1596 Assembly of Notables
The 1596 Assembly of Notables was a gathering of many important French nobles, prelates, financial officials and urban grandees. They were called together in the hopes that they could provide a solution to the fiscal crisis on which king Henri IV found himself. By 1596, France's fiscal condition was dire, with an annual deficit of roughly 18,000,000 livres and many of the king's revenues alienated from him. His main financial advisers, embodied by the conseil des finances found themselves overwhelmed by the situation. The principal fiscal expert on this conseil, Pomponne de Bellièvre proposed to Henri that the best remedy to secure the appropriate mandate for the remedies he hoped to implement would be to convene an Assembly of Notables.
Henri, consumed by the military crisis of the war with España accepted Bellièvre's proposal. Bellièvre prepared a broad package of measures for the consideration of the delegates, combining fiscal austerity with a redistribution of the kingdoms tax burden from the countryside to the towns. The Assembly opened in Rouen on 4 November with between 80 and 94 delegates in attendance. The deliberations were divided into three chambers. The delegates were shocked to learn about the crown's expenditure and proposals and resolved to work to verify the various records they were presented with. By early December the Assembly was close to collapse, and the king departed from Rouen for a few weeks. His ministers took the initiative to push the notables towards several proposals for increasing royal revenues. In mid January Henri proposed to the notables the introduction of a 5% sales tax on goods entering into towns. Though initially hesitant the notables agreed to endorse this measure. On 28 January the assembly was drawn to a close, and the notables presented their recommendations to the king. They offered a direct cash grant to the crown, curtailing exemptions to the taille, both cutting and suspending royal incomes, the curtailing of venal office and endorsed the pancarte among other recommendations. The royal council began introducing legislation based on some of their recommendations, however in March a new military crisis rocked the kingdom with the Spanish capture of Amiens. A new impetus for fiscal expedients was thus created, and Henri once more turned to fiscal shortcuts that the Assembly had deplored. The pancarte was put into force in April over much opposition but would deliver far lower revenues than anticipated and would be abolished in 1602. In response to criticism from Paris and the parlements, Henri created several new fiscal councils embodying Bellièvre's proposal for the Assembly. They would last only a couple of months before the king abolished them. As 1597 continued, Henri turned away from the minister whose program the Assembly embodied, Bellièvre, towards the baron de Rosny whose ruthless financial policy and lack of interest in 'proper process' appealed to Henri's needs.
Financial crisis
Conseil des finances
Upon the death of Henri III, the role of surintendant des finances was held by the king's favourite D'O who had been appointed to the charge in 1588. When he died on 24 October 1594, Henri IV abolished the post. In its place was created a conseil des finances composed of nine men. These were the duc de Nevers ; maréchal de Retz ; connétable de Montmorency ; the comte de Cheverny who was the chancelier ; the comte de Nanteuil and seigneur de Sancy who had both raised money and soldiers for Henri in the Holy Roman Empire; the royal sécretaires d'État the seigneur de Fresnes and the seigneur de La Grange-le-Roy; and finally the only financial expert on the council, Bellièvre who had preceded d'O as Henri III's surintendant des finances. This conseil was responsible for setting the brevet de la taille by September of the year and for drawing up the statements on revenue and expenditure.Of these men, the king Henri IV's favourite in financial matters from May 1595 to June 1598 was the seigneur de Sancay. In the public eye it was he who controlled the royal finances. Sancay had, in 1589, secured the support for Henri of an army he had raised for the king's predecessor in the Alte Eidgenossenschaft while Henri was still Protestant. The historian Major argues he might have even succeeded d'O as the surintendant des finances if he had avoided having a poor relationship with Henri's mistress the marquise de Montceaux.
Bellièvre was absent from his place on the conseil until 1595 as he was occupied in the formally Catholic Ligue held city of Lyon re-establishing the crown's authority.
The conseil des finances attempted a large array of methods to secure funds for the king. They created new fiscal offices, sold off noble titles and what remained of the royal domain, they floated new loans and taxes on the towns. They also looked to conduct investigations into false exemptions from the taille. They ordered an investigation into the alienations of the domain, and attempted to regulate tax collection. For the latter, the trésoriers généraux were ordered to draw up statements as concerned the extraordinary levies they had raised, and to inventory all the royal officials in their généralité.
Henri quickly lost the enthusiasm he had for his new conseil des finances. The needs of the war he was waging necessitated money that the conseil proved unable to provide him. This infuriated the king. For example, during the conduct of the siege of La Fère, Henri wrote to the conseil informing them that he needed immediate funds to pay for the income of his infantry and Swiss soldiers. Instead they turned to the bankers of Paris to solve the problem. A little while later Henri requested the provision of 30,000 écus within eight days. Bellièvre wrote back that he and the other members of the conseil were working hard to ensure the expenses of the army were met. Henri complained bitterly to the baron de Rosny that while his larder was bare and his clothes torn, his financiers and treasurers "let me die of hunger while they sit at well-laden and stocked tables".
