   
Katia Béguin's Les Princes de Condé
...Orest's
other reviews
As one puts down Katia Béguin's Les Princes de Condé
(Paris, Champ Vallon, 462 pp. 190 FF) one thinks of how parochial the older
Annales notion of histoire totale was. Almost none of what
is presented and analyzed in this very rich and subtle study of clientage,
patronage, and princely household culture was ever even imagined as history
in histoire totale. Still, the larger message was there, as a manifesto,
expand the horizons of historical questions as well as ourselves, period,
thus I believe Febvre and Bloch would welcome this work. Also note, these
themes were scarcely part of the older paradigm of political, social, and
economic history, not only, but especially in France or in European continental
historical studies.
To be sure, clientage studies certainly had an enormous impact on how political
history was conceived, especially in Britain (Syme, Neale, and Nanmier, late
1920's) but all we have to mention is the "new" political history in Britain
(I think of Conrad Russell and John Guy) in order to clarify how clientage
history and political history were never the same, with the latter finding
its origins in modern times in S. R. Gardiner and G. M. Trevelyan. (I should
discuss Notestein at this point, in fairness.)
In France clientage history remained impossible to conceive as long as mandarin
powers over appointments and admissions to prestigious schools remained locked
up. Shaken, but by no means dead, the clientage systems in France now are
challenged by regional political-clientage networks, and the appointment
of faculty who have the range and sophistication necessary to let students
develop on their own, to inspire, not diriger in the older sense.
Daniel Roche is the model of the new professor, placing merit above all
considerations of clientage or ideology, (pace R. Mousnier!) and his
generous, interesting avant-propos to Béguin's book attests
to this openness and strength of ideas, the presence of a great teacher.
Roche also pioneered on the Condé, writing a very important article
on their wealth, published many years ago.
The Bourbon-Condé branch of the family did not have great landed estates
in 1600. To be sure, by any standard except in the hierarchy of dukes and
princes, they were immensely wealthy, but did they really have the means
to sustain their title? Marriage to Charlotte de Montmorency, with a dowry
of 600,000 livres, and some other breaks, gave Henry II de Condé a
potential for competing in revenue with Gaston d'Orleans, the king's immensely
rich, rebellious brother. The treason of the Montmorency resulted in still
more lands, patronage, and offices to fall in the hands of the Condé.
Richelieu and Louis XIII had an understanding with Henry II, and in fact
built up the Condé estate as a result. Legal thickets could have been
found to keep the Montmorency inheritance for the Crown, but Richelieu and
Louis decided otherwise. The 1630's were also a time when the Guises began
their descent into financial trouble, making the Condé that much more
influential in the realm. We often think of the huge royal "gifts" given
to Richelieu and his successor, but the "grands" also got huge payments
from the Crown.
Henry II de Condé took money very seriously; he did not play the "gent"
unconcerned about wealth. His behavior is more bourgeois than that of many
bourgeois, in squeezing monies out of every possibility. He would leave an
estate of about 16,000,000 livres to his already illustrious son,
the Victor of Rocroy. We also think of the fortunes of the grands
as inherited or surviving from the Middle Ages. Actually, nothing could be
more wrong. All the high competitors climbed to great wealth in the 16th
century, or the early 17th century. The Guises came along fairly well under
Francis I, who facilitated their rise, and the rise of so many others
(LaRochefoucauld, to name only one). Political patronage and clientage were
far more important than the overall trends in economic and social conditions
— the true primordial stage of revenue "generation" by peasants, millers
and toll collectors. It was the accumulation of estates, not increased revenues
from estates, that structured the hierarchy of aristocratic wealth.
Lest the reader conclude that Béguin is writing a classic
estate-management study (one thinks of Lawrence Stone's smaller studies,
not the Crisis....), she is not. The central theme is power and how
wealth sustains rank. There are personal judgements in sparkling prose:
"L'initiative venait souvent des familles qui, insensiblement, s'étaient
placées dans la dependance princière pour leur propre
avancement on celui de leurs obligés." (p. 78) There is always
a historicist transparency between the analysis and the documents quoted.
