74 10 1079 Event A non-persistent, time-based occurrence. Metadata for an event provides descriptive information that is the basis for discovery of the purpose, location, duration, and responsible agents associated with an event. Examples include an exhibition, webcast, conference, workshop, open day, performance, battle, trial, wedding, tea party, conflagration. Sortable Date 1791-07-16 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 782 Title A name given to the resource Reinstatement of Louis XVI. Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/782/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource July 16, 1791 Timeline Event A non-persistent, time-based occurrence. Metadata for an event provides descriptive information that is the basis for discovery of the purpose, location, duration, and responsible agents associated with an event. Examples include an exhibition, webcast, conference, workshop, open day, performance, battle, trial, wedding, tea party, conflagration. Sortable Date 1794-08-05 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 938 Title A name given to the resource Release of large numbers of prisoners begins. Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/938/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 5, 1794 Timeline Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document The Festival of the Supreme Being (8 June 1794) At exactly five in the morning, a general recall shall be sounded in Paris. This call shall invite every citizen, men and women alike, to immediately adorn their houses with the beloved colors of liberty, either by rehanging their flags, or by embellishing their houses with garlands of flowers and greenery. They shall then go to the assembly areas of their respective sections to await the departure signal. No men shall be armed, except for fourteen- to eighteen-year-old boys, who shall be armed with sabers and guns or pikes. In each section, these boys shall form a square battalion marching twelve across, in the middle of which the banners and flags of the armed force of each section shall be placed, carried by those who are ordinarily entrusted with them. Every male citizen and young boy shall hold an oak branch in his hand. All female citizens, mothers and daughters, shall be dressed in the colors of liberty. Mothers shall hold bouquets of roses in their hands, and the young girls shall carry baskets filled with flowers. Each section shall choose ten older men, ten mothers, ten girls from fifteen to twenty years of age, ten adolescents from fifteen to eighteen years of age, and ten male children below the age of eight to stand on the raised mountain in the Champ de la Reunion. The ten mothers chosen by each section shall be in white and wear a tricolored sash from right to left. The ten girls shall also be in white and shall wear the sash like the mothers. The girls shall have flowers braided into their hair. The ten adolescents shall be armed with swords. . . . Every citizen shall make sure they have their oak branches, bouquets, garlands, and baskets of flowers, and to adorn themselves with the colors of liberty. At exactly eight in the morning an artillery salvo, fired from the Pont Neuf, shall signal the time to proceed to the National Garden. Male and female citizens shall leave from their respective sections in two columns, each six abreast. The men and boys shall be on the right, while the women, girls, and children below the age of eight will be to the left. The square battalion of young boys shall be placed in the center between the two columns. The sections shall be called upon to arrange themselves in such a way that the column of women is not longer than the column of men, in order to avoid disturbing the order which is necessary in a national festival. . . . Upon arrival at the National Garden, the columns of men shall line up in the part of the garden on the side of the terrace called "the Feuillants," while the columns of women and children shall line up on the side of the river terrace, and the square battalions of boys in the wide path in the center. . . . When all the sections have arrived at the National Garden, a delegation shall go to the Convention to announce that everything is ready to celebrate the Festival of the Supreme Being. The National Convention shall arrive by way of the balcony of the Pavilion of Unity to the adjoining amphitheater. They shall be preceded by a large body of musicians, who shall be located on each side of the steps to the entrance. The president, speaking from the rostrum, shall explain to the people the reasons behind this solemn festival, and invite them to honor Nature's Creator. . . . Robespierre spoke as follows: The eternally happy day which the French people consecrates to the Supreme Being has finally arrived. Never has the world he created offered him a sight so worthy of his eyes. He has seen tyranny, crime, and deception reign on earth. At this moment, he sees an entire nation, at war with all the oppressors of the human race, suspend its heroic efforts in order to raise its thoughts and vows to the Great Being who gave it the mission to undertake these efforts and the strength to execute them. Did not his immortal hand, by engraving in the hearts of men the code of justice and equality, write there the death sentence of tyrants? Did not his voice, at the very beginning of time, decree the republic, making liberty, good faith, and justice the order of the day for all centuries and for all peoples? He did not create kings to devour the human species. Neither did he create priests to harness us like brute beasts to the carriages of kings, and to give the world the example of baseness, pride, perfidy, avarice, debauchery, and falsehood to the world. But he created the universe to celebrate his power; he created men to help and to love one another, and to attain happiness