As a result of tax exemptions for the nobility and clergy, the tax base was small and fell disproportionately on those least able to pay. Louis XV had repeatedly failed to tackle the problem of tax reform; time and time again, he faced opposition from nobles and clergy who were not going to give up their tax concessions. Since he could not raise money by increasing taxation, he was obliged to borrow still more. By the 1770s the government deficit was huge and growing, as annual expenditure continued to exceed revenue.
The unjust system of taxation underlined huge disparities in wealth. Peasants felt increasingly insecure as many found that their incomes were dwindling and their debts were rising. Their problems were compounded by the fact that France was still almost entirely an agricultural nation. Only around half a million people produced manufactured goods, so there were few exports to cover the cost of imports of wheat when the harvest failed. One traveller, François de la Rochefoucauld, commenting on the incredible hardships of the peasants he observed in Brittany, declared, ‘they really are slaves … their poverty is excessive. They eat a sort of porridge made of buckwheat; it is more like glue than food’. Indeed, the extreme wealth of the nobles in their magnificent chateaux in contrast to the wretched poverty of many of the people could not have been more plain for all to see.
In eighteenth-century France there was no institutional framework that would readily allow Louis XVI to tackle these fundamental problems. Administratively it was a fragmented nation, each region with completely separate customs, taxes, even different measurements and weights. Each region jealously protected its own interests and independence, which had grown up around local parlements, thirteen in all. These parlements were not like the English parliament of elected representatives. They were lawcourts of magistrates and lawyers who had paid for their seats, and who used them, not to represent the people, but principally to further their own interests. Although the king could formally overrule a parlement or dissolve it, conflicts with the parlements had been a feature of Louis XV’s reign and had stifled modernising reforms.
As Absolute Monarch, the king had authority over the military and the national system of justice, and could determine levels of taxation and influence the clergy. The difficulty was in exercising this power when the country was politically divided. Louis XVI faced a situation where no section of society was satisfied. The nobles wanted to restore ancient rights and to resist any tax changes, the bourgeoisie resented the privileges of the nobles, and the commoners criticised the tax system. The British ambassador, Lord David Murray Stormont, captured the difficulties: ‘every instrument of faction, every court engine is constantly at work, and the whole is such a scene of jealousy, cabal and intrigue that no enemy need wish it more.’ As a young, rather idealistic man, Louis XVI earnestly wished to enhance the reputation of the monarchy and build a more prosperous France, yet he knew this would require major unpopular reforms.
One of the king’s first priorities was to cut back the nation’s debt. To do this he had to reduce state expenditure, starting with Versailles. Versailles just soaked up money; the palace was in need of repair and some servants had not been paid for years. Even before he was king, Louis spent nearly a quarter of his allowance in back payment to staff. He continued to be strict about the royal family’s spending and repaying debts. Provence, Artois and their wives were ordered to eat with him and the queen at Versailles to minimise demands on their own expensive households, and he discouraged the many extravagant noblemen at court from living beyond their means.
He appointed as finance minister Anne-Robert Jacques Turgot, who tried to increase state revenue by stimulating the economy. He removed restrictions on the grain trade between the thirteen different regions and promoted light industry by suppressing the powerful guilds which would not allow non-members to practise a trade. This was achieved with some success. Louis was also able to introduce other reforms. He passed measures to improve the appalling state of prisons in France and abolished the barbaric practice of torturing accused prisoners which, up until then, had been regarded as a legitimate means to get at the truth of a man’s innocence or guilt. However, for all his humanitarian instincts, he failed to get to grips with tax reform, and the nation’s debt continued to rise.
While Louis XVI was trying to come to terms with his role as king, Marie-Antoinette was creating her new life as queen. She quickly understood that she was barred from politics but soon found there were other ways of exercising her power at Versailles. As Dauphine she had made no secret of the fact that she disliked the time-consuming, exacting etiquette and formality of the French court where, she felt, her life was lived ‘in front of the whole world’. Depending on their rank, courtiers could attend the rising or lever of the monarch and his family, and in the evening the ceremony for undressing, or coucher. For the all too frequent public meals, or grand couvert, the royal family could be watched dining by any member of the public who was suitably attired.
The queen’s disregard for ceremony shocked the more traditional courtiers in Versailles, who observed her on occasion to yawn or giggle during an event, perhaps disguising her expression with her fan. Needless to say, the young queen was continually reproved by her advisor on social etiquette, Madame de Noailles. Yet ‘Madame Etiquette’, as Marie-Antoinette called her, failed to inspire her protégée with the significance of these rituals. ‘Madame de Noailles held herself bolt upright with a most severe face,’ observed Madame Campan, and ‘merely succeeded in boring the young princess.’ It wasn’t long before Madame Etiquette lost her post altogether and this was followed by many relaxations in court ceremony. Madame Campan, who had lived at Versailles since her youth when she was employed as reader to the princesses of Louis XV, was concerned at the harm this might do her mistress: ‘an inclination to substitute by degrees the simple customs of Vienna for those of Versailles, proved more injurious to her than she could have possibly imagined.’ Her insensitivity to the French way of doing things was adding to the slowly creeping distrust of a foreign queen.
As Marie-Antoinette gained confidence, she began to place her own stamp on court life. She soon found she could patronise friends of her own choosing, such as the Princesse de Lamballe, of the house of Savoy. They had become friends at a winter sledge party, where, according to Madame Campan, the princess, ‘with all the brilliancy and freshness of youth, looked like Spring peeping from under sable and ermine’. Lamballe had been widowed at nineteen, when her husband died of syphilis. Marie-Antoinette found in her a sensitive confidante and soon appointed her Superintendent of the Queen’s Household, a move that caused uproar since there were others whose rank made them much more suited for the post. Unlike the Princesse de Lamballe, another intimate friend, Gabrielle de Polignac, was drawn from the impoverished nobility. Gabrielle was a generous-spirited, level-headed girl with a taste for simplicity. The queen found her husband an official position at Versailles so that Gabrielle, too, could live at the court. It wasn’t long before the queen was bestowing favours to numerous other members of the Polignac family.
With her newfound friends, Marie-Antoinette’s life became more fun and increasingly indulgent: a whirlwind of masked balls, plays and operas in Paris, race meetings and hunting parties. Even Madame Campan, who invariably writes appreciatively of her mistress, was critical. ‘Pleasure was the sole pursuit of everyone of this young family, with the exception of the king,’ she wrote. ‘Their love of it was perpetually encouraged by a crowd of those officious people, who by anticipating their desires … hoped to gain or secure favour for themselves.’ Who would have dared, she asks, to check the amusements of this young, lively and handsome queen? ‘A mother or husband alone, had the right to do it!’ Although the king rarely joined her for these social events, he threw no impediment in her way. ‘His long indifference had been followed by feelings of admiration and love. He was a slave to all the wishes of the queen.’ However, her mother, hearing of these indulgences, was quick to warn Marie-Antoinette in frequent letters from Austria: ‘I foresee nothing but grief and misery for you.’
Gambling soon became another irresistible occupation for the young queen, who managed to accumulate heavy debts, which her husband settled from his private income. Constantly frugal himself, Louis failed to impose this self-discipline