Process
Status Items Highlights Done See section below Claims None Questions None Output None
Highlights
Time 0:08:21
Ancien Régime Tax System
- The tax structure in pre-revolutionary France was extremely problematic and needed reform.
- The main tax, the taille, was levied on land.
- However, the nobility and clergy, who owned almost half the land, were exempt from it.
- This exemption fueled the ambition of the bourgeoisie to acquire positions granting similar exemptions, driven by both financial and social status considerations. Transcript: Speaker 1 Because, you guys, we just cannot go on like this. The main tax, if there was one, was the tie. The tie was a tax on land. But critically, for reasons dating back to the days of high feudalism, the nobility and the church were exempt. Indeed, exemption from the tie
Time 0:22:47
Montesquieu’s Influence
- Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws (1748) became a key text for French revolutionaries in the 1790s.
- Ironically, Montesquieu held a conservative, aristocratic worldview, making him a strange bedfellow for revolutionaries.
- He believed in separation of powers, balanced government, public consent, intermediary institutions, and context-specific political systems.
- Despite his conservatism, revolutionaries valued his authority on building just, rational, and stable governments. Transcript: Speaker 1 After spending a lifetime travelling and researching and reflecting, montesquieu published the spirit of the laws in 17 forty eight itbecame the authoritative text on the science Of politics. All the men who tried to remake france in the 17 nineties used montesquieu as their touchstone, which is a bit ironic, as montesquieu was conservative and approached politics with A particularly aristocratic world view. That would have made him the darling of the revolutions for about a week and a half in 17 88, and after that, a counter revolutionary pig. Mont sqie, as you know, believed in the separation of powers and balanced government and the necessity of public consent to protect liberty and property. He also believed that there had to be intermediary institutions between the rabble and the power, or the whole thing would spin off into anarchy. Not only that, but montesquieu was also deeply committed to the idea that political institutions must conform to the societies within which they are made. For him, there was no universally pure model, and there was no sense in trying to cram a square peg into a round hole. Montesquieu’s theories were taught everywhere and read by practically every major revolutionary figure. And despite his obviously conservative world view, they all treated him as the authority on building a just and rational and stable government, which will become superimportant When everyone goes off to build a s in rational and stable government. Not that they ever really had much success.