The end of an élite

This is the first scholarly study in English of the bishops of the French Church at the outbreak of the French Revolution. The 130 members of the episcopate formed an elite within an elite, the First Estate of the kingdom. Much has been written in recent years about the late eighteenth-century French nobility, but the high political picture remains incomplete without taking the bishops into account. This book is designed to correct the imbalance. Nigel Aston explores the role of the episcopate in national and provincial politics in the vital last years of the ancien regime and looks particularly at the policies and patronage of episcopal ministers like Lomenie de Brienne and J.-M. Champion de Cice, who were as much politicians as pastors. Dr Aston emphasizes the leading role of the bishops in the Assemblies of Notables, in moves towards decentralization in 1787-9, and offers a fresh interpretation of clerical elections to the Estates-General in 1789. He also considers the performance of the bishops in the National Assembly, their links with lay politicians, and their response to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790. This is an intensively researched and immensely readable account, which will be invaluable to all historians and students of late eighteenth-century France.