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Marie-Laure Legay
In this article, Marie-Laure Legay has examined the relations of the Provincial Estates on the north-eastern border of France—Flanders, Artois and le Cambrésis—with the central government. It shows that they did not waste energy disputing the tax demands of the crown, their right to assent to taxation had been reduced to a formality and they voted them without debate. But they then used direct representations through the delegations they sent to Paris, which usually resulted in some concessions being made by the crown. Similarly the Estates did not engage in formal assertions of their autonomy, but the full-time agents they hired in the capital processed a flow of remonstrances and petitions to the agencies of the central government. Thus instead of resisting the movement towards increased centralization of authority, they used it to pursue local advantages. In this way, the Estates were able to purchase the right to make appointments to local offices, while they repeatedly bypassed the Intendant, lobbying successfully for the transfer of many of his areas of competence to the Estates. This pragmatic strategy of working with the system, rather than opposing it was pursued consistencly down to 1789.