Military situation in 1595
In 1595 Henri had decisively crushed the Catholic ligue and Spanish force in Bourgogne at the battle of Fontaine-Française, he had then invaded the Franche-Comté and subjected it to pillage. While the ligueur duc de Mercœur had yet to submit, holding up in Bretagne as an agent of the king of España, the submission of the majority of the French ligueur leadership to Henri left the war he was waging as largely an international one against España. The Spanish responded to this setback in Bourgogne by invading Picardie. The conde de Fuentes put Doullens to siege with 14,000 men, and crushed the royalist relief army under the duc de Bouillon. Doullens surrendered to him on 31 July 1595. Meanwhile, the French held city of Cambrai, governed by the seigneur de Balagny threw off his government and betrayed the city to the Spanish. Henri was able to recapture La Fère in May 1596, and by this means close the road between Spanish Vlaanderen and Paris however a month previous Calais had been taken by the former ligueur; the baron de Rosne who was now in Spanish employ. The recapture of La Fère was both long and expensive. This developing military crisis in Picardie furthered the fiscal one.State of the books
The crowns debts were by 1596 enormous. The receivables owed totalling around 90,000,000 livres, while the total debt of the crown was somewhere around 200,000,000 livres. This was an unprecedented level of debt for the kingdom. For the Swiss soldiers in his employ alone, Henri owed 36,000,000 livres on their wages and pensions. This was against a state income in 1595 of 28,000,000 livres. By Bellièvre's estimate, 24,000,000 of the state revenues of 30,900,000 livres were assigned. The deficit in this analysis equalled 18,000,000 livres. In addition to this Henri lacked enjoyment of revenues from around 1/5 of the kingdom, and of those parts he theoretically enjoyed, much slipped away to the corruption of officials. In the treasury Henri could not even count on 25,000 écus. In part these debts were induced by the large sums Henri had afforded to former leaders of the Catholic ligue to end their war against him, with the duc de Lorraine receiving 2,700,000 livres, the duc de Mayenne receiving 2,460,000 livres and the duc de Guise receiving 1,888,500 livres among many other figures. Major offers a figure of around 24,000,000 for the purchase of the loyalty of various figures to Henri's cause. In addition to the sums given to the leading ligueur princes, sums were also given to the ligueur aligned towns to secure their reduction into royal obedience. Many of the towns insisted on the confirmation of their privileges to be exempted from taxation as conditions for their return to the king.Henri had several foreign backers of prominence who had advanced him large sums: queen Elizabeth of England had loaned him 3,400,000 livres, the granduca di Toscana had loaned him 3,500,000 livres and the fürst von Anhalt had afforded him 3,200,000 livres. The combination of his conversion to Catholicism, and the proximity of many of the foreign Catholic princes of Europe to the kingdom with which he was at war: España, made the securing of further financial relief through foreign aid challenging.
Seeking a path to solvency
The premier président of the chambre des comptes advised Henri in February 1595 that the king was being too generous with his gifts, that the local governments of the kingdom were abusing their fiscal powers and that Henri was creating long-term problems via the short term expedient of selling offices off. Various means of financial remedy were attempted in 1595 without success. His former Protestant allies had lost their enthusiasm for forwarding him money, his tax collectors were attacked by the people, the parlement of Paris rejected attempts to lower the interest on rentiers and the cour des aides blocked a tax on walled cities.While traditionally the raising of taxes would have been turned to as a resolution to such a fiscal problem, this was a challenging proposition during the 1590s. France had been rocked by the rebellion of the Croquants whose chief complaint was that of excessive fiscal exaction. Indeed, in one Norman village in 1596 the residents were accused of attacking and killing the armed guards that accompanied the tax collectors. As a result of troubles such as these around an eighth of Henri's surviving decrees for 1594 were to grant reductions, exemptions and relief from arrears of taxation to various regions and towns. Such royal decrees would continue in 1595 and 1596, though in a reduced number.
Where taxes were raised, it was sometimes done without the consent of the provincial Estates. This was the case in Bretagne in 1593 where a tax was raised over the remonstrance of the Estates. Similarly in Normandie in 1595, the provincial Estates were not even summoned to offer their approval of the taxes that were raised.
Henri had also looked to the creation of noble titles as a source of income. One edict in 1594 created twenty-four nobles in the jurisdiction of the parlement of Paris, while one of 1595 created 60 new noble titles in Normandie. The cour des aides of Rouen was hesitant to approve of this creation, but was informed by the crown that its registration was a necessity to raise funds for the war.
The traditional expedients of the creation of venal offices and the alienation of the royal domain had also been turned to. For example, in February 1594, 600,000 livres of the royal domain under the jurisdiction of the parlement of Paris was alienated, and twenty two edicts creating various offices. The sovereign courts often baulked at the alienations of the royal domain and had to be compelled to register the edicts.
The various methods employed by the crown often had short term benefits with long-term financial costs. While the alienation of the royal domain provided immediate cash, it reduced royal revenues long term, the sale of office created new incomes the king would have to pay as well as being attached to various tax exemptions and allowing their holders to gorge the people for revenues, the loans the crown had taken often had high interest rates, and ennoblement led to tax exemptions in the long term. Henri's methods also brought a great amount of friction between him and the various bodies such as the cours des aides the parlements and the chambres des comptes, all of whom had to have their objections overridden. As a result of these disputes, Henri was increasingly drawn towards the idea of an absolutist conception of monarchy.