Campbell P. Power and Politics in Old Regime France, 1720-1745

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POWER AND POLITICS IN OLD REGIME FRANCE

opinions could not have been forgotten, was a member of the council from the first

session in October 1720. The other members were all churchmen, being the

cardinals de Rohan and de Bissy, also benefiting from the change of policy, and

Dubois and Massillon. Later Massillon left the council and the archbishop of

Rouen, the bishop of Nantes and the cardinal de Gesvres entered it.

The historian Hardy, author of a standard work on Fleury and the Jansenist

movement, mistakenly attributed his rise to power to his membership of this

council: ‘The policy of the council from 1720, can be regarded, in general, as the

personal work of Fleury’.

Yet there seems to be no evidence to support this view

that Fleury played a significantly more dominant role than several other members.

An investigation of the council’s activities indicates that it was Dubois, Rohan, Bissy

and Fleury who were its most important members, sharing equally the burden of

examining the bishops’ pastoral letters (which were not usually subject to

censorship by virtue of episcopal privilege) and other potentially inflammatory

writings.

Fleury’s membership of this body did, however, bring about a significant

advance of his position. He now had the opportunity to take an active part in the

process of government, enabling him to display his talent for organisation, and his

entry into the council must be regarded as a mark of the respect in which he was

held by Dubois and the Regent. But their sentiments were not entirely devoid of

self-interest because, as Fleury had won the confidence of his pupil Louis XV, he

could be useful. The alliance with Spain in 1721 led to the negotiation of a marriage

between the Infanta of Spain and the King of France and the Regent was rather

worried by the need to secure the consent of the King to the marriage. An 11-year-

old boy could hardly be expected to understand the politics of the affair, so

d’Orléans addressed himself to those whose functions made them useful: Villeroy,

Bourbon and Fleury. The first had only a slight influence over the mind of the boy

since Louis respected but disliked him; Bourbon, who had replaced the due du

Maine in his educational functions, felt that his own influence was very slight;

Fleury was in a better position. According to Saint-Simon, ‘the bishop of Fréjus

alone had the power to unseal the lips of Louis XV’.

He responded unenthusiastically to approaches made for his support on the day

that the shy King was to be asked to give his consent to the planned marriage.

This reluctance was prompted by more than simple aversion to an unpleasant task.

Involvement might jeopardise Fleury’s close relationship with his pupil if Louis

should later take a dislike to his fiancée and put the blame on those who had

induced him to choose her. It took a very tense half-hour to persuade the King to

agree to the choice of his fiancée, and in the event the role of Fleury was decisive.

Saint-Simon, the chief source for details of this interview, records a conversation

shortly after the council in which both Dubois and d’Orléans agreed on the

importance of the role of Fleury. ‘Without the bishop of Fréjus, who made them

wait for him again’, he records, ‘they knew not what might have happened. Their

anxiety was so deep that they were still suffering from it.’

The affair was immediately brought before the council for formal ratification

THE RISE TO POWER OF ANDRE-HERCULE DE FLEURY

and its members, presented with a fait accompli, put aside any personal reservations

and expressed their unanimous approval. Nevertheless, this unanimity was more

apparent than real, for the declaration of the engagement, followed only ten days

later by the announcement of a marriage between the daughter of the Regent and

the heir to the Spanish throne, provoked factional resistance that was to grow in

strength until the end of the Regency and beyond, providing a shifting political

background to the advancement of Fleury.

With a show of gratitude the duc d’Orléans might hope to commit Fleury to

his support: ‘It was important for him to treat kindly the only man for whom the

friendship and confidence of the King was becoming more and more

pronounced, and who was privately becoming more than detached from the

maréchal de Villeroy’.

When the cardinal de Mailly died on 13 September 1721,

d’Orléans offered Fleury the extraordinary elevation to the premier ecclesiastical

peerage of the realm, the archbishopric of Reims. If Fleury accepted, he could be

removed at a later date from the company of the King by being obliged to tend to

his archdiocese, however much d’Orléans might insist ‘that nobody was

suggesting that it would remove him from the King’.

