Channels of influence: Patronage, power and politics in Poitou from Louis XIV to the Revolutio

From Louis XIV to the Revolution, patronage, politics, and power were closely intertwined in France. With the nobility and educated urban elites as the focus of study, the role of patron-client ties and kin solidarities in the society and government of eighteenth-century Poitou is examined. Their importance in social advancement, governmental administration, and politics across the entire period under consideration indicates that absolutist France was a highly traditional society and that the Revolution represents a major historical rupture.;The Ancien Regime was a social world wherein the nobility's preeminence as patrons reflected a society and culture that remained strongly hierarchical. Nobles were not only the political nation, they were also the most influential of patrons, possessing as they did a near monopoly on the distribution of state patronage and favors from the court. Closely connected with the monarchy through their own positions or those of kin, patrons, and clients, nobles had access to the power that flowed from Versailles down to the provincial level.;Within the world of politics and government, patronage and personal forms of power persisted throughout the eighteenth century and undercut the formal institutional power of absolutist government. The patronage system provided the framework for a highly particularistic and informal politics that had much in common with that of the preceding century. The relative weakness of monarchical institutions contributed, however, to the continued existence of politics under absolutism. Politics were not confined to the realm of speculation in salons and philosophical societies, but involved real controversies about the use and abuse of power in the lives of ordinary people.;The Revolution thus represented a profound change in society, politics, and political culture. The events of 1789 would bring about the collapse of the traditional noble and court-centered patronage system and so open the way toward the creation of a more modern, and democratic, society and politics.