On the vexed question of whether or not there was an ordering in dependency
— social, psychological, and/or financial — Béguin
distinguishes between vassalage, and clientage relations, the first being
primarily the manifestation of the legal status resulting from living on
certain types of land, and clientage being more one generational — usually
a relation that precedes vassal-lord relations in the Early Modern period
(p. 216). She also notes how loans to the Condé created bonds with
enormous political and psychological consequences, perhaps no different than
those from procuring marriages at the "proper" rank, lower taxes, and jobs
for clients.
Béguin sees the Grand Condé as wanting to continue the same
practice of grabbing "gifts" from the Crown that his father had done under
Richelieu, but Mazarin refused to play the same game (p.111). In a structural
sense this is true, though with the nuance that Mazarin was competing himself
for wealth and titles at not quite the same time as Condé; the late
40's, and early 50's are different for Mazarin from the later 1650's, I think.
We need to examine the Mazarin fortune year by year. The rivalries over
governorships, and commands of such places as Pont de l'Arche and Le Havre
were closer to the very heart of monarchial power than the high ranking household
offices. Regency instability had brought a lot of wealth from Sully's savings
to Henry II; the Victor of Rocroy held stronger cards than his father, knew
it, and played them brashly with Mazarin, who had no face cards at all. Mazarin
had little choice but to try to keep up the unstable equilibrium between
Gaston and Condé, with the former always backing, filling, and letting
Mazarin down. Béguin has written brilliant political history about
the Grand Condé. But without wanting to go over again the hoary debate
about self-interest v. fidelity, it seems evident that high risks taken by
a Bithaud, say, or Viole, are revealing of something less calculated than
interest: "Seuls ses partisans les plus farouches out accepté de
risquer leur ágent à son service" (p. 132). It took a certain
kind of person to follow Condé; he could be cruel, he could make
fidèles feel anger from their sense of their dependancy, Gaspard
de Chavagnac being an example. Regarding the state and the Neostoic
anti-corruption discourse of the Parlements, Condé had been raised
and trained by his father to put family interests above everything. It is
difficult to imagine him really governing. What he wanted and needed were
powers to fill offices, nominate cardinals and bishops in Rome, and distribute
regiments at reduced cost to the fidèles that lacked the full
amount to buy them. Béguin's work confirms and extends the historiography
launched by J. Bergen's work on Richelieu — that is the near inability
of anyone in the governing elite to understand the political except in the
most financial of terms. Condé's Berry, with tons of gun powder stored
in the cellars of Montrond, was a state within a state. As a rebel he made
royal officials feel guilty because of the Bourbon blood in his veins, when
they carried out royal orders to destroy the castle. Mazarin respected that
blood, never really imagining him as someone to hate as an implacable enemy.
J. - P. Labatut's prosoprographic study of the dukes and peers did not capture
the high stakes in high aristocratic politics in the seventeenth century.
Hostility and opposition to Condé remained uncoalesced, fearful, and
largely ineffective, and this despite the brutal acts of violence (see Robert
Descimon on the attack on the Hôtel de Ville).
The organization of this book is just about perfect. It is generally
chronological while being specifically thematic and also generational. Part
I is the rise to fortune of Henry II, and the accrochage of his son
in the Fronde. Part II is the clientage and household of the Grand Condé,
and Part III is the cultural patronage.
The Condé household constituted a mini state; the higher the rank
the longer the number of years of service, and benefits in housing and other
perqs, including "appropriate" marriages for their children. The proper word
for the intimate householders is commensaux — that is, the servants,
creatures, and clients, with the last two being quite distinct from each
other. Béguin translates Sharon Kettering's "broker" as
"courtier," and indeed, the Condé had clients in Burgundy and
Paris who effectively acted as courtiers.
