Edit Portant Creation De 6 Offices De Receveurs Des Impositions Dans La Ville De Paris Et Suppression De Loffice De Receveur General De La Capitation Et Des Vingtiemes De Ladite Ville Registre En Parlement Le 23 Fevrier 1775

Author : William Doyle
Publisher : Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN 13 : 9780198205364
Total Pages : 343 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

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Download or read book Venality written by William Doyle and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 1996 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In ancien regime France almost all posts of public responsibility had to be bought or inherited. Rather than tax their richer subjects directly, French kings preferred to sell them privileged public offices, which further payments allowed them to sell or bequeath at will. By the eighteenthcentury there were 70,000 venal offices, comprising the entire judiciary, most of the legal profession, officers in the army, and a wide range of other professions - from financiers handling the king's revenues down to auctioneers and even wigmakers. Though now yielding diminishing returns to theking, offices were more in demand than ever for the privileges and prestige, profit and power, that they conferred; and although it was widely accepted that selling public authority was undesirable, nobody imagined that those who had invested in offices could ever be bought out. The Revolutionbrought an unexpected opportunity to do so, but the legacy of venality has marked French institutions down to our day. William Doyle, one of the foremost historians of early modern Europe, has written the first comprehensive history of the last century of venality. He traces the evolution and dissolution of a system which was fundamental to the workings of state and society in France for over threecenturies.