I. Suicide of the Ancient Regime.
These two forces, radical dogma and brute force, are the successors and
executors of the Ancient regime, and, on contemplating the way in
which this regime engendered, brought forth, nourished, installed and
stimulated them we cannot avoid considering its history as one long
suicide, like that of a man who, having mounted to the top of an immense
ladder, cuts away from under his feet the support which has kept him
up.--In a case of this kind good intentions are not sufficient; to be
liberal and even generous, to enter upon a few semi-reforms, is of
no avail. On the contrary, through both their qualities and defects,
through both their virtues and their vices, the privileged wrought their
own destruction, their merits contributing to their ruin as well
as their faults.--Founders of society, formerly entitled to their
advantages through their services, they have preserved their rank
without fulfilling their duties; their position in the local as in
the central government is a sinecure, and their privileges have become
abuses. At their head, a king, creating France by devoting himself
to her as if his own property, ended by sacrificing her as if his
own property; the public purse is his private purse, while passions,
vanities, personal weaknesses, luxurious habits, family solicitudes, the
intrigues of a mistress and the caprices of a wife, govern a state of
twenty-six millions of men with an arbitrariness, a heedlessness, a
prodigality, a lack of skill, an absence of consistency that would
scarcely be overlooked in the management of a private domain.--The king
and the privileged excel in one direction, in manners, in good taste,
in fashion, in the talent for representation and in entertaining and
receiving, in the gift of graceful conversation, in finesse and in
gaiety, in the art of converting life into a brilliant and ingenious
festivity, regarding the world as a drawing room of refined idlers in
which it suffices to be amiable and witty, whilst, actually, it is an
arena where one must be strong for combats, and a laboratory in which
one must work in order to be useful.--Through the habit, perfection
and sway of polished intercourse they stamped on the French intellect
a classic form, which, combined with recent scientific acquisitions,
produced the philosophy of the eighteenth century, the disrepute of
tradition, the ambition of recasting all human institutions according
to the sole dictates of Reason, the appliance of mathematical methods
to politics and morals, the catechism of the Rights of Man, and other
dogmas of anarchical and despotic character in the CONTRAT SOCIAL.--Once
this chimera is born they welcome it as a drawing room fancy; they
use the little monster as a plaything, as yet innocent and decked with
ribbons like a pastoral lambkin; they never dream of its becoming a
raging, formidable brute; they nourish it, and caress it, and then,
opening their doors, they let it descend into the streets.--Here among
the middle class which the government has rendered ill-disposed by
compromising its fortunes, which the privileged have offended by
restricting its ambition, which is wounded by inequality through injured
self-esteem, the revolutionary theory gains rapid accessions, a sudden
asperity, and, in a few years, it finds itself undisputed master of
public opinion.--At this moment and at its summons, another colossal
monster rises up, a monster with millions of heads, a blind, startled
animal, an entire people pressed down, exasperated and suddenly loosened
against the government whose exactions have despoiled it, against the
privileged whose rights have reduced it to starvation, without, in these
rural districts abandoned by their natural protectors, encountering any
surviving authority; without, in these provinces subject to the yoke of
universal centralization, encountering a single independent group
and without the possibility of forming, in this society broken up by
despotism, any centers of enterprise and resistance; without finding,
in this upper class disarmed by its very humanity, a policy devoid of
illusion and capable of action. Without which all these good intentions
and fine intellects shall be unable to protect themselves against the
two enemies of all liberty and of all order, against the contagion of
the democratic nightmare which disturbs the ablest heads and against the
irruptions of the popular brutality which perverts the best of laws. At
the moment of opening the States-General the course of ideas and events
is not only fixed but, again, apparent. Beforehand and unconsciously,
each generation bears (Page 400/296)within itself its past and its
future; and to this one, long before the end, one might have been able
to foretell its fate, and, if both details as well as the entire action
could have been foreseen, one would readily have accepted the following
fiction made up by a converted Laharpe[5501] when, at the end of the
Directory, he arranged his souvenirs:
II.
