Day of the bricks
The term Day of the Bricks (French: Journée des tuiles ) refers to a revolt by the city of Grenoble and the province of Dauphiné in 1788. The forms and demands pointed to the French Revolution . In contrast to the protests in other parliamentary cities , Grenoble was clearly dominated by the Third Estate .
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prehistory
In the conflict over a solution to the national debt question, the Notable Assembly failed in 1787 . The parliaments in Paris and the provinces continued to oppose the reform proposals made by Minister Brienne and demanded that the Estates- General be convened . On August 6, 1787, Louis XVI. with the help of a lit de justice, the registration of a stamp duty law, which the Parlement of Paris had previously refused. The parliament immediately declared the process illegal. The king then banished the parliament to Troyes , but had to experience that not only the Parisian population but also the provincial parliaments declared their solidarity with their Parisian colleagues. After Brienne had given in, allowed the return of the Paris Parliament and announced the convening of the Estates General, the dispute arose over a government loan. In this context, the parliament declared the king's orders in the form of the so-called lettre de cachet to be incompatible with public law and natural law . The king was led by advisers to resolve the conflict through open confrontation. The rights of the parliaments were massively curtailed. They lost the right to register the royal edicts and thus officially put them into effect. The parliament then proclaimed on May 3, 1788 as the basic laws of the empire that the tax permit had to be a matter of regularly convened Estates General and that the parliaments had the right to examine the laws. The king had two parliamentarians arrested and put the parliament on leave. The displeasure in Paris spread to the parlemente of the provinces. There were protests in all parliamentary cities. The unrest in Pau , Rennes and Grenoble were particularly violent .
course
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The resentment in Grenoble, seat of the Parlement of the Dauphiné, was particularly momentous. This parliament was also effectively closed. But it came together anyway. As a result, the members of the parliament were expelled from the city. The unrest was combined with social dissatisfaction, particularly as a result of increased prices. The authorities took action against the Parliament on a Saturday of all days, which was market day. Two regiments of the army were supposed to secure the action. Above all, the office staff mobilized the population against the expulsion of the members of parliament. There was a general cessation of work and the shops and market stalls closed. The crowd streamed downtown to the Palace of Justice and the House of the President of the Parliament. Others closed the city gates and another group threatened the seat of the royal governor. This was Jules Charles Henri de Clermont-Tonnerre . He sent the soldiers in smaller units to the hot spots of the events. Their appearance fueled the excitement even further, without the soldiers being strong enough to contain the unrest, especially since they had orders not to shoot. The residents climbed onto the roofs and pelted the soldiers with the roof tiles. While one regiment adhered to the ban on the use of firearms, relatives of the other opened fire. The young Stendhal witnessed how the first people were hit. The cathedral's storm bell rang, and a large number of local farmers poured into the city. The governor and the general manager of the city appealed to the parliamentary councils to leave the city immediately. In return, the soldiers would be taken from the streets. The judges were inclined to accept the offer, but had to bow to the population. The governor fled his office, which was stormed and looted. The parliamentary councils were carried through the streets in triumph and led to the Palace of Justice. The Parliament held a special session there. Some older parliamentary councils left the city while a number of the younger ones like Jean-Joseph Mounier stayed to take the matter further. During the Brick Day, the authority of the government in Grenoble had completely collapsed and the military had ultimately proven helpless to cope with the protests.
Politicization of the movement
With the day of the bricks, the matter was not over; rather, a "central committee" was formed, mainly supported by lawyers, which drove the matter further. In the weeks that followed, Mounier in particular ensured that the disorderly riot turned into a political movement. He wanted more than just the reinstatement of the parliaments. Despite the authorities' ban on gathering, he organized a gathering of representatives from all three estates in the town hall. The third stand represented the strongest group. The assembly wrote to the king and asked him to restore the parliament to its rights, to withdraw the measures of recent times and to convene the provincial estates. In the elections for this assembly of estates, the third estate should have as many representatives as those of the nobility and clergy combined. With this one of the demands was born which was to play a major role during the revolution. The congregation also decided that those who would participate in the newly established courts should be considered traitors. In addition, efforts were made to alleviate material hardship. Even if only one aid fund was planned, this combination of political and social issues was also forward-looking. The assembly called for preparations to be made for the formation of a Dauphiné parliament. As a result, the councils in the town hall received numerous delegations and accepted petitions. Many of these were similar in style and content to those of the revolution that broke out a year later.
Under the eyes of the soldiers of the new governor of the Maréchal de Vaux , deputies of the three estates from all cities of the province went to a second meeting in the Vizille Castle near Grenoble on July 21st . A total of 491 delegates came. Of these, 50 were clergy (but not bishops), 165 belonged to the nobility and 276 to the third estate. Voting should take place on a per-head basis and not, as was previously the case, on a stand-alone basis. This created a model for the later Estates General. Mounier did not argue in the sense of preserving old rights, as was the customary rhetoric of parliamentary members. Rather, he meant that there was no constitution and that the Estates General had the task of creating one. He emphasized that the taxation of the people could only be decided by a representative body. The third estate should be given the decisive weight. The assembly was even prepared to forego old provincial privileges if there were to be national representation.
The king agreed to the demand for a meeting of estates for the Dauphiné and so turned out to be inconsistent. Against the background of the protests, the king convened the Estates General for 1789 .
literature
- Handbook of European History. Vol. 4 Europe in the age of absolutism and the enlightenment. Stuttgart, 1996 p. 253f.
- Francois Furet, Denis Richet: The French Revolution. Frankfurt am Main, 1981 p. 68f.
- Simon Schama: The hesitant citizen. Step backwards and progress in the French Revolution. Munich, 1989 pp. 276-285