Thus the ministries of Richelieu and Mazarin were marked by a wave of popular rebellions that had serious implications for the conduct of the long war against Spain. These rebellions defy any simple explanation. In 1948 the Russian Marxist historian Boris Porchnev asserted that they were not directed against the monarchy itself but against the dominant social classes. The rebellions, in his view, demonstrated an early form of class conflict, and were initiated by the lower classes in the towns and countryside. They were destined to failure because class consciousness had not developed sufficiently. The alliance of the crown with the dominant social groups - clergy, nobility and office-holders - also proved too powerful.

Ten years later, this interpretation received a systematic riposte from the French historian Roland Mousnier. He contested the view that the rebellions were spontaneously initiated by the lower classes, and stressed that in many instances landlord and peasant had a common interest in opposing royal taxation. They were not directed against the monarchy as such, but confronted monarchical policy through opposition to its fiscal agents. Mousnier denied the relevance of class consciousness, arguing that society was organized differently, by social orders, with ties of fidelity linking the powerful and the weak. The crown, in this interpretation, did not form an alliance with the dominant social groups but undermined the autonomy of other social groups while developing its own power.

Most commentators would agree with Mousnier that the popular rebellions do not, for the most part, reveal any profound social antagonisms within the rural communities. The peasants did not criticize their seigneurs, but sought protection - and sometimes, leadership - from them. The most famous example was La Mothe La Forêt, a nobleman who led the Croquants in 1637 because he recognized the justice of their cause (doc. 256 and doc. 257). The absence of any real threat to the social position of the gentry is revealed by the fact that they rarely turned out to suppress rebellion, a profound contrast with the German peasants' war. On the contrary, considerable evidence was supplied to the government by the intendants that the gentry encouraged their tenants and farmers to resist an increasing burden of taxation which would make it very difficult for them to pay their rents (doc. 211, clause 18; and doc. 280). Such support might take the form of physical protection for the peasants' goods when the crown's fiscal agents sought distraint for non-payment. It was usually royal troops, sent by the government from outside the province, who suppressed armed revolts, and at times, suffered heavy casualties (doc. 297). On occasion, the gentry might even form leagues and take to arms to support their tenants (doc. 235). Only the Breton rising of 1675 shows a significant degree of social antagonism between peasants and their lords.

The Porchnev-Mousnier controversy, now some thirty years old, has had the virtue of stimulating historical enquiry into the subject of popular rebellion at the time of Richelieu and Mazarin. A number of important studies have resulted, most notably by Madeleine Foisil on the Normandy revolts in 1639, by Yves-Marie Bercé on the south-west and by René Pillorget on Provence. Much work remains to be done. Important provinces still await their historian. There needs to be a careful collation of fiscal sources with the surviving evidence on revolts to establish whether, as the intendants claimed (doc. 269, doc. 274 and doc. 282), it was often the rich parishes which refused to pay their taxes and led the violent resistance. If this is found to be generally true, then the fundamental cause of popular rebellion has to be seen as the defence of fiscal privilege rather than resistance to an increased burden of taxes. On the other hand, opposition to any increase in taxes as a novelty was sufficiently widespread as to arouse comment from Richelieu himself (doc. 258) and to have led to wild rumours of the intolerable nature of particular new taxes (doc. 248, doc. 249 and doc. 288). Sometimes, the peasants demanded a return to the level of taxes at the time of Louis XIII's accession in 1610 (doc. 245 and doc. 250). This evidence suggests that taxes customarily paid were acceptable but that any increase, whether or not it could be paid, was rapidly viewed as intolerable. In some cases, it was the method of collection, rather than the actual amount levied, which caused the protest (doc. 244). Some taxes aroused more opposition than others (doc. 271).

The obvious sources for the historian wishing to understand the attitudes of a rebellious peasantry are manifestos, but relatively few of these survive. Those that do, for example from the 1636-7 risings, demonstrate the peasants' loyalty to their king, but their acceptance of the myth that he was deceived by evil ministers who failed to inform him of the true state of his kingdom. The evil ministers, who mocked the sufferings of the peasants and levied increased taxes under the pretext of necessity of state, were not, however, the main focus of hostility. It was the central and local agents of the fiscal system who were seen as the oppressive force (doc. 253). The ideology of the peasants was simple and is best expressed in slogans of rebellion such as 'long live the king without the gabelle', and 'long live the king, death to the gabeleurs' (doc. 246). The main focus for hatred was the financier, called the gabeleur or maltotier, terms which could vary considerably in their precise application according to local conditions (doc. 250 and doc. 254).

