French Aristocracy

Bibliography

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French Aristocracy

Conclusion

The French aristocracy of the Middle Ages to through to the eighteenth century was a well-structured and exclusive class who greatly enjoyed the many luxuries of their status.

To this day, there are approximately 3 000 families whose ancestry can be traced to the French nobility of the 18th century.

Pictured is Christine de Védrines, 2013

Thank you all for your attention!

Introduction

Noble Homes

• The largest private estates were almost always in noble hands often including vast stretches of forest set aside for hunting. They filled their homes with the finest furniture and styled them in the latest mode. The interior of their homes were adorned with chandeliers, gold and silver ornaments, trophies from hunting expeditions, swords, as well as elaborate paintings (esp. of the family), and some aristocrats built large libraries within their houses. Their mansions held grand gardens of the finest lawns and flowerbeds, and fountains, metal statues, and streams.

French aristocracy was a powerful social class in france during the middle ages and the early modern period to the french revolution.

Notes From the Text

• The extravagance of nobles is noted in the descriptions of the Marquis's château, a "large high-roofed house" (114), "with a large stone court yard before it, and two stone sweeps of staircase meeting in a stone terrace," (114) with its very own fountain (Dickens 123).
• Within the walls of his mansion, the Marquis has "his own private apartment of three rooms...[each] high vaulted rooms," (Dickens 115) decorated in "all luxuries befitting the state of a marquis in a luxurious age and country," (Dickens 115).
• The room for the Marquis's supper with his nephew is a "round room, in one of the château's four extinguisher-topped towers," (Dickens 115).
• That is huge.

Château of Maisons-Laffitte - Yvelines, France

17th century Normandy estate, Château de Champ de Bataille, restoration.

In 1789, there were between 17,000 and 25,000 noble families,

110,000 to 120,000 individual nobles,

The population of France was 28 millions, so 0.4% of the population were nobles.

Rules

Always be tact and polished

Do not disturb your rouge

Do not tear your robe

Do not disarrange your headdress

It is illegal for nobles to engage in any work with there hands such as farm work, But they are allowed to make glass. If this rule is broken they can loose their nobility

The marquis in a tale of two cities followed many of the rules including never lifting a finger. This is shown through the amount of servants he has in his home doing the work for him.

"Yes. It took four men, all four ablaze with gorgeous decoration, and the Chief of them unable to exist with fewer than two gold watches in his pocket, emulative of the noble and chaste fashion set by Monseigneur, to conduct the happy chocolate to Monseigneur's lips."

(page 100)

A noble french woman being polished without ruining her rouge

The monseigneur has the servants feed him chocolate instead of feeding himself.

An example of French Nobles

Duties

Titles of French Nobility

• The main duties of the French aristocracy during the 17th and 18th centuries was to honor, serve, and counsel their king; this often was done in the form of military service to the Crown. Members of the aristocracy were expected to be ready to “shed their blood” in war (the “blood tax”), and they were to serve as the King’s counselors when the country was at peace.
• Privileges of the nobility were justified at the time as having been a “right” of the noble class in return for preforming their noble duties, namely in services, both past and present, done in the support and defense of the monarchy.

Privileges

The french nobles were classified into specific social brackets in pre-revolutionary France. These brackets include:

Qualifications

In the 15th century, the rights of the noble class was described as being the right to hunt, the right to wear a sword, have a coat of arms, and the right to possess a fief or seigneurie (an estate/manorial land), but they included so much more than just that.

Charles-Alexandre de Calonne, Controller-General of Fiances

COURTS

EMPLOYMENT

However.

• Aristocrats held certain rights when dealing with the courts (either as the defense or prosecution). They could not be subjected to corporal punishment, were beheaded rather than hanged, and could receive the “droit de committimus” (letters from the king permitting nobles the right to select which judge would preside over their case or suit).

• Those of noble birth reserved the right to all the highest positions of the military, clergy, and government
• Therefore, the administration of France itself fell chiefly on members of the aristocracy.
• The courtiers, the officers of the army, the king’s personal circle (containing counselors, advisers, etc.) were roles exclusive to the nobility.
• Consequently, policy was often dictated by noble traditions and ideals.

However, it is true that very few nobles of the sword, in particular, had ever actually served in the military at all, and it would be wrong to believe that every nobleman entitled to a specific position by birth was the most qualified for it. In the Tale of Two Cities, Dickens notes the "Military officers destitute of military knowledge; naval officers with no idea of a ship; [and] civil officers without a notion of affairs...all totally unfit for their several callings, all lying horribly in pretending to belong to them..." (Dickens 102).

