Book 3 — CHAPTER VII.

HOW, ON THE EVE OF THE CONVOCATION OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, THE MIND OF THE NATION WAS MORE ENLARGED, AND ITS SPIRIT RAISED.

Two questions had thus far divided all classes—that of the reduplication of the commons, and that of the voting of the Orders in one body: the first was settled, the second was postponed. That great Assembly which every man had regarded in his own heart as the fulfilment of his hopes, and which all had demanded with equal fervour, was about to meet. The event had long been anticipated. To the last it seemed doubtful. It came at length. Preparation was passing into reality, speech into action. At that solemn moment all paused to consider the greatness of the undertaking—near enough to discern the bearing of what was to be done, and to measure the effort which the work required. Nobles, clergy, and citizens alike distinctly perceived that the object was not to modify this or that law, but to remodel all laws, to breathe a new spirit into them, to impart to all of them new purposes and a new course. No one knew as yet exactly what would be destroyed, or what would be created; but all felt that immense ruins would be made, and immense structures raised. Nor was this the limit of public confidence. None doubted that the destiny of mankind was engaged in the work about to be accomplished.

Nowadays when the calamity of revolutions has rendered us so humble that we scarcely believe ourselves worthy of the freedom enjoyed by other nations, it is difficult to form a conception of the proud anticipations of our sires. The literature of the time shows to our amazement the vast opinions which the French of all ranks had at that time conceived of their country and of their race. Amongst the schemes of reform just brought to light, hardly any were formed on the model of foreign imitation. They were not received as lessons from the British constitution, or borrowed from the experience of American democracy. Nothing was to be copied; nothing was to be done that was not new. Everything was to be different and more perfect than had been seen before. The confidence of the French in themselves and in the superiority of their own reason was unbounded—a great cause of their mistakes, but also of their inimitable energy. What was applicable to themselves alone would be equally applicable to all men. Not a Frenchman but was convinced that not only was the government of France to be changed, but new principles of government were to be introduced into the world, applicable to all the nations of the earth, and destined to regenerate the sum of human affairs. Every man imagined that he held in his hand not only the fate of his country, but that of his species. All believed that there existed for mankind, whatever might be their condition, but one sovereign method of government, dictated by reason. The same institutions were held to be good for all countries and for any people. Whatever government was not approved by the human reason was to be destroyed and superseded by the logical institutions to be adopted, first by the French, and afterwards by the human race.

The magnitude, the beauty, and the risks of such an enterprise captivated and ravished the imagination of the whole French people. In presence of this immense design, each individual completely forgot himself. The illusion lasted but for a moment, but that moment was perhaps unexampled in the existence of any people. The educated classes had nothing of the timorous and servile spirit which they have since learnt from revolutions. For some time past they had ceased to fear the power of the Crown; they had not yet learned to dread the power of the people. The grandeur of their design rendered them intrepid. Reforms already accomplished had caused a certain amount of private suffering; to this they were resigned. The reforms which were inevitable must alter the condition of thousands of human beings: that was not thought of. The uncertainty of the future had already checked the course of trade and paralysed the exertions of industry: neither privations nor suffering extinguished their ardour. All these private calamities disappeared, in the eyes even of those who suffered by them, in the splendour of the common enterprise. The love of well-being, which was one day to reign supreme over all other passions, was then but a subordinate and feeble predilection. Men aimed at loftier pleasures. Every man was resolved, in his heart, to sacrifice himself for so great a cause, and to grudge neither his time, nor his property, nor his life. I hasten to record these virtues of our forefathers, for the present age, which is already incapable of imitating them, will soon be incapable of understanding them.

At that time, the nation, in every rank, sought to be free. To doubt its ability for self-government would have seemed a strange impertinence, and no phrase-maker of that day would have dared to tell the people that, for their own happiness and safety, their hands must be tied and their authority placed in leading-strings. Ere they can listen to such language, nations must be reduced to think more humbly of themselves.

The passions which had just been so violently excited between the various classes of society seemed of themselves to cool down at the moment when for the first time in two centuries these classes were about to act together. All had demanded with equal fervour the restoration of the great Assembly then new born. Each of them saw in that event the means of realising its fondest hopes. The States-General were to meet at last! A common gladness filled those divided hearts, and knit them together for an instant before they separated for ever.

All minds were struck by the peril of disunion. A sovereign effort was made to agree. Instead of dwelling on the causes of difference, men applied themselves to consider what all alike desired: the destruction of arbitrary power, the self-government of the nation, the recognition of the rights of every citizen, liberty of the press, personal freedom, the mitigation of the law, a stronger administration of justice, religious toleration, the abolition of restraint on labour and human industry—these were all things demanded by all. This, at least, was remembered: this was a ground of common rejoicing.

I think no epoch of history has seen, on any spot on the globe, so large a number of men so passionately devoted to the public good, so honestly forgetful of themselves, so absorbed in the contemplation of the common interest, so resolved to risk all they cherished in life to secure it. This it is which gave to the opening of the year 1789 an incomparable grandeur. This was the general source of passion, courage, and patriotism, from which all the great deeds of the Revolution took their rise. The scene was a short one; but it will never depart from the memory of mankind. The distance from which we look back to it is not the only cause of its apparent greatness; it seemed as great to all those who lived in it. All foreign nations saw it, hailed it, were moved by it. There is no corner of Europe so secluded that the glow of admiration and of hope did not reach it. In the vast series of memoirs left to us by the contemporaries of the Revolution, I have met with none in which the recollection of the first days of 1789 has not left imperishable traces; everywhere it kindled the freshness, clearness, and vivacity of the impressions of youth.

I venture to add that there is but one people on the earth which could have played this part. I know my country—I know but too well its mistakes, its faults, its foibles, and its sins. But I know, too, of what it is capable. There are undertakings which the French nation can alone accomplish; there are magnanimous resolutions which this nation can alone conceive. France alone may, on some given day, take in hand the common cause and stand up in defence of it; and if she be subject to awful reverses, she has also moments of sublime enthusiasm which bear her aloft to heights which no other people will ever reach.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.[139]

Note (I.)—Page 12, line 18.

THE POWER OF THE ROMAN LAW IN GERMANY.—THE MANNER IN WHICH IT HAD SUPERSEDED THE GERMANIC LAW.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages the Roman law became the principal and almost the sole study of the German legists; indeed, at this time, most of them pursued their education out of Germany in the Italian universities. These legists, though not the masters of political society, were charged with the explanation and application of its laws; and though they could not abolish the Germanic law, they altered and disfigured it so as to fit into the frame of the Roman law. They applied the Roman law to everything in the German institutions that seemed to have the most remote analogy with the legislation of Justinian; and they thus introduced a new spirit and new usage into the national legislation; by degrees it was so completely transformed that it was no longer recognisable, and in the seventeenth century, for instance, it was almost unknown. It had been replaced by a nondescript something, which was German indeed in name, but Roman in fact.

I find reason to believe that owing to these efforts of the legists, the condition of ancient Germanic society deteriorated in many respects, especially so far as the peasants were concerned; many of those who had succeeded until then in preserving the whole or part of their liberties or of their possessions, lost them at this period by learned assimilations of their condition to that of the Roman bondsmen or emphyteotes.

This gradual transformation of the national law, and the vain efforts which were made to oppose it, may be clearly traced in the history of Würtemberg.

From the origin of the county of that name in 1250, until the creation of the duchy in 1495, the legislation was purely indigenous; it was composed of customs and local laws made by the towns or by the Courts of Seignory, and of statutes promulgated by the Estates; ecclesiastical affairs alone were regulated by a foreign code, the canon law.

From 1495 the character of the legislation was changed: the Roman law began to penetrate; the doctors, as they were called, those who had studied law in the foreign schools, entered the Government and possessed themselves of the direction of the superior courts. During the whole of the first half of the sixteenth century political society maintained the same struggle against them that was going on in England at the same time, but with very different success. At the diet of Tübingen in 1514, and at those which succeeded it, the representatives of feudalism and the deputies of the towns made all kinds of representations against that which was taking place; they attacked the legists who were invading all the courts, and changing the spirit or the letter of all customs and laws. The advantage at first seemed on their side; they obtained from the Government the promise that henceforth the high courts should be composed of honourable and enlightened men chosen from among the nobility and the Estates of the Duchy, and not of doctors, and that a commission composed of agents of the Government, and of representatives of the estates, should draw up the project of a code which might serve as a rule throughout the country. These efforts were vain. The Roman law soon drove the national law out of a great portion of the legislation, and even took root in the very ground on which it still suffered this legislation to subsist.

This victory of a foreign over the indigenous law is ascribed by many German historians to two causes:—1. To the movement which at that period attracted all minds towards the languages and literature of antiquity, and the contempt which this inspired for the intellectual productions of the national genius. 2. To the idea which had always possessed the whole of the Middle Ages in Germany, and which displays itself even in the legislation of that period, that the Holy Empire was the continuation of the Roman Empire, and that the legislation of the former was an inheritance derived from the latter.

These causes, however, are not sufficient to explain why the same law should at the same period have been introduced into the whole continent of Europe. I believe that this arose from the fact that at this time the absolute power of the sovereigns was everywhere established on the ruins of the ancient liberties of Europe, and that the Roman law, a law of servitude, was admirably fitted to second their views.

