BOOK II FRANCE FROM 1715 TO 1815 FALL PERIOD I. THE fall of the OLD RÉGIME. [1715–1789 a.d.] (Comprising Chapters I-VI) A PREFATORY CHARACTERISATION OF THE PERIOD WRITTEN SPECIALLY FOR THE PRESENT WORK BY ALFRED RAMBAUD Professor in the University of Paris, Member of the Institute POLITICAL CONDITIONS 1 IN 1789, before the meeting of the states-general, the absolute monarchy moulded into shape by Richelieu and brought to perfection by Louis XIV was still erect in all the integrity of its power. The successive struggles sustained by France through nine centuries against the various social forces struggles that continually changed their face according to the causes from which they sprang, now some obnoxious form of feudalism or church organisation, now some fresh manifestation of energy on the part of the people-tended unswervingly towards a single end. The kings themselves might lose sight of this end, incapable or demented rulers might occupy the throne; but through all revolts and complications, in spite of feudal rebellions and English invasions, the pure doctrine of absolute monarchy was steadfastly preserved. Fierce might be the hate that burned between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians, furious the spirit that gave rise to the Praguerie and the league of the public weal, bitter the religious wars, the revolts of the nobles under Louis XIII and the Fronde, which filled young Louis XIV with rancour and ripened him for the rôle of despot he was to play; but after each reverse the monarchy, strong in the devotion of its citizens and peasantry that had been trampled under foot during the preceding combat, rose in renewed might, materially and morally more firmly established than before. During past centuries it had been obliged to see limits set to its power by rival forces; now it had grown sufficiently robust to break down all opposition. Resolved to accept no counsels, to endure neither contradiction nor remonstrance, the monarchy set itself up before its former adversaries, the nobility, the clergy, the parliament, the bourgeoisie, as an object of wor1 To be consulted: A. de Tocqueville, L'ancien Régime et la Révolution. H. Taine, Les origines de la France contemporaines, L'ancien Régime. A. Chérest, La chûte de l'ancien Régime. ship, a divinity that would not tolerate atheism. It was not satisfied to be free from the necessity of struggling — it determined to be adored; and the temple of the new religion was that palace of Versailles where the descendants of the noblest families, forgetting their pride, came to beg a favourable glance from the king; where even the "great Condé became a picture of baseness and servility in the presence of the ministers" (Saint-Simon). There were at court great names that had come down from feudal times, borne by families that were branches of the royal house; Louis XIV admitted no hierarchy among the noble, save that created by his own caprice; the simple gentleman who obtained from him the right to wear the justaucorps à brevet, or to hold the candle during the royal process of disrobing was more to be envied than a prince or duke. Peers of the realm indeed there were in plenty under Louis XIV, who sold thousands of patents of nobility toward the close of his reign, and his example was followed all through the eighteenth century. So absolute was the power of Louis XIV that by the declaration of 1682 he caused to be consecrated by Bossuet a Gallican church, which venerated the pope but rendered obedience to no power save that of the king. Even the Jesuits in France affected Gallicanism, although nothing could be further removed from the principles of their institutions. It is also well known to what length the king went in restricting the right of worship of his subjects, whether they adhered to the Protestant faith, or were Catholics tinged with Jansenism. Before Louis XIV certain provinces had been called to distinguish them from others, "state provinces," because each was a state within itself, consisting of nobility, clergy, magistracy and bourgeoisie, without whose consent the king had no power to levy taxes. Louis XIV suppressed some of these "state provinces" altogether, and reduced others to submission by the menace of dissolution. Municipal liberties flourished to a certain extent; but in 1692 the king substituted for magistrates appointed by election others to whom he had sold a hereditary right to sit in judgment on their fellow-citizens. The offices of mayor and sheriff in the north, consul and capitoul in the south, were literally knocked down to the highest bidder. Occasionally the monarchy received pay for restoring to office the elected candidates that had been ejected; but in that case the post was immediately put up at auction again. Several times the supreme power descended to this debasing practice, which exposed the full extent of its disloyalty, and revealed at the same time the decadence of that municipal liberty that had attained its brightest glory in the heroic age of France. The king could make war or peace exactly as he pleased, could pass laws, being himself the "living law," could impose new taxes as he would; for example the capitation in 1695, and the vingtièmes (twentieth) that followed a short time after. He crushed the people that concessions might be accorded to the fermiers généraux and special privileges granted them (salt, liquors, customs-duties, tobacco). He expended the state revenues as though they had been his own personal wealth, looking upon himself as not only the ruler of his subjects but the owner of their property, as indeed he was of their liberty and life by virtue of his arbitrary warrants (lettres de cachet) and "exceptional justice." In his mémoires Louis XIV wrote: Kings are absolute masters and as such have a natural right to dispose of everything belonging to their subjects, whether they are members of the church or not." 66 The character of the kings of France underwent modification; to the proud, unyielding Louis XIV succeeded