French Nobility Research Articles

Social terminology in “Traité de la Noblesse” by Gilles-André La Roque de La Lontière (1678)

The “Traité de la noblesse” by Gilles-André de La Rocque de La Lontière is an example of the treatises on nobility that were prevalent in early modern Europe. The author, a renowned French genealogist, heraldist, and royal historiographer, presented his work as a comprehensive summary and conclusion on the issues surrounding nobility in French society. Although Larocque’s voluminous treatise has been referenced by researchers of the French nobility, it has not been the subject of in-depth investigation by Russian historians. This paper aims to address this gap in the historical literature by analysing the major problems outlined in the treatise and the social terminology used by Larocque as a reflection of the process of defining the boundaries of the noble estate in early modern France. The close subject and epistemic connection between the nobiliary discourse and the French erudite intellectual current is demonstrated. The process of closure of the nobility that took place at that time required the delineation of the boundary between the nobility and the roturiers. In this regard, the internal structure of the French nobility was of little interest to La Rocque, who focused on clarifying its lower border. He provides a detailed account of the terms used to define the borderline between the lower levels of nobility. Larocque addresses the controversial question of the dignity of the old and new nobility, concluding that they are equivalent.

To their Credit: The Aristocracy and Commercial Credit in Europe, c.1750–1820

The aristocracy and their use of commercial credit are seldom explored in the European comparative context despite important studies of the French aristocracy and their credit relations with shopkeepers, tradesmen and fashion merchants. This article studies the aristocracy and commercial credit in England, Germany and Sweden, by drawing on the normative literature and the account books, receipted bills, correspondence and diaries of several families occupying different echelons of the nobility. We examine the extent and nature of aristocratic engagement with shop credit, the ways in which they manipulated and managed this credit, and their motivations for doing so. We argue that the aristocracy was involved in a modern commercial credit economy and that this was central to their position in society and way of life. Our analysis of the ideals communicated through conduct books and parental advice and the actual credit practices of the aristocracy show that they took their credit arrangements seriously. They had to abide by the rules of commercial credit and settle their accounts: sometimes promptly, most often in a timely manner and only occasionally after considerable delay. The article offers a comparative framework for further and broader studies on the aristocracy within economic history.

Legal Vocabulary as a Means of Conceptualization of Cultural Communicative Situations by Aristocrats in Marcel Proust’s Novel

The author of the article argues that during the Third Republic French aristocrats used legal terms figuratively in their communication as is evidenced in Marcel Proust’s novel. The paper presents legal terms which, used metaphorically and in similes, create a certain cultural code for the personages’ private communication. Communicative situations (secular and political) employing figurative legal terms whose meaning can be perceived only by French aristocrats and their closest social circle, creating a special code for message exchange, served as material for our study. In order to describe these situations, Marcel Proust resorts to general legal vocabulary, the terms of Constitutional Law, Civil Law, International Public Law, as well as some concepts of the history of the French Law. The main methods of our study are semantic, linguistic, stylistic and contextual types of analysis. The relevance of our article could be justified by the fact that, to our knowledge, there are no scientific papers on stylistic devices, based on specialist terminology, in a literary text, or in communication. Linguists are interested in the functioning of specialist terminology as well as in the issues of classification and analysis of different stylistic devices. With regard to the stylistic analysis, we may say that the Guermants, the personages of the novel, are capable of impacting the opinion of their interlocutors in many subtle ways, just like journalists impact the viewpoints of their readers while covering political events in the news. For this purpose, they also resort to different delicate and ingenious techniques, such as play on words, aiming at belittling someone in the eyes of others. The inability of the readers to understand the meaning of some of their statements featuring legal terms to refer to some larger cultural and communicative situations, is one way for the Guermants to underline their own uniqueness, treating the people around them in terms of in-(out-)group members. Numerous communicative situations related to the figurative use of legal vocabulary allow the writer to represent Marcel’s disappointment by the aristocrats’ world he is now familiar with, as well as his misunderstanding of Baron de Charlus’ sensual hints, and total incomprehension of the new modern art by the Duke of Guermants.