The Roman law which everywhere perfected civil society tended everywhere to degrade political society, inasmuch as it was chiefly the production of a highly civilised but much enslaved people. The kings of Europe accordingly adopted it with eagerness, and established it wherever they were the masters. Throughout Europe the interpreters of this law became their ministers or their chief agents. When called on to do so the legists even gave them the support of the law against the law itself, and they have frequently done so since. Wherever there was a sovereign who violated the laws we shall generally find at his side a legist who assured him that nothing was more lawful, and who proved most learnedly that his violence was just, and that the oppressed party was in the wrong.

Note (II.)—Page 13, line 37.

THE TRANSITION FROM FEUDAL TO DEMOCRATIC MONARCHY.

As all monarchies had become absolute about the same period, it is scarcely probable that this change of constitution was owing to any particular circumstance which accidentally occurred at the same time in every State, and we are led to the belief that all these similar and contemporary events must have been produced by some general cause, which simultaneously acted everywhere in the same manner.

This general cause was the transition from one state of society to another, from feudal inequality to democratic equality. The nobility was already depressed, and the people were not yet raised; the former were brought too low, and the latter were not sufficiently high to restrain the action of the ruling power. For a hundred and fifty years kings and princes enjoyed a sort of golden age, during which they possessed at once stability and unlimited power, two things which are usually incompatible; they were as sacred as the hereditary chiefs of a feudal monarchy, and as absolute as the rulers of a democratic society.

Note (III.)—Page 14, line 25.

DECAY OF THE FREE TOWNS OF GERMANY.—IMPERIAL TOWNS (REICHSTÄDTE).

According to the German historians the period of the greatest splendour of these towns was during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They were then the abode of wealth, of the arts and sciences—masters of the commerce of Europe—the most powerful centres of civilisation. In the north and in the south of Germany especially, they had ended by forming independent confederations with the surrounding nobles, as the towns in Switzerland had done with the peasants.

In the sixteenth century they still enjoyed the same prosperity, but the period of their decay was come. The Thirty-years’ War hastened their fall, and scarcely one of them escaped destruction and ruin during that period.

Nevertheless, the Treaty of Westphalia mentions them positively, and asserts their position as immediate States, that is to say, States which depended immediately upon the Emperor; but the neighbouring Sovereigns, on the one hand, and on the other the Emperor himself, the exercise of whose power, since the Thirty-years’ War, was limited to the lesser vassals of the empire, restricted their sovereignty within narrower and narrower limits. In the eighteenth century fifty-one of them were still in existence, they filled two benches at the Diet, and had an independent vote there; but, in fact, they no longer exercised any influence upon the direction of general affairs.

At home they were all heavily burdened with debts, partly because they continued to be charged for the Imperial taxes at a rate suited to their former splendour, and partly because their own administration was extremely bad. It is very remarkable that this bad administration seemed to be the result of some secret disease which was common to them all, whatever might be the form of their constitution; whether aristocratic or democratic it equally gave rise to complaints, which, if not precisely similar, were equally violent; if aristocratic, the Government was said to have become a coterie composed of a few families: everything was done by favour and private interest; if democratic, popular intrigue and venality appeared on every side. In either case there were complaints of the want of honesty and disinterestedness on the part of the Governments. The Emperor was continually forced to interpose in their affairs, and to try to restore order in them. Their population decreased, and distress prevailed in them. They were no longer the abodes of German civilisation; the arts left them, and went to shine in the new towns created by the sovereigns, and representing modern society. Trade forsook them—their ancient energy and patriotic vigour disappeared. Hamburg almost alone still remained a great centre of wealth and intelligence, but this was owing to causes quite peculiar to herself.

Note (IV.)—Page 19, line 14.

DATE OF THE ABOLITION OF SERFDOM IN GERMANY.

The following table will show that the abolition of serfdom in most parts of Germany has taken place very recently. Serfdom was abolished—

1. In Baden, in 1783.

2. In Hohenzollern, in 1804.

3. In Schleswig and Holstein, in 1804.

4. In Nassau, in 1808.

5. In Prussia, Frederick William I. had done away with serfdom in his own domains so early as 1717. The code of the Great Frederick, as we have already seen, was intended to abolish it throughout the kingdom, but in reality it only got rid of it in its hardest form, the leibeigenschaft, and retained it in the mitigated shape of erbunterthänigkeit. It was not till 1809 that it disappeared altogether.

6. In Bavaria serfdom disappeared in 1808.

7. A decree of Napoleon, dated from Madrid in 1808, abolished it in the Grand-duchy of Berg, and in several other small territories, such as Erfurt, Baireuth, &c.

8. In the kingdom of Westphalia, its destruction dates from 1808 and 1809.

9. In the principality of Lippe Detmold, from 1809.

10. In Schomburg Lippe, from 1810.

11. In Swedish Pomerania, from 1810 also.

12. In Hessen Darmstadt, from 1809 and 1811.

13. Würtemberg, from 1817.

14. In Mecklenburg, from 1820.

15. In Oldenburg, from 1814.

16. In Saxony for Lusatia, from 1832.

17. In Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, only from 1833.

18. In Austria, from 1811. So early as in 1782 Joseph II. had destroyed leibeigenschaft; but serfage in its mitigated form of erbunterthänigkeit lasted till 1811.

Note (V.)—Page 19, line 17.

A part of the countries which are now German, such as Brandenburg, Prussia proper, and Silesia, were originally inhabited by a Slavonic race, and were conquered and partially occupied by Germans. In those countries serfdom had a far harsher aspect than in Germany itself, and left far stronger traces at the end of the eighteenth century.

Note (VI.)—Page 20, line 11.

CODE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT.

Amongst the works of Frederick the Great the least known, even in his own country, and the least brilliant, is the Code drawn up under his directions and promulgated by his successor. I do not know, however, whether any of them throws more light upon the man himself and on his time, or which more fully displays their reciprocal influence on each other.

This code is a real constitution, in the sense usually attached to the word; it undertakes to define not only the relations of the citizens to one another, but also the relations between the citizens and the State: it is at once a civil code, a criminal code, and a charter.

It rests, or appears to rest, on a certain number of general principles expressed in a very philosophical and abstract form, and resembling in many respects those which abound in the Declaration of the Rights of Man in the French Constitution of 1791.

It proclaims that the good of the State and of its inhabitants is the object of society and the limit of the law; that the laws cannot restrict the liberty or the rights of citizens except for the sake of public utility; that every member of the State is bound to labour for the public good, according to his position and fortune; and that the rights of individuals must give way to the interests of the public.

There is no mention of the hereditary right of the Sovereign and his family, nor even of any private rights distinct from the rights of the State. The name of the State is the only one used to designate royal power.

On the other hand, much is said about the general rights of man: these general rights of man are based on the natural liberty of each to pursue his advantage, provided it be done without injury to the rights of others. All actions not forbidden by the natural law, or by the positive laws of the State, are permitted. Every inhabitant of the State may demand from it protection for his person and property, and has the right to defend himself by force if the State does not come to his assistance.

After laying down these first great principles, the legislator, instead of deducing from them, as in the code of 1791, the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people and the organisation of a popular government in a free state of society, turns shortly round and arrives at another result equally democratic but by no means liberal; he looks upon the sovereign as the sole representative of the State, and invests him with all the rights that have been recognised as belonging to society. In this code the sovereign is no longer the representative of God, he is the representative of society, its agent and its servant, to use Frederick’s own words printed in his works; but he alone represents it, he alone wields its whole power. The head of the State, says the Introduction, whose duty it is to bring forth the general good, which is the sole object of society, is authorised to govern and direct all the actions of individuals towards that end.

Among the chief duties of this all-powerful agent of society we find the following: to preserve peace and public security at home, and to protect every one against violence. Abroad it is for him to make peace or war; he only is to make laws and enact general police regulations; he alone possesses the right to pronounce pardons and to stop criminal proceedings.

All associations that may exist in the State, and all public establishments, are subject to his inspection and direction for the sake of general peace and security. In order that the head of the State may be enabled to fulfil these obligations, he must possess certain revenues and profitable rights; accordingly he has the power of taxing private fortunes and persons, their professions, their trades, their produce, or their consumption. The orders given by the public functionaries who act in his name are to be obeyed, like his own, in all matters within the limits of their functions.

Beneath this perfectly modern head we shall presently see a thoroughly Gothic body; Frederick only removed from it whatever stood in the way of the action of his own power, and the result was a monster which looked like a transition from one order of creation to another. In this strange production Frederick exhibited as much contempt for logic as care for his own power and anxiety not to place needless difficulties in his own way by attacking that which was still strong enough to defend itself.

The inhabitants of the rural districts, with the exception of a few districts and a few places, were in a state of hereditary servitude, which was not confined to the forced labour and services inherent to the possession of certain estates, but which extended, as we have seen, to the person of the possessor.

Most of the privileges of the owners of the soil were confirmed afresh by the code; it may even be said that they were confirmed in opposition to the code, since it states that where the local customs and the new legislation differed the former were to be followed. It formally declares that the State cannot destroy any of these privileges except by purchasing them and the following forms of justice.

The code asserted, it is true, that serfage, properly so called (leibeigenschaft), inasmuch as it established personal servitude, was abolished, but the hereditary subjection which replaced it (erbunterthänigkeit) was still a kind of servitude, as may be seen by reading the text.