Execution block used in France (and throughout Europe) for beheadings

Portrait of Louis-Philippe Rigaud de Vaudreuil (1724-1802), member of the French navy

king/queen

prince/princess

duke / duchesse

Marquis/marquise

Comte/comtesse

viscount /viscountess

and Baron/ Baroness

gentry

knight,

esquire,

and gentleman.

nobles of the sword: those who were noble because of their family's military service

FINANCIAL BENEFITS

On The Subject of Fiefs...

The qualifications that most nobles possessed a vast wealth which was needed as they had a status to uphold which included spending quite a lot of money on luxury good such as fine jewelery, pieces of art, wines, carriages, feudal land, imported silk, perfumes, porcelain, artistic watches, engraved snuff boxes, fans, venetian glass and mirrors, wigs and all sorts of ornate clothing. The French Nobles also were very good at wasting their money on these things which caused bankruptcy for many families.

There are three ways to acquire a french title on top of the qualifications mentioned earlier you can be noble by birth which means you were born into a family that already possessed a title. Another way to acquire a title is through office either immediately or after a number of years in office depending on the type of office you are in. Finally the king could ennoble anyone they wished by letters which is a royal grant

• The nobility could and did demand financial aid from the king, which was paid out of the country’s treasury.
• Nobles were relieved of paying many of the harsher taxes of the Old Regime, namely the Taille.
• Members of the aristocracy could and did receive pensions from the government.

Owning a fief was so typically noble, that its medieval and chivalric associations provided a certain sense of authenticity to noble pretensions. With a fief often came a title, the right to a particle (i.e. “de” or “du”), and the legal ability to refer to oneself as a “Lord” (or “Seigneur”).

Lords were entitled to judicial control over their land and (as a result) to a manorial court with which they could settle a wide range of petty crimes (eg. infringements upon a lord’s rights). Lords were even permitted the use of gallows.

FEUDAL RIGHTS:

BANAL RIGHTS

Banal rights (or “les banalités”) allowed certain lords to demand payment in return for use of the seigniorial mill, oven, or wine press. Banality that was charged for use of the mill was the most expensive.

THE CENS

The “cens” was an annual tax paid to a lord by vassals in return for use of his seigneurial land.

THE CHAMPART

Another tax that was paid to a lord by vassals, it demanded a portion of their harvest (typically one tenth).

JUDICIAL

Nobility living out in the rural areas of France functioned as a “local police” and had judicial control over violation of their seigneurial rights.

Feudalism: a system that existed in Medieval Europe where in return for receiving protection and land, a vassal (a tenant) would serve their lord.

Photograph of a 1764 "écu", silver coin

"La tasse de chocolat" by Jean-Baptiste Charpentier

Portrait of Nicolas Bergeret de Grancourt,

Lord of Grancourt

The Taille: a tax that would take 53% of the revenue of those who had to pay it. It was payed above all by members of the third estate in place of military service.

Notes From The Text

• While the Marquis Evrémonde (Darnay’s uncle) was travelling home, the author describes the grave extent to which the villagers were taxed in naming “the tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tax for the lord, tax local and tax general,” (Dickens 110). Here we see reference to feudal taxes (“tax for the lord”, “tax local”) and the taxes of the government, likely the taille (“tax for the state”) because it was the most punishing of all the taxes paid to the state.
• The Marquis is a feudal lord himself as he is referred to as “Monseigneur” by the peasants in the town. He is also clearly capable of inflicting corporal and capital punishment.
• The author describes the sight of “heavy riding rods and riding whips, of which many a peasant, gone to his benefactor Death, had felt the weight when his lord [Evrémonde] was angry,” (Dickens 115).

Illustration of the Marquis Evrémonde drawn by Harry Furniss in 1910

These classifications were specific to the French Nobles but there was a classification system for the entire French population

Diagram of the French Estate system.

An example of how to acquire Nobility The Tale of Two Cities is Monsieur the Marquis and Charles Darney who are both noble by birth. The Marquis inherited the title from his brother when he passed away and Charles would have inherited the title from his uncle if he had accepted the title.

A French noble woman in lavish clothing and jewelry.

By: Lucy Chadder

and Rama Sarakbi

An oil painting of Madame de Pomadour (officially Marquise de Pomadour, formerly Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson) by François Boucher (completed in 1758)