German Chronicle ‘The Theater of Europe’ about the First Stage of the Campaign of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’s Troops against the Left-Bank Hetmanate in 1663–1664

The article analyzes the testimonies of the fundamental 17th-century German chronicle "The Theater of Europe" ("Theatrum Europaeum") regarding the first stage of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’s army offence, led by King Jan Casimir, against the Left-Bank Hetmanate in 1663–1664. It briefly outlines the history of this 17th-early – 18th-century fundamental issue, initiated, written and published by an artist Matvii Merian and his team of historians. This chronicle consists of 21 volumes (each contains over 1000 pages) and numerous illustrations, primarily focusing on the military and political history of Europe. It also allocates a certain place to Ukraine. While Ukrainian narratives from the first half to the middle of the 17th century have been previously studied (the article briefly discusses the state of the art), the subsequent period had not been explored. This article presents the first examination of the chronicle’s accounts of the campaign’s history, provides a translation of relevant texts from German, identifies author errors (specifically in using the names of the Ukrainian cities). The article highlights the authors’ distinctive historical perspectives and reveals original reports (such as the capture of Hetman Ivan Brukhovetsky by Polish soldiers). It studies the plot about participation of certain French aristocrats (known from the novels written by Alexandre Dumas father) in the campaign. Despite its brevity, "The Theater of Europe" constitutes important evidence of how knowledge about Ukraine spread in Western Europe.

Shakespeare and the French Lens

Academic studies of Shakespeare in Great Britain and France present the historian with startling contrasts. Beginning in the late 18th century, the English debated the extent of his knowledge and eventually turned the poet-playwright into a national hero and secular saint. When Thomas Carlyle published in 1840 On Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History, he actually stated that Shakespeare was “an unconscious intellect” whose dramas “grew up out of Nature.” Carlyle’s book was an incredible success, deifying the uneducated and untraveled man from Stratford, making him a religious Anglo-Saxon icon never to be questioned. Some had their doubts. In France in 1918, Professor Abel Lefranc, a renowned Renaissance scholar and member of the Académie française, published Sous le masque de William Shakespeare, a volume that tried to prove “to all those with an open mind” that the author William Shakespeare could not have been Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon. Among his reasons: William Shakespeare knew France, the French aristocracy and French history too well. Leaving aside the author’s missing paper trail, inconceivable for the “soul of the age,” Lefranc examined Shakespeare’s works in extraordinary detail and revealed just how political they were and how often they subtly commented on a much wider European culture and politics. Shakespeare’s oeuvre, he argued, was not limited to the Anglo-Saxon world but was actually multi-national and deeply influenced by France. English scholars did not handle this French questioning of Shakespeare so well. Indeed, with only a few exceptions, Lefranc’s work was ignored in the Anglo-Saxon world. Lefranc argued that the plays needed to be re-examined as creations for the Elizabethan court, making clear references to what was actually happening in France at the time. This essay argues that the significance of Shakespeare’s knowledge of French courtly politics and culture should not be underestimated because there are no records that the man from Stratford ever left England or knew French. That is, once the profound French influence is recognized in Shakespeare’s plays, the man from Stratford could not have been the author.