In the same code the burgher remained carefully separated from the peasant; between the burghers and the nobility a sort of intermediate class was recognised, composed of high functionaries who were not noble, ecclesiastics, professors of learned schools, gymnasia and universities.

Though apart from the rest of the burghers, these men were by no means confounded with the nobles; they remained in a position of inferiority towards them. They could not in general purchase noble estates (rittergüter), or fill the highest places in the civil service. Moreover, they were not hoffähig, that is to say, they could not be presented at court except in very rare cases, and never with their families. As in France, this inferiority was the more irksome, because every day this class became more enlightened and influential, and the burgher functionaries of the State, though they did not occupy the most brilliant posts, already filled those in which the work was the hardest and the most important. The irritation against the privileges of the nobility, which was about to contribute so largely to the French Revolution, prepared the way for the approbation with which it was at first received in Germany. The principal author of the code, nevertheless, was a burgher; but he doubtless followed the directions of his master.

The ancient constitution of Europe was not sufficiently destroyed in this part of Germany to make Frederick believe that, in spite of the contempt with which he regarded it, the time was yet come for sweeping away its remains. He mostly confined himself to depriving the nobles of the right of assembling and governing collectively, and left each individual in possession of his privileges, only restricting and regulating their application. Thus it happened that this code, drawn up under the direction of a disciple of our philosophers, and put in force after the French Revolution had broken out, is the most authentic and the most recent legislative document that gives a legal basis to those very feudal inequalities which the Revolution was about to abolish throughout Europe.

In it the nobility was declared to be the principal body in the State; the nobles were to be appointed by preference, it says, to all posts of honour which they might be competent to fill. They alone might possess noble estates, create entails, enjoy the privileges of sporting and of the administration of justice inherent in noble estates, as well as the rights of patronage over the Church; they alone might take the name of the estates they possessed. The burghers who were authorised by express exemption to own noble estates could only enjoy the rights and honours attached to their ownership, within the precise limits of this permission. A burgher possessed of a noble estate could not bequeath it to an heir of his own class unless he was within the first degree of consanguinity. If there was no such heir, or any heir of noble birth, the estate was to be sold by public auction.

One of the most characteristic parts of Frederick’s code is the penal law for political offences, which is appended to it.

The successor of the Great Frederick, Frederick William II., who, in spite of the feudal and absolutist portion of the legislation, of which I have given a sketch, thought he perceived a revolutionary tendency in his uncle’s production, and accordingly delayed its publication until 1794, was only reassured, it is said, by the excellent penal regulations by means of which this code corrected the bad principles which it contained. Never, indeed, has anything been contrived, even since that time, more perfect in its kind; not only were revolts and conspiracies to be punished with the greatest severity, but even disrespectful criticisms of the acts of the Government were likewise to be most severely repressed. The purchase and dissemination of dangerous works was carefully prohibited; the printer, the publisher, and the disseminator were made responsible for the sins of the author. Ridottos, masquerades, and other amusements, were declared to be public assemblages, and must be authorised by the police; the same thing held good with respect to dinners in public places. The liberty of the press and of speech was completely subjected to an arbitrary surveillance; the carrying of fire-arms was also prohibited.

In the midst of this production, of which half was borrowed from the Middle Ages, there appear regulations, which, by their extreme spirit of centralisation, actually bordered on socialism. Thus, it is laid down that it is incumbent on the State to provide food, work, and wages for all who are unable to maintain themselves, and who are not entitled to assistance either from the lord or from the parish: for such as these work was to be provided, according to their strength and capacity. The State was to form establishments for the relief of the poverty of its citizens; the State, moreover, was authorised to destroy foundations which tended to encourage idleness, and to distribute amongst the poor the money under their control.

The novelty and boldness of the theories, and the timidity in practice which characterises this work of the Great Frederick, may be found in every part of it. On the one hand, it proclaimed the great principle of modern society, that all ought to be alike subject to taxation; on the other, it suffered the provincial laws, which contain exemptions from this rule, to subsist. It ordained that all lawsuits between a subject and the sovereign shall be judged according to the forms and precedents laid down for all other litigation; but, in fact, this rule was never obeyed when the interests or the passions of the King were opposed to it. The Mill of Sans-Souci was ostentatiously exhibited, while on many other occasions justice was quietly suppressed.

The best proof of how little real innovation was contained in this apparently innovating code, and which, therefore, renders it a most curious study for those who desire to know the true state of society in that part of Germany at the end of the eighteenth century, is that the Prussian nation scarcely seemed to be conscious of its publication. The legists alone studied it, and at the present day a great number of educated men have never read it.

Note (VII.)—Page 21, last line.

LANDS OF THE PEASANTS IN GERMANY.

Amongst the peasantry there were many families who were not only freemen and owners of land, but whose estates formed a perpetual entail. The estate they possessed could not be divided, and was inherited by only one of the sons, usually the youngest, as is the case in certain English customs. This son was only bound to pay a certain portion to his brothers and sisters.

These Erbgüter of the peasantry were more or less common throughout Germany; for in no part of it was the whole of the soil swallowed up by the feudal system. In Silesia, where the nobility still retain immense domains, of which most of the villages formed a part, there were nevertheless villages owned entirely by their inhabitants, and entirely free. In certain parts of Germany, such as the Tyrol and Friesland, the predominant state of things was that the peasants owned the soil as Erbgüter.

But in the greater part of Germany this kind of possession was but a more or less frequent exception. In the villages where it existed the small proprietors of this kind formed a sort of aristocracy among the peasantry.

Note (VIII.)—Page 22, line 3.

POSITION OF THE NOBILITY AND DIVISION OF LANDS ALONG THE BANKS OF THE RHINE.

From information gathered on the spot, and from persons who lived under the old state of things, I gather that in the Electorate of Cologne, for instance, there was a great number of villages without lords, governed by the agents of the Prince; that in those places where the nobility existed, its administrative powers were much restricted; that its position was rather brilliant than powerful (at least individually); that they enjoyed many honours, and formed part of the council of the Prince, but exercised no real and immediate power over the people. I have ascertained from other sources that in the same electorate property was much divided, and that a great number of the peasants were landowners; this was mainly attributable to the state of embarrassment and almost distress in which so many of the noble families had long lived, and which compelled them constantly to alienate small portions of their land which were bought by the peasants, either for ready money or at a fixed rent-charge. I have read a census of the population of the Bishopric of Cologne at the beginning of the eighteenth century, which gives the state of landed property at that time, and I find that even then one-third of the soil belonged to the peasants. From this fact arose a combination of feelings and ideas which brought the population of this part of Germany far nearer to a state of revolution than that of other districts in which these peculiarities had not yet shown themselves.

Note (IX.)—Page 22, line 27.

HOW THE USURY LAWS HAD ACCELERATED THE SUBDIVISION OF THE SOIL.

A law prohibiting usury at whatever rate of interest was still in force at the end of the eighteenth century. We learn from Turgot that even so late as 1769 it was still observed in many places. The law subsists, says he, though it is often violated. The consular judges allow interest stipulated without alienation of the capital, while the ordinary tribunals condemn it. We may still see fraudulent debtors bring criminal actions against their creditors for lending them money without alienation of the capital.

Independently of the effects which this legislation could not fail to produce upon commerce, and upon the industrial habits of the nation generally, it likewise had a very marked influence on the division and tenure of the land. It had multiplied, ad infinitum, perpetual rent-charges, both on real and other property. It had led the ancient owners of the soil instead of borrowing when they wanted money to sell small portions of their estates for payments partly in capital and partly in perpetual annuities; this had contributed greatly on the one hand to the subdivision of the soil, and on the other to burdening the small proprietors with a multitude of perpetual services.

Note (X.)—Page 25, line 9.

EXAMPLE OF THE PASSIONS EXCITED BY THE TITHES TEN YEARS BEFORE THE REVOLUTION.

In 1779 an obscure lawyer of Lucé complained in very bitter language, which already had a flavour of the revolution, that the curés and other great titheholders sold to the farmers, at an exorbitant price, the straw they had received in tithe, which was indispensable to the latter for making manure.

Note (XI.)—Page 25, line 15.

EXAMPLE OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE CLERGY ALIENATED THE PEOPLE BY THE EXERCISE OF ITS PRIVILEGES.

In 1780 the prior and the canons of the priory of Laval complained of an attempt to subject them to the payment of the tariff duties on articles of consumption, and on the materials needed for the repairs of their buildings. They pleaded that as the tariff duties represented the taille, and as they were exempt from the taille, they therefore owed nothing. The minister referred them to a decision at the election, with the right of appeal to the Cour des Aides.

Note (XII.)—Page 25, line 23.

FEUDAL RIGHTS POSSESSED BY PRIESTS.—ONE EXAMPLE FROM AMONGST A THOUSAND.

Abbey of Cherbourg (1753).—This abbey possessed at this period the seignorial rent-charges, payable in money or in kind in almost every parish round Cherbourg; one single village owed it three hundred and six bushels of wheat. It owned the barony of Ste. Geneviève, the barony and the seignorial mill of Bas-du-Roule, and the barony of Neuville-au-Plein, situated at a distance of at least ten leagues. It received moreover the tithes of twelve parishes in the peninsula, of which several were very distant from it.

Note (XIII.)—Page 27, line 21.