Fleury was not deceived by

these offers of questionable honesty and brought off a master-stroke of court

diplomacy. If he were to refuse the archbishopric on the grounds of age or poor

health he might weaken his chances of acquiring any more influence in the

government, so he refused on the grounds of conscience, claiming that he could

not accept it knowing that his functions as preceptor would oblige him to neglect

his new archiepiscopal duties.

In refusing, Fleury also managed to suggest that the see was not offered to the

archbishop of Albi, who was a friend of the cardinal de Noailles and shared the

cardinal’s opinion on the Bull Unigenitus. This was in spite of his old attachment to

Noailles and the Castries—Albi was the former abbé de Castries with whom he

had lived in the 1680s and 1690s. The prospect of political power and, more

particularly now that Fleury was a member of the conseil de conscience, divergences

of opinion on religious matters, were encouraging Fleury to abandon his former

friends and patrons in favour of new alliances (earlier in the same year he had

broken with Torcy also over religious policy).

Instead of Albi, Fleury suggested

that the recipient of Reims should be the abbé de Rohan-Guémené, who shared

his own opinion on Unigenitus and was a relative of the cardinal de Rohan who

was on embassy to Rome. The Regent did prevail upon Fleury to accept the rich

abbey of Saint-Etienne de Caen which the King was pleased to press upon him,

but it must be admitted that the preceptor had managed to preserve his position

from attack.

The refusal shows that in 1721 Fleury may have already made up his mind that

he preferred the possibility of a share in political power to the accumulation of

prestige. According to the rules of the game, if he accepted he would owe certain

services to the Regent, or else he would be encouraged to spend his time in his

archdiocese. The price to pay for remaining at court as an archbishop would

therefore be to become embroiled in the factional conflicts by tying himself to the

POWER AND POLITICS IN OLD REGIME FRANCE

duc d’Orléans. This he was not prepared to do. An analysis of the state of the

factions at court and the extent of Fleury’s ties with them will explain why.

However, it seems certain that Fleury, who had spent many years in court society,

had charted the quicksands of court politics more surely than is possible when using

the sometimes sparse evidence which has survived. But if the specifics of some

situations still escape us, there is rich evidence of the sort of considerations and

practices that was the stuff of court politics.

THE ACQUISITION OF A

MINISTERIAL POST

1721–3

The situation of the Regent; the old court; the cabal; the Regent’s strategy; Fleury, a minister of state;

the succession to d’Orléans.

The bewildering proliferation of factional conflict in the last two years of the

Regency created a situation which is so complicated that it almost defies

attempts at coherent analysis. In the past, historians have tended to neglect

almost entirely the state of the factions at that time and overlook the existence of

an increasingly vehement opposition to d’Orléans—probably because his

sudden death in December 1723 occurred before it brought about a reduction

in the extent of his influence.

Although the due d’Orléans died before effective

steps could be taken to curtail his power, his ministry was in danger of complete

and imminent defeat in 1723, after Dubois’ death. It was his awareness of the

dangers of this situation that led the Regent, first prince of the blood, to revive

the commission of premier ministre which is a feature of the royal government

during the second quarter of the eighteenth century. (Fleury was not of, course,

able to hold such an office by that name, but he did have all the attributes of the

position, and the term was frequently used to describe him.) Equally, it was the

instability of the situation which gave Fleury the chance to advance himself

from preceptor to minister.

Control of the royal government was in the hands of the Regent and his trusted

adviser the abbé Dubois. The latter, who had once been d’Orléans’ preceptor and

became his secretary of state for foreign affairs in 1718, was to become an

archbishop and then cardinal in 1721. The duc d’Orléans, as regent by fundamental

law, and recognised as such by the Paris parlement in 1715, had both the legitimacy

of his position and the vast influence of the House of Orléans to support him in

power. In the exercise of his authority he himself retained control over the important

decisions, but there were naturally men who had an influence on the conduct of the

government, advisers without powers to equal those of Dubois; their ascendency

brought them pensions and a share in the rewards of courtly power, which

encouraged them to support the Regent.