Estate revenues were brilliantly managed after the years of redressement
by none other than Gourville. Béguin analyzes wills of householders
and finds portraits of the Condé in their inventories, the evidence
of being and belonging. Loans, gifts, jobs, extended outward in a giant network,
not as big as the kings certainly, but very impressive as a non-intermediary
"body" that stood as a possible counter weight to royal absolute power.
The Hôtel de Condé and Chantilly would be not only refurbished,
but enlarged and modernized — and like so many other county seats
(Pontchartrain being an excellent example) gardens, woods, and reflecting
pools were given a high priority. Béguin points out that while all
at Chantilly was very grand, it was not particularly bold or scintillating.
The 1660's and 1670's were not, however, without innovation in architecture,
thus Condé stepped behind his royal cousin, who, thanks to Le Vau,
Le Brun, and Le Nôtre, created something much more daring in the first,
flat roof Versailles. Le Nôtre worked on Chantilly as well, as did
various people on the waters, but Daniel Gittard, Condé's architect,
preformed ably if not brilliantly. Condé threw parties that competed
with those of the Court at Versailles, but it is evident that he did not
feel himself to be on a day to day competitive joust with the Sun King. The
latter never had a Rocroy to his credit.
Condé's householders order food and entertainment from Paris, as required,
Vatel being one example. Louis X l V refused to let some of "his" artists
accept commissions from the prince; the latter never seems to have thought
of systematically using cultural patronage against the court. Wasn't the
talent available? Condé may have shared the military-diplomatic values
of his cousin, to the point that he did not perceive the cultural as the
enjeu in power relations that later historians would. Chantilly would
be the focus for Condé's magnificence, as the Hôtel in
Paris had been for his father. This ordering is significant in itself, for
a family that grew enormously powerful thanks to waiting on the king first.
The last part of the book is on literary and scientific patronage. Like his
father with Théophile de Viau, the Grand Condé accepted to
house writers and thinkers who offended church or state officials in some
way. Béguin sees no conscious effort on his part, to compete with
royal patronage, or to give cover systematically to thinkers or writers
challenging the status quo. Quite the contrary.
Like his kingly cousin, the Grand Condé never forgave Bussy-Rabutin
for his satirical jokes — he remained non grata at Chantilly
for life. La Bruyère's protection by the prince seems to have been
more the result of accidental circumstances than the desire to have an astute
moralist in residence. Still, La Bruyère might never have had the
eye for social contradiction that he had, had he lived at Versailles. The
Grand Condé supported Moliére in the quarrel over
Tartuffe. He never seems to have feared having a play in the Château
that was banned. Very interestingly, Béguin sees him also as quite
distant from the machinations of other grands and grandes over
plays and operas in the 1670's.
The prince was an avid reader; he ordered books of all sorts, and remained
willing at least to open his mail for still another polemic from the Grand
Arnauld. He was genuinely interested in natural philosophy, and through his
doctor, Bourdelot, sponsored an academy of learned persons interested in
all the recent research and experiments.
A prosopography of Condé's clients completes the work. It is full
of interesting detail. This is a major contribution to our understanding
not of just aristocratic political culture, but of politics and culture in
Ancien Régime. From Roche's early article — very pioneering —
on the Condé fortune, Béguin has brought us a long way. Would
it be possible now to research such a study on the princesses? Charlotte
de Montmorency and Claire Clémence de Maillé-Brézé
were remarkable women who played roles greater on the stage of power and
culture than well over 90% of the males in the century. The results might
be a bit romanesque, but what is wrong with that? The Grand Condé's
wife ended up in a convent presumably for having been too interested in a
valet. Hmm. One thinks of the late Ruth Kleinmane's work on Anne of Austria's
household — only a beginning, but a beginning it is! Not biography,
but a book with a sub-title like Béguin's Rebelles, Courtisanes
[hélas le jeu de mot ne peut pas être evité, et me
fait revenir sur le Valet de Claire-Clémence] et
Mécènes. What a splendid, thoughtful book this is! French
historiography is not in decline; it is just free of the media hype that
surrounded the Montaillou moment.
|