Louis XV, the indolent, and the easytempered Louis XVI; but through all these surface permutations the nature of royalty itself remained unchanged. On his death-bed Louis XIV could still assert: "I am the state"; when Louis XV had occasion to express regret at having given offence to his people he saw fit to close with the words, "Although a king is accountable for his conduct only to God"; and on the eve of the Revolution Louis XVI made reply to certain representations of the duc d'Orléans: "It is legal because I wish it.” Nor was this royal absolutism a mere abstraction; by means of centralisation and an official organisation that was a complete hierarchy in itself the king was able to make his power felt in the remotest corners of his kingdom. Immediately about him were the ministers, chosen from the "low bourgeoisie" (Saint-Simon) that they might be the more completely under control; and in each province was an intendant as omnipotent as the ministers, having under him sub-delegates whom he himself appointed, and who filled a position similar to that of sub-prefect. In cities the municipal authorities either purchased their office direct from the king or, in case they were appointed by election, submitted themselves entirely to the will of his agents. In the rural districts where there were as yet no municipal councils the syndic or mayor was chosen by general assembly of the people; but in no case would the general assembly venture to elect another candidate than the one offered by the sub-delegate, nor would the syndic, once in office, dare take a single step unapproved by his redoubtable chief. Indeed there was no end to the annoyances to which cities and villages were alike subjected under such a system of "administrative tutelage." Before a church roof could be repaired or a damaged fountain be restored, before even so insignificant a sum as twentyfive francs could be expended for the public good it was necessary to obtain the authorisation of the intendant of the province. Elevation to municipal authority in villages, that is to the post of syndic or tax-collector, came to be regarded as a calamity by the peasants rather than as a blessing. In 1702 the king conceived the idea of creating in each provincial parish an office of permanent syndic that he might derive profit from its sale to the highest bidder; but so few purchasers presented themselves that it was necessary to return to the system of so-called elections. In this manner the monarch had contrived by means of agents less numerous than to-day but still present in every part of the realm - sent out from the seat of power, to obliterate all influences handed down from a former age, to substitute his own authority for that of any surviving remnant of the past. - SOCIAL CONDITIONS 1 It was in the life of the rural populations that the substitution just referred to wrought the most momentous effects. [To be consulted: Arthur Young, Travels in France (1787-1789). Rougier de la Bergerie, Recherches sur les principaux abus qui s'opposent au progrès de l'agriculture (1788) and Histoire de l'agriculture française (1815), Mémoire publiée par la société de l'agriculture à l'assemblée nationale. Dareste de la Chavanne, Histoire des classes agricoles en France. H. Doniol, Histoire des classes rurales en France, and La Révolution et la Féodalité. Chassin, L'Église et les derniers serfs. Babeau, Le Village sous l'ancien régime and La vie rurale dans l'ancienne France. Koréief, Les paysans et la question paysanne en France au XVIII siècle (in Russian), Moscow, 1789. L'abbé (now cardinal) Mathieu, L'Ancien régime en Lorraine, Paris, 1878. Levasseur, Histoire des classes ouvrières en France, 4 vols., 1867. A. Franklin, Les corporations ouvrières, et comment on devenait patron. Babeau, La ville sous l'ancien régime, and Les artisans et les domestiques d'autrefois.] One thing must not be forgotten: France was at that time an essentially rural country, and agriculture was the occupation of three-fourths of the population. That the Revolution struck such deep root all over the land was due not so much to the political changes it brought about as to the fact that it modified the social condition of twenty millions of peasants; it reached far and lasted long because it was above all an agrarian revolution. According to a document published in 1790 by the national assembly the population of France was divided at that time into two unequal parts; 20,521,000 inhabitants lived, or rather existed, by agriculture, and 5,709,000 were occupied in industry, commerce, the so-called liberal professions, or the performance of public functions. The agriculturists composed 78.24 per cent. of the whole, as against 21.76 per cent. attributed to the urban classes. A single example will illustrate the relative inferiority of France's industrial population, however real had been the progress made.1 In 1789 French industries combined did not consume more than 250,000 tons of coal, and in 1815, twenty-six years later, that amount had only been quadrupled. Given the relatively slow progress of French industry and the limited number of industrial working-people in France, is it to be wondered at that during the revolutionary period there was not, properly speaking, any social question that had labour for its basis? Yet there was a decided agrariansocial question, and this formed the groundwork of the Revolution. It was a question that interested nearly the whole of the population; some, the nobles, in their capacity of property-owners, others as occupying the land under various titles. The maxim "No land without a lord" had in the eleventh century become a reality. The alleu, or piece of ground owned by an independent proprietor, had almost entirely disappeared, every division of land being the property of some noble who allowed it to be held by a tenant. To the noble belonged the fields and woods, the mountains and rivers; and the villains, those at least who were serfs, were also his property. Towards the close of the