The danger of a rebellion spreading outside a single pays or province was slight. Each revolt had its own particular causes, each province its distinctive fiscal rgime and social structure. The relevance of the slogans of rebellion is explained by the existence of privileged regions of France which paid much less than others in salt tax (gabelle). The rumour that the king sought to undermine these privileges, which Francis I had attempted in 1542, was sufficient to threaten a general insurrection in the south-west in 1635 (doc. 252). The removal in 1639 of the salt-tax privileges of a region in Normandy known as the pays du quart bouillon provoked one of the greatest rebellions, the revolt of the Va-Nu-Pieds (doc. 260 and doc. 261).

Few rural protests were entirely without townsmens' participation; similarly, agricultural labourers were involved in urban discontent (doc. 243), sometimes seeking to dominate the town to find support for their own cause (doc. 306). On occasion, leaders of urban faction used outsiders for their own ends (doc. 303). But there were also revolts that were predominantly urban in character. Because of the great political importance of cities as centres of wealth and administration, such revolts tended to assume a political significance not often achieved by rural rebellion. Urban insurrections seem to fall into five general categories: food riots, riots against outsiders, riots resulting from faction rivalry, tax riots and large-scale political rebellions. As with rural protest, there was some overlapping: a food riot might develop into a tax riot, and so on. Despite the bad harvests of 1628-31 and 1649-52, the period of Richelieu and Mazarin witnessed relatively few bread riots.

There were several different types of outsider against whom urban rioting was directed. The outsider might simply be the suburb-dweller; he might hold jurisdictional privileges which were resented (for example, a bishop or seigneur); he might be a representative of the judicial, fiscal or military power of the crown; finally, he might simply be a foreigner: at Marseille in March 1620, 45 Algerians and six local inhabitants were killed in a xenophobic riot. Faction-fighting in the town council, or within a provincial sovereign court, might lead directly to rioting. The struggle between factions within the oligarchy at Marseille was a primary cause of the frequent rioting in the seventeenth century. The faction within the Parlement of Aix-en-Provence that was opposed to the policies of the crown was largely responsible for the urban revolts of 1630, 1649 and 1659. In seventeenth-century France, charges of financial mismanagement played an important part in the development of factions. Election disputes and the suspension of elections might intensify the problem of urban rioting. Sometimes the conflict might take the form of a struggle between the lower orders and the rich (doc. 273). During the Fronde there were popular revolutions of this type at Bordeaux and Angers in 1652, known respectively as the Orme and the Loricards, but they proved to be isolated phenomena of short duration. Conflicts resulting from one faction seeking support from the lower orders against a rival faction (doc. 295) were more common.

Tax riots were more frequent even than these, since the privileges of towns were partly fiscal in character. Any attempt by the government to increase the tax burden on new urban wealth was resisted as an encroachment on privilege. Most of the smaller French urban disturbances started in this way and most were single-grievance movements of short duration. Overwhelmingly, the aim was the defence of the status quo. This required little either in the way of manifesto to justify the rebellion, or of leadership to provide a focus. The immediate cause of rioting was usually self-evident: a forced loan, a tax on the well-to-do, a sales tax, the appropriation by the central government of municipal revenues and so on. Once the grievance was removed, the rioting ceased (doc. 255, doc. 289 and doc. 290). On occasion, the fiscal threat was more generalized, involving no longer merely a single town, but a number of them in a movement against the central government's encroachment on provincial privilege. The riots in Provence in 1630, 1634, 1649 and 1659 fall into this category. So too do the riots at Dijon in 1630, in the Guyenne towns in 1635, the towns of Normandy in 1639, and those of Orlanais (doc. 307). Doubtless there would have been riots in the Languedoc towns in 1632 had Montmorency's rebellion not been defeated promptly. Not surprisingly, the fiscal imposition which had given rise to the trouble was rescinded in all these cases (doc. 284).

Extremes of violence in urban rebellion were rare. Between 1596 and 1660 it is estimated that there were 264 'insurrectional movements' in the Provenal (mostly small) towns, but only 69 deaths before 1648. The towns became more law-abiding with the passing of time: only three deaths in riots occurred in Provence between 1660 and 1715. Moreover, rioting affected only sixty out of the total of 600 communities in Provence. A riot such as at Agen in 1635, where there were 24 victims of the mob, including twelve financial office-holders, several of whom were vilely mutilated, was exceptional (doc. 246, doc. 251). The intendant might point on occasion to the difference between an urban riot which was orchestrated by the local notables for reasons of self-interest, and which was restrained in its outcome, and one which was leaderless, popular in its participation and violent in its outcome (doc. 298).