Of these, John Law was for a while

undoubtedly the most important. His rise had led to the waning of the power of the

due de Noailles, former president of the conseil des finances during the Polysynodie,

POWER AND POLITICS IN OLD REGIME FRANCE

who still remained on good terms with the Regent. From about 1718 Charles Louis

Auguste Fouquet, comte de Belle-Isle (1684–1761), and his friend Claude Le Blanc,

secrétaire d’état for war, were regarded by contemporaries as men greatly

distinguished by the confidence bestowed upon them by Dubois. Towards the end

of the decade Louis Henri de Condé, the due de Bourbon, began to extend his

influence into the government.

Head of the House of Condé and still in his

twenties, he had begun to take an active part in affairs of state after he mended his

frivolous ways in 1717 and began to win the esteem of the Regent. He had made a

huge fortune out of the stockjobbing resulting from the Law scheme for the

expansion of the Mississippi Company into an institution of national financial

credit, and he and his mother, the dowager duchesse de Bourbon, were among the

principal supporters of Law at court. In 1721 Bourbon was making an effort to win

back the influence and friends lost because of his excessive profiteering from the

collapse of Law’s project, regarded at the time as a national disaster.

As will be shown, the management of the court and the attachment of men such

as these to the royal government was usually a difficult and sometimes an

impossible task. Work still needs to be done to arrive at a detailed picture of the

network of patronage and relations used to hold together the governmental group

during the Regency, but volumes of letters asking for and receiving favours testify to

the closeness of the control of patronage by the Regent and by Dubois, ‘who knew

everything about friendships and alliances’.

The opposition to d’Orléans—which had nothing of the modern parliamentary

associations of the word opposition in it, being often nothing more than a collection of

families juggling for advancement—falls broadly into two main groups of a certain

fluidity. To these one can at times add shifting ad hoc alliances composed of members

of these groups combined with various other courtiers, which were formed in

response to specific situations according to personal aims and connections.

The first of the two groups is known as the ‘old court’, which already had a

history of opposition to the Regent before 1721.

After defeat and exposure in 1718

as the result of a foolish and treasonable conspiracy with Cellamare against the

Regent, the ‘old court’ had seemingly disintegrated. However, the declaration of the

Spanish marriages was to bear witness to the continued existence of the group and

its policies.

In two of his most splendidly triumphal pages, Saint-Simon explains that the ‘old

court’ was composed of opponents of the regime of Philippe d’Orléans whose

personal animosity towards the Regent dated from the first decade of the century.

Their feeling, he says, had led them to adopt a policy that combined support for a

close alliance with Spain, as a natural ally now that the grandson of Louis XIV was

the Spanish King, with hostility to the alliance with Britain. Their loyalty to Spain

legitimised their criticisms of the Regent’s policies—it was ‘protection for their

intrigues’. In keeping with this policy, which in 1721 proved to be a less powerful

consideration than their hatred of d’Orléans, they opposed the influence of Dubois

because he was regarded as the chief adviser of the Regent responsible for the

direction of the foreign policy.

THE ACQUISITION OF A MINISTERIAL POST

Saint-Simon oversimplified of course. The ‘old court’ was aptly named

because its chief characteristic is that it was a combination of several of those

courtiers and their adherents who had been held in the highest consideration

during the previous reign and whose ideas on government were generally closer

to those of Louis XIV than were the innovations of the Regency. Its most

important members were the ambitious prince légitimé the due du Maine, his

wife, the ducs et pairs de Tallard, d’Huxelles, Villeroy and Villars, with the

addition of Colbert, the marquis de Torcy, brilliant former secrétaire d’état for

foreign affairs, and Daguesseau the chancellor. Of this group only the due du

Maine could be said to fit more or less exactly the sketch of the cabal drawn by

Saint-Simon. Designated in the will of Louis XIV to exercise the principal powers

of the Regency, du Maine had been outmanœuvred at the famous lit de justice in

1715 by d’Orléans who excluded him from political power and finally exiled him

for his part in the conspiracy of Cellamare in 1718. But in 1721 and after,

although his court at Sceaux was less illustrious and although he was deprived of

many of his honours, the duc du Maine and his wife, who was a perpetual

intriguer, still provided a focus for the ‘old court’.