through the path of virtue. The Author of Nature linked all mortals together in an immense chain of love and happiness. Perish the tyrants who have dared to break it! Frenchmen, Republicans, it is up to you to cleanse the earth they have sullied and to restore the justice they have banished from it. Liberty and virtue issued together from the breast of the Supreme Being. One cannot reside among men without the other. Generous people, do you want to triumph over all your enemies? Practice justice and render to the Supreme Being the only form of worship worthy of him. People, let us surrender ourselves today, under his auspices, to the just ecstasy of pure joy. Tomorrow we shall again combat vices and tyrants; we shall give the world an example of republican virtues: and that shall honor the Supreme Being more. After this speech, a symphony shall be played. At the same time, the president, armed with the Flame of Truth, shall descend from the amphitheater and approach a monument raised on a circular basin, representing the monster, Atheism. From the middle of this monument, which the president shall set on fire, the figure of Wisdom shall appear. After this ceremony, the president shall return to the rostrum and speak again to the people, who shall answer him with songs and cries of joy. Robespierre spoke again, as follows: He has returned to nothingness, this monster which the spirit of kings has spewed forth over France. Let all the crimes and ills of the world disappear with him. Armed in turn with the daggers of fanaticism and the poisons of atheism, kings still conspire to assassinate humanity. If they can no longer disfigure the Divinity with superstition in order to implicate him in their transgressions, they endeavor to banish him from the earth to reign alone with crime. People, fear no more their sacrilegious conspiracies. They can no more tear the world from the breast of its author than the remorse from their own hearts. You who are wretched, hold up your woeful heads: you can again raise your eyes to the sky with impunity. Heroes of the country, your generous devotion is not a brilliant folly; the minions of tyranny may be able to assassinate you, but it is not in their power to annihilate you completely. Man, whoever you are, you can again think well of yourself. You can attach your transitory life to God himself and to immortality. Let nature thus regain all its magnificence, and wisdom all its empire. The Supreme Being is not destroyed. It is wisdom, above all, that our guilty enemies want to drive from the Republic. To wisdom alone does it belong to consolidate the prosperity of empires; it is for her to guarantee the fruits of our courage. Let us therefore associate her with all our enterprises. Let us be serious and discreet in all our deliberations, as men who determine the interests of the whole world. Let us be ardent and obstinate in our anger against sworn tyrants, imperturbable in the heat of danger, patient in our work, terrible during setbacks, modest and vigilant in success. Let us be generous toward those who are good, compassionate toward the unfortunate, inexorable toward the wicked, just toward everyone. Let us not count on unalloyed prosperity, on triumph without obstacles, or on anything that depends upon the fortune or perversity of another. Let us depend only on our constancy and our virtue. Alone, but infallible guarantors of our independence, let us crush the ungodly union of kings still more by our force of character than by the force of our arms. Sortable Date 1794-06-08 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived La Convention nationale, réimpression faite textuellement sur le moniteur original, vol. 21 (Paris, 1842), 683–84 (from the Gazette nationale, no. 262, 22 Prairial, an II [10 June 1794]). Description An account of the resource Adapting the established strategy of staging public pageantry to win support for a political cause, Robespierre organized a "Festival of the Supreme Being" in the summer of 1794. Having recently eliminated his adversaries Hébert and Danton, Robespierre delivered the keynote speech. In it he explained his idea for a civic religion worshipping a deist "supreme being" while resisting the more extreme tendency of some to eliminate spirituality outright through an atheistic "cult of reason." Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 436 Title A name given to the resource Religion: The Cult of the Supreme Being Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/436/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 8, 1794 Religion Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Sortable Date 1803-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Martyn Lyons, Napoleon Bonaparte and the Legacy of the French Revolution (London, Macmillan, 1994), p. 90. Description An account of the resource Despite the official settlement with the papacy, some priests refused to bury those who had supported the pro–revolutionary wing of the church in the 1790s and others preached royalism from the pulpit. These excerpts come from a report made to the Minister of Police in 1803. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 506 Title A name given to the resource Religious Conflicts after the Concordat (1803) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/506/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1803 Napoleon Bonaparte Public Opinion Text Event A non-persistent, time-based occurrence. Metadata for an event provides descriptive information that is the basis for discovery of the purpose, location, duration, and responsible agents associated with an event. Examples include an exhibition, webcast, conference, workshop, open day, performance, battle, trial, wedding, tea party, conflagration. Sortable Date 1771-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 749 Title A name given to the resource Remodeling of parlements by Maupeou. Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/749/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1771 Timeline Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document The parlements’ complaints about a royal edict that explained why they refused to register it. Remonstrances were an important means of publicizing the judges’ resistance to the monarchy and a method of delaying the implementation of measures they opposed. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1110 Title A name given to the resource Remonstrance Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/1110/ Glossary Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document How many times, whenever a public outcry echoed from all corners, has your parlement been ready to bring to the Sovereign its justifiable complaints against such obvious abuses as the Unigenitus Constitution? Touched by these public ills, only the justifiable fear of precipitously venturing facts of such importance when they have not yet been sufficiently proven in the judicial system could stop these dramatic steps. Living in the city of Orléans, in the parish of Saint-Catherine, a woman by the name of Dupleix saw that she was falling dangerously ill from a disease and would soon die from it. She had asked the parish priest to administer the last rites. The priest went to her, but before doing anything else he asked her to state that she had submitted to the decisions of the Church. Not satisfied with the answer of this dying woman, who wanted to live and die within the Catholic, apostolic and Roman faith, the priest persisted. He asked her if she had submitted to the Unigenitus Constitution and told her that he would not administer the last rites until she accepted the Constitution. Then he left. The illness became more threatening, and the priest was again summoned. The same questions, the same answers, the same refusal. There are two important questionings here . . . the direct questions and preconditions requiring the dying woman to declare that she had submitted to the Constitution, as well as the priest's refusals to administer the last rites until she had satisfied him. . . . The Church is necessarily a part of the body of the State. Any new danger from clerics, any enterprise that could lead to trouble for the State or shake the solid foundations of public tranquility, ties and commits ecclesiastics as members of the State and as subjects of Your Majesty. Whatever they may say, two combined issues equally involve the rights of the Church and of the State. Also, the execution of these rights and the state police power belong to Your Majesty, both as the protector of the Church or as Sovereign responsible for maintaining the peace of the kingdom. Such are the issues of marriage and vows. Such are the public scandals that Your Majesty always has an interest in suppressing and that the regulations accomplish for a number of royal cases. Such would be the abuse that the clerics could achieve with the power that is confided to them for administering the sacraments. From that point, there would be intervention and competition between the two powers in certain cases to conduct the clerics' trial in accordance with the laws of the kingdom. From that point, there would begin a means of recourse to the sovereign's authority or appeals as abuses, almost as old as the monarchy and that has been so useful to preceding kings, conserving the rights of your throne and our freedoms which always provide it the greatest support. To contest the sovereign's rights in these important matters under the pretext that they deal directly or indirectly with the spirituality or administration of the sacraments, would be to attack the most permanent maxims and open a sure and easy way for clerics to increase their power and ruin royal authority. And in all of these cases your parlement, tasked by you and under your authority with watching over the public peace in the kingdom, has the right and obligation to propose legitimate solutions to this task as circumstances warrant and as soon as necessary. If a confessor, unworthy of the sanctity of his ministry, got carried away to the point of profaning the sacraments in order to seduce the person confessing, whether it be on a spiritual or administrative matter, who could doubt that this abuse of the holy mysteries did not constitute an external and public crime which would immediately subject him to temporal law and the legitimate authority of the magistrates who exercise this justice in Your name? . . . Sire, we know that the love of your People and the zeal and fidelity of your parlement is sufficient to prevent and ward off these extreme ills which we can only remember with sorrow. But the enslavement of the principles that strengthen royal authority and the tranquility of the State are the same in all of these cases mentioned above. The sovereign to whom providence has confided the government of this great kingdom is, by the sole title of king and the right of his crown, also the defender of the Church. To defend the Church is to defend its legitimate rights and its ancient canons, and to have them executed by the clerics themselves in the entire expanse of his realm. From this defense comes the title of external bishop that is accorded to emperors and sovereigns. From this defense comes many examples of trials against clerics who, while teaching the truth of the Gospel, by their spurious enthusiasm slandered and personally attacked those where listening to them. This defense is often reiterated in the decrees and laws against causing public scandals by the indiscreet refusal of those who work in front of the altar. The strict observance of these ancient canons, which make up the fundamental basis of our freedoms, also make up the laws of the State. This observance is still in the hands