The Culture of Merit: Nobility, Royal Service, and the Making of Absolute Monarchy in France, 1600-1789

Abstract

eighteenth century's critique of privilege and its commitment to the idea of advancement by are widely regarded as sources of modernity. But if meritocratic values were indeed the product of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, how do we explain earlier attention to merit--especially the nobility whose values the Revolution rejected? The Culture of Merit probes this paradox by analyzing changing perceptions of among the old nobility from the age of Louis XIII to the eve of the French Revolution.Jay M. Smith argues that the early modern nobility instinctively drew a correlation between the meaning of and an image of the gaze. In the early seventeenth century, meant the qualities traditionally associated with aristocratic values: generosity, fidelity, and honor. Nobles sought to display those qualities before the appreciative gaze of the king himself. But the expansion of the monarchy forced the routinization of the sovereign's gaze, and Louis XIV began to affirm and reward new qualities--talent and application--besides those thought innately noble.The contradictions implicit within the absolute monarchy's culture of are demonstrated by the eighteenth-century French army, which was dominated by the nobility, but also committed to efficiency and expertise. Smith shows that the army's continuous efforts to encourage and reward merit led to a clash of principles. ever-growing emphasis on talent and discipline led reformers--the great majority of them noble--to attack the most egregious examples of privilege and favoritism in the army. Smith's analysis of the long-term evolution in conceptions of royal service suggests a new explanation for the shift in values signified by the French Revolution. transition away from the personal gaze of the king toward the public gaze of the monarchy and nation foretold the triumph of a new culture of in which noble birth would have no meaning.The Culture of Merit will interest historians and other social scientists concerned with issues of aristocratic identity, state formation, professionalization, and the changing political culture of pre-Revolutionary France.Jay M. Smith is Assistant Professor of History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

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