Conclusion
Pamphleteering and the Development of Absolutism

This crime [of lese majesty] is committed in three different ways, namely, when one defames the actions of the sovereign, when one makes an attempt on his life, or when one enters into conspiracies against the state. . . .

The first way of committing this crime was condemned by Moses [as a form of impiety]. . . .

But what increases further the atrocity of this sort of defamation is that it is usually the forerunner of rebellion and of attempts on the life of the sovereign.
—CARDIN LE BRET, DE LA SOUVERAINETÉ DU ROY (1632), 528-29

There was a public in seventeenth-century France, and its opinions greatly concerned the men and women who tried to monopolize the authority and power of the royal government. It is difficult to determine the precise demographics of this public and impossible to quantify its opinions and attitudes. But the volume of printed propaganda, the elaborate rhetorical strategies, and the mechanisms of censorship attest to its strategic importance in political life.

The development of seventeenth-century absolutism has often been associated with a broad shift in public opinion. The classic view is that, following the wars of religion, a consensus supporting strong (but not arbitrary) monarchy became a potent force in political life.^[1] "The state in its various connotations," observed William Church, "acquired new meaning in the life of the French people."^[2] There was a "widespread belief," Church wrote, "that strong monarchy was the only instrument that was capable of maintaining order among the turbulent French populace."^[3]

Our study of the 1614-1617 pamphlet campaigns helps to demonstrate that the notion of an absolute monarchy was something other than a general evolution of mentalité . From 1594 onward French propagandists sought to defend the government by resorting to the rhetoric of absolutism. Successive campaigns each made particular contributions to

[1] . Mousnier and Hartung, "Quelques problèmes concernant la Monarchie Absolue," 1-55; and Church, Constitutional Thought in Sixteenth-Century France , 303-335.

[2] . Church, Richelieu and Reason of State , 21.

[3] . Ibid.

the growth of such rhetoric. The king's ministers consistently won this battle for public opinion in the early seventeenth century, not by defeating opposition to strong monarchy, which was generally insignificant, but by developing sophisticated ways to control the whole framework of public discourse.

The 1614-1617 campaigns helped to bring about the new era in several ways. Because the conflict was multidimensional and secular, pamphlets had to address specific political issues. Government ministers and other politicians followed very closely the public's reaction to signals of their political intentions. Their pamphlets were written and published to accomplish specific persuasive goals. The political opposition, which was both secular and factional, required censorship to go beyond the traditional suppression of religious heresy or seditious libel. The government tried to censor all clandestine pamphlet literature, but in the end it resorted more to the systematic production of its own propaganda. This pattern of attempts, first, to eliminate and, second, to overwhelm political opposition was an essential feature of French political culture in the seventeenth century. It was central to its historical development as well.

The Public Sphere Reconsidered

From the perspective of the later sixteen-hundreds, we can see that France entered the century with a relatively open public sphere that was free from direct state control. This situation was not the consequence of any commitment to freedom of expression (although Henry IV had a notoriously relaxed attitude toward censorship).^[4] Before the 1630s the institutional means for comprehensive state control of the press and public political discourse simply did not exist. Even during the reign of Louis XIV, the government could not put a complete stop to the activities of the clandestine press.^[5] But over the course of the seventeenth century censorship capabilities improved greatly. Opportunities to publish opposition political views were largely eliminated. Effective competition with the government in this sphere became more difficult and dangerous. What remained of public political discourse was distorted and manipulated either directly by government action, or indirectly through eco-

[4] . Soman, "Press, Pulpit, and Censorship," 444.

[5] . The general line of development during Louis XIV's reign is elegantly summarized by Klaits, Printed Propaganda , 3-57. For the state of the press, see Lanette-Claverie, "Librarie française," 3-44. On censorship see Birn, "Book Production and Censorship," 145-171.

nomic incentives and psychological mechanisms.^[6] In addition to outright censorship, the public sphere was closed down through the granting, or withholding, of pensions and the formation of royal academies to privatize and otherwise restrict the expression of political ideas.

Throughout these developments, pamphlet campaigns were a focal point. High officials and leaders of political coalitions used pamphlets to win the support and cooperation of a broad spectrum of political interest groups.^[7] And it was necessary for these same leaders, in order to maintain the effectiveness of royal government generally, to be broadly perceived as exercising the king's authority legitimately.^[8] In its efforts to defeat challengers, the government had to mobilize favorable public opinion toward its ministers and their "official" policies.

