Pontcallec Conspiracy

The Pontcallec conspiracy was a rebellion that arose from an anti-tax movement in Brittany between 1718 and 1720. This was at the beginning of the Régence (Regency), when France was controlled by Philippe II, Duke of Orléans during the childhood of Louis XV. Led by a small faction of the nobility of Brittany, it maintained links with the ill-defined Cellamare conspiracy, to overthrow the Regent in favour of Philip V of Spain, who was the uncle of Louis XV. Poorly organised, it failed, and four of its leaders were beheaded in Nantes. The aims of the conspirators are disputed. In the 19th and early 20th century it was portrayed as a proto-revolutionary uprising or as a Breton independence movement. More recent commentators consider its aims to have been unclear.

In 1715, after Louis XIV died, France was heavily in debt after many years of war. Feeling unfairly taxed, the Estates of Brittany gathered in Saint-Brieuc and refused to extend new credits to the French state. The Estates sent three emissaries to Paris to explain its position to the Regent. However, the Regent responded by sending Pierre de Montesquiou d'Artagnan to Brittany as representative of the King. Montesquiou decided to raise taxes by force.

The Regent decided to convene the Estates anew. On 6 June 1718, it assembled in Dinan. It was dominated by the gentry, the composition of which was very different from the rest of France, since a significant proportion of the population were counted as "dormant nobles". This concept allowed noble status, and consequent political rights and exemptions, even among the poor if they could prove noble ancestry. In some areas the overwhelming majority of "nobles" were living in poverty. The Estates resisted new taxation arrangements that threatened the poorer nobles. Exasperated by the taxes, the lesser nobles dreamed of an aristocratic republic. On 22 July 1718, 73 of the more radical delegates to the Estates were exiled.

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