IRRITATION AMONG THE PEASANTS CAUSED BY FEUDAL RIGHTS, AND ESPECIALLY BY THE FEUDAL RIGHTS OF THE PRIESTS.

The following letter was written shortly before the Revolution by a farmer to the Intendant himself. It cannot be quoted as an authority for the truth of the facts which it alleges, but it is a perfect indication of the state of feeling among the class to which its writer belonged.

‘Although we have few nobles in this part of the country,’ says he, ‘you must not suppose that the land is any the less burdened with rent-charges; far from it, almost all the fiefs belong to the cathedral, to the archbishopric, to the College of St. Martin, to the Benedictines of Noirmoutiers, of Saint Julien, and other ecclesiastics, who never suffer them to lapse from disuse, but perpetually hatch fresh ones out of musty old parchments which are manufactured God only knows how!

‘The whole country is infected with rent-charges. The greater part of the land owes annually a seventh of wheat per half acre, others owe wine; one has to send a quarter of his fruit to the seigneurie, another the fifth, &c., the tithe being always previously deducted; this man a twelfth, that a thirteenth. All these rights are so strange that I know them of all amounts, from a fourth to a fortieth of the fruit.

‘What is to be said of the dues payable in all kinds of grain, vegetables, money, poultry, labour, wood, fruit, candles?

‘I know strange dues in bread, wax, eggs, pigs without the head, wreaths of roses, bunches of violets, gilt spurs, &c. There is also a countless multitude of other seignorial rights. Why has not France been released from all these absurd dues? At last men’s eyes are beginning to be opened, and everything may be hoped from the wisdom of the present Government: it will stretch forth a helping hand to the poor victims of the exactions of the old fiscal laws called seignorial rights, which ought never to be alienated or sold.

‘Again, what shall we think of the tyranny of fines (lods et ventes)? A purchaser exhausts his means to buy some land, and is then compelled to pay heavy expenses for adjudication and contract, entering upon possession, procès-verbaux (contrôle), verification and registration (insinuation), hundredth denier, eight sous in the livre, &c.: and besides all this, he has to submit his contract to his seigneur, who makes him pay the fines (lods et ventes) on the principal of his purchase; some exact a twelfth, others a tenth: some demand a fifteenth, others a fifteenth and the fifth of that again. In short they are to be found of all prices; and I even know some who exact a third of the purchase money. No, the fiercest and most barbarous nations in the universe never invented exactions so great and so numerous as those of which our tyrants have heaped upon the heads of our forefathers.’ (This philosophical and literary tirade is misspelt throughout.)

‘How! can the late king have authorised the redemption of rent-charges on property in towns and not have included those in the country? The latter ought to have come first: why should the poor farmers not be allowed to burst their fetters, to redeem and free themselves from the multitude of seignorial rent-charges which cause so much injury to the vassals and so little profit to their lords? There ought to be no distinction as to the power of redemption between town and country and between the lords and private persons.

‘The Intendants of the incumbents of ecclesiastical property pillage and mulct all their farmers every time the property changes hands. We have a recent example of this. The intendant of our new archbishop on his arrival gave notice to quit to all the farmers of his predecessor M. de Fleury, declared all the leases which they had taken under him to be void, and turned out all who would not double their leases and give over again heavy “pots de vin,” which they had already paid to the intendant of M. de Fleury. They were thus deprived, in the most notorious manner, of seven or eight years of their leases which had still to run, and were forced to leave their homes suddenly just before Christmas, the most critical time of the year on account of the difficulty of procuring food for cattle, without knowing where to go for shelter. The King of Prussia could have done no worse.’

It seems, indeed, that on ecclesiastical property the leases of the preceding incumbent were not legally binding on his successor. The author of the above letter is quite correct in his statement that the feudal rent-charges were redeemable in the towns and not in the country. It is a fresh proof of the neglect shown towards the peasantry, and of the way in which all those placed above them found means to forward their own interests.

Note (XIV.)—Page 27, line 27.

EFFECTS OF FEUDALISM.

Every institution that has long been dominant, after establishing itself firmly in its proper sphere, penetrates beyond it, and ends by exerting considerable influence even over that part of the legislation which it does not govern; thus feudalism, although it belonged above all to political law, had transformed the whole civil law as well, and deeply modified the state of property and of persons in all the relations of private life. It had affected the law of inheritance by the inequality of partition, a principle which had even reached down to the middle classes in certain provinces, for instance, Normandy. Its influence had extended over all real property, for no landed estates were entirely excluded from its action, or of which the owners did not in some way feel its effects. It affected not only the property of individuals but even that of the communes; it reacted on manufactures by the duties which it levied upon them; it reacted on private incomes by the inequality of public employments, and on pecuniary interests generally in every man’s business; on landowners by dues, rent-charges, and the corvée; on the tenant in a thousand different ways, amongst others by the banalités (the right of the seigneur to compel his vassals to grind their corn at his mill, &c.), seignorial monopolies, perpetual rent-charges, fines, &c.; on tradesmen, by the market dues; on merchants by the transport dues, &c. By putting the final stroke to the feudal system the Revolution made itself seen and felt, so to speak, at all the most sensitive points of private interest.

Note (XV.)—Page 35, line 8.

PUBLIC CHARITY DISTRIBUTED BY THE STATE.—FAVOURITISM.

In 1748 the King granted 20,000 lbs. of rice (it was a year of great want and scarcity, like so many in the eighteenth century). The Archbishop of Tours asserted that this relief was obtained by him, and ought therefore to be distributed by him alone and in his own diocese. The Intendant declared that the succour was granted to the whole généralité, and ought therefore to be distributed by him to all the different parishes. After a protracted struggle, the King, by way of conciliating both, doubled the quantity of rice intended for the généralité, so that the Archbishop and the Intendant might each distribute half. Both were agreed that the distribution should be made by the curés. There was no question of entrusting it to the seigneurs or to the syndics. We see, from the correspondence between the Intendant and the Comptroller-General, that in the opinion of the former the Archbishop wanted to give the rice entirely to his own protégés, and especially to cause the greater part of it to be distributed in the parishes belonging to the Duchess of Rochechouart. On the other hand, we find among these papers letters from great noblemen asking relief for their own parishes in particular, and letters from the Comptroller-General recommending the parishes belonging to particular persons.

Legal charity gives scope for abuses, whatever be the system pursued; but it is perfectly impracticable when exercised from a distance and without publicity by the Central Government.

Note (XVI.)—Page 35, line 8.

EXAMPLE OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THIS LEGAL CHARITY WAS ADMINISTERED.

We find in the report made to the provincial assembly of Upper Guienne in 1780: ‘Out of the sum of 385,000 livres, the amount of the funds granted by his Majesty to this généralité from 1773, when the travaux de charité were first established, until 1779 inclusively, the elective district of Montauban, which is the chef-lieu and residence of the Intendant, has received for its own share above 240,000 livres, the greater part of which sum was actually paid to the communauté of Montauban.

Note (XVII.)—Page 35, line 12.

POWERS OF THE INTENDANT FOR THE REGULATION OF TRADES AND MANUFACTURES.

The archives of the Intendancies are full of documents relating to this regulation of trades and manufactures.

Not only was industry subjected to the restrictions placed upon it by the corps d’état, maîtrises, &c., but it was abandoned to all the caprices of the Government, usually represented by the King’s council, as far as general regulations went, and by the intendants in their special application. We find the latter constantly interfering as to the length of which the pieces of cloth are to be woven, the pattern to be chosen, the method to be followed, and the defects to be avoided in the manufacture. They had under their orders, independently of the sub-delegates, local inspectors of manufactures. In this respect centralisation was pushed even further than at the present time; it was more capricious and more arbitrary: it raised up swarms of public functionaries, and created all manner of habits of submission and dependence.

It must be remembered that these habits were engrafted above all upon the manufacturing and commercial middle classes whose triumph was at hand, far more than upon those which were doomed to defeat. Accordingly the Revolution, instead of destroying these habits, could not fail to make them spread and predominate.

All the preceding remarks have been suggested by the perusal of a voluminous correspondence and other documents, entitled ‘Manufactures and Fabrics, Drapery, Dry-goods,’ which are to be found among the remaining papers belonging to the archives of the Intendancy of the Isle of France. They likewise contain frequent and detailed reports from the inspectors to the Intendant of the visits they have made to the various manufactures, in order to ascertain whether the regulations laid down for the methods of fabrication are observed. There are, moreover, sundry orders in council, given by the advice of the Intendant, prohibiting or permitting the manufacture, either in certain places, of certain stuffs, or according to certain methods.

The predominant idea in the remarks of these inspectors, who treat the manufacturers with great disdain, is that it is the duty and the right of the State to compel them to do their very best, not only for the sake of the public interest, but for their own. Accordingly they thought themselves bound to force them to adopt the best methods, and to enter carefully into every detail of their art, accompanying this kind interest with countless prohibitions and enormous fines.

Note (XVIII.)—Page 36, last line.

SPIRIT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF LOUIS XI.

No document better enables us to estimate the true spirit of the government of Louis XI. than the numerous constitutions granted by him to the towns. I have had occasion to study very carefully those which he conferred on most of the towns of Anjou, of Maine, and of Touraine.