Such policies gained momentum in the 1614-1617 conflict and continued to gather strength over the next two decades. From 1617 to 1621 the government of Louis XIII used similar strategies in its struggle against the exiled Marie de Médicis and French Protestants. A loose coalition of ministers, including Richelieu, gained control of Louis XIII's councils in 1625. At this point, there were new efforts by the king's council to increase the circulation of progovernment propaganda and to suppress publications by the political opposition. From 1626 to 1629 this group orchestrated a major military effort against Protestant autonomy, culminating in the seizure of La Rochelle.^[9] This campaign too was accompanied by ferocious pamphleteering on both sides.

Increasing concern over control of the public sphere extended much further than the psychology of individual ministers and was certainly part of a general reaction in France to the many campaigns during the years 1610-1629. Nonetheless, the ministry of Cardinal Richelieu was an important turning point, and Richelieu's particular obsessions and policies played a fundamental role in the post-1618 developments. It is worth recalling here the passage from Richelieu's Testament Politique , in which he claims that a ruler can do more through manipulating public opinion than through armies.^[10] Richelieu believed part of his mandate as a minister was to suppress all public political discussion that did not sup-

[6] . The psychology engendered by this artificial situation, and the writing strategies adopted to deal with it, has been explored by Ranum, Artisans of Glory , 103-277, and Marin, Récit est un piège , 15-34, and Portrait du Roi , 49-115.

[7] . On coalitions and control of the state, see Rule and Tilly, "1830 and the Unnatural History of Revolution," 49-77.

[8] . On power and legitimacy, see the classical view in Weber, Economy and Society , 1:30-40, 212-271. But cf. Habermas, "Hannah Arendt's Communicative Concept of Power," 3-24.

[9] . Parker, La Rochelle and the French Monarchy ; and Clarke, Huguenot Warrior , 136-180.

[10] . See chap. 1, n. 4.

port a stronger royal government within France and a stronger France in the world.

Long before he was fully in power in 1635, Richelieu worked from various positions in the king's council to shape the flow of public discourse.^[11] He was eventually able to curtail the pamphlet campaigns against his own administration and its policies and also to establish mechanisms for encouraging and sponsoring the publication of progovernment writings of all kinds. With his typical flair for administration and the skillful use of patronage, Richelieu made the existing organs of censorship and patronage more effective while putting new ones in place. By the mid-1630s antiadministration propaganda had been largely eliminated from France. In order to continue publishing, opposition pamphleteers such as Mathieu de Morgues had to flee the country.^[12]

Richelieu's efforts to control French and international public opinion with respect to the monarchy are remarkable above all for their comprehensiveness. Not content simply to censor critical writings and encourage favorable publications, he also sought to set up a system of privileges and monopolies through which to discipline loyal printers and put others out of business. He recruited skillful pamphleteers and gave them salaried positions. He then worked closely with them and supervised their efforts to publicize and popularize his policies. One of the more innovative features of this undertaking was Richelieu's supervision of the periodical press. In 1624 he helped to engineer a change of editorship for the Mercure françois , perhaps one of the most important political publications of the time, which presented, more or less annually, a remarkably candid and comprehensive narrative of political events in France and Europe. Although information about the circulation of the Mercure is hard to obtain, early volumes were popular enough to have been republished several times, even in pirated editions.^[13] The new editor of the Mercure françois was Père Joseph, one of Richelieu's closest collaborators and advisers, who used the Mercure to advocate Richelieu's foreign policy and to deflect criticism of his despotic control of the king s councils.^[14] In a similar way, Richelieu protected and controlled Theophraste Renaudot's

[11] . Church, Richelieu and Reason of State , 82-101, 495-513; Thuau, Raison d'état et pensée politique , 169-178; and Elliot, Richelieu and Olivares , 3, 47, 85.

[12] . On the career of de Morgues see Bailey, Writers against the Cardinal ; "Pamphlets de Mathieu de Morgues," 3-48; and "Pamphlets des associés polémistes de Mathieu de Morgues," 229-270.

[13] . The original editor and printer sued another printer for having had a pirated edition printed in Germany and sold in Paris; see B.N. Ms. fr. 22087, ff. 195-198. (See Introduction, n. 40.)