VOLODYMYR VINNICHENKO’S NOVEL “THE NEW COMMANDMENT”: POETICS AND FORMS OF EXISTENTIAL SELF-REFLECTION

The article considers the second edition of Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s novel “The New Commandment” (1947), written for the first time in 1932. The author of the book translated it into French together with his wife after the end of World War II. The purpose of the work and the tasks dictated by it are to analyse the “French” novel “The New Commandment” by Volodymyr Vynnychenko in the paradigm of modernist aesthetics, to reveal the main philosophical ideas and aesthetic functions of the novel, to identify elements of intertextual memory, and to understand the influence of the book by Ukrainian dissident Viktor Kravchenko “I Chose Freedom” (1946). The set of goals determines the need to use hermeneutical (analysis of artistic text), comparative-typological (comparison of philosophical novel various functions), historical-literary (solution of a number of literary problems in the context of various national literatures) research methods. Vynnychenko’s work is analysed in the paradigm of the “Transcendent Homelessness” philosophical concept, introduced into scientific discourse by the Hungarian philosopher and literary theorist D. Lukach in his Hegelian-Weber essay “The Theory of the Novel” (1916), where he quotes the German romantic, a representative of the Jena school, Novalis: “Philosophy is homesickness – the desire to be at home everywhere”. In the study of Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s contribution to European modernism in the interwar era, the author pays attention to the key thesis of the trans-cultural theory, which touches such disciplines as anthropology, sociology and political science. Particular attention is paid to the genesis and specificity of the philosophical and figurative system of one of the key “French” texts by Volodymyr Vynnychenko. The leading aesthetic components and means of forming philosophical and ideologicalpolitical paradigms of the work are also determined. The French aristocracy had a great debate on “The New Commandment”. In April 1949, the translation was published in one of the Paris publishing houses (Nouveau Commandemant. Paris: Editions des Presses du Temps Present). The French literary critics of the time responded favourably to the publication of the Ukrainian author’s book, and the literary and artistic society “Club de Faubourg” already on 10th May 1949, arranged a massive discussion of “The New Commandment”, which testified to the approving attitude towards the author. At the same time, another well-known French artist club “Arts-Sciences-Lettres”, awarded Volodymyr Vynnychenko with an honorary diploma and a silver medal. On 21st July 1949, the prestigious Parisian weekly bulletin “Le Nuvelle Litterere” responded to this fact where noticed that after Shevchenko and Marko Vovchok, Volodymyr Vynnychenko is the first Ukrainian writer whose novels have been responded to by French audience. In this regard, it is noted that the philosophical foundations of Vynnychenko’s novel organically fit into the “spiritual crisis” European discussions of those times. We have studied philosophical character manifestation peculiarities in the genre of novel-dialogue, novel-polemic, which are widely represented in the “French” prose of the Ukrainian artist and are closely connected with the French literary tradition. It is proved that, having spent almost the last thirty years of his life in France, the Ukrainian writer seems to aim at identifying common thematic, aesthetic, philosophical and ideological paradigms that go beyond mononational boundaries, and demonstrates that Ukrainian emigrant artists were participants in pan-European literary modernism, although for the most part it concerns Volodymyr Vynnychenko himself, as well as Yu. Kosach, I. Kostetskyi, A. Arkhipenko, A. Ekster, A. Manevich, I. Pune, A. Boguslavskaya, M. Glushchenko. Particular attention is paid to the genre experiment of Vynnychenko, in particular, the philosophical and political novel with such poetic features as the presentation and discussion of concordist theory, the use of such a modernist technique as “a novel within a novel”, the constant inclusion of various discursive forms of concordism discussion. The critical optics of the study combines the historical and philosophical specificity of the era of the interwar twenties, on which the novels of Volodymyr Vynnychenko are based, as well as the national identity of the Ukrainian writer and his biographical individuality.

War for God or a War for the Godless?

The French Civil Wars, or ‘Wars of Religion,’ were set primarily in the sixteenth century and enveloped France in a religious conflict. The Civil Wars were a series of violent periods between the French Protestant Huguenots and the Roman Catholics, Catholicism being the official religion of the French Kingdom. The ongoing struggle resulted in an escalation of civil violence and polarity between the religious affiliations, creating a divided French populous that carried out many atrocities, such as the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre. The violence subsided in 1598 when King Henry IV enacted the Edict of Nantes, granting substantial conditions and support to the Huguenot population in France. However, this paper argues for the importance of categorizing the wars as ‘civil’ and not ‘religious.’ The dynamic situation involves more than religious differences, including a central reliance on community-based disputes, group association based on mass paranoia, and even political gain for those of the French nobility. It is important to understand the complexity of the Civil Wars. Denoting them as a religious conflict ignores the other civil implications which provoked aggression between French communities and forces.

Parliamentary Dress

Parliamentary Dress

German narratives about the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre

Abstract In Germany, the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre was seen as special but not unique. Confronted with the first news reports, German audiences turned to existing understandings of the nature of religious conflict to make sense of the traumatic stories. This article examines four broad and interrelated narrative frameworks that were used to explain the massacre. First, German Catholics and Lutherans, treasuring the orderly Peace of Augsburg, condemned the sedition of the Huguenots and saw the massacre as a regrettable but logical consequence of their rebellion. Secondly, rumours of conspiracy and equivocation abounded in the empire. These seemed to be confirmed by the massacre. Thirdly, fearing the erosion of noble prerogatives and the creation of ‘Turkish’ tyrannies, the massacre of the French nobility chimed in with German aristocratic anxieties. Finally, the horrific fate of so many fellow Christians in France led some to see the massacre as an eschatological event.