"It seems to me," he says, "as if it were but yesterday, and yet it is
at the beginning of the year 1788. We were dining with one of our fellow
members of the Academy, a grand seignior and a man of intelligence. The
company was numerous and of every profession, courtiers, advocates, men
of letters and academicians, all had feasted luxuriously according
to custom. At the dessert the wines of Malvoisie and of Constance
contributed to the social gaiety a sort of freedom not always kept
within decorous limits. At that time society had reached the point at
which everything may be expressed that excites laughter. Champfort
had read to us his impious and libertine stories, and great ladies had
listened to these without recourse to their fans. Hence a deluge of
witticisms against religion, one quoting a tirade from 'La Pucelle,'
another bringing forward certain philosophical stanzas by Diderot. . . .
and with unbounded applause. . . . The conversation becomes more
serious; admiration is expressed at the revolution accomplished by
Voltaire, and all agree in its being the first title to his fame. 'He
gave the tone to his century, finding readers in the antechambers as
well as in the drawing-room.' One of the guests narrates, bursting with
laughter, what a hairdresser said to him while powdering his hair: 'You
see, sir, although I am a miserable scrub, I have no more religion
than any one else.' They conclude that the Revolution will soon be
consummated, that superstition and fanaticism must wholly give way to
philosophy, and they thus calculate the probabilities of the epoch and
those of the future society which will see the reign of reason. The most
aged lament not being able to flatter themselves that they will see it;
the young rejoice in a reasonable prospect of seeing it, and especially
do they congratulate the Academy on having paved the way for the great
work, and on having been the headquarters, the center, the inspirer of
freedom of thought."
"One of the guests had taken no part in this gay conversation a person
named Cazotte, an amiable and original man, but, unfortunately,
infatuated with the delusions of the visionary. In the most serious
tone he begins: 'Gentlemen,' says he, 'be content; you will witness this
great revolution that you so much desire. You know that I am something
of a prophet, and I repeat it, you will witness it. . . . Do you know
the result of this revolution, for all of you, so long as you remain
here?'--'Ah!' exclaims Condorcet with his shrewd, simple air and smile,
'let us see, a philosopher is not sorry to encounter a prophet.'--'You,
Monsieur de Condorcet, will expire stretched on the floor of a dungeon;
you will die of the poison you take to escape the executioner, of the
poison which the felicity of that era will compel you always to carry
about your person!'--At first, great astonishment, and then came an
outburst of laughter. 'What has all this in common with philosophy and
the reign of reason?'--'Precisely what I have just remarked to you;
in the name of philosophy, of humanity, of freedom, under the reign
of reason, you will thus reach your end; and, evidently, the reign of
reason will arrive, for there will be temples of reason, and, in those
days, in all France, the temples will be those alone of reason. . . .
You, Monsieur de Champfort, you will sever your veins with twenty-two
strokes of a razor and yet you will not die for months afterwards. You,
Monsieur Vicq-d'Azir, you will not open your own veins but you will have
them opened six times in one day, in the agonies of gout, so as to be
more certain of success, and you will die that night. You, Monsieur de
Nicolai, on the scaffold; you, Monsieur Bailly, on the scaffold; you,
Monsieur de Malesherbes, on the scaffold;. . . you, Monsieur Roucher,
also on the scaffold.'--'But then we shall have been overcome by Turks
or Tartars?'--'By no means; you will be governed, as I have already told
you, solely by philosophy and reason. Those who are to treat you in
this manner will all be philosophers, will all, at every moment, have
on their lips the phrases you have uttered within the hour, will repeat
your maxims, will quote, like yourselves, the stanzas of Diderot and of
"La Pucelle."'--'And when will all this happen?'--'Six years will not
pass before what I tell you will be accomplished.'--'Well, these are
miracles,' exclaims La Harpe, 'and you leave me out?'--'You will be no
less a miracle, for you will then be a Christian.'--'Ah,' interposes
Champfort, I breathe again; if we are to die only when La Harpe becomes
a Christian we are immortals.'--'As to that, we women,' says the
Duchesse de Gramont, 'are extremely fortunate in being of no consequence
in revolutions. It is understood that we are not to blame, and our sex.'