All these constitutions are formed on the same model, and the same designs are manifest in them all. The figure of Louis XI., which they reveal to us, is rather different from the one which we are familiar with. We are accustomed to consider him as the enemy of the nobility, but at the same time as the sincere though somewhat stern friend of the people. Here, however, he shows the same hatred towards the political rights of the people and of the nobility. He makes use of the middle classes to pull down those above them, and to keep down those below: he is equally anti-aristocratic and anti-democratic; he is essentially the citizen-king. He heaps privileges upon the principal persons of the towns, whose importance he desires to increase; he profusely confers nobility on them, thus lowering its value, and at the same time he destroys the whole popular and democratic character of the administration of the towns, and restricts the government of them to a small number of families attached to his reforms, and bound to his authority by immense advantages.

Note (XIX.)—Page 37, line 30.

ADMINISTRATION OF A TOWN IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

I extract from the inquiry made in 1764 into the administration of towns, the document relating to Angers; in it we shall find the constitution of the town analysed, attacked, and defended by turns by the Présidial, the Corporation, the Sub-delegate, and the Intendant. As the same facts were repeated in a great number of other places, this must not be looked upon merely as an individual picture.

‘Report of the Présidial on the actual state of the Municipal Corporation of Angers, and on the Reforms to be made in it.’

‘The corporation of Angers,’ says the Présidial, ‘never consults the inhabitants generally, even on the most important subjects, except in cases in which it is obliged by special orders to do so. This system of administration is, therefore, unknown to all those who do not belong to the corporation, even to the échevins amovibles, who have but a very superficial idea of it.’

(The tendency of all these small civic oligarchies was, indeed, to consult what are here called the inhabitants generally as little as possible.)

The corporation was composed, according to an arrêt de règlement of 29th March, 1681, of twenty-one officers:—

A mayor, who becomes noble, and whose functions continue for four years.

Four échevins amovibles, who remain in office two years.

Twelve échevins conseillers, who, when once elected, remain for life.

Two procureurs de ville.

One procureur in reversion.

One greffier.

They possessed various privileges, amongst others the following: their capitation tax was fixed and moderate; they were exempt from having soldiers billeted upon them and from providing ustensiles, fournitures, and contributions; from the franchise des droits, the cloison double and triple, the old and new octroi and accessoire on all articles of consumption, even from the don gratuit, from which, says the Présidial, they chose to exempt themselves on their own private authority; they receive moreover allowances for wax-lights, and some of them salaries and apartments.

We see by these details that it was a very pleasant thing to be perpetual échevins of Angers in those days. Always and everywhere we find the system which makes the exemption from taxation fall on the richest classes. In a subsequent part of the same report we read: ‘These places are sought by the richest inhabitants, who aspire to them in order to obtain a considerable reduction of capitation, the surcharge of which falls on the others. There are at present several municipal officers, whose fixed capitation is 30 livres, whereas they ought to be taxed 250 or 300 livres; there is one especially among them, who, considering his fortune, might pay, at least, 1000 livres of capitation tax.’ We find in another part of the same report, that ‘amongst the richest inhabitants there are upwards of forty officers, or widows of officers (men holding office), whose places confer on them the privilege of not contributing to the heavy capitation levied on the town; the burden of this capitation accordingly falls on a vast number of poor artisans, who think themselves overtaxed, and constantly appeal against the excessive charges upon them, though almost always unjustly, inasmuch as there is no inequality in the distribution of the amount, which remains to be paid by the town.’

The General Assembly consisted of seventy-six persons:—

The Mayor;

Two deputies from the Chapter;

One Syndic of the clerks;

Two deputies from the Présidial;

One deputy from the University;

One Lieutenant-general of Police;

Four Échevins;

Twelve Conseillers-échevins;

One Procureur du Roi au Présidial;

One Procureur de Ville;

Two deputies from the Eaux et Forêts;

Two from the Élection (elective district?);

Two from the Grenier à sel;

Two from the Traites;

Two from the Mint;

Two from the body of Avocats and Procureurs;

Two from the Juges Consuls;

Two from the Notaries;

Two from the body of Merchants; and, lastly,

Two sent by each of the sixteen parishes.

These last were supposed to represent the people, properly so called, especially the industrial corporations. We see that care had been taken to keep them in a constant minority.

When the places in the town corporation fell vacant, the general assembly selected three persons to fill each vacancy.

Most of the offices belonging to the Hôtel de Ville were not exclusively given to members of corporations, as was the case in several municipal constitutions, that is to say, the electors were not obliged to choose from among them their magistrates, advocates, &c. This was highly disapproved by the members of the Présidial.

According to this Présidial, which appears to have been filled with the most violent jealousy against the corporation of the town, and which I strongly suspect objected to nothing so much in the municipal constitution as that it did not enjoy as many privileges in it as it desired, ‘the General Assembly, which is too numerous, and consists, in part, of persons of very little intelligence, ought only to be consulted in cases of sale of the communal domains, loans, establishment of octrois, and elections of municipal officers. All other business matters might be discussed in a smaller assembly, composed only of the notables. This assembly should consist only of the Lieutenant-General of the Sénéchaussée, the Procureur du Roi, and twelve other notables, chosen from amongst the six bodies of clergy, magistracy, nobility, university, trade, and bourgeois, and others not belonging to the above-named bodies. The choice of the notables should at first be confined to the General Assembly, and subsequently to the Assembly of Notables, or to the body from which each notable is to be selected.’

All these functionaries of the State, who thus entered in virtue of their office or as notables into the municipal corporations of the ancien régime, frequently resembled those of the present day as to the name of the office which they held, and sometimes even as to the nature of that office; but they differed from them completely as to the position which they held, which must be carefully borne in mind, unless we wish to arrive at false conclusions. Almost all these functionaries were notables of the town previous to being invested with public functions, or they had striven to obtain public functions in order to become notables; they had no thought of leaving their own town and no hope of any higher promotion, which alone is sufficient to distinguish them completely from anything with which we are acquainted at the present day.

Report of the Municipal Officers.—We see by this that the corporation of the town was created in 1474, by Louis XI., on the ruins of the ancient democratic constitution of the town, on the system which we have already described of restricting political rights to the middle classes only, of setting aside or weakening the popular influence, of creating a great number of municipal officers in order to interest a greater number of persons in his reform, of a prodigal grant of hereditary nobility, and of all sorts of privileges, to that part of the middle classes in whose hands the administration was placed.

We find in the same report letters patent from the successors of Louis XI. which acknowledge this new constitution, while they still further restrict the power of the people. We learn that in 1485 the letters patent issued to this effect by Charles VIII. were attacked before the parliament by the inhabitants of Angers, just as in England a lawsuit, arising out of the charter of a town, would have been brought before a court of justice. In 1601 a decision of the parliament determined the political rights created by the Royal Charter. From that time forward nothing appears but the conseil du Roi.

We gather from the same report that, not only for the office of mayor, but for all other offices belonging to the corporation of the town, the General Assembly proposed three candidates, from amongst whom the King selects one, in virtue of a decree of the council of 22nd June, 1708. It appears, moreover, that in virtue of decisions of the council of 1733 and 1741, the merchants had the right of claiming one place of échevin or conseiller (the perpetual échevins). Lastly, we find that at that period the corporation of the town was entrusted with the distribution of the sums levied for the capitation, the ustensile, the barracks, the support of the poor, the soldiery, coast-guard, and foundlings.

There follows a long enumeration of the labours to be undergone by the municipal officers, which fully justified, in their opinion, the privileges and the perpetual tenure of office, which they were evidently greatly afraid of losing. Many of the reasons which they assign for their exertions are curious; amongst others, the following: ‘Their most important avocations,’ they say, ‘consist in the examination of financial affairs, which continually increased, owing to the constant extension of the droits d’aides, the gabelle, the contrôle, the insinuation des actes, perception illicite des droits d’enrégistrement et de francs fiefs. The opposition which was incessantly offered by the financial companies to these various taxes compelled them to defend actions in behalf of the town before the various jurisdictions, either the parliament or the conseil du Roi, in order to resist the oppression under which they suffered. The experience and practice of thirty years had taught them that the term of a man’s life scarcely suffices to guard against all the snares and pitfalls which the clerks of all the departments of the fermes continually set for the citizens in order to keep their own commissions.’

The most curious circumstance is, that all this is addressed to the Comptroller-General himself, in order to dispose him favourably towards the privileges of those who make the statement, so inveterate had the habit become of looking upon the companies charged with the collection of the taxes as an enemy who might be attacked on every side without blame or opposition. This habit grew stronger and more universal every day, until all taxation came to be looked upon as an unfair and hateful tyranny; not as the agent of all men, but as the common enemy.

‘The union of all the offices,’ the report goes on to say, ‘was effected for the first time by an order in council of the 4th September, 1694, for a sum of 22,000 livres;’ that is to say, that the offices were redeemed in that year for the above-named sum. By an order of 26th April, 1723, the municipal offices created by the edict of 24th May, 1722, were united to the corporation of the town, or, in other words, the town was authorised to purchase them. By another order of 24th May, 1723, the town was permitted to borrow 120,000 livres for the purchase of the said offices. Another order of 26th July, 1728, allowed it to borrow 50,000 livres for the purchase of the office of greffier secretary of the Hôtel de Ville. ‘The town,’ says the report, ‘has paid these moneys in order to maintain the freedom of its elections, and to secure to the officers elected—some for two years and others for life—the various prerogatives belonging to their offices.’ A part of the municipal offices having been re-established by the edict of November, 1733, an order in council intervened, dated 11th January, 1751, at the request of the mayor and échevins, fixing the rate of redemption at 170,000 livres, for the payment of which a prorogation of the octrois was granted for fifteen years.

