'A conspiracy of twenty million Frenchmen': Public opinion, patriotism, and the assault on absolutism during the Maupeou years, 1770-1775

This dissertation is a study of the political opposition to monarchical absolutism during the Maupeou Revolution, 1770-1774. It is based on a number of previously unexplored sources, particularly the Archives de la Bastille and the Le Paige Collection housed in the Bibliotheque de Port-Royal. It argues that the 1770's saw the appearance of a new type of political movement, called patriotism, which synthesized previously discordant traditions of opposition, including Jansenism and the Enlightenment, and broke through the monopoly the Parlements had exercised on resistance in the eighteenth century.;This dissertation explores the evolving ideology of patriotism through a careful reading of the numerous illegal pamphlets and libels published in the Maupeou years, it examines the sociological composition of the patriotic party by analyzing the type of individuals imprisoned for anti-government activities in the 1770's, and it investigates patriotic tactics and strategy by examining the weekly news sheets, nouvelles a la main, memoirs, and journals put out by members of the opposition. Patriotism succeeded in toppling the Maupeou regime by imaginatively manipulating public opinion on its behalf. The publication and distribution of illegal literature, strikes, boycotts, social ostracism, and crowd activities in various arenas, such as the law courts, the Palais de Justice, the theater, the academies, and the streets, were the means employed by patriotic opinion to make its will heard by those who ruled.;The police records reveal the patriots to be a diverse group including nobles, lawyers, men working in the Palais de Justice, Grub Street writers, individuals from all sectors of the illegal book trade, and many women. By smuggling illegal literature past the border controls, these men and women successfully kept Parisians abreast of the most recent political thinking, especially that concerning the convocation of the Estates General. Both their ideas and their practices were to have an important impact on the genesis of the Revolution of 1789.