of Your Majesty, and as soon as the clerics infringe on it, He is in his rights and has the obligation to provide it with his authority. . . . These immutable principles have always been the solid foundation of the monarchy, and your parlement is tasked by you with watching over the public order. It has learned however that under the direction of a few bishops the priests of their dioceses are trying to establish the Constitution as a rule of faith, or at least all of the characteristics of such. They are attempting to remove the communion of the faithful from the heart of the Church, as well as all participation in the sacraments by those of your subjects who do not state above all else that they accept the Constitution purely and simply. Your parlement has the proof, acquired through judicial inquiry and by similar depositions given by honest witnesses, that under this pretext the parish priest of Saint-Catherine persists in repeatedly refusing to allow a sick woman to die without the sacraments. This woman states that she wants to die in the communion of the Catholic, apostolic and roman Church. The threat of her imminent death increases every second. Based on new complaints, your parlement again sends back a request to the bishop of the diocese to provide the sacrament. At the same time, it is forced to again remind him of the need to warn us of anything that he deals with that could tend to disrupt the peace of the Church and State. . . . What will the consequences be when clerics can use fear to wring declarations that they have no right to require from people who would never declare as much if they were fully conscious and with their full faculties? With such suspect and dangerous ways as these to spread the rights of the Constitution, would it not be more proper to destroy them than to strengthen them? . . . Respectfully, Parlement, 24 July 1731 Signed: Portail. Sortable Date 1731-07-24 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Jules Flammermont, Remonstrances du Parlement de Paris au XVIIIe siècle, vol. 1 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1888–98), 243–80. Description An account of the resource In 1713, the Pope had issued a bull entitled Unigenitus, condemning as heretical 101 beliefs held by some French Catholic priests who were known as "Jansenists." To Jansenists, this bull, or "constitution," was the religious equivalent of absolutism—an order from on high that quashed all opposition. By contrast, the bishops of the Catholic Church in France, mostly from the Jesuit order, received the bull as an encouragement to attack the Jansenists on doctrinal matters and to diminish Jansenist influence in France. To this end, in 1730, the archbishop of the city of Orléans ordered that all clergy in his diocese should adhere to the bull, which many took to mean denying sacraments to Jansenists. When the priest of the parish of Saint–Catherine refused to read last rites to a parishioner, Madame Dupleix, the magistrates of the Parlement of Paris weighed in with the following "remonstrance," or protest, to the King (technically known as an "appeal against abuse" of power). In this remonstrance, the magistrates insist that the King fulfill his responsibility of defending all His Majesty’s subjects, including protecting Jansenists from Rome’s persecution. Despite this reliance on the monarchy, some no–so–subtle criticisms appear here. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 243 Title A name given to the resource Remonstrance by the Parlement against the Denial of Sacraments in Orléans Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/243/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource July 24, 1731 Enlightenment Laws Provinces Public Opinion Religion Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Sire, The most essential interest of the Sovereign is to know the truth, and your parlement is tasked by the State to bring it to you. . . . Today it is a question of religion and the conservation of the State, both equally threatened by the alarming schism that has aroused our enthusiasm. This schism, too long overlooked, has sunk such deep roots and grows so rapidly each day that soon no barriers will be able to contain it. Sire, the normal course of justice has already been disrupted. The most necessary formalities are desecrated, the People are angry, the guilty emboldened, their judges demeaned, intimidated, contradicted, or even bound by inaction. The violent shocks that this schism has brought have caused us to uncover a dominion being reborn within your states. It is an arbitrary dominion that recognizes neither laws, nor sovereign, nor magistrates, and for which religion is nothing more than a pretext. It is a domination for which princely authority is no more than an instrument that it dares to use or reject according to its interests. The fundamental laws of the State are nothing more than an inconvenient yoke, and the legitimate freedom of citizens is nothing more that a fictitious right. . . . Laws are the sacred ties that bind and are the seal of this indissoluble commitment. Together the King, the State, and the Law form an inseparable trinity. Strengthening the King's throne and making its sovereignty inviolable, maintaining the obedience and tranquility of the subjects, assuring their rights and legitimate freedom, in a word, making the State eternal, formidable from without and serene within . . . these are the fruits that grow from strict obedience of the law. Based on reflection and the experiences of the greatest princes and the most consummate men, and dictated solely for the good of the state and the true interests of the Prince, only laws can protect the sovereign from surprises, inspire the public trust, and stop those from any rank of society from causing problems for the State. Never has there been a revolution that was not hatched