Feudalism, venality and revolution sheds new light on the political and social order of the Old Regime by examining the French monarchy's most ambitious effort to reform its institutions: the introduction of participatory assemblies at all levels of the government. According to Alexis de Tocqueville's influential work on the Old Regime and the French Revolution, royal centralization had so weakened the feudal power of the nobles that their remaining privileges became glaringly intolerable to commoners. This book challenges de Tocqueville's theory, showing that when Louis XVI convened assemblies of landowners in the late 1770s and 1780s to discuss policies needed to resolve the budgetary crisis, he faced widespread opposition from lords and office holders. These elites regarded the assemblies as a challenge to their hereditary power over commoners. The king's government comprised seigneurial jurisdictions and venal offices. Lordships and offices upheld inequality on behalf of the nobility and bred the discontent evident in the French Revolution. These findings have enormous consequences for the way we think about the Old Regime society and state. Providing a bold, new account of the period directly leading to the French Revolution, Feudalism, venality and revolution will be essential reading students and scholars of European history.