This is a good specimen of the administration of the monarchy, as far as the towns were concerned. They were forced to contract debts, and then authorised to impose extraordinary and temporary taxes in order to pay them. Moreover, I find that these temporary taxes were frequently rendered perpetual after some time, and then the Government took its share of them.

The report continues thus: ‘The municipal officers were only deprived of the important judicial powers with which Louis XI. had invested them by the establishment of royal jurisdictions. Until 1669 they took cognisance of all disputes between masters and workmen. The accounts of the octrois are rendered to the Intendant, as directed in all the decrees for the creation or prorogation of the said octrois.’

We likewise find in this report that the deputies of the sixteen parishes, who were mentioned above, and who appeared at the General Assembly, were chosen by the companies, corporations, or communautés, and that they were strictly the envoys of the small bodies by which they were deputed. They were bound by exact instructions on every point of business.

Lastly, this report proves that at Angers, as everywhere else, every kind of expenditure was to be authorised by the Intendant and the Council; and, it must be admitted, that when the administration of a town is given over completely into the hands of a certain number of men, to whom, instead of fixed salaries, are conceded privileges which place them personally beyond the reach of the consequences which their administration may produce upon the private fortunes of their fellow-citizens, this administrative superintendence may appear necessary.

The whole of the report, which is very ill drawn up, betrays extraordinary dread, on the part of the official men, of any change in the existing order of things. All manner of arguments, good and bad, are brought forward by them in favour of maintaining the status quo.

Report of the Sub-delegate.—The Intendant having received these two reports of opposite tendency, desires to have the opinion of his Sub-delegate, who gives it as follows:—

‘The report of the municipal councillors,’ says he, ‘does not deserve a moment’s attention; it is merely intended to defend the privileges of those officers. That of the présidial may be consulted with advantage; but there is no reason for granting all the prerogatives claimed by those magistrates.’

According to the Sub-delegate, the constitution of the Hôtel de Ville has long stood in need of reform. Besides the immunities already mentioned, which were enjoyed by the municipal officers of Angers, he informs us that the Mayor, during his tenure of office, had a dwelling which was worth, at least, 600 francs rent, a salary of 50 francs, and 100 francs for frais de poste, besides the jetons. The procureur syndic was also lodged, and the greffier as well. In order to procure their own exemption from the droits d’aides and the octroi, the municipal officers had fixed an assumed standard of consumption for each of them. Each of them had the right of importing into the town, free of duty, so many barrels of wine yearly, and the same with all other provisions.

The Sub-delegate does not propose to deprive the municipal councillors of their immunities from taxation, but he desires that their capitation, instead of being fixed and very inadequate, should be taxed every year by the Intendant. He desires that they should also be subject, like every one else, to the don gratuit, which they had dispensed themselves from paying, on what precedent no one can tell.

The municipal officers, the report says further, are charged with the duty of drawing up the rôles de capitation for all the inhabitants—a duty which they perform in a negligent and arbitrary manner; accordingly a vast number of complaints and memorials are sent in to the Intendant every year. It is much to be desired that henceforth the division should be made in the interest of each company or communauté by its own members, according to stated and general rules; the municipal officers would have to make out only the rôles de capitation, for the burghers and others who belong to no corporation, such as some of the artisans and the servants of all privileged persons.

The report of the Sub-delegate confirms what has already been said of the municipal officers—that the municipal offices had been redeemed by the town in 1735 for the sum of 170,000 livres.

Letter the Intendant to the Comptroller-General.—Supported by all these documents, the Intendant writes to the Minister: ‘It is important, for the sake of the inhabitants and of the public good, to reduce the corporation of the town, the members of which are too numerous and extremely burdensome to the public, on account of the privileges they enjoy.’ ‘I am struck,’ continues the Intendant, ‘with the enormous sums which have been paid at all periods for the redemption of the municipal offices at Angers. The amount of these sums, if employed on useful purposes, would have been profitable to the town, which, on the contrary, has gained nothing but an increased burden in the authority and privileges enjoyed by these officers.’

‘The interior abuses of this administration deserve the whole attention of the council,’ says the Intendant further. ‘Independently of the jetons and the wax-lights, which consume an annual sum of 2127 livres (the amount fixed for expenses of this kind by the normal budget, which from time to time was prescribed for the towns by the King), the public moneys are squandered and misapplied at the will of these officers to clandestine purposes, and the procureur du Roi, who has been in possession of his place for thirty or forty years, has made himself so completely master of the administration, with the secret springs of which he alone is acquainted, that the inhabitants have at all times found it impossible to obtain the smallest information as to the employment of the communal revenues.’ The result of all this is, that the Intendant requests the Minister to reduce the corporation of the town to a mayor appointed for four years, a procureur du Roi appointed for eight, and a greffier and receveur appointed for life.

Altogether the constitution which he proposes for this corporation is exactly the same as that which he elsewhere suggested for towns. In his opinion it would be desirable—

1st. To maintain the General Assembly, but only as an electoral body for the election of municipal officers.

2nd. To create an extraordinary Conseil de Notables, which should perform all the functions which the edict of 1764 had apparently entrusted to the General Assembly; the said council to consist of twelve members, whose tenure of office should be for six years, and who should be elected, not by the General Assembly but by the twelve corporations considered as notable (each corporation-electing its own). He enumerates the corps notables as follows:—

The Présidial.

The University.

The Election.

The Officers of Woods and Forests.

The Grenier à sel.

The Traites.

The Mint.

The Avocats and Procureurs.

The Juges Consuls.

The Notaires.

The Tradesmen.

The Burghers.

It appears that nearly all these notables were public functionaries, and nearly all the public functionaries were notables; hence we may conclude, as from a thousand other passages in these documents, that the middle classes were as greedy of place and as little inclined to seek a sphere of activity removed from Government employment. The only difference, as I have said in the text, was that formerly men purchased the trifling importance which office gave them, and that now the claimants beg and entreat some one to be so charitable as to get it for them gratis.

We see that, according to the project we have described, the whole municipal power was to rest with the extraordinary council, which would completely restrict the administration to a very small middle-class coterie, while the only assembly in which the people still made their appearance at all was to have no privilege beyond that of electing the municipal officers, without any right to advise or control them. It must also be observed that the Intendant was more in favour of restriction and more opposed to popular influence than the King, whose edict seemed intended to place most of the power in the hands of the General Assembly, and that the Intendant again is far more liberal and democratic than the middle classes, judging at least by the report I have quoted in the text, by which it appears that the notables of another town were desirous of excluding the people even from the election of municipal officers, a right which the King and the Intendant had left to them.

My readers will have observed that the Intendant uses the words burghers and tradesmen to designate two distinct categories of notables. It will not be amiss to give an exact definition of these words, in order to show into how many small fractions the middle classes were divided, and by how many petty vanities they were agitated.

The word burgher had a general and a restricted sense; it was used to designate those belonging to the middle class, and also to specify a certain number of persons included within that class. ‘The burghers are those whose birth and fortune enable them to live decently, without the exercise of any gainful pursuit,’ says one of the reports produced on occasion of the inquiry in 1764. We see by the rest of the report that the word burgher was not to be used to designate those who belonged either to the companies or the industrial corporations; but it is more difficult to define exactly to whom it should be applied. ‘For,’ the report goes on to say, ‘amongst those who arrogate to themselves the title of burgher, there are many persons who have no other claim to it but their idleness, who have no fortune, and lead an obscure and uncultivated life. The burghers ought properly to be distinguished by fortune, birth, talent, morality, and a handsome way of living. The artisans, who compose the communautés, have never been admitted to the rank of notables.’

After the burghers, the mercantile men formed a second class, which belong to no company or corporation; but the limits of this small class were hard to define. ‘Are,’ says the report, ‘the petty tradesmen of low birth to be confounded with the great wholesale dealers?’ In order to resolve these difficulties, the report proposes to have a list of the notable tradesmen drawn up by the échevins, and given to their head or syndic, in order that he may summon to the deliberations at the Hôtel de Ville none but those set down in it. In this list none were to be inscribed who had been servants, porters, drivers, or who had filled any other mean offices.

Note (XX.)—Page 39, line 33.

One of the most salient characteristics of the eighteenth century, as regards the administration of the towns, was not so much the abolition of all representation and intervention of the public in their affairs as the extreme variation of the rules by which the administration was guided, rights were incessantly granted, recalled, restored, increased, diminished, and modified in a thousand different ways. Nothing more fully shows into what contempt these local liberties had fallen as this continual change in their laws, which seemed to excite no attention. This variation alone would have been sufficient to destroy beforehand all peculiar ideas, all love of old recollections, all local patriotism in those very institutions which afford the greatest scope for them. This it was which prepared the way for the great destruction of the past, which the Revolution was about to effect.

Note (XXI.)—Page 41, line 6.

ADMINISTRATION OF A VILLAGE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. FROM THE PAPERS OF THE INTENDANCY OF THE ÎLE-DE-FRANCE.

I have selected the transaction which I am about to describe from amongst a number of others, in order to give an example of some of the forms followed by the parochial administration, to show how dilatory they were, and to give a picture of the General Assembly of a parish during the eighteenth century.