--'Your sex, ladies, will not protect you this time. . . . You will
be treated precisely as men, with no difference whatever. . . . You,
Madame la Duchesse, will be led to the scaffold, you and many ladies
besides yourself in a cart with your hands tied behind your back.'--'Ah,
in that event, I hope to have at least a carriage covered with
black.'--'No, Madame, greater ladies than yourself will go, like
yourself in a cart and with their hands tied like yours.'--'Greater
ladies! What! Princesses of the blood!'--'Still greater ladies than
those. . .'They began to think the jest carried too far. Madame de
Gramont, to dispel the gloom, did not insist on a reply to her last
exclamation, contenting herself by saying in the lightest tone, 'And
they will not even leave one a confessor!'--'No, Madame, neither you nor
any other person will be allowed a confessor; the last of the condemned
that will have one, as an act of grace, will be. . .' He stopped
a moment. 'Tell me, now, who is the fortunate mortal enjoying this
prerogative?'--'It is the last that will remain to him, and it will be
the King of France.'"
*****
NOTE:
[Footnote 5501: Laharpe, or La Harpe, Jean François. (Paris 1739-1803).
Author and critic, made a member of the Academy in 1776. (SR).]
***** *****
END OF VOLUME NOTES:
NOTE 1.
ON THE NUMBER OF ECCLESIASTICS AND NOBLES.
These approximate estimates are arrived at in the following manner:
1. The number of nobles in 1789 was unknown. The genealogist Chérin,
in his "Abrégé chronologique des Edits, etc." (1789), states that he is
ignorant of the number. Moheau, to whom Lavoisier refers in his
report, 1791, is equally ignorant in this respect. ("Recherches sur la
population de la France," 1778, p. 105); Lavoisier states the number as
83,000, while the Marquis de Bouillé ("Mémoires," p.50), states 80,000
families; neither of these authorities advancing proofs of their
statements.--I find in the "Catalogue nominatif des gentilhommes en
1789," by Laroque and De Barthélemy, the number of nobles voting,
directly or by proxy, in the elections of 1789, in Provence, Languedoc,
Lyonnais, Forez, Beaujolais, Touraine, Normandy, and Ile-de-France, as
9,167.--According to the census of 1790, given by Arthur Young in his
"Travels in France," the population of these provinces was 7,757,000,
which gives a proportion of 30,000 nobles voting in a population of
26,000,000.--On examining the law and on summing up the lists, we find
that each noble represents somewhat less than a family, inasmuch as the
son of the owner of a fief votes if he is twenty-five years of age; I
think, accordingly, that we are not far out of the way in estimating
the number of noble families at 26,000 or 28,000, which number, at
five individuals to the family, gives 130,000 or 140,000 nobles.--The
territory of France in 1789 being 27,000 square leagues,[6101] and the
population 26,000,000, we may assign one noble family to every square
league of territory and to every 1,000 inhabitants.
2. Concerning the clergy I find in the National Archives, among the
ecclesiastical records, the following enumeration of monks belonging to
28 orders: Grand Augustins 694, Petits-Pères 250, Barnabites 90, English
Bénédictines 52, Bénédictines of Cluny 298, of Saint-Vanne 612, of
Saint-Maur 1,672, Citeaux 1,806, Récollets 2,238, Prémontrés 399,
Prémontrés Réformés 394, Capucins 3,720, Carmes déchaussés 555,
Grands-Carmes 853, Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean de Dieu 218, Chartreux
1,144, Cordeliers 2,018, Dominicans 1,172, Feuillants 148, Genovéfains
570, Mathurins 310, Minimes 684, Notre-Dame de la Merci 31, Notre-Saveur
203, Tiers-Ordre de St. François 365, Saint-Jean des Vignes de
Soissons 31, Théatins 25, abbaye de Saint-Victor 21, Maisons soumises à
l'ordinaire 305. Total 20,745 monks in 2,489 convents. To this must be
added the Pères de l'Oratoire, de la Mission, de la Doctrine chrétienne
and some others; the total of monks being about 23,000.--As to nuns,
I have a catalogue from the National Archives of twelve dioceses,
comprising according to "France ecclésiastique" 1788, 5,576 parishes:
the diocèses respectively of Perpignan, Tulle, Marseilles, Rhodez,
Saint-Flour, Toulouse, le Mans, Limoges, Lisieux, Rouen, Reims, and
Noyon, in all, 5,394 nuns in 198 establishments. The proportion
is 37,000 nuns in 1,500 establishments for the 38,000 parishes
of France.--The total of regular clergy thus amounts to 60,000
persons.--The secular clergy may be estimated at 70,000: curates and
vicars 60,000 ("Histoire de l'Eglise de France," XII. 142, by the
Abbé Guettée); prelates, vicars-general, canons of chapters, 2,800;
collegiate canons, 5,600; ecclésiastics without livings, 3,000 (Sieyès).
