Chapter 3, Subjects and Citizens:
The classic ‘picture’ of old-regime administration provided by the idea of the intendants – administrative, centralised, unaccountable – and its contradiction by what we now know about patronage-networks, provincial autonomy and bargaining. The significance of venality of office in tying elites to the crown, while complicating the administrative picture. Taxation and its collection as a particular example of complexity. The role of the parlements in these elite tangles, and their relative lack of success in providing more than rhetorical opposition.
Administration at the ground level – authority in the village and the communauté d’habitants. Tithes, tailles and militia ballots, etc. The varied patterns of election and imposition of officials and representatives, and the life of such assemblies. Life in the cities between police and municipal liberties – non-noble elites and the opportunities of state ‘service’.
The complex mesh of the two functions across France as a whole, embedded in a corporate sense of the state. Extending also beyond European shores – settler assemblies and the Code Noir?
Reform plans – the state-centric conception of representation as grease on the wheels of taxation…
Revolutionary blank slates – or not? The municipalisation of France, the models drawn on for spontaneous organisation in 1789, and the thinking behind the reorganisations of 1790. What the death of corporatism meant for the chance of being represented in practice. The localisation of administration vs. the needs of the state: ramifications, e.g. in tax-gathering, of assumptions about gains in autonomy. [Woloch, Gueniffey]
National representation and suffrage: arguments and assumptions in the progress towards manhood suffrage under the Republic, alongside election by acclamation and sans-culotte fraternisation raids. [Crook, Edelstein] The Constitution of the Year III and the attempt at a stable republic – what did it say about the administration/representation conundrum; and how in practice was the supremacy of the state enacted? H. Brown’s ‘security state’ concept and the passage to the Consulate.
The resumption of open dictatorship – how did the educated classes accommodate themselves to the encroachments that led to Empire? Who were the Prefects and their cohorts, and how far did they replicate the local embroilment of the pre-revolutionary system: was administrative centralisation any more, or less, of a reality by 1815 than in 1763?
Change and continuity through and after 1814/15 – how much is this now a ‘new regime’ firmly entrenched as a form of administration in its own right, how much amenable to shoves from the sovereign? What logic was evident in the decision not to follow a reactionary course in relation to state structures?
Administration and elections under Restoration and July Monarchy: what became accepted norms of government intervention? How did other aspects of the prefectoral system embed themselves outside the Napoleonic context of continual war, and within a new context of ideological divergence? Following the logic of Sarah Maza, can we see state service as a substitute for ‘class-consciousness’ amongst that group that spurns the label of bourgeoisie?
General reflection: administrative structures and economic and social change. Is there a particular tradition of intervention/guidance/stimulation [and/or hindrance, obfuscation, incompetence…] by the state in industrial and commercial development? See Jeff Horn…
