Abolishing the Sale of Offices: Ambitions, Ambiguities, and Myths

Amid all the disagreements and debates which the French Revolution has always provoked, and no doubt always will, most people could probably agree on at least one thing: that the Night of 4 August was the most radical episode of the entire process. Later phases, it might be argued, nurtured even further-reaching ambitions, especially during the year II: but even when, or if, a start was made on them, the actual achievement never got very far, or lasted very long. By contrast, what was decreed as a result of the Night of 4 August by and large actually came about: the abolition of feudalism, of tithes, of privileges and exemptions of all sorts: and not least of the sale of offices. What is amazing about such a decisive set of achievements is the confusion in which they were conceived and the misconceptions, indeed myths, which inspired and guided the men who brought them about. The story of how the original plan for the renunciation of feudal rights went wrong is well known: how a strictly limited operation was hijacked, and then snowballed out of control, resulting in far more comprehensive changes than anyone had yet dreamed of Less familiar, perhaps, are the confusions and ambiguities surrounding the abolition of venality, which also occurred, or began to occur, in the course of that euphoric summer's night. Nothing is clear about this: whether about how the abolition of venality came to be on the agenda at all; or about what the deputies thought they were doing when they agreed to it was it planned in advance? In his memoirs, Barere recalled being told that a magistrate from the parlement was intending to introduce the issue; but that is certainly not what happened. Nor was there an overwhelming mandate in the cahiers for abolition. Almost none had defended venality, or called for its retention, it is true; and those which did mention it, or aspects of it, wanted the whole thing stopped. But only a relatively small proportion of the cahiers mentioned the subject, or its various manifestations, at all. Nor was there much discussion of the question in the pamphlet literature of the spring of 1789. I conclude from this that, although nobody thought the sale of public offices defensible, abolishing it was not among the most pressing public priorities during that reform-obsessed spring. What happened on the Night of 4 August itself is a curious echo of this. During the first few hours of the debate (if it can be called that), the matter did not come up at all. The proposal only came when the session as it were got its second wind, way after midnight. Nor do we know for certain who moved the motion, except that he came from Franche Comte. Philip Dawson thinks(1) it may have been Claude-Francois Roux de Raze, lieutenant-general of the bailliage of Vesoul, who seems to have spoken only once in the entire proceedings of the National Assembly apart from this moment; but who had already denounced venality to the third estate assembly which had elected him. What is certain is that the motion was carried by acclaim. So was a subsequent motion (which this time was moved by a member of a sovereign court) for the abolition of heredity in offices, an essential corollary of the venal system. But when the minutes of the session came to be drawn up, and later drafted into a decree, abolition of venality found itself yoked not to this, but to another principle endorsed much earlier in the session: free justice. There was no logical reason for this. Magistrates did not buy office in the eighteenth century for the fees they Would be able to charge -- or if they did they would have been very disappointed, as innumerable studies have shown. But ever since Maupeou had attempted to popularize his attack on the parlements in 1771 by proclaiming the simultaneous abolition both of judicial venality and of judicial fees, they had been associated in the public mind as twin abuses, as the cahiers bore witness. So now they went down together. But what exactly had been abolished on 4 August? …