The French Revolution: The Marxist Interpretation and the Revisionist Critic

Bu çalışmada Fransız Devrimi’nin Marksist yorumu ve buna getirilen Revizyonist eleştiri karşılaştırılacaktır. Bunun için nitel araştırma yönteminde kategorik ve sistematik içerik analizine başvurulacaktır. Çalışmada Fransız Devrimi, tarihin belirli bir zamanında meydana gelmiş tek bir vaka olma özelliği taşımaktadır. Marx ve takipçileri sosyalizmin kökenini Fransız Devrimi’nde aramışlardır. Bu da onları devrimin iktisadi dinamiklerine götürmüştür. Bu dinamikler içerisinde burjuvazi baskın bir unsurdur. 1950’li yıllarda revizyonistler bu yaklaşıma itiraz etmişlerdir. Revizyonist yazar ve düşünürlerin önde gelen şahsiyetlerinden Cobban, “Genel Meclis” (États Généraux)’te burjuvaziyi temsil ettiği iddia edilen “Üçüncü Sınıf”’ın burjuva bir karaktere sahip olmadığını öne sürmektedir. Bir diğer Revizyonist yazar, Furet, devrimle birlikte ortaya siyasal kültürün olayın doğru bir şekilde incelenmesini zorlaştırdığına dikkat çekmiştir. Marksistlerin iddia ettiğinin aksine feodal düzenin monarşi yargısının varlığı nedeni ile devrim öncesinde işlevini yitirdiğine inanmaktadır. 1789 yılına gelindiğinde feodal toprakların iktisadi mekanizması sürdürülebilir bir özellik arz etmemektedir. Devrimin, bu açıdan bakıldığında etkisi feodal dünyanın geriye kalan unsurlarını ortadan kaldırmakla sınırlı kalmıştır.

Hospitality, Revolution and the Emigrant Experience: Guests and Hosts in French Revolutionary Novels of Emigration Written by Women Authors

This article examines the presence of hospitality as a significant theme in four French Revolutionary novels of emigration written by three major female authors of that time, Isabelle de Charrière, Claire de Duras and Stéphanie de Genlis. It aims to highlight the multiple facets of the concept of hospitality in these novels and to demonstrate that beyond its traditional meaning, hospitality operates too in political, social and ethical realms: 1) it becomes the pivot of an introspective reflection: a critical look at the conventions and social practices of the French nobility, 2) it reflects a political thought: tensions between condemnation and loyalty to the Old Regime system, and between adherence to and suspicion of republican ideals, 3) last but not least, it opens a path to a feminist approach through situations that stage relationships of help and care by émigré women for émigré women. The reading angle that I propose in the article confirms the originality of these novels that link emigration and hospitality by evoking the potentiality of new situations, no matter how painful they may be: flexibility, emancipation, adaptation, openness, sharing and care are key themes that recur in the narratives to underline the transformative power of mutual support, responsibility and trust between women.

„Złego sługę malarze tak figurowali”. Źródła wizerunków dobrego i złego sługi oraz dobrej i złej żony z czwartego rozdziału Źwierzyńca Mikołaja Reja

“Złego sługę malarze tak figurowali” (“A bad servant was so depicted”): Sources of the Images of a Good and Bad Servant and of a Good and Bad Wife in Chapter 4 of Mikołaj Rej’s Źwierzyniec (‘The Bestiary’) The chapter of Mikołaj Rej’s Źwierzyniec (‘The Bestiary’), entitled Jako starych wieków przypadki świeckie ludzie sobie malowali (‘As People Painted Secular Shapes from Old Times’), is a collection of epigrams accompanied by visual illustrations of various human features and vices. As proved in 1893 by Ignacy Chrzanowski, some of the pieces were inspired by Andrea Alciato’s emblems, hence the search for Rej’s sources focused on emblem literature. However, despite the evidence that Rej’s epigrams were intended as comments to illustrations, they still may be rooted in literary texts. This article deals with the sources of four epigrams, namely, the one depicting a bad servant, a good servant, a good wife and a bad wife. The epigram Sługa dobry (IV 31, ‘The Good Servant’) may have been modeled on the popular treaty Οίκετηςsive De officio famulorum, written in 1535 by Gilbert Cousin, who described an image of a good servant, subsequently painted in French nobles’ chambers. It presented a human silhouette with a pig’s face, donkey’s ears and deer’s legs, which captured the idea of the servant being easy to feed, eager to listen and fast to follow the master’s orders. This image was widely popularized in 16th-century drawings, however none of them is known to have been familiar to Rej before 1562 and used by him as a pattern for his epigram. Since a pig’s snout is associated with gluttony in Rej’s other texts, in the epigram Sługa dobry it is replaced by a bull’s head. The image of the snout is exploited in Zły sługa (IV 30, ‘The Bad Servant’). Rej equipped the bad servant with a wolf ’s ears – he will pretend to misunderstand orders for his own benefit, a bear’s paws –he steals, and a dog’s tail – he flatters his master. The two epigrams presenting the images of a good wife and a bad wife, were inspired by verses that were echoed in Rej’s other works, for instance in Postylla (1557, ‘Postil’) and Żywot człowieka poczciwego (1568, ‘Life of a Virtuous Man’). The epigram Żona poczciwa (IV 32, ‘The Virtuous Wife’) alludes to Ps. 128(127):3, whereas Żona wszeteczna (IV 33, ‘The Profligate Wife’) to Prov. 11:22.