The other members of the group were clearly dominated to a lesser extent by

hatred of d’Orléans and were more genuinely concerned with the nature of the

policies undertaken by the government. It is hardly surprising that the maréchaux

de France who had been deeply involved in the War of the Spanish Succession

should have exhibited a strong preference for a foreign policy that was favourable to

Spain and equally unfavourable to the British alliance. Villars, victor of Denain, the

battle that saved France, is a good example of this attitude. The association of the

marquis de Torcy with this group after about 1720 was motivated by his desire to

play a larger part in the formation of foreign policy from which he had been partly

excluded since 1713 because of his anglophobia.

The Louisquatorzian foreign policy championed by the ‘old court’ was therefore

not simply the product of personal ambition and animosity to the house of Orléans.

For some it was the main cause of their factional hostility. If historians now believe

that the foreign policy of the Regent was an astute combination of French interests

and Orleanist dynastic ambitions, it was easy for contemporaries to construe it as

being entirely Orleanist and very much to the detriment of France.

Given that

Louis XV was only a child and that his fiancée was not going to be of age to bear

children for at least ten years, it seemed quite clear to courtiers, who saw things in

factional and familial terms, that d’Orléans was hoping to succeed to the throne of

France in the likely event of the death without heirs of Louis XV.

The actual influence of the ‘old court’ was limited by the monopoly held by the

Regent on all important decisions in the government. Nevertheless, its potential

power was great, because all its leading members held prestigious court offices

which implied considerable patronage combined with access to the King, vital if at

some stage after the majority he was to be persuaded to abandon d’Orléans in their

favour.

Villeroy, formerly a favourite of Louis XIV and the most traditionally

minded representative of the ‘old court’ at the Tuileries, whose lack of political

POWER AND POLITICS IN OLD REGIME FRANCE

talent was combined with a bitter hostility to Dubois, had constant contact with the

King in his position as his governor. The maréchal de Villars was regarded with

affection by young Louis and at his magnificent residence, Vauxle-Vicomte, which

he bought from the Fouquet family in 1703, he entertained during the summer

months the most illustrious and influential members of French society.

Torcy was

still a councillor for foreign affairs, though his opinions were not always respected,

and he retained until November 1721 the important office of surintendant des postes,

which provided its holder with a wealth of information about public and private

affairs by virtue of its control over correspondence.

As one might expect, the

relationships of these men with the Regent were of varying degrees of warmth

(though none was intimate), just as the balance of motives for covert opposition

were also varied. Each of these prominent courtiers combined personal and familial

with political considerations, and a feature of the ‘old court’ is the very looseness of

their relationships. Whatever their private sentiments, each of them cared enough

for his own position to conduct himself with great circumspection in his attitude

towards the Regent. In the end it was hostility to Dubois which proved to be the

factor which succeeded in prompting the group to take common action.

Their first clear manifestation of opposition was in response to the ever

increasing power of the cardinal Dubois, whose influence already extended into all

branches of government. In February 1722 the cardinal de Rohan, just returned

from an embassy to Rome, was honoured with a seat in the Regency council and

precedence as a cardinal over the peers who sat there. This was a highly contentious

matter because it was known that the precedence given to Rohan was designed to

prepare the way for the dominance of Dubois who was to be introduced to the

council later. Feeling ran so high among the peers that the refusal of Dubois and

d’Orléans to surrender to their concerted protests, which were voiced by

Daguesseau, led to a general exodus from the council.

Of the ‘old court’, only

Villeroy continued to attend the council meetings and that was because as governor

of the King his place at council was behind the royal seat, which meant that a

dispute about precedence could not affect his status. Although the entire lack of

opposition in the council would henceforth facilitate the advancement of Dubois,

the Regent was far from pleased with the outcome. There were no immediate

effects of the move upon his political power, but it was an early step towards the

isolation of the party of Orléans from a large number of politically minded

courtiers.

The Regent was not prepared to treat intransigent opposition lightly.