by changing the law. Sire, there is neither a more important principle, nor one more generally accepted. Politicians, legal advisers, magistrates, even sovereigns themselves have all recognized that there can be a flourishing kingdom only by bringing together the subjects' obedience of the King, and King's obedience of the law. . . . Filled with the most poignant love for Your Majesty's sacred person and jealous of increasing in all your subjects the feelings that tie them to you, as if that was possible, your parlement can only fear that which attempts to divide them. In the hands of a Prince as fair, they will always respect the use of his supreme power. But allow us, Sire, to tell you that these sudden and shocking misfortunes, these bursts of dreadful wrath that only cause hardship and that herald nothing but austerity, can only spread terror. And the French, in whom love is the tenet and gauge of fidelity, become alarmed and troubled as soon as they fear their sovereign. If he is gentle with his People, it is more natural for them to feel and state over and over, "May justice and kindness keep the King, and may his throne be strengthened by clemency." Thus they become concerned, Sire, when they see themselves abandoned to the clerics and exposed to the arbitrary application of power mistakenly placed in the hands of the ecclesiastics. The power of the clerics will soon have no limits beyond those of their own organization, and will subjugate the People in a dominion rising from the ruins of their liberty. The clerics are capable of using the People's slavery for whatever purpose they desire. Your subjects see themselves being carried away, so to speak, to a realm so different from yours, and which, in their eyes, offers nothing but risks and uncertainty. Being taken to a realm that offers them nothing but a frightful spectacle of citizens already deprived of their legitimate freedom. They see houses desolated by the loss of their most important members, magistrates removed from office, entire families required to go elsewhere to receive asylum from captivity. Shuddering in this disgrace too often takes on the form of resentment and revenge towards one's adversaries! . . . Sire, we beg you not to let yourself be distracted from the real cause of so many ills: their principle is this infinite number of orders [from Rome] that have taken your religion by surprise. The only way to stop their flow is to stop ceding your authority to the clerics who abuse and compromise it. We witnessed this with unbelievable indecency when, in the grand hall of your parlement, a provincial bishop was on trial for influencing election results. He had used one of Your Majesty's orders that were countersigned by a minister that had been out of office for ten years. Sire, forgive your parlement for giving you these details. We know Your heart, and to present you the unfortunate people of your empire is to touch its most sensitive spot. Those subjects who the senior clerics oppress by their credibility. Those subjects who shudder in exile and prison without knowing the crime of which they are accused and without the means to prove their innocence. Should these subjects not rest assured of Your heart's generosity as soon as You hear their complaints? . . . Innocent Christians find themselves reduced to the cruel alternative of being regarded as indifferent to the sacraments if they do not request them, or undergoing a scandalous and unfair refusal if they do. Sire, it is time to show these ministers of the Church that they are abusing your indulgence and that your intention is not to authorize the schism that, for the happiness of your People, you have so often condemned. Sortable Date 1753-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Jules Flammermont, Remonstrances du Parlement de Paris au XVIIIe siècle, vol. 1 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1888–98), 506–614. Description An account of the resource As the controversy over the refusal of sacraments came to dominate political and religious discussions in Paris, Versailles, and across the kingdom, the magistrates argued all the more strenuously that the King should compel the Archbishop to drop his intolerant attitude on the enforcement of Unigenitus and to allow greater diversity of opinion among French Catholics. To enforce this new policy, the magistrates appealed to the King’s sense of obligation—an obligation to uphold the traditions of the French monarchy, including the tradition of conferring with his subjects through the intermediaries of the Parlementary courts, and the tradition by which the King, rather than the Pope, oversaw the church in France to ensure that it served the interests of French men and women rather than those of the clergy alone. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 245 Title A name given to the resource Remonstrance by the Parlement against the Denial of Sacraments in Paris (1753) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/245/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1753 Enlightenment Laws Public Opinion Religion Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Sire: As your reign begins, we must make Your Majesty aware of the real state of the People, for their condition is lost in the brilliant spectacle of the court. It may even be that you have been led to form tragic misconceptions about the condition of the rest of the nation from the joy and affection shown by all those who could approach Your Majesty at your accession [to the throne]. . . . This nation, Sire, has always shown its enthusiasm and affection for its masters by making the greatest effort to maintain the splendor of their throne. Your Majesty must at least be made aware of what these enormous contributions have cost Your unfortunate People. . . . But there is an important truth, Sire, which it is our duty to bring