[14] . For Père Joseph's takeover of the Mercure , see Dedouvres, Le Père Joseph Polèmiste , and Fagniez's review of Dedouvres, "L'Opinion publique et la polémique," 442-484.

Gazette , a weekly news sheet of several pages that began to appear in 1631.^[15] In exchange for a legal monopoly on the trade, Renaudot obligingly printed material that was flattering to the cardinal and his policies as well as the king and his family.

Censorship Reconsidered

The history of the political press from 1618 onward is one of increasingly effective surveillance, censorship, and manipulation by royal officials. These efforts accomplished a great deal, especially after 1635, as Richelieu's government clamped down on booksellers, printers, and the literary establishment. The turning point in repression was the Règlement of 1618. This law was enacted in the form of lettres patentes from the king, verified in the Parlement of Paris on 9 July 1618. It was the first law to establish both comprehensive guild regulations for the publishing book trades and a workable system of royal censorship in Paris.^[16] The legislation was designed explicitly, though not solely, to put a stop to the wild pamphleteering of the previous four years. Two of its articles contain the following provisions.

Any printers, book sellers, or binders who may print or cause to be printed defamatory books or pamphlets will be punished as disturbers of the peace, and thereby deprived of all of their privileges and immunities and declared incapable of ever being able to engage in the profession of printer or book dealer. . . .

And in order to avoid the abuses, disorders, and confusions that occur daily through the impression of an infinity of scandalous books and defamatory pamphlets, without the names of their authors, nor the publishers, nor the place where they were printed, because of the great number of book sellers, printers, and binders present in your said Realm, and especially in your good city of Paris where the abuses are so frequent, it will be expressly prohibited [for the community to receive more than one additional book seller, printer, or binder per year].^[17]

Such passages confirm that pamphleteering, although not the only problem addressed by the règlement , was central. The preambles attached to repeated publications of the a 1618 law confirm that pamphlets continued to be the principal target of the legislation.^[18]

The 1618 law was, at first, only a limited success. Opposition pamphlets continued through the next decade to play a significant political

[15] . Solomon, Public Welfare, Science, and Propaganda , 100-161.

[16] . Cf. Martin, Livres , 1:54-57, and 440-470.

[17] . Articles 17 AND 18, Ms. Fr. 22061, ff. 209-220.

[18] . See the heavily annotated version of the 1618 règlement printed and published in 1621 at B.N. Ms. fr. 22061, ff. 241-252.

role for several reasons. The incessant struggle between Louis XIII's advisers and those of his mother, the religious wars of the 1620s, and the opening campaigns of the Thirty Years' War kept pamphleteers and presses active. At the same time, however, sentiment against pamphleteering hardened. Beginning in 1631 and extending up to the explosion of pamphlets that marked the Fronde, a new regime of censorship and tighter controls over the intellectual establishment all but eliminated the opposition press in France.

These developments under Richelieu have been a subject of interest since the nineteenth century, yet no study has emphasized strongly enough the pivotal role of the 1614-1617 campaigns.^[19] The future cardinal was first exposed to the power of the political press when, as a young bishop, he participated in the factional politics of 1614-1615. His first appointment as a royal minister (acting secretary of state for foreign correspondence) ended dramatically in 1617 with the disgrace of Marie de Médicis and the assassination of Concini. This painful experience taught Richelieu a striking lesson about the power of pamphlet literature to shape opposition to the government, and, in so doing, to make a minister vulnerable. The sensational propaganda of 1616-1617 caused the queen mother's leading adviser to become an object of general public scorn and helped to legitimize his assassination. Richelieu's analysis of what had happened must have been close to that of his ally, Secretary Pontchartrain, who wrote in his memoirs that the general public hatred of Concini was the primary cause of the coup against the queen mother.^[20] Along with the other ministers believed to have been protégés of the queen mother and her Italian favorite, Richelieu was removed from office after the coup. This was a major setback in Richelieu's career, and it took him nearly a decade of constant political intrigue and maneuvering to work his way back into the king's council.^[21]

It is significant that Richelieu's first real experience in the central government came at a time of intense opposition pamphleteering. Although Richelieu's official duties focused on relations with the Protestant countries, he helped to defend the government against the propaganda campaigns of "the princes" in late 1616 and early 1617 by writing a pamphlet designed to justify Condé's arrest and discredit the new revolt of the rebel faction.^[22]

Concini's assassination was a lesson that Richelieu eventually used to advantage, first to regain a place in the king's councils, and then to

[19] . Cf. Fagniez, "L'Opinion publique," 445-451, and Geley, Fancan et la politique de Richelieu , 18-35, where it is given limited importance.

[20] . Phelypeaux, "Mémoires," 380. See also Elliot, Richelieu and Olivares , 57.

[21] . Elliot, Richelieu and Olivares , 3, 35-38, 47, 85.

[22] . Richelieu was the author of Declaration du roy sur le subject des nouveaux remuements de son royaume (1617).

remain in power. Richelieu engineered his return in the early 1620s, as well-crafted propaganda campaigns undermined three successive ad-ministrations—those of Luynes, the Brûlarts, and La Vieuville.^[23] Once in power, the cardinal gathered a stable of capable pamphleteers who helped foment support for his foreign policy and keep his governing coalition intact.^[24] Richelieu continued to utilize the services of pamphleteers throughout his career, and was more successful than any minister before him in controlling the political press in France.

Thus the 1614-1617 campaigns were an important background for Richelieu's attitudes, his subsequent obsession with propaganda, and his efforts to shape the future of the public political discussion in France. And the Règlement of 1618 provided him with a framework for censorhip and control of the book trade and pamphlets.^[25] Supported by the Crown, the Parlement of Paris, the Châtelet, and the tradesmen, the legitimacy of the 1618 law was beyond question. In practice, however, the new procedures were not as responsive to the perceived needs of the Crown as they could have been. Much of the policing power over the book trades had been left in the hands of the tradesmen's own syndics and the Châtelet.

A major royal edict of 1626 provided the means for Richelieu's more effective style of censorship, and is clear evidence of his intent to implement even greater royal control over the press than was spelled out in the Règlement of 1618. Richelieu desired a much more responsive, far-reaching, and effective system of political control, and the royal edict of 1626 (verified in Parlement on 19 January) marked the turning point in this regard. Unlike the 1618 legislation, which emphasized the self-policing of the publishing community, this new law sought to extend as much as possible the direct authority of the king's councils over the publishing trades.^[26] The edict covered all forms of printing and publishing but was particularly intent on stopping pamphlet literature; placards and libelles diffamatoires were singled out as a serious problem. The pervasive antipublicity sentiment is obvious in the anachronistic preamble, claiming that printing "brought about great and dangerous difficulties in those States where it has been too freely permitted." The edict goes on

[23] . See Geley, Fancan et la politique de Richelieu , 35-239 and Deloche, Autour de la plume du Cardinal de Richelieu , 214-241.

[24] . See Fagniez, "Fancan et Richelieu," 107:59-78 and 108:75-87; Church, Richilieu and Reason of State , 383-504; Thuau, Raison d'état , 166-409; and Deloche, Autour de la plume du Cardinal de Richelieu , 245-511.

[25] . See chap. 3, "Censorship and Control of the Public Sphere." The text of this legislation was reprinted for circulation fairly frequently in the 1620s; B.N. Ms. fr. 22171 and 22061 contain various copies.

[26] . Edict du Roy, portant defenses d'imprimer aucuns livres sans permission du grand sceau, et d'attacher et semer aucuns placards et libelles diffamatoires sur les peines y contenues , a printed copy in the B.N., F. 46954.

to stipulate that printed material of all kinds, "books, letters, harangues, or other writings in prose or verse," must now be submitted for approval to the king's council prior to publication.^[27] The law also stipulated that the penalty for publishing an anonymous book, posting a political placard, or disseminating an illegal political pamphlet was death by hanging.

A further indication of the government's attitudes in the late 1620s is an article in the Code Michaud , forced through the Parlement of Paris in January 1629. This was the work of a coalition of ministers, not of Richelieu alone.

The great disorder and inconveniences that we see arising every day from the ease and freedom of publishing, in violation of our [the king's] ordinances and to the great injury of our subjects and the peace and tranquility of this State, [and tending to the] corruption of morals and the introduction of evil and pernicious ideas, obliges us to provide therefore a more powerful remedy than has ever been undertaken by previous ordinances. . . . We forbid any printer, whether from Paris or any other city of our Realm, . . . to print, and [we forbid] any book merchants or others to sell, any books or writings that do not carry the name of the author and printer, and are without our [written] permission. . . . Such letters shall not be executed unless a manuscript copy of the book has been presented to our Chancellor or Guard of the Seals, after which they will assign such persons as they see fit according to the subject and material of the book to examine it, . . .^[28]

The direction of censorship was now mapped out, but full implementation of such policies was deferred until the mid-1630s. Control over the political press, especially over the nonclandestine branches of the press, was one of Cardinal Richelieu's major political achievements. His own experience with pamphlet warfare in 1614-1617 taught him that the elites likely to oppose the policies of the royal government—great noblemen, militant churchmen, and urban notables—made extensive use of political pamphlets to inform themselves, to build support for their causes, and to undermine ministerial authority.^[29]

Richelieu's fear of pamphlets is nowhere more evident than in the

[27] . Ibid., 5-6.

[28] . Ordonnance du Roy Louis XIII . . . (Paris, 1629), article 52. Cf. Martin, Livres , 1:442. Because the registration of this edict was forced, the courts refused to acknowledge its authority.

[29] . Not only the widely read Mercure françois but also the more learned histories written by men such as Scipion Du Pleix quote extensively from pamphlet literature. In his account of the 1614-1617 years, for example, Du Pleix refers to or excerpts more than a dozen influential pamphlets, about half of which were published by the opposition; see his Histoire de Louis le Juste , 40-145.

passages in his Mémoires describing his sometime political ally, the pamphleteer Fancan-Langlois, a talented propagandist who had done much to help him into power.^[30] Fancan supported Richelieu in the early 1620s as one who would help France resist the hegemony of Rome and Spain. When Richelieu's political alliances began to shift after 1626, Fancan turned against his former patron and ally. Because Richelieu was at this point working to form a stronger alliance with the ultramontane faction, it was probably Fancan's publications against the Jesuits that led to his imprisonment in 1627. The politics of this relationship were complex, which makes the unequivocal condemnation of Fancan in the emotionally charged language of Richelieu's Mémoires all the more significant.

His ordinary practice was to compose libelous pamphlets to defame the government, to render the person of the king contemptible and the king's councils hateful, to excite people to sedition and seek out attractive pretexts with which to trouble the state. All of this was done in the name of a "good Frenchman" in an effort to destroy the kingdom. . . . As a follower of the devil, the truth was never on his tongue, and his lies had no other purpose than to bring about division among persons whose unity was necessary for the peace of the state.^[31]

The cardinal's fear of Fancan's ability to read and manipulate public opinion vis-à-vis factional alignments is evident. The greatest danger was obviously that Fancan understood what kind of publicity would ruin the fragile consensus that Richelieu was trying to build around his less-than-popular foreign policy, and that he also had the literary skills and practical experience to mount a disruptive pamphlet campaign. The Mémoires try to camouflage these fears by alleging that Fancan had slandered the king and conspired against "the state." But the reference to bringing about "division among persons whose unity was necessary for the peace of the state" reveals that the real concern was rival political coalitions with dissenting views that might challenge Richelieu's policies.

The passages in the Mémoires also illustrate with remarkable transparency the cardinal's fear of a more open and public political process. Astonishingly, the Mémoires condemn Fancan not only as an idealist but also as a republican: "Nothing would make him content," writes Richelieu, "save unreal hopes for a republic, which he formed according to the disorders of his imagination."^[32] Fancan had not advocated a French "re-

[30] . Fagniez, "Fancan et Richelieu," 59-87; Geley, Fancan et la politique de Richelieu .

[31] . As cited by Geley, Fancan et la politique de Richelieu , 4-5. Cf. Richelieu, Mémoires , in Nouvelle Collection des Mémoires , 2d ed. (1881), 21:452.

[32] . Richelieu, Mémoires , in Nouvelle Collection des Mémoires , 2d ed. (1881), 21:452. Cf. Fagniez observes that Fancan "cannot be placed in the ranks of those few partisans of popular sovereignty that still existed in his time"; "Fancan et Richelieu," 65-66.

public" in the sense that Richelieu clearly meant to accuse him, but he could well have wanted a more open political system in France that reflected a more representative body of political and religious opinion. This, the Mémoires state clearly, was to have opinions that made Fancan "an enemy of [his] times," and the victim of a "deranged" mind.^[33] Fancan died in prison, accused of subverting royal authority. The lesson was not lost on other political opponents of the cardinal.

Fancan was perhaps the most sensational casualty of Richelieu's campaign to bring the political press in France under his control. But the most important features of the new regime of censorship were the thoroughness of its strategy and its overtly political purpose. The new system was particularly intent, as we have seen, on suppressing political pamphleteering. But Richelieu's program went even further. It was designed to eliminate all forms of uncontrolled, uncensored public political expression and to implement as much control over public opinion as possible in learned as well as more popular circles.

In 1631, with the Protestants brought low and his opposition within the council all but eliminated, Richelieu's administration enforced a system of pervasive censorship and established more elaborate economic control over the entire French printing establishment. He was assisted greatly in his efforts by the intellectual currents of the Counter-Reformation, and a new commitment on the part of the church to suppress subversive literature and control Catholic doctrine more carefully.^[34] In October of 1631, Richelieu obtained the authority to establish an exclusive list of printers who could legally publish the official church literature.^[35] He was now in a position to grant lucrative monopolies to printers who remained loyal to the Crown and who would cooperate with his publishing schemes.

Fully in control of Louis XIII's councils in 1635, Richelieu was enforcing throughout France many of the provisions of the Réglement of 1618 and the Edict of 1626. Through his faithful client, Chancellor Séguier, the cardinal organized a system of prepublication previw for all significant books. A letter from Pierre Mersenne to René Descartes attests to the effectiveness of the new regime: "Never has the censorship of books been more painstaking than at present. The Chancellor has faithful agents to examine books on theology, others to examine political writings, the Academy of Paris for literature in verse and prose, and the mathematicians for the rest."^[36]

[33] . Richelieu, Mémoires , in Nouvelle Collection des Mémoires , 2d ed. (1881), 21:452.

[34] . Martin, Livres , 1:99-176.

[35] . Ibid., 1:451-452. See also 1:332-346 and 1:453-460.

[36] . Ibid., 1:443-444 (my translation).

A frank justification of the political motives behind the new censorship is found in the writings of the distinguished magistrate, Cardin Le Bret. In the 1630s Le Bret took up anew in his treatise, On the Sovereignty of the King , many of the issues explored earlier by Bodin and Loyseau. In his chapter on lese majesty, Le Bret explained that the crime could be divided into three major categories: (1)public criticisms of the actions of the sovereign, (2)attempts on the sovereign's life, and (3)threats and conspiracies against the state.^[37]

Le Bret's explication of the first category, public criticisms of the sovereign, demonstrates that he and his patron had in mind virtually any publicly uttered criticisms, or even jokes, about the sovereign.^[38] Moral considerations alone, went the argument, should prohibit such utterances because any insult to the sovereign was an affront to God. But the real danger of public criticism of the "prince" was practical and political. "What increases further the atrocity of this sort of defamation (médisance ) is that it is usually the forerunner of rebellion and of attempts on the life of the sovereign."^[39] Le Bret went on to explain that he did not just mean explicitly political slander, "published out of jealousy, hatred, and hostility," but even humorous banter and insults intended merely to entertain people.^[40] Such views, pushed forward by Richelieu, were typical among many high royal officials in the 1630s and 1640s.

The Public Sphere and Absolutism

The new environment nurtured "reason of state," an aggressive propaganda campaign supporting France's foreign wars and the glorification of the French monarchy.^[41] Political pamphlets rationalized the use of royal power in more secular and pragmatic terms but at the same time continued to emphasize that political obedience was a traditional moral and Christian value. There was little need to defend in general the "absolute" authority of the monarchy, since this authority was rarely chal-

[37] . Le Bret, Souveraineté du Roy (1632), 528-529.

[38] . Ibid. The deleterious political effects of satire were an old theme. Both Le Bret and Bodin refer often to Roman authors when discussing satire, and both favor suppressing satires of a sovereign ruler. However, Le Bret's treatment of critical utterances in general as capital crimes—despite his allowances for clemency on the part of the wise ruler—is much more forceful and specific than Bodin's tendency to associate such utterances with the lesser crimes of disturbing the peace, sedition, and moral degeneracy. On Le Bret's relations with Richelieu, see Giesey, Haldy, and Milhorn, "Cardin Le Bret and Lese Majesty," 93-54.

[39] . Le Bret, Souveraineté , 529.

[40] . Ibid.

[41] . Church, Richelieu , 283-460; Thuau, Raison d'état , 33-102, 166-409.

lenged. Opposition rhetoric functioned in more specific ways, and government propaganda responded accordingly.

Pamphlets did not have to attack absolutism in order to destabilize the government and threaten political order. Attacks on the administration and policies of particular ministers could accomplish the desired ends. It was natural enough to challenge the political status quo by attacking a chief minister's claim to be acting "in the name of the king." In turn, the minister under attack might have to persuade the public that his authority came from the true source, the king's will, or suffer the loss of his authority on a national level. Paradoxically, such campaigns reinforced the rhetoric of absolutism (1) by emphasizing the unchallengeability of the king's political will, (2) by declaring illegal genuine debate on fundamental political issues, and (3) by systematiclly manipulating and distorting public political discussion.

Before Richelieu's time, the organized means for producing such propaganda were diffuse and decentralized, and throughout the pamphlet campaigns of 1614-1617 Marie de Médicis's government relied on a coalition of sponsors and authors over which it exercised surprisingly little direct control. In the years afterward, the government's control over such propaganda improved in the arena of public speeches and pageantry as well as in pamphleteering—a capability that was fundamental to the continuing growth of absolutism.

Regional uprisings and national eruptions, such as the Fronde, continued to occur in opposition to the government. But such movements were never able to mobilize an effective discourse of resistance. Censorship drastically curtailed the ability of factional movements to oppose particular ministers and their policies. At the same time, legal restrictions and practical impediments reduced the ability of broader opposition movements to resist government force and usurpation. This is all the more striking because locally based opposition was often led by the educated, argumentative, legal-minded officers of sovereign courts.^[42] Opposition rhetoric continued to focus, as in 1614-1617, on the "abuse" of the king's authority by ministers and lesser officials.^[43] Even the mazarinades contained relatively little serious political debate and had nothing like a campaign advocating the decentralizaion of royal authority.^[44] Dissenting pamphlets demanded that the king's subjects be "heard," not that the monarch give up any of his authority to govern.^[45]

The monarchy's great achievement was not that it silenced political

[42] . Kettering, Judicial Politics and Urban Revolt , 330-334.

[43] . Bercé, Histoire des Croquants , 1:379-395; Parker, French Absolutism , 108-115.

[44] . Jouhaud, Mazarinades , 237.

[45] . Carrier, Mazarinades. La Fronde .

opposition, but that it controlled its agenda and limited its access to the public sphere. Without any alternatives to absolute monarchy in view, the subjects of the Old Regime acquiesced in the growth of a strong, centralized government over which they had little control. In the long run, however, the forces that eliminated public dissent as a disruptive force also destroyed the public's ability to give the government authentic political support.

Louis XIV's legendary power rested on an increasingly artificial public consensus maintained in a cynically manipulated public sphere.^[46] The quality of published writings on legal and political theory went into a general decline.^[47] The artificiality of discourse and ritual finally led, by 1685 at the latest, to an erosion of public confidence in the idea that the king always acted for the good of his people.^[48] The revocation of the Edict of Nantes, exposing Protestants to harassment and exile, illustrated to many observers that Louis XIV's government was little concerned with the "public good."

With this background more clearly in view, it is not surprising that the collapse of the Old Regime was preceded by an opening up of the public sphere.^[49] The dissident intellectuals of the Enlightenment worked to rehabilitate authentic political debate in the salons and through their publishing projects. As the artificiality and incongruities of "official" public discourse were revealed, the power and authority of the monarch began to collapse. In the later eighteenth century, ministers and magistrates increasingly appealed to public opinion. Finally, the Revolution of 1789 gave birth to new kinds of public politics and to a new of form of politicial press—the newspaper. The new forms of communication provided broader and more immediate access to information and opinion and helped to channel revolutionary action. These developments marked the ultimate failure of institutions and policies designed almost two centuries earlier to enable the royal government to control the public sphere.

[46] . Mandrou, France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles , 211-220.

[47] . Church, "Decline of French Jurists as Political Theorists," 1-40; and Bossuet, Politique tirée des propres paroles de l'Ecriture Sainte (see sec. II of the Bibliography).

[48] . Keohane, Philosophy and the State , 241-391; Kaiser, "Abbé de Sainte-Pierre," 618-643 (see Introduction, n. 3). See also the classic study by Rothkrug, Opposition to Louis XIV .

[49] . Baker, "Introduction," Political Culture of the Old Regime , xvii.