The matter in hand was the repairs to be done to the parsonage and steeple of a rural parish, that of Ivry, in the Île-de-France. The question was, to whom to apply to get these repairs done, how to determine on whom the expense should fall, and how to procure the sum which was needed.

1. Memorial from the curé to the Intendant, setting forth that the steeple and the parsonage are in urgent need of repairs; that his predecessor had added useless buildings to the parsonage, and thus entirely altered and spoiled it; that the inhabitants, having allowed this to be done, were bound to bear the expense of restoring it to a proper condition, and, if they chose, to claim the money from the heirs of the last curé.

2. Ordonnance of the Intendant (29th August, 1747), directing that the syndic shall make it his business to convoke a meeting to deliberate on the necessity of the operations demanded.

3. Memorial from the inhabitants, setting forth that they consent to the repairs of the parsonage but oppose those of the steeple, seeing that the steeple is built over the chancel, and that the curé, who is the great-tithe-owner, is liable for the repairs of the chancel. [By a decree in council of the end of the preceding century (April, 1695) the person in receipt of the great tithes was bound to repair the chancel, the parishioners being charged only with keeping up the nave.]

4. Fresh ordonnance of the Intendant, who, in consequence of the contradictory statements he has received, sends an architect, the Sieur Cordier, to inspect and report upon the parsonage and the steeple, to draw up a statement of the works and to make an inquiry.

5. Procès-verbal of all these operations, by which it appears that at the inquiry a certain number of landowners of Ivry appeared before the commissioner sent by the Intendant, which persons appeared to be nobles, burghers, and peasants of the place, and inscribed their declarations for or against the claim set up by the curé.

7. Fresh ordonnance of the Intendant, to the effect that the statements drawn up by the architect whom he had sent shall be communicated to the landowners and inhabitants of the parish at a fresh general meeting to be convoked by the syndic.

8. Fresh Parochial Assembly in consequence of this ordonnance, at which the inhabitants declare that they persist in their declarations.

9. Ordonnance of the Intendant, who directs, 1st, That the adjudication of the works set forth in the architect’s statement shall be proceeded with before his Sub-delegate at Corbeil, in the dwelling of the latter; and that the said adjudication shall be made in the presence of the curé, the syndic, and the chief inhabitants of the parish. 2nd, That inasmuch as delay would be dangerous, the whole sum shall be raised by a rate on all the inhabitants, leaving those who persist in thinking that the steeple forms part of the choir, and ought therefore to be repaired by the large titheowners, to appeal to the ordinary courts of justice.

10. Summons issued to all the parties concerned to appear at the house of the Sub-delegate at Corbeil, where the proclamations and adjudication are to be made.

11. Memorial from the curé and several of the inhabitants, requesting that the expenses of the administrative proceeding should not be charged, as was usually the case, to the adjudicator, seeing that the said expenses were very heavy, and would prevent any one from undertaking the office of adjudicator.

12. Ordonnance of the Intendant, to the effect that the expenses incurred in the matter of the adjudication shall be fixed by the Sub-delegate, and that their amount shall form a portion of the said adjudication and rate.

13. Powers given by certain notable inhabitants to the Sieur X. to be present at the said adjudication, and to assent to it, according to the statement of the architect.

14. Certificate of the syndic, to the effect that the usual notices and advertisements have been published.

15. Procès-verbal of the adjudication—

liv. s. d.

Estimate of repairs 487 0 0

Expenses of adjudication 237 18 6

724 18 6

16. Lastly, an order in council (23rd July, 1748) authorising the imposition of a rate to raise the above sum.

We see that in this procedure the convocation of the Parochial Assembly was alluded to several times.

The following procès-verbal of the meeting of one of these assemblies will show the reader how business was conducted on such occasions:—

Acte notarié.—‘This day, after the parochial mass at the usual and accustomed place, when the bell had been rung, there appeared at the Assembly held before the undersigned X., notary at Corbeil, and the witnesses hereafter named, the Sieur Michaud, vine-dresser, syndic of the said parish, who presented the ordonnance of the Intendant permitting the Assembly to be held, caused it to be read, and demanded that note should be taken of his diligence.

‘Immediately an inhabitant of the said parish appeared, who stated that the steeple was above the chancel, and that consequently the repairs belonged to the curé; there also appeared [here follow the names of some other persons, who, on the other hand, were willing to admit the claim of the curé].... Next appeared fifteen peasants, labourers, masons, and vine-dressers, who declared their adhesion to what the preceding persons had said. There likewise appeared the Sieur Raimbaud, vine-grower, who said that he is ready to agree to whatever Monseigneur the Intendant may decide. There also appeared the Sieur X., doctor of the Sorbonne, the curé, who persists in the declarations and purposes of the memorial. Those who appeared demanded that all the above should be taken down in the Act. Done at the said place of Ivry, in front of the churchyard of the said parish, in the presence of the undersigned; and the drawing up of the present report occupied from 11 o’clock in the morning until 2 o’clock.’

We see that this Parochial Assembly was a mere administrative inquiry, with the forms and the cost of judicial inquiries; that it never ended in a vote, and consequently in the manifestation of the will of the parish; that it contained only individual opinions, and had no influence on the determination of the Government. Indeed we learn from a number of other documents that the Parochial Assemblies were intended to assist the decision of the Intendant, and not to hinder it even where nothing but the interests of the parish were concerned.

We also find in the same documents that this affair gave rise to three inquiries: one before the notary, a second before the architect, and lastly a third, before two notaries, in order to ascertain whether the parishioners persisted in their previous declarations.

The rate of 524 liv. 10s., imposed by the decree of the 13th July, 1748, fell upon all the landowners, privileged or otherwise, as was almost always the case with respect to expenses of this kind; but the principle on which the shares were apportioned to the various persons was different. The taillables were taxed in proportion to their taille, and the privileged persons according to their supposed fortunes, which gave a great advantage to the latter over the former.

Lastly, we find that on this same occasion the division of the sum of 523 liv. 10s. was made by two collectors, who were inhabitants of the village; these were not elected, nor did they fill the post by turns, as was commonly the case, but they were chosen and appointed officially by the Sub-delegate of the Intendant.

Note (XXII.)—Page 46, line 21.

The pretext taken by Louis XIV. to destroy the municipal liberties of the towns was the bad administration of their finances. Nevertheless the same evil, as Turgot truly says, continued and increased since the reform introduced by that sovereign. Most of the towns, he adds, are greatly in debt at the present time, partly owing to the sums which they have lent to the Government, and partly owing to the expenses and decorations which the municipal officers, who have the disposal of other people’s money and have no account to render to the inhabitants, or instructions to receive from them, multiply with a view of distinguishing and sometimes of enriching themselves.

Note (XXIII.)—Page 46, line 32.

THE STATE WAS THE GUARDIAN OF THE CONVENTS AS WELL AS OF THE COMMUNES.—EXAMPLE OF THIS GUARDIANSHIP.

The Comptroller-General, on authorising the Intendant to pay 15,000 livres to the convent of Carmelites, to which indemnities were owing, desires the Intendant to assure himself that this money, which represents a capital, is advantageously re-invested. Analogous facts were constantly recurring.

Note (XXIV.)—Page 50, line 22.

SHOWING THAT THE ADMINISTRATIVE CENTRALISATION OF THE OLD MONARCHY COULD BE BEST JUDGED OF IN CANADA.

The physiognomy of the metropolitan government can be most fully appreciated in the colonies, because at that distance all its characteristic features are exaggerated and become more visible. When we wish to judge of the spirit of the Administration of Louis XIV. and its vices, it is to Canada we must look. There we shall see the deformity of the object of our investigation, as through a microscope.

In Canada a host of obstacles, which anterior circumstances or the ancient state of society opposed either in secret or openly to the spirit of the Government, did not exist. The nobility was scarcely seen there, or, at all events, it had no root in the soil; the Church had lost its dominant position; feudal traditions were lost or obscured; judicial authority was no longer rooted in ancient institutions and manners. There was nothing to hinder the central power from following its natural bent and from fashioning all the laws according to its own spirit. In Canada accordingly we find not a trace of any municipal or provincial institutions; no authorised collective force; no individual initiative allowed. The Intendant occupied a position infinitely more preponderant than that of his fellows in France; the Administration interfered in many more matters than in the metropolis, and chose to direct everything from Paris, spite of the eighteen hundred leagues by which they were divided. It adopted none of the great principles by which a colony is rendered populous and prosperous, but, on the other hand, it had recourse to all kinds of trifling artificial processes and petty tyrannical regulations in order to increase and extend the population; compulsory cultivation, all lawsuits arising out of the grants of land withdrawn from the tribunals and referred to the sole decision of the Administration, obligation to pursue particular methods of cultivation, to settle in certain places rather than others, &c. All these regulations were in force under Louis XIV., and the edicts are countersigned by Colbert. One might imagine oneself in the very thick of modern centralisation and in Algeria. Indeed Canada presents an exact counterpart of all we have seen in Algeria. In both we find ourselves face to face with an administration almost as numerous as the population, preponderant, interfering, regulating, restricting, insisting upon foreseeing everything, controlling everything, and understanding the interests of those under its control better than they do themselves; in short, in a constant state of barren activity.