Дипломатическая подготовка английского вторжения во Францию в 1415 году

Introduction. According to the latest research, the managerial genius of Henry V was most fully manifested in the military, financial and diplomatic fields. The authors analyze in detail the royal diplomacy, which has not been the subject of special study. Diplomacy is analyzed as a space of political communication. Methods and materials. The basic methods of historical analysis were used to work with the material. The sources used in the work are diplomatic documents (treaties, “memorandums”, instructions to ambassadors and their correspondence with monarchs, decisions of royal councils, discussion of the course and results of negotiations in parliament) and chronicles. In historiography, the problem is traditionally considered within the framework of works devoted to the personality of Henry V or the history of the Hundred Years War. Analysis. The article analyzes three phases and three components of English diplomatic policy from the coming of Henry V of Lancaster to power to his invasion of Normandy: 1) negotiations with both sides of the intra-French conflict in order to prevent their reconciliation. 2) the territorial claims of Henry V in France (territory in exchange for giving up the “rights” of inheritance). 3) diplomatic activity as a disguise of preparation for war (territory in exchange for peace). Results. The authors concluded that the English in the years 1413–1415 are moving from military mercenarism on the side of one of the warring groups in the intra-French conflict to declaring themselves as one of the parties to the struggle for power in France with their rights and claims. The diplomacy of the English crown pursued the intentions of 1) demonstrating the impossibility of achieving the claims of the royal house of England on the continent peacefully; 2) maintaining schism and confrontation within the highest French nobility; 3) ensuring international recognition of the English monarch’s right to intervene in the intra-French conflict.

Edith Wharton Society Panels at the American Literature Association Conference, Chicago, 2022

Edith Wharton Society Panels at the American Literature Association Conference, Chicago, 2022

Legal Vocabulary as Means of Revealing by Marcel Proust of the Cultural Codes of French Aristocracy, Bourgeoisie and Peasantry

This article is devoted to the stylistic and cognitive analysis of the legal vocabulary in the third volume of Marcel Proust’s novel “In Search of Lost Time” used in order to describe mental, psychological and cultural world of Guermantes in its contrast with the world of bourgeoisie and with that of French peasants. The legal terms we consider in the paper are used by Proust as core components of a number of stylistic figures, first of all, similes and metaphors. Following Gérard Cornu and some other scholars, we understand legal terminology (legal terms and legal vocabulary in general) as any word of language (in our case, those of French) having at least one legal meaning, acknowledged by an authoritative French dictionary. The legal terms identified in the text were classified into two groups: general legal vocabulary and specific legal vocabulary belonging to different branches of law: constitutional, criminal, international. In order to confirm their legal semantics while conducting contextual analysis, we have consulted all types of diction-aries: bilingual, monolingual, general and special ones. The main aim of the article was to determine the functions of these figures in Marcel Proust’s text whose poetics is not at all legal. To achieve it, the main task was to identify the connections between the denotative meaning of a given term and its connotative contextual transformations. This means first of all to decode contextual links between the legal figure under analysis and various domains of life it was applied to by Proust. Eventually, this analysis helps to reveal French cultural codes, those of declining aristocracy, empowered bourgeoisie and, in “Guermantes”, of peasantry. Thus, the Guermantes are associated in the eyes of the bourgeoisie, represented by Marcel, with something ancient, inaccessible to rational minds, charming: some sublime images, magical legends of ancient times, exquisite works of art and music, antique music instruments. In this context, a legal term, such as carte photographique d’identité for instance, introduces, by contrast, some materially-minded, pragmatic, prosaic notes. At the same time, democratic changes leading to the rise of the bourgeoisie, as well as the world of peasants are depicted in an extremely concrete way, being associated with the untamed force of nature: damage and devastation caused by the floods, noises, and the like. At the same time, various typical human feelings, such as Marcel’s admiration and Saint-Loup’s love due to the use of legal figures may be represented as imprisonment.

