoyed this privilege; Languedoc, Brittany, Burgundy, Provence, Dauphiny, and the countship of Pau alone were states-districts, that is to say, allowed to tax themselves independently and govern themselves to a certain extent.
Comptrollers- general came one after another, all armed with new expedients; MM. de Machault, Moreau de Sechelles, de Moras, excited, successively, the wrath and the hatred of the people crushed by imposts in peace as well as war; the clergy refused to pay the twentieth, still claiming their right of giving only a free gift; the states-districts, Languedoc and Brittany at the head, resisted, in the name of their ancient privileges, the collection of taxes to which they had not consented; riots went on multiplying; they even extended to Paris, where the government was accused of kidnapping children for transportation to the colonies.
The Assembly numbered one hundred and forty-four members, all nominated by the king: to wit, seven princes of the blood; fourteen archbishops and bishops; thirty-six dukes and peers, marshals of France and noblemen; twelve councillors of state and masters of requests; thirty-eight magistrates of sovereign courts; twelve deputies of states-districts, the only ones allowed to present to the king memorials of grievances; and twenty-five municipal officers of the large towns.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking