Читать книгу The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France - R. Knecht J. - Страница 15

The decision to call the Estates-General was taken soon after the death of Louis XI, no one knows by whom. Some historians believe that it was taken by Louis d’Orléans at the instigation of Dunois; others ascribe the responsibility to the Beaujeus. Both parties needed popular support. The estates were due to meet at Orléans on 1 January 1484, but they were moved to Tours because of the threat of plague and did not begin till 15 January. The 287 deputies were drawn from all parts of the kingdom. They were elected in the various bailliages and sénéchaussées without, it seems, any undue pressure being exerted on the electors by Orléans or the Beaujeus. ‘When all is said’, writes Major, ‘neither side made a concerted effort to influence all the elections or to bribe all the deputies when once they were chosen.’ Among them was Jean Masselin, who has left us a uniquely detailed, if somewhat one-sided, account of the proceedings; another was Philippe Pot, sénéchal of Burgundy, who made a remarkable speech on 9 February.

The estates opened, as was the custom, with a speech from the Chancellor of France, Guillaume de Rochefort. The French people, he said, had always been devoted to their rulers, unlike the English who had just crowned the murderer of Edward IV’s young sons, Richard III. He tried to calm the deputies’ fears about the age of their own monarch. Such was the trust that the king placed in them that he would ask them to share in the government: they were to inform him of their grievances, report any oppression by public officials, and advise on how peace, justice and good government might be achieved.

After dividing into six sections, the deputies set up a committee to prepare a general cahier for presentation to the king. This was read out on 2 February. It contained a sweeping denunciation of the government of Louis XI and a call for a return to the practices of Charles VII. The clergy wanted the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges to be enforced. The nobility complained that they were being impoverished by excessive use of the feudal levy (ban et arrière-ban). They wanted to see foreigners excluded from military commands and from offices in the royal household. They also complained of infringements of their hunting rights by royal officials. Poverty loomed large in the third estate’s submission: the current scarcity of money was blamed on wars and the export of bullion to Rome; taxation was described as excessive. The king was urged to remove the need for the taille by revoking all alienations of domain made by his father, reducing the size of the army, stopping or curbing pensions and decreasing the number and pay of royal officials. The longest chapter of the cahier was concerned with justice: it called for the replacement of officials who had been appointed by Louis XI out of favour rather than on merit.

The government of the kingdom was also considered by the estates. The Beaujeus were anxious to prevent Louis d’Orléans becoming regent and their cause was championed by Philippe Pot on 9 February. ‘The throne’, he declared, ‘is an office of dignity, not an hereditary possession, and as such it does not pass to the nearest relatives in the way a patrimony passes to its natural guardians. If, then, the commonwealth is not to be bereft of government, its care must devolve upon the Estates-General of the realm, whose duty is not to administer it themselves, but to entrust its administration to worthy hands.’ A Norman deputy put forward Orléans’s claim: ‘If the king needs a governor and tutor, or, as it is said, a regent, the duke intends no one other than himself to hold that office.’ Having listened to both sides, the deputies decided that ‘the lord and lady of Beaujeu should remain with the king as they have been hitherto’. The king was given neither regent nor tutor, his intellectual maturity being deemed sufficient. In the chancellor’s words: ‘Our king, young as he is, is of an extraordinary wisdom and seriousness.’ On 6 February the estates were given a list of possible members of the king’s council, but they left the choice to the monarch and the princes.

The assembly of 1484 exerted relatively little influence on the future development of France, but the deputies were reasonably satisfied with their achievements. The taille, which had reached 4.5 million livres under Louis XI, was reduced to 1,500,000 livres. The nobility regained hunting rights on their own lands. Only the clergy were disappointed: their efforts to get the Pragmatic Sanction reinstated were successfully opposed by a pro-papal lobby of cardinals and prelates.

The Estates-General came to an end on 7 March. Orléans felt disgruntled that he had not been given the regency. In May he was awarded the lands of Olivier le Daim, Louis XI’s hated barber, but this was not enough to satisfy him. He continued to intrigue with the duke of Brittany, Richard III of England and Maximilian of Habsburg, who ruled Austria and the Netherlands. However, the threat inherent in such a coalition was temporarily averted by the recall of the nobles to attend the coronation of Charles VIII on 30 May. But a new danger arose for the Beaujeus. The young king became infatuated with Orléans’s athletic prowess and may have pleaded to be rid of his sister’s domination. The duke plotted to abduct Charles, but was forestalled by the Beaujeus who fled with the king from Paris to the security of the small fortified town of Montargis. Here various members of the Orléans faction were dismissed from court. The duke, after protesting about this action, retired to his gouvernement of Ile-de-France.