In the United States, on the other hand, the decentralisation of the English is exaggerated; the townships have become nearly independent municipalities, small democratic republics. The republican element, which forms the basis of the English constitution and manners, shows itself in the United States without disguise or hindrance, and becomes still further developed. The Government, properly so called, does but little in England, and private persons do a great deal; in America, the Government really takes no part in affairs, and individuals unite to do everything. The absence of any higher class, which rendered the inhabitants of Canada more submissive to the Government than even those of France at the same period, makes the population of the English provinces more and more independent of authority.

Both colonies resulted in the formation of a completely democratic state of society; but in one, so long at least as Canada still belonged to France, equality was united with absolutism; in the other it was combined with liberty. As far as the material consequences of the two colonial systems were concerned, we know that in 1763, the period of the Conquest, the population of Canada consisted of 60,000 souls, and that of the English provinces of 3,000,000.

Note (XXV.)—Page 52, line 10.

ONE EXAMPLE, AMONG MANY, OF THE GENERAL REGULATIONS CONTINUALLY MADE BY THE COUNCIL OF STATE, WHICH HAD THE FORCE OF LAWS THROUGHOUT FRANCE, AND CREATED SPECIAL OFFENCES, OF WHICH THE ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNALS WERE THE SOLE JUDGES.

I take the first which comes to hand: an order in council of the 29th April, 1779, which directs that throughout the kingdom the breeders and sellers of sheep shall mark their flocks in a particular manner, under a penalty of 300 livres. His Majesty, it declares, enjoins upon the Intendants the duty of enforcing the execution of the present order, which infers that the Intendant is to pronounce the penalty on its infraction. Another example: an order in council, 21st December, 1778, prohibiting the carriers and drivers to warehouse the goods entrusted to them, under a penalty of 300 livres. His Majesty enjoins upon the Lieutenant-General of Police and the Intendants to enforce this order.

Note (XXVI.)—Page 60, line 39.

RURAL POLICE.

The provincial assembly of Upper Guienne urgently demanded the creation of fresh brigades of the maréchaussée, just as now-a-days the general council of Aveyron or Lot doubtless requests the formation of fresh brigades of gendarmerie. The same idea always prevails—the gendarmerie is the symbol of order, and order can only be sent by Government through the gendarme. The report continues: ‘Complaints are made every day that there is no police in the rural districts’ (how should there be? the nobles took no part in affairs, the burghers were all in the towns, and the townships, represented by a vulgar peasant, had no power), ‘and it must be admitted that with the exception of a few cantons in which just and benevolent seigneurs make use of the influence which their position gives them over their vassals in order to prevent those acts of violence to which the country people are naturally inclined, by the coarseness of their manners and the asperity of their character, there nowhere exists any means of restraining these ignorant, rude, and violent men.’

Such were the terms in which the nobles of the Provincial Assembly allowed themselves to be spoken of, and in which the members of the Tiers-Etat, who made up half the assembly, spoke of the people in public documents!

Note (XXVII.)—Page 61, line 24.

Licences for the sale of tobacco were as much sought for under the old monarchy as they are now. The greatest people begged for them for their creatures. I find that some were given on the recommendation of great ladies, and one at the request of some archbishops.

Note (XXVIII.)—Page 62, line 22.

The extinction of all local public life surpassed all power of belief. One of the roads from Maine into Normandy was impracticable. Who do our readers imagine requested to have it repaired? the généralité of Touraine, which it traversed? the provinces of Normandy or Maine, so deeply interested in the cattle trade which followed this road? or even some particular canton especially inconvenienced by its impassable condition? The généralité, the provinces, and the cantons had no voice in the matter. The dealers who travelled on this road and stuck fast in the ruts were obliged to call the attention of the Central Government to its state, and to write to Paris to the Comptroller-General for assistance.

Note (XXIX.)—Page 69, line 8.

MORE OR LESS IMPORTANCE OF THE SEIGNORIAL DUES OR RENT-CHARGES, ACCORDING TO THE PROVINCE.

Turgot says in his works, ‘I ought to point out the fact that these dues are far more important in most of the rich provinces, such as Normandy, Picardy, and the environs of Paris. In the last named the chief wealth consists in the actual produce of the land, which is held in large farms, from which the owners derive heavy rents. The payments in respect of the lord’s rights, in the case even of the largest estates, form but an inconsiderable part of the income arising from these properties, and such payments are little more than nominal.

In the poorer provinces, where cultivation is managed on different principles, the lords and nobles have scarcely any land in their own hands; properties, which are extremely divided, are charged with heavy corn-rents, for payment of which all the co-tenants are jointly and severally liable. These rents, in many instances, absorb the bulk of the produce, and the lord’s income is almost entirely derived from them.

Note (XXX.)—Page 74, line 34.

INFLUENCE OF SELF-GOVERNMENT UNFAVOURABLE TO CASTE.

The unimportant labours of the agricultural societies of the eighteenth century show the adverse influence which the common discussion of general interests exercised on caste. Though the meetings of these societies date from thirty years before the Revolution, when the ancien régime was still in full force, and though they dealt with theories only—by the very fact of their discussions turning on questions in which the different classes of society felt themselves interested, and, therefore, took common part in—we may at once perceive how they brought men together, and how by means of them—limited as they were to conversations on agriculture—ideas of reasonable reform spread alike among the privileged and unprivileged classes.

I am convinced that no Government could have kept up the absurd and mad inequality which existed in France at the moment of the Revolution, but one which, like the Government of the old monarchy, aimed at finding all its strength in its own ranks, continually recruited by remarkable men. The slightest contact with self-government would have materially modified such inequality, and soon transformed or destroyed it.

Note (XXXI.)—Page 75, line 3.

Provincial liberties may exist for a while without national liberty, when they are ancient, entwined with habits, manners, and early recollections, and while despotism, on the contrary, is recent. But it is against reason to suppose that local liberties may be created at will, or even long maintained, when general liberty is crushed.

Note (XXXII.)—Page 75, line 19.

Turgot, in a report to the King, sums up in the following terms, which appear to me singularly exact, the real privileges of the noble class in regard to taxation:—

‘1. Persons of the privileged class have a claim to exemption from all taxation in money to the extent of a four-plough farm, equivalent in the neighbourhood of Paris to an assessment of 2,000 francs.

‘2. The same persons are entirely exempt from taxation in respect of woods, meadows, vineyards, fish-ponds, and for enclosed lands appurtenant to their castles, whatever their extent. In some cantons the principal culture is of meadows or vineyards: in these the noble proprietor escapes from all taxation whatever, the whole weight of which falls on the tax-paying class; another immense advantage for the privileged.’

Note (XXXIII.)—Page 76, line 7.

INDIRECT PRIVILEGES IN RESPECT OF TAXATION: DIFFERENCE IN ASSESSMENT EVEN WHEN THE TAX IS GENERAL.

Turgot has given a description of this also, which, judging by the documents, I have reason to believe exact.

‘The indirect advantages of the privileged classes in regard to the poll-tax are very great. The poll-tax is in its very nature an arbitrary impost; it cannot be distributed among the community otherwise than at random. It has been found most convenient to assess it on the tax-collector’s books, which are ready prepared. It is true that a separate list has been made out for those whose names do not appear in these books but as they resist payment, while the tax-paying classes have no organ, the poll-tax paid by the former in the provinces has gradually dwindled to an insignificant amount, while the poll-tax on the latter is almost equal in amount to the whole tax-paying capital.’

Note (XXXIV.)—Page 76, line 14.

ANOTHER INSTANCE OF INEQUALITY OF ASSESSMENT IN THE CASE OF A GENERAL TAX.

It is well known that local rates were general: ‘which sums,’ say the orders in council authorising the levy of such rates, ‘shall be levied on all liable, exempt or non-exempt, privileged or non-privileged, without any exception, together with the poll-tax, or in the proportion of a mark to every franc payable as poll-tax.’

Observe that, as the tax-payer’s poll-tax, assessed according to the assessment for other taxes, was always higher in comparison than the poll-tax of the privileged class, inequality re-appeared even under the form which seemed most to exclude it.

Note (XXXV.)—Page 76, line 14.

ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

I find in a draft edict of 1764, the aim of which is to equalise taxation, all sorts of provisions, the object of which is to preserve exceptional advantages to the privileged classes, in the mode of levy: among these I find that all steps for the purpose of determining, in their case, the value of the assessable property, must be taken in their presence or that of their proxies.

Note (XXXVI.)—Page 76, line 27.

ADMISSION BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ADVANTAGES ENJOYED BY THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES IN THE ASSESSMENT EVEN OF GENERAL TAXES.

‘I see,’ writes the Minister, in 1766, ‘that the portion of the taxes most difficult to levy is always that due from the noble and privileged classes, from the consideration the tax-collectors feel themselves bound to show such persons; in consequence of which long-standing arrears of far too great an amount will be found due on their poll-tax and their “twentieths”’ (the tax which they paid in common with the rest of the community).

Note (XXXVII.)—Page 85, line 7.

In Arthur Young’s Travels, in 1789, is a little picture in which the contrast of the systems of the two countries is so well painted, and so happily introduced, that I cannot resist the temptation of citing it.

Young, travelling through France during the first excitement caused by the taking of the Bastille, is arrested in a certain village by a crowd, who, seeing him without a cockade, wish to put him in prison. Young contrives to extricate himself by this speech:—