to your attention. Taxes have been levied with impunity upon your subjects under the pretext that they are required in order to strengthen sovereign authority. A league has formed between the enemies of the courts and those who make the People suffer under the weight of arbitrary taxes. In order to replace the magistracy and its services, this league lent their support to its destruction. The sacrifice of the People to their cupidity was the result. . . . We would wish, Sire, that there were others besides ourselves who could acquaint you with these distressing truths. Why can Your Majesty not abandon today those fatal maxims of government, or just that policy introduced a century ago by jealous ministers, which has reduced all the Orders of the State to silence with the sole exception of the Magistracy? Why is it not possible for the nation to speak for itself about its most cherished interests? Then, Sire, we would most gladly turn over to others the task of informing you of the excesses committed by this very same ministry which wanted to destroy us! But since we alone still enjoy that ancient right of Frenchmen that allows us to speak to our kings and freely protest against infractions of the law and national rights, we must not show our enemies a generosity which would make us guilty before the entire nation. . . . France, and perhaps the whole of Europe, is burdened with the weight of taxes. The rivalry of the major powers has led them to spend enormous sums at every opportunity. This has made taxes necessary, and these taxes are redoubled due to the enormous national debt contracted during previous reigns. Your Majesty must remember that if your ancestors were covered with glory, the price for that glory is still being paid for by the present generation. . . . . Those who benefit from your benevolence and magnificence are always before your eyes, while the wretches robbed of their subsistence by harsh taxes go unseen. It has therefore become necessary to compare these two groups in order to see the shocking, but not exaggerated, condition of the People . . . [M]ay you always be a witness to it, Sire! . . . There would be a definite advantage for Your Majesty, and an immense one for the People, in simplifying the existing taxes and the laws ensuring their collection. . . . Allow us, Sire, to make use of the term "tyranny," odious as it is. Allow us to dispense with awkward circumlocutions when we have important truths to bring to your attention. The tyranny against which we are protesting today is exercised, without your knowledge, by emissaries of the administration, people totally unknown to Your Majesty. . . . We place the label of "tyranny" only on that type of administration that tends to deprive your subjects of the right of appeal which is so important for them and does not remove from your protection those who oppress the People. . . . It seems that such a form of government [tyranny] cannot exist in nations which have laws, customs and enlightenment. In civilized countries, even where the prince enjoys absolute power, the condition of the People should be very different. However absolute the authority may be, justice can be rendered by the deliberation of courts bound by fixed laws. If judges depart from these laws, one can appeal to higher courts, and finally to the sovereign. These appeals are possible because all the rules governing authority are written down, recorded, and introduced into the public records, because every citizen can find a knowledgeable defender, and because the public itself is the censor of the judges. And justice is not only rendered to individuals, but also to corporate bodies, communities, cities and entire provinces. And in order to be able to defend their rights, there should be assemblies and representatives. Thus, in a civilized country, even one subject to an absolute power, there ought to be no interest, either general or individual, which is not defended. All those entrusted with the exercise of sovereign power should be subject to three types of restraint: the law; appeal to higher authority; and public opinion. . . . Even in the most well-educated country, even during this century which has the most civilized customs, we are threatened with that form of government in which the sovereign cannot be enlightened, however sincerely he may want to be. France, like the rest of western Europe, was once governed by feudal law, but each kingdom has experienced different revolutions since that form of government was destroyed. . . . In France, the nation has always had a profound awareness of its rights and freedoms. Our tenets have been recognized by our kings on more than one occasion, and our leaders have even basked in the glory of being the sovereigns of a free People. However, the articles of this freedom have never been written down, and the real power, the power of arms, which under the feudal government was in the hands of the great nobles, has been totally concentrated in the hands of the King. Consequently when there have been great abuses of authority, the representatives of the nation have not been satisfied with merely complaining about bad administration. They have felt obliged to demand the nation's rights. They spoke not only of justice, but of liberty. In response to their efforts, the ministers, always quick to seize upon ways of shielding their administration from examination, have had the cleverness to call into question both the protesting bodies as well as the protests themselves. To appeal to the King against his ministers has been regarded as an attack on his authority. . . . The most powerful kings on earth have been persuaded that they must fear even the tears of a submissive People. . . . 1. An attempt has been made to abolish the real representatives of the nation. 2. The protests of those representatives whom it has been impossible to destroy have been rendered illusory. 