French versus British democratic orgins

The question of France and Britian's different routes into democratic modernity is a fascinating one. So it is interesting to note that Lucien Goldmann in The Hidden God and Marcel Gauchet in the first volume of his L'Avènement de la démocratie both make similar cases about the fate of French absolutism in the eighteenth century. Gauchet's argument is that the absolute sovereign had sufficient power to destroy the ranks below him and the organic ties between them, and in particular to marginalize the church. This meant that the social situation for the philosophes to begin to think from the point of view of the individual, that is to say in Lockean terms. Goldmann of course argues that the king sideline the old noblesse de robe in his efforts to raise taxes (he created hugely powerful tax farmers and a new oligarchy arose around them). Pascal and Racine articulate the "tragic vision" of the displaced elite class. But in both cases the absolutist monarch digs his own grave because he has sufficient power to break down the old "traditional" order.