The French Revolution was produced by the society it sought to destroy. Accumulated change during the ancien regime and the attempted reforms of Louis XVI prepared the ground for its successor, which effected fewer changes than supposed. For more than a century, France had been centralizing power through rule of the intendants. After the Fronde, the aristocracy continuously political influence and public administration, save for legal proceedings which could be superseded, content to retain financial (tax) privileges; by contrast the English aristocracy was willing to bear heavy taxes in order to retain power. Meanwhile, the towns became petty oligarchies subject to the intendants. By result, the gentry were separated from and resented by the bourgeois, who were themselves distinct from peasant farmers, since all who could sought to escape the land and its tax burdens. Industry was concentrated around Paris. Also in consequence, there was no common cause among the classes and no reservoir of power to oppose the monarchy. As the aristocrats played no role in shaping public opinion, the philosophes and particularly the physiocrats steered (over the course of the 18th century), the preparation of the Revolutionary cahiers, which exemplify the abstract, levelling ideals put into play after 1789. These targeted the Catholic church and heterogeneous economic arrangements. Centralized state power (‘democratic despotism’) was seen as necessary to rationalize government, and necessarily a power unto itself. The ‘flexibility’ of ancien regime would become intolerant. From 1775, Louis XVI paved the way by removing or undermining traditional municipal government, while mismanaged state finances required more taxes, prompting financial interests to demand change. The effect was to teach the populace to expect disorder. Tocqueville observes love of liberty ebbs, but of equality remains constant: a nation with a real instinct for freedom must feel itself its own master; but after the Revolution the peasantry transferred its natural affinities from aristocrats to government officials.