Les finances publiques en France du XIIIe au XVIIIe siècle : fiscalité et construction de l’état royal

Abstract

For some years, a historiography trend about the history of finances and institutions has questioned the most «traditional» history of public finances: centralization and progressive monopolization of fiscal resources by monarchy and fiscal bureaucratization. In its favour, we can say that analyzing history from a long-term perspective can be frightening and disappointing, as the real daily financial practice cannot be perceived correctly, singularities disappear and it can lead to a lineal, even teleological, history. To remedy these facts, this trend has suggested that only practice is taken into account, because it is the only thing that can fulfil the new demand of relativism. Therefore, this colloquium allows talking about the role of the tax system in the creation of the monarchic state. The fiscal monopolization promoted by monarchy, with more or less success depending on the époque, forced the empirical construction of administrations and the increase of the number of government employees, in order to guarantee the effective tax collection. On the other hand, monopolization had to be reinforced due to the development of an administration full of specialists paid by the royal Treasure, to fulfil the increasing needs of that administration. Thus, fiscal monopolization and bureaucratization (and nationalization) were linked.