Daguesseau was exiled in February, to be replaced as Keeper of the Seals by

d’Armenonville;

in June action was taken against two men who had been close

friends of the due d’Orléans. First came the exile of Nocé, a man who was

considered to have some influence in the government but who was hostile to

Dubois. Next to go was the duc de Noailles, a member of that large and well-

connected family which had succeeded in acquiring tremendous influence during

the reign of Louis XIV and which had not yet reached the height of its power.

The

enmity of the duc de Noailles towards Dubois was all too clear, but an attack on

THE ACQUISITION OF A MINISTERIAL POST

such an important family was not a step to be taken without serious consideration.

The significance of the hostility of Noailles and his family was summarised by Saint-

Simon in a conversation with Belle-Isle in April, when he discussed the advisability

of stripping Noailles of his offices (a ‘dépouillement’).

Let us look at things…as they are and as they promise to be. For good or ill,

the duc de Noailles is the third in succession, from father to son, to be captain

of the royal guards, and the third to be governor of Roussillon. Since he

began to take the stage [paraître] he has constantly been employed in

distinguished posts. The establishments of his sisters and of all his family are

immense—all people who, from interest and honour, cannot but feel keenly

the blow that will strike him—and the more it falls on a man so grandly

established, both on him and on his relations and on his numerous

entourage, the more M. the duc d’Orléans will make irreconcilable enemies

of them, the more all the holders of offices in the whole Kingdom will

tremble, and the more will they all be scandalised because most of them, in

their person and by their entourage, fall far short of the respect due to the due

de Noailles.

None the less, Noailles was indeed exiled.

Such drastic measures were not to be

adopted lightly and it was the policy of Dubois to seek to win over his enemies

before resorting to force. Villars was courted by Dubois with the result that his

susceptibility to flattery and esteem led him away from the hostility of the ‘old court’

towards a reconciliation. But Villeroy too was exiled at the end of June 1722. This

was an event of capital importance for Fleury. During the increase in the factional

resistance to the ministry at court, he had kept in the background, giving little

indication of his true sentiments, ready at all times to exploit his advantage of

having acquired the affection of his royal pupil. This view is confirmed by a letter

written on 12 January 1722 by Chambrier to Frederick William of Prussia, which

ends with a remarkable prediction.

The Bishop of Fréjus is reputed to be very intelligent and has very little

ambition. All those who wish to become master of the confidence and mind

of the King flatter themselves that they have this bishop on their side;

Marshal Villeroy regards him as a man who is deeply bound to him by ties of

gratitude, because he contributed more than anyone to procuring him the

place of King’s Preceptor; Madame de Ventadour, cardinal Rohan and all

those of his House [Lorraine] think that the bishop of Fréjus is entirely

devoted to them. M. the Regent and cardinal Dubois also flatter themselves

in the same way by all appearances; it may however be that none of these

three opinions is right about the Bishop who, while affecting to have very

modest ambitions, will however continue to make as much progress in the

King’s confidence as he possibly can, so as to become one day the sole and

principal minister of this Prince.

POWER AND POLITICS IN OLD REGIME FRANCE

The exile of Villeroy was a boon because it gave Fleury the opportunity to secure

his position at court once and for all by what amounted to blackmail of the Regent

and Dubois. In August, a few days after the disgrace of Villeroy, he left court at

night with no warning, in secret, leaving a note for the duc de Bourbon describing

the reason for his departure as ‘absolutely necessary for mind and body’.

There

was immense panic at the court and a midnight meeting was held in the apartment

of the Regent, which is described by Saint-Simon who was present with the duc de

Bourbon and Dubois.

The easily shaken young King was in tears, for having put up with the loss of

his governor he now had to face the loss of his beloved preceptor. ‘This

disappearance put the King in despair and them in the most cruel situation in the

world.’ They could hardly lay themselves open to the charge of having dismissed

both the governor and the preceptor. Fleury was sought out and implored to

return: ‘You have rested enough; I need you, come back as soon as possible’, the

King wrote.

