Revolt of the papier timbré

The Revolt of the papier timbré was an anti-fiscal revolt in the west of Ancien Régime France, during the reign of Louis XIV from April to September 1675. It was fiercest in Lower Brittany, where it took on an anti-lordly tone and became known as the revolt of the Bonnets rouges (after the blue or red caps worn by the insurgents according to region) or revolt of the Torrebens (a war cry and signature in one of the peasant codes). It was unleashed by an increase in taxes, including the papier timbré, needed to authenticate official documents. (Bonnets may well refer to the ancient family descended from Henry de Bohal who are also known as Bonnet, Bot, etc. ~ see history of Pleucdeuc)

Louis XIV declared war on the Dutch Republic in 1672. Unlike in the War of Devolution, after a rapid advance the French army was stopped by the Dutch deliberately breaching the dykes and flooding the land. The war dragged on. The Dutch fleet threatened the French coast, notably the Brittany coast, off which it cruised in April–May 1673 (after a landing on Belle-Île in 1673 and another landing on Groix in 1674). This interfered with Breton trade.

To finance the French war effort, new taxes were levied:

These threats and new taxes added to an already-difficult economic situation in Brittany, then a heavily populated area (with around 10% of France's population at the time) after being spared famines and epidemics since the 1640s. In the 1660s and 70s it entered a phase of economic difficulties, largely linked to the first effects of Louis XIV's policy of economic warfare, the simultaneous increase in taxes and structural weaknesses: for example, a 66% reduction in the wine and canvas trade after the duc de Chaulnes (nicknamed an hoc'h lart, "the fat pig", in Breton), governor of Brittany reduced the land revenues (fermages) and those on wine and canvas by a third, leading to general deflation, except offices.

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