Metamorphosis and the Taxonomy of Musical Instruments

It’s the year 1740. The viol, recently favored instrument of the French aristocracy, has been losing admirers while the violin has been gaining them. As a viol enthusiast, you wish to make a persua...

Ecumenical Mysticism: On Conversion in the Eastern Tradition of Ordene de Chevalerie

Abstract Historians celebrate the Old French Ordene de Chevalerie as an important landmark in the history of French nobility. The version of Ordene that most scholars have studied showcases Saladin’s interest in Christian chivalry but stops short of his actual dubbing. An often-neglected prose recension of this tale that first appeared in an oriental history of Outremer goes a step further, imagining the sultan to have truly become a knight “in the Christian fashion.” This version of the story, I argue, portrays Christian dubbing not only as a ceremony through which young aristocrats were admitted into a society of warriors, but also as an instrument for spiritual ascent that non-Christians could experience without renouncing their own faith. As such, the story echoes the widespread near-eastern trope of ecumenical mysticism, in which members of various faiths were seen to partake in mystical practices that belonged to neighboring traditions.

“Taste” as an aesthetic category in moralistic and philosophical literature of the XVII century

This article analyzes the emergence of the aesthetic category of taste, which dates back to 1620s–1630s, as well as the factors of its emergence. The author correlates the aesthetic category of “taste” with one of the categories of gallant aesthetics “fineness”, which becomes the key requirement for the behavioral pattern of a secular person, as well as for the lifestyle of French aristocracy of the XVII century overall, emphasizing the social conditionality of the concept of taste. From the sphere of secular communication and everyday life, the categories of “fineness” and “fined taste” flow into the sphere of art, which unfolds the discussion on the subjectivity of taste and the tyranny of rules. The problem of taste remains relevant, as we see the blending of edges of this concept, denial of the hierarchy of aesthetic values in modern art. The question of the development of criteria for assessing the artworks is still as urgent as in the XVII century. At the same time, it is impossible to speak of the development and transformation of the aesthetic category of “taste” if the origins of its emergence are unfathomable. The dispute around the crucial for aesthetics dichotomy “taste” and “rules” has blazed up in France in the late XVII century. In this discussion, “fine taste” is opposed not to the concepts of “no taste” or “bad taste”, they are analogous to taste since being subjective. The concept of “taste” was opposed to the rule, which instigated the dispute of the aesthetic thought of the XVII century.

The Linguistic Mix of Names in Lll

Abstract The names in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost present a delightful linguistic mix. The names of major characters are Anglicized names of actual French nobles, which emphasizes the thematic parallelism of historical and fictive events. Other names broaden the international landscape, including Nathaniel, a biblical association, Forester (which is French as well as English), and Armado, a Spanish tag. The length of this paper does not allow room to describe many names in detail. However, the cross-cultural puns make this play especially interesting; e.g., Moth has at least two meanings in English, but pronounced mot in French means ‘word,’ ‘remark,’ ‘cue,’ or ‘answer to a riddle’ – which points most clearly to a thematic meaning. A full analysis of this play will appear soon in my book Names as Metaphors in Shakespeare’s Comedies (Vernon Press).

The position of the French aristocracy on the reform projects presented at the Assembly of notables in 1787

The paper is devoted to the position of the French aristocracy regarding the projects of the Controller General of Finance Calonne, presented for discussion at the Assembly of notables in 1787. The budget deficit by the end of the 80s of 18th century reached over 80 million livres a year, the country was on the verge of an economic crisis. The Controller General of Finance Calonne proposed to the king to convene in 1787 an Assembly of notables, prominent representatives of the French nation, to approve a plan of government reforms. Although the Assembly included notables from the three estates of the kingdom, the aristocracy, which was widely represented in it, played an important role. The titled French nobility at the end of the Old Order still retained influence in the state, thanks to their economic position, social status and positions at court, in the army and in the state apparatus. The Assembly of notables had no legislative force, but Calonne convinced the king that the reform plan approved by the assembly would break the resistance of parliaments and gain the approval of the whole society. The presented reforms affected the interests of the privileged estates, but the government expected that the notables would accept the proposals and vote for the reforms, which according to Calonne contributed to the huge budget deficit, educational ideas about equality, physiocrats projects announced earlier and the chosen composition of notables, many of which were occupied by liberal and pro-government position. The Notables put forward their ideas on taxation and the creation of provincial assemblies and expressed the idea of convening the States General as a body competent to adopt such significant reforms for French society.