Clashes with Monarchy

This chapter traces the conflicts faced by the aristocratic constituted bodies at the close of the Seven Years' War. Fighting had gone on for a generation interrupted by a few years of truce; governments had accumulated great debts, which they had now to find means to carry or repay. The search by governments for new sources of income met with resistance from magistracies or assemblies in many countries. It therefore produced constitutional crises. “From the need for money, which put into motion the machinery of reforms, arose a great drama: the clash between autonomous entities and the central power, between local governing classes and foreign rule.” The discussions cover the quasi-revolution in France, 1763–1774; the monarchist coup d'etat of 1772 in Sweden; and the Hapsburg Empire.