3. There is a desire even to make such protests impossible. To achieve this end, two kinds of secrecy have been introduced. One seeks to conceal the operations of the administration from the eyes of the nation and from Your Majesty himself. The other hides the identity of the administrators from the public. . . . The general assemblies of the nation have not been convoked for one hundred and sixty years, and for a long time before that they were very infrequent. We might even venture to say that they had become almost useless because they were not involved in setting of taxes, one of their most important roles. Several provinces had their own assemblies or provincial Estates [called Pays d'Etats]. Many have been deprived of this important privilege, and in the provinces where the assemblies of Estates still exist, their jurisdiction has been restricted within limits which become narrower every day. It would not be an overstatement to say that in our provinces there exists a sort of continuous warfare between the agents of arbitrary power and the representatives of the People, a war in which tyranny makes new conquests every day. The provinces which had no provincial Estates were called Pays d'Election. There, courts called "Elections" actually existed and were composed of persons elected by the province itself. They fulfilled some of the functions of the provincial Estates, at least in the matter of apportioning taxes. These courts still exist under the name of "Elections," but the name is all that remains of their original purpose. Their officials are no longer truly elected by the province, and those that are, are made to be almost totally dependent upon the intendants for the exercise of the functions remaining to them. . . . At least each corporate body and each community of citizens had retained the right to administer its own affairs. We cannot say that this right was part of the original constitution of the realm, because it goes back much further than that. It is a natural right, the right of reason. Nonetheless, even this has been taken away from your subjects. . . . Step by step we have come from the time when powerful ministers made it a political principle not to allow the national assembly to meet, to a time where the deliberations of the inhabitants of a village are declared void if they have not been authorized by the intendant. If a community has to make an expenditure it must obtain the consent of the intendant's sub-delegate, regardless of how small that expenditure may be. They must also follow the plan he has chosen, employ the workers he favors, and pay them as he decides. And if the community wishes to sue someone, its action must also be authorized by the intendant. The community's case must be pleaded before this first tribunal before being brought into the courts of justice, and if the intendant's opinion goes against the inhabitants, or if their adversary can bring influence to bear upon the intendant, the community is deprived of the ability to defend its rights. . . . However, it was necessary to give the nation some seeming satisfaction when the Estates were no longer being convened, so the kings announced that the courts of justice would take the place of the Estates and that the magistrates would be the representatives of the People. But after having given the magistrates this title in order to console the nation for the loss of its ancient and veritable representatives, every opportunity was taken to emphasize that the functions of the judges were limited to their own region and to matters of litigation. The same limits were also placed upon the right of representation. Thus, any possible abuse could be committed in the administration without the King ever learning about it from either the representatives of the People (since in most provinces they no longer exist), from the courts of justice (since they are dismissed as incompetent as soon as they venture to speak of administrative matters), or from individuals who have learned from severe examples that it is a crime to invoke the justice of their sovereign. Yet despite all these obstacles, public outcry, a type of protest which can never be totally extinguished, has always been feared by administrators. Perhaps they also fear that one day a king would, of his own accord, demand an accounting of the administration's secrets. Therefore, they wished to make such an accounting impossible, or at least to ensure that one could only be rendered by the administrators themselves, without any risk of contradiction. This is why they have gone to such lengths to introduce clandestine administration everywhere. . . . Sortable Date 1775-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Mémoires pour servira l'histoire du droit public en France (Brussels, 1775). Description An account of the resource The Court of Aides was a special chamber of the Parlement of Paris dealing with taxation. It, too, could issue "remonstrances" to protest against royal edicts that it opposed. In this remonstrance, the Court of Aides protests against reforms proposed by ministers to the newly crowned king, Louis XVI. The court argues generally for the right of the "nation"—as represented by the Parlements, naturally—to consent to all taxation. The court calls for greater "publicity" of the debate over taxation, so that a broader group of people could express themselves, as well as the Parlements. Although the crown tried to prevent this remonstrance from being published, it was widely circulated and undermined the new King’s efforts to establish good working relations between his ministers and the Parlementary courts. It also inspired such ministers as Turgot and then Necker to push for reforms of the monarchy from within. