Officiers 'moyens' and absolute monarchy in France, from the seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries: a provincial case study in social and political disillusion

Abstract

The links between royal servants at the intermediate level and the absolute monarchy, notably in the pays d’elections, remain neglected in work which regards relations between the provincial elites and the royal State as prime examples of social collaboration. By studying the case of the magistrature seconde (second-rank magistrature) in the Limousin and Perigord, this article demonstrates the advantages of applying this historiographical approach to the increasing disillusion of officiers ‘moyens’ de justice (those in non-ennobling offices) towards the central power during the early modern period. The intensive venal policy adopted in the latter half of the reign of Louis XIV weakened both the economics of the office ‘moyen’ (‘middling’ office) and the confidence that judges in the presidial courts placed in the monarchy. In the mid-eighteenth century, the magistrature in these secondary jurisdictions experienced a profound and widespread crisis. The campaign mobilized in the presidial seats in the1750s and 1760s emphasized the need for a redefinition of their collaboration with the monarchy, with a major demand for the gradual ennoblement of those holding offices ‘moyens’ de justice.