Moheau, a clear-headed and cautious statistician, writes in 1778
("Recheches," p. 100): "Perhaps, to day, there are 130,000 ecclesiastics
in the kingdom." The enumeration of 1866 ("Statistique de la France,"
population), gives 51,100 members of the secular clergy, 18,500 monks,
86,300 nuns; total, 155,900 in a population of 38,000,000 inhabitants.
*****
NOTES:
[Footnote 6101: In 1998, 550 000 square kilometers. (SR.)]
(2) Archives nationales, G. 319 ("Etat actuel de la Direction de Bourges
au point de vue des aides," 1774).
(3) Blet, at the present day, contains 1,629 inhabitants. (This was
around 1884, in 1996 it remains a small commune and a village of 800
people on the route nationale N76 between Bourges and Sancoins. SR.)
(4) The farms of Blet and Brosses really produce nothing for the
proprietor, inasmuch as the tithes and the champart (field-rents),
(articles 22 and 23), are comprehended in the rate of the leases.
*****
END NOTE 2:
ON FEUDAL RIGHTS AND ON THE STATE OF FEUDAL DOMINION IN 1733.
The following information, for which I am indebted to M. de Boislisle,
is derived from an act of partition drawn up September 6, 1783.
It relates to the estates of Blet and Brosses. The barony and estate
of Blet lies in Bourbonnais, two leagues from Dun-le-Roi. Blet, says
a memorandum of an administrator of the Excise, is a "good parish; the
soil is excellent, mostly in wood and pasture, the surplus being
in tillable land for wheat, rye and oats. . . . The roads are bad,
especially in winter. The trade consists principally of horned cattle
and embraces grain; the woods rot away on account of their remoteness
from the towns and the difficulty of turning them to account."[6201]
"This estate," says the act of valuation, "is in royal tenure on account
of the king's chateau and fortress of Ainay, under the designation of
the town of Blet." The town was formerly fortified and its castle still
remains. Its population was once large, "but the civil wars of the
sixteenth century, and especially the emigration of the Protestants
caused it to be deserted to such an extent that out of its former
population of 3,000 scarcely 300 remain,[6202] which is the fate of
nearly all the towns in this country." The estate of Blet, for many
centuries in the possession of the Sully family, passed, on the marriage
of the heiress in 1363, to the house of Saint-Quentin, and was then
transmitted in direct line down to 1748, the date of the death
of Alexander II. of Saint-Quentins, Count of Diet, governor of
Berg-op-Zoom, and father of three daughters from whom the actual heirs
descend. These heirs are the Count de Simiane, the Chevalier de Simiane,
and the minors of Bercy, each party owning one-third, represented by
97,667 livres in the Blet estate, and 20,408 livres in the Brosses
estate. The eldest, Comte de Simiane, enjoys, besides, a préciput
(according to custom in the Bourbonnais), worth 15,000 livres,
comprising the castle with the adjoining farm and the seigniorial
rights, honorary as well as profitable.
The entire domain, comprising both estates, is valued at 369,227 livres.
The estate of Blet, comprises 1,437 arpents, worked by seven farmers and
furnished, by the proprietor, with cattle valued at 13,781 livres. They
pay together to the proprietor 12,060 livres rent (besides claims for
poultry and corvées). One, only, has a large farm, paying 7,800 livres
per annum, the others paying rents of 1,300, 740, 640, and 240 livres
per annum. The Brosses estate comprises 515 arpents, worked by two
farmers to whom the proprietor furnishes cattle estimated at 3,750
livres, and these together return to the proprietor 2,240 livres.[6203]
These métairies are all poor; only one of them has two rooms with
fire-places; two or three, one room with a fire-place; the others
consist of a kitchen with an oven outside, and stables and barns.