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 249 Title A name given to the resource Remonstrance of Court of Aides (1775) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/249/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1775 Economic Conditions Laws Monarchy Public Opinion Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document The arbitrary refusal of the sacraments given to the dying, notably confession or the right to name their own confessor, multiplies daily. These nascent scandals and difficulties are capable of destroying respect for religion, tainting the submission due to Your Highness and delivering a cruel blow to public peace. Your parlement, Sire, believes it is giving you one of the greatest proofs of its loyalty by representing to Your Majesty that now is the time to put into action the reform of equally pernicious abuses. We protest, Sire, in truth, that your parlement does not intend, and has never intended, to impinge on the Legitimate rights of [the Roman Catholic Church's] spiritual power. Full of the respect and veneration that all Christians must bear towards our religion, the parlement knows that is is only the Church which has the right to teach the faithful, to guide them on the path to salvation, to make decisions upon everything that concerns the dispensation and administration of the sacraments, and to determine the cases in which the faithful can participate and when they must be excluded. But the same respect with which a Christian magistrate recognizes the Church's legislative power, in that which concerns the passage of souls and the dispensation of our holy mysteries, forces him to perceive the necessity that these laws, once established, must be exactly observed. And what greater and more indispensable work could there be for a Christian king, than to carry out these duties? To the King alone belongs supreme power along with the ability to put into effect that which he commands; but this power derives from God; his principle duty therefore is to use this power to serve Him who bestows it. The voice of the Church is the voice of God. Its decrees, in that which is within the province of its power, are absolute laws to which all the faithful and, in particular, the ministers of religion must obey . . . if they stray, should the Christian monarch allow these laws to be trampled with impunity? The Church, whose power is entirely spiritual, does not have the exterior force to exact obedience. It is therefore necessary for the prince to come to its aid, to employ against offenders those weapons which God has placed in his hands; and while a prince might fear blame for undertaking this under the authority of the Church, it is, on the contrary, a tribute which he pays to the Church, in accordance with his views, by lending it the force which it does not have, to execute those laws which it has established. . . . When [the Church] abuses its power by unjustly refusing benefits to those who have a right to claim them, there must be a reclamation of the spirit that employs force to remind them [the clergy] of their work. The prince, by making use of his authority in this way, fulfills the dual protection which he owes, one to the Church to execute its orders, the other to his subjects so that they might enjoy the spiritual and material advantages that have belonged to them from the moment they had the good fortune to be born in his realm. . . . How many times, Sire, did princes, your predecessors, use their authority to curb the persecutions which some ministers of the Church wanted to exercise against their subjects by prohibitions, censures, or unjust excommunications? . . . The principles which govern your authority and your absolute sovereignty, are generally known, and no one dares to question them; we can hope that we shall never see anything arise to contradict this [situation]; but these fundamental truths, which constitute the essence of the sacred rights of your crown, demand that we, your magistrates, must always be alert against anything which could be a means to disturb them. . . . If, therefore, a high minister of the Church should one day undertake to resuscitate false doctrine and to reestablish opinions which are contrary to your authority. . . subordinate ministers . . . feared to openly contravene them. They would have to refuse to give the note of confession to those who were known not to agree with this instruction [from the Archbishop of Paris], and sick people, who would not be able to speak out, might find themselves, in that situation, deprived of those longed-for alleviations and sources of help at the point of death. What thing is more capable of making an impression on one of the faithful? Sortable Date 1751-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Jules Flammermont, Remonstrances du Parlement de Paris au XVIIIe siècle, vol. 1 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1888–98), 414–43. Description An account of the resource In June 1749, the priest of the St.–Etienne–du–Mont parish in Paris, acting on instructions from the Archbishop of Paris, refused the Eucharist and last rites to one of his parishioners who could not produce a "certificate of confession" proving his adherence to the bull Unigenitus. The man, Charles Coffin, could not produce such a certificate, so the priest left him to die without benediction—setting off a mass of protests in the capital. The magistrates of the Parlement of Paris, who knew Coffin personally since he had served as rector at the church–run University of Paris and later was a clerk to the Parlement itself, joined in the protests, issuing this strongly worded "remonstrance" to the King. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 244 Title A name given to the resource Remonstrance on the Refusal of Sacraments (1751) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/244/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1751 Enlightenment Laws Public Opinion Religion Text