I'm currently reading William Doyle's Oxford History of the French Revolution and am confused about something. As a preface, I know as much about the French Revolution as perhaps an undergraduate taking an intro course on Western European history. Thus, names like Calonne, Necker, and Maupeou are very new to me, and I'm barely familiar with concepts that are probably fundamental to most historians of France, like the corvee.
Anyway, what exactly were the economic reforms that Calonne attempted to pass through the assembly of notables? Why was he blamed for the monarchy's economic problems when, from what I can gather, those problems were the fault of his predecessor, Necker? Was Calonne simply a scapegoat for France's economic problems?
He wanted to restrict the tax exemption of the first two estates, and to sell the feudal income of the clergy to pay off some of the debt with the revenue. A new income tax would replace the old one, and this time there wouldn't be any discrimination based on estate, and no special exemptions. The obligation for peasants to provide free labor to maintain the roads (the corvee) would be turned into a monetary tax. Earlier, both the salt tax and the tobacco monopoly had only applied to some provinces, and Calonne wanted to make the rules the same all over the country. He also wanted to remove internal customs and some of the industrial taxes, to stimulate trade, and to allow for free trade in grain.
The implementation of the new taxes would be entrusted to provincial assemblies, with representatives that would be chosen with no attention to estate.
Source: Georges Lefebvre, 1789.
I don't know what the book said he was being blamed for, could you be more specific?