If much remains to be known, our documents tell us a good deal about the reasons for popular rebellion and the development of small- and large-scale movements of resistance. Rumours of tax remissions were an important factor in spreading disaffection at the time of the illness and death of Louis XIII in 1643 (doc. 267, doc. 268), at the outbreak of the Fronde in 1648 (doc. 292, doc. 293) and on the signing of the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659 (doc. 309). It is very difficult to establish how such rumours started, although there was evidently much wishful thinking that tax increases were purely temporary and would be removed once the immediate crisis had passed. Sometimes there is clear evidence of falsified decrees of the council in circulation to substantiate these rumours (doc. 283); on occasion a pedlar who was selling them is actually named (doc. 300, doc. 305). At other times the evidence suggests that a local notable might start the rumour, for his own purposes (doc. 279). In the towns, the role of women as the instigator of the troubles, and perhaps those more susceptible to rumours of crushing tax increases because they were responsible for the family budget, is also attested (doc. 286, doc. 287). Sometimes the women appeared with their children (doc. 308). When the riot developed in a town, then clearly the topography played a crucial part - the relationship of town and suburb, the existence of town gates, drawbridges and so on could be of great importance (doc. 247). The tax-collector might escape from his house over the rooftops (doc. 301). He might barricade himself in the house and hope that the bourgeois militia would come to his rescue (doc. 259), though fire might be used against him before they did. However, the bourgeois militia did not always act in the interests of the government (doc. 264). An unpopular intendant, heavily implicated in the collection of a particular tax, might need to take refuge in the citadel for a few days (doc. 285). Posters were sometimes used to stir up urban riots, and the intendants sent examples to the Chancellor (doc. 302).

Both social structure and regional topography played a crucial part in the development of rural movements. Gentry lawlessness and gentry-led resistance was a common feature (doc. 206). The intendant found himself in great difficulties when protection was given to tenants by the provincial governor (doc. 299, doc. 242) or by magnates who were relatives of the ministers themselves (doc. 205). In such cases, the government had to intervene, for fear that the gentry might follow this example. The gentry might orchestrate an attack on the intendant in person (doc. 304). The council sought to reinforce the intendant's powers by all possible means, such as making the crime of tax rebellion equivalent to a crime of treason (doc. 272), and refusing payment of pensions to gentry whose parishes had not paid their tax demands (doc. 275). If the situation became serious, the intendant was empowered to raise a brigade of special troops to enforce the levy, though this was an unpopular step and a further source of discontent (doc. 270, doc. 276).

Resistance to taxation took different forms according to the nature of the regional economy and the possibilities provided by the terrain. The principal wealth of Limousin consisted in cattle-breeding, so that distraint of goods had to be in cattle (doc. 277). Subsequently, the peasants might have recourse to the mountainous terrain (doc. 278), or make use of local administrative boundaries to escape distraint orders; they might block a river crossing to prevent the billeting of troops (doc. 281). Elsewhere, in Picardy, villages might be fortified to prevent the distraint of goods, or the moveable wealth of the community might be transferred to the protection of the home of the local gentleman for safekeeping (doc. 263). In some cases, weapons were stockpiled for use in a prolonged insurrection (doc. 296).

The intendant made careful distinctions between parishes which were unable to pay their taxes because of poverty and those which were 'hardened and experienced in revolt' (doc. 274). The persistent, nagging, problem of deliberate tax rebellion by a relatively small number of parishes within a province was a more serious difficulty for the government than the great peasant uprisings, which were sporadic in nature. Tax rebellion could never be eliminated by force alone. The intendant could not police an entire province so that rebellion never occurred - to be really effective, more intendants would have been needed (doc. 291). The methods used to suppress tax rebellion - summary prosecutions by the intendant and the enforced levy of taxation by troops - were likely to intensify the problem. However, the alternative was worse, as was demonstrated clearly in the last years of the Fronde. Such a negative policy would have led to rapidly diminishing tax returns and a creeping paralysis of government. This had been clearly perceived by the finance minister in 1642, shortly before the transfer of fiscal powers to the intendants by the ruling of August 1642 (doc. 265). The intendants were given the task of reforming the fiscal system; it was inevitable that they would also be given the decidedly unenviable task of suppressing revolt. Their activity in coercing payment of taxes was one of the chief reasons for their unpopularity during the ministries of Richelieu and Mazarin.