fourteenth century and in the beginning of the fifteenth had occurred that process of evolution which transformed with a few exceptions that were apparent up to the time of the Revolution — the villain who was a serf into the villain who could call himself a free man. In 1789 there were still serfs in the church (for example, those of the St. Claude chapter in the - [At the end of the eighteenth century there were in France six hundred great forges which produced 196 million pounds of cast-iron yearly. In 1742 the factory of Creuzot made a modest start, in 1767 Frédéric Japy founded the great watch-making establishment of Beaucourt, and in 1784 a certain Martin imported from England a machine for spinning flax invented by Arkwright. As was the case everywhere the lower classes at first showed great hostility to the introduction of machines (examples Jacquard, Vaucanson). The weaving industry had already attained a certain development; St. Quentin, in the manufacture of fine cloths, employed 60,000 spinners, 6,000 weavers, and exported 20 millions' worth of goods annually. The silk industry in Lyons counted 15,000 looms and 30,000 workers, while for the manufacture of silk stockings Lyons had 2,000 looms, Paris nearly as many, and Nîmes 3,000. At Wesserling and Mülhausen in Alsace, even at Jouy, near Paris, was started the manufacture of printed calicoes and chintzes. In many branches of industry, especially the manufacture of pins, the machinery used, according to the Encyclopédie, was very primitive. France was enormously behind Great Britain in most respects and did not make any considerable progress until the time of Napoleon I. In 1722 Bielefeld, a German, wrote: The industries of the country are admirable, every article it sends forth is finished and complete, and charms by the merit of its invention and the perfection of its workmanship. It is these qualities that give to French manufactures their enormous sale, and the rumour is current that the nation realises from its foreign trade in fashionable stuffs alone 14 millions of livres." These indications certainly announced bright prospects for French industries, but what were they compared to the future that stretched before agricultural France ?] Jura) and a few in the possession of nobles; these serfs were held in mortmain, that is, they had no power to will away either the lands they occupied or their personal belongings, because all they owned was the property of the nobles. Those of the peasants who had remained free, had mostly all become proprietors in their own right. There were, according to Necker, when he entered upon office, "an immense number of small properties in France." How had the French peasant who, in addition to bearing practically the whole burden of royal taxation, was obliged to pay ground-rent to the lord and tithes to the church, to render statute labour to the crown and support the passage of troops through his farms, to endure wars, famine, scant crops, and disease, contrived through it all to add constantly to his possessions of land? The answer is mainly to be found in a study of the traits that made up his character at that time and that still distinguish him in certain provinces to-day, namely: his wonderful ability to save, his greed for gain, his talent at concealing the true condition of his affairs, his passionate love for the soil; but the reason for the phenomenon also lies in the very nature of things themselves. Now the natural laws that govern such conditions decreed then as they do to-day that the proprietor who does not cultivate his land shall derive from it but little profit, also that the proprietor who does not live upon his land shall obtain from it virtually nothing. At that epoch if the proprietor of an estate happened to belong to the lesser provincial nobility, the chances were that he was ruining himself trying to keep in repair a château, often immensely large, that was little more than a monument of past opulence and power; he was not in his own person a source of riches since he held it beneath him to live otherwise than "nobly"; that is, to pass his days in any other occupation than that of the hunt. Should he, however, belong to the court nobility, unless he was fortunate enough to secure some remunerative post, he was certain to ruin himself all the more speedily in splendid attire and extravagant living, at play at the king's table where enormous sums were lost, and in all the wild and wasteful follies that had their origin at Versailles. The noble, great or lesser, who sees his resources dwindle to a point where they are insufficient to meet all his demands, makes up his mind to part with a portion of his ancestral estates; not the château, ornamented with coats-ofarms and crowned with weather-cocks, but some little piece of the land that lies about it. Even then, after he has gone so far, pride steps in and prevents his making a definite transaction of the sale; consequently all purchasers of his own rank or of the bourgeoisie withdraw leaving only the peasant, who alone is willing to accede to terms whereby the former owner reserves a "superior proprietary right," or a "right of repurchase." The peasant knows by experience that the noble will never be in a position to buy back what he has sold; nevertheless he faces with a courage that is truly admirable the necessity of paying this same noble his claim of lods et ventes, which are recurrent taxes and will be put into effect at every death on one side or the other, and has also the full knowledge that his position as an independent proprietor will be a far more difficult one to support than that of the farmer on the estate, whom the noble feels himself in a measure bound to uphold in time of trouble. Some writers have even declared his condition to be worse than that of the negro slave in our colonies whom the master at least feeds and clothes. But what of all that? The French peasant is determined to be a proprietor in his own right, to expend the labour of his hands on soil |