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Chapter Six Dismantling the Old Regime in Provence 4 We are living under neither the Old Regime nor the New. —Gautier de la Molle, seigneur d’Artigues (7 December 1789) The National Assembly’s abolition of fiscal privilege spelled the end of the formal, provincial-level Procès des Tailles. This was recognized immediately by the provincial political elite. Writing to the Provençal deputation at Versailles in the summer of 1789, the commissioners of the Commons applauded the news. It would open a new age of peace, since noble tax exemption “had been the sole cause of all the debates between the nobility and Third Estate of Provence for centuries.” Compared to the Assembly’s blanket abolition of fiscal privilege, the “council’s arrêt of 1556, that of 1702, and others” were “but very minor incidents.” In their view, the Revolution had pronounced a definitive “expedient de condamnation” on the “fond du procès.”1 They were largely correct, but 1789 did not end the Procès des Tailles as cleanly and comprehensively as they expected. It was one thing to proclaim the end of fiscal privilege, but quite another to dismantle the old system of noble tax exemption and construct a new, egalitarian one in its place. In some ways, the National Assembly’s proclamations abolishing privilege and the subsequent laws on their implementation worsened existing tensions, raised unforeseen questions, and sparked new conflict. It is to these immediate aftershocks that we first turn. 202 1. BDR, C 1380, “Commissioners to the deputies” (1 July 1789). It is significant to note that the commissioners continued to employ legal metaphor, even when describing a major revolutionary political act. Dismantling the Old Regime 203 The End of the Province The decrees that resulted from the Night of August 4th promised to transform the legal and institutional context within which the Procès had existed. The impending end of noble fiscal privilege obviously had a direct bearing on the contestation. So did the abolition of seigneurialism—the juridical framework of property on which the definition of noble land was based. But in the immediate aftermath of August 4th, the most pressing issue for the Provençaux was the abolition of provincial privilege. The National Assembly’s decision to abolish the historic provinces of France came as a surprise. During the political crisis of the late 1780s and even after the Estates-General began to meet in mid-1789, the Provençal political class had believed that reforming and strengthening provincial institutions, especially provincial estates, was the solution to the political woes of their province and the entire nation.2 To this end, the General Assembly of the Third Estate, which met in April 1789 to make final arrangements for its deputation to the Estates-General of the kingdom, established a three-man commission to “prepare the bases and details of the regeneration of the Proven çal constitution.” It was also to correspond and coordinate with the deputies in Paris.3 Opening with a vigorous assertion of the “national rights” of Provence, the draft constitution the commission forwarded to the deputies at Versailles in mid-July 1789 remained faithful to the ideal of provincial autonomy still shared by all Provençal political elites, from the most reactionary seigneur to the most radical lawyer.4 The political situation, however, was changing rapidly. News of the “revolution of the 15th” (as the seizure of the Bastille was initially known in the province) produced a noticeable change in the thinking of the commis2 . “Throughout the nation, spokesmen for the Third Estate invoked their rights to equal representation in provincial estates, which would be reorganized in the pays d’états and introduced elsewhere in imitation of Dauphiné.” Ted W. Margadant, Urban Rivalries in the French Revolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), 88–89. Margadant offers a comprehensive treatment of the territorial reorganization of France by the National Assembly in the third chapter (“The New Division of the Kingdom”) of his book. See also Michael P. Fitzsimmons , The Remaking of France: The National Assembly and the Constitution of 1791 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 69–110. 3. AC Aix, AA 49, Procès-verbal de l’Assemblée Générale des Gens du Tiers-Etat du pays et comté de Provence, convoquée, par autorité & permission de Sa Majesté, en la ville d’Aix, au 30 Avril 1789 (Aix, 1789). Its members were Baux, Philibert, and Juglar. 4. BDR, C 1383, “Projet de...

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