This dramatic flight and recall which lasted only twenty-four hours

was the move of a grand master in the political game of chess. The withdrawal of

the Bishop could be interpreted as a gesture of solidarity with Villeroy by those

who themselves had such sympathies; on the other hand the Regent and the duc

de Bourbon were so much under the impression that he had left with the feeling

that the disgrace of Villeroy reflected also on him since he shared some of the

governor’s opinions, thus obliging him to resign his post, that Bourbon promised

to spread the word that the preceptor was quite innocent of all offence. The ploy

greatly fortified the position of Fleury by making it unlikely that any serious

attempt would be made to remove him and at the same time it tested the strength

of the bond between him and Louis XV. Henceforth his presence at court was

considered indispensable. As Barbier remarked, ‘This coup is extremely politic.

He has put M.le Régent out of the way of exiling him at present; and so M.le

Régent is very annoyed’.

The attack on the ‘old court’ culminating in the exile of Villeroy had come about

largely owing to the advancement of Dubois and it was therefore no surprise when

a few days later Dubois was appointed premier ministre. This step was taken by the

Regent for a variety of reasons. It was partly to prepare the way for a continuation

of his own power at the end of the Regency by recreating in the hands of his most

trusted adviser the important commission which had been held by Richelieu and

Mazarin; partly to increase the prestige of Dubois with foreign courts and to

augment his power over internal affairs; and partly to put a stop to all thoughts of

displacing Dubois.

In theory, the role of a premier ministre was to supervise the

whole administration, all the other ministers being subordinate to him, while he

was responsible only to the reigning prince who was thus considered to have

delegated his authority for the time being.

The First or Principal Minister is the Depository of the Prince’s authority;

he is the channel by which the Prince makes known all his wishes to his

subjects, and through which subjects must pass to reach the Prince. The

THE ACQUISITION OF A MINISTERIAL POST

difference between a First Minister and the other Ordinary Ministers, is

that the latter have only an authority that is determined by and limited to

those things that depend on their Employ and on the Provinces which are in

their department, while the authority of a First Minister extends over all the

orders of the State, and consequently over all the other Ministers. Although

the authority of a First and Principal Minister may be dependent upon the

will of the Prince who can extend or diminish it at his pleasure, this

authority does not seem to have a limit in itself; on the contrary, it seems to

be the same as that of the Prince whose First Minister is the organ for all

sorts of matters.

A first minister was also present when any other minister discussed affairs with the

King. In this case, however, the Regent retained ultimate control of the decision in

his capacity as trustee of the royal authority.

This confirmation of the supremacy of Dubois over the other ministers did

not have altogether the desired effect. The ‘old court’ had been silenced for

the time being, but even their exclusion from the rewards of patronage could

not completely crush such well-established courtiers. Moreover, whereas

Dubois had once felt that the ‘old court’ would be an effective check on the

overweening duc de Bourbon, now he had succeeded in ranging them even

more decisively against him at a time when Bourbon was more than ever in

the government.

The situation became more dangerous still, because the rise

of Dubois had provoked jealousies among his associates. In the summer of

1722 there came into existence the second powerful faction to trouble politics

in the 1720s.

Although the group was usually referred to by contemporaries as quite simply

the cabal, it is sometimes known in 1722 and 1723 as the conspiracy of the duc de

Chartres, the duc being the figurehead for the group and the heir of the duc

d’Orléans.

The apparently extraordinary circumstance that the son of the

Regent should be involved in a plot that would undermine the authority of his

father is to be explained by the fact that from early 1722 the health of the Regent

had been visibly deteriorating as a result of his debauched life. During an illness

which lasted ten days in March 1722, noted Mathieu Marais in his journal, there

were fears for his life. ‘Many people…are talking about the future Regency. The

parlement is having secret assemblies to discuss whether the King would be

declared a major before he is thirteen and a day, in the event of the death of the

Regent.’

Thus, bearing in mind the possibility of the death of the Regent, the

faction might be characterised as the product of an ambitious group of courtiers

who, much as frustrated politicians in England attached themselves to the Prince

of Wales in the hope of eventual power, set their hopes upon the duc de Chartres

as the probable wielder of royal authority in the event of the death of both the

Regent and Louis XV.

But the cabal was much more than this, as is revealed by documents to be found

among the papers of Dubois, corroborated by evidence from other sources.