Part 17

In no part of Germany, for instance, at the close of the eighteenth century, was serfdom as yet completely abolished. Nothing of the kind had existed in France for a long period of time. The peasant came, and went, and bought and sold, and dealt and laboured as he pleased. The last traces of serfdom could only be detected in one or two of the eastern provinces annexed to France by conquest; everywhere else the institution had disappeared. The French peasant had not only ceased to be a serf; he had become an owner of land.

It has long been believed that the subdivision of landed property in France dates from the revolution of 1789, and was only the result of that revolution. The contrary is demonstrable by all the evidence.

The number of landed proprietors at that time amounted to one-half, frequently to two-thirds, of their present number. Now, all these small landowners were, in reality, ill at ease in the cultivation of their property, and had to bear many charges, or easements, on the land which they could not shake off.

Although what is termed in France the old régime is still very near to us, few persons can now give an accurate answer to the question--How were the rural districts of France administered before 1789?

In the eighteenth century all the affairs of the parish were managed by a certain number of parochial officers, who were no longer the agents of the manor or domain, and whom the lord no longer selected. Some of these persons were nominated by the intendant of the province, others were elected by the peasants themselves. The duty of these authorities was to assess the taxes, to repair the church, to build schools, to convoke and preside over the vestry or parochial meeting. They attended to the property of the parish, and determined the application of it; they sued, and were sued, in its name. Not only the lord of the domain no longer conducted the administration of the small local affairs, but he did not even superintend it. All the parish officers were under the government or control of the central power, as we shall show in a subsequent chapter. Nay, more; the seigneur had almost ceased to act as the representative of the crown in the parish, or as the channel of communication between the king and his subjects.

If we quit the parish, and examine the constitution of the larger rural districts, we shall find the same state of things. Nowhere did the nobles conduct public business either in their collective or their individual capacity. This was peculiar to France.

Of all the peculiar rights of the French nobility, the political element had disappeared; the pecuniary element alone remained, in some instances largely increased.

II.---A Shadow of Democracy

Picture to yourself a French peasant of the eighteenth century. Take him as he is described in the documents--so passionately enamoured of the soil that he will spend all his savings to purchase it, and to purchase it at any price. To complete his purchase he must first pay a tax, not to the government, but to other landowners of the neighbourhood, as unconnected as himself with the administration of public affairs, and hardly more influential than he is. He possesses it at last; his heart is buried in it with the seeds he sows. This little nook of ground, which is his own in this vast universe, fills him with pride and independence. But again these neighbours call him from his furrow, and compel him to come to work for them without wages. He tries to defend his young crops from their game; again they prevent him. As he crosses the river they wait for his passage to levy a toll. He finds them at the market, where they sell him the right of selling his own produce; and when, on his return home, he wants to use the remainder of his wheat for his own sustenance--of that wheat which was planted by his own hands, and has grown under his eyes--he cannot touch it till he has ground it at the mill and baked it at the bakehouse of these same men. A portion of his little property is paid away in quit-rents to them also, and these dues can neither be extinguished nor redeemed.

The lord, when deprived of his former power, considered himself liberated from his former obligations; and no local authority, no council, no provincial or parochial association had taken his place. No single being was any longer compelled by law to take care of the poor in the rural districts, and the central government had boldly undertaken to provide for their wants by its own resources.

Every year the king's council assigned to each province certain funds derived from the general produce of the taxes, which the intendant distributed.

Sometimes the king's council insisted upon compelling individuals to prosper, whether they would or no. The ordinances constraining artisans to use certain methods and manufacture certain articles are innumerable; and, as the intendants had not time to superintend the application of all these regulations, there were inspectors general of manufactures, who visited in the provinces to insist on their fulfilment.

So completely had the government already changed its duty as a sovereign into that of a guardian.

In France municipal freedom outlived the feudal system. Long after the landlords were no longer the rulers of the country districts, the towns still retained the right of self-government.

In most instances the government of the towns was vested in two assemblies. All the great towns were thus governed, and some of the small ones. The first of these assemblies was composed of municipal officers, more of less numerous according to the place. These municipal officers never received any stipend, but they were remunerated by exemptions from taxation and by privileges.

The second assembly, which was termed the general assembly, elected the corporation, wherever it was still subject to election, and always continued to take a part in the principal concerns of the town.

If we turn from the towns to the villages, we meet with different powers and different forms of government.

In the eighteenth century the number and the name of the parochial officers varied in the different provinces of France. In most of the parishes they were, in the eighteenth century, reduced to two persons--the one named the "collector," the other most commonly named the "syndic." Generally, these parochial officers were either elected, or supposed to be so; but they had everywhere become the instruments of the state rather than the representatives of the community. The collector levied the taille, or common tax, under the direct orders of the intendant. The syndic, placed under the daily direction of the sub-delegate of the intendant, represented that personage in all matters relating to public order or affecting the government. He became the principal agent of the government in relation to military service, to the public works of the state, and to the execution of the general laws of the kingdom.

Down to the revolution the rural parishes of France had preserved in their government something of that democratic aspect which they had acquired in the Middle Ages. The democratic assembly of the parish could express its desires, but it had no more power to execute its will than the corporate bodies in the towns. It could not speak until its mouth had been opened, for the meeting could not be held without the express permission of the intendant, and, to use the expression of those times, which adapted language to the fact, "under his good pleasure."

III.--The Ruin of the Nobility

If we carefully examine the state of society in France before the revolution, we may see that in each province men of various classes, those, at least, who were placed above the common people grew to resemble each other more and more, in spite of differences of rank.

Time, which had perpetuated, and, in many respects, aggravated the privileges interposed between two classes of men, had powerfully contributed to render them alike in all other respects.

For several centuries the French nobility had grown gradually poorer and poorer. "Spite of its privileges, the nobility is ruined and wasted day by day, and the middle classes get possession of the large fortunes," wrote a nobleman in a melancholy strain in 1755-Yet the laws by which the estates of the nobility were protected still remained the same, nothing appeared to be changed in their economical condition. Nevertheless, the more they lost their power the poorer they everywhere became in exactly the same proportion.

The non-noble classes alone seemed to inherit all the wealth which the nobility had lost; they fattened, as is were, upon its substance. Yet there were no laws to prevent the middle class from ruining themselves, or to assist them in acquiring riches; nevertheless, they incessantly increased their wealth--in many instances they had become as rich, and often richer, than the nobles. Nay, more, their wealth was of the same kind, for, though dwelling in the towns, they were often country landowners, and sometimes they even bought seignorial estates.

Let us now look at the other side of the picture, and we shall see that these same Frenchmen, who had so many points of resemblance among themselves, were, nevertheless, more completely isolated from each other than perhaps the inhabitants of any other country, or than had ever been the case before in France.

The fact is, that as by degrees the general liberties of the country were finally destroyed, involving the local liberties in their ruin, the burgess and the noble ceased to come into contact with public life.

The system of creating new nobles, far from lessening the hatred of the roturier to the nobleman, increased it beyond measure; it was envenomed by all the envy with which the new noble was looked upon by his former equals. For this reason the tiers état, in all their complaints, always displayed more irritation against the newly ennobled than against the old nobility.

In the eighteenth century the French peasantry could no longer be preyed upon by petty feudal despots. They were seldom the object of violence on the part of the government; they enjoyed civil liberty, and were owners of a portion of the soil. But all the other classes of society stood aloof from this class, and perhaps in no other part of the world had the peasantry ever lived so entirely alone. The effects of this novel and singular kind of oppression deserve a very attentive consideration.