Repairs on the tenements are essential on all the farms except three,
"having been neglected for thirty years." "The mill-flume requires to be
cleaned out, and the stream, whose inundations injure the large meadow;
also repairs are necessary on the banks of the two ponds; on the church,
which is the seignior's duty, the roof being in a sad state, the rain
penetrating through the arch;" and the roads require mending, these
being in a deplorable condition during the winter. "The restoration and
repairs of these roads seem never to have been thought of." The soil of
the Blet estate is excellent, but it requires draining and ditching to
carry off the water, otherwise the low lands will continue to produce
nothing but weeds. Signs of neglect and desertion are everywhere
visible. The chateau of Blet has remained unoccupied since 1748; the
furniture, accordingly, is almost all decayed and useless; in 1748 this
was worth 7,612 livres, and now it is estimated at 1,000 livres. "The
water-power costs nearly as much to maintain as the income derived from
it. The use of plaster as manure is unknown," and yet "in the land of
plaster it costs almost nothing." The ground, moist and very good, would
grow excellent live hedges; and yet the fields are enclosed with bare
fences against the cattle, "which expense, say the farmers, is equal to
a third of the net income." This domain, as just described, is valued as
follows:
1. The estate of Blet, according to the custom of the country for noble
estates, is valued at rate twenty-five, namely, 373,000 livres, from
which must be deducted a capital of 65,056 livres, representing the
annual charges (the fixed salary of the curate, repairs, etc.), not
including personal charges like the vingtièmes. Its net revenue per
annum is 12,300 livres, and is worth, net, 308,003 livres.
2. The estate of Brosses is estimated at rate twenty-two, ceasing to be
noble through the transfer of judicial and fief rights to that of Blet.
Thus rated it is worth 73,583 livres, from which must be deducted a
capital of 12,359 livres for actual charges, the estate bringing in
3,140 livres per annum and worth, net, 61,224 livres. These revenues are
derived from the following sources:
1. Rights of the high, low and middle courts of justice over the entire
territory of Blet and other villages, Brosses and Jalay. The upper
courts, according to an act passed at the Chatelet, April 29, 1702,
"take cognizance of all actions, real and personal, civil and criminal,
even actions between nobles and ecclesiastics, relating to seals and
inventories of movable effects, tutelages, curacies, the administration
of the property of minors, of domains, and of the customary dues and
revenues of the seigniory, etc."
2. Rights of the forests, edict of 1707. The seignior's warden decides
in all cases concerning waters, and woods, and customs, and crimes
relating to fishing and hunting.
3. Right of voirie or the police of the highways, streets, and buildings
(excepting the great main roads). The seignior appoints a bailly, warden
and road overseer, one M. Theurault (at Sagonne), a fiscal attorney,
Baujard (at Blet); he may remove them "in case they make no returns."
"The rights of the greffe were formerly secured to the seignior, but as
it is now very difficult to find intelligent persons in the country able
to fulfill its functions, the seignior abandons his rights to those whom
it may concern." (The seignior pays forty-eight livres per annum to the
bailly to hold his court once a month, and twenty-four livres per annum
to the fiscal attorney to attend them).
He receives the fines and confiscation of cattle awarded by his
officers. The profit therefrom, an average year, is eight livres.
He must maintain a jail and a jailer. (It is not stated whether there
was one). No sign of a gibbet is found in the seigniory.
He may appoint twelve notaries; only one, in fact, is appointed at
Blet "and he has nothing to do," a M. Baujard, fiscal attorney. This
commission is assigned him gratuitously, to keep up the privilege,
"otherwise it would be impossible to find any one sufficiently
intelligent to perform its functions."
He appoints a sergeant, but, for a long time, this sergeant pays no rent
or anything for his lodging.
4. Personal and real taille. In Bourbonnais the taille was formerly
serf and the serfs mainmortable. "Seigniors still possessing rights of
bordelage, well established throughout their fiefs and courts, at the
present time, enjoy rights of succession to their vassals in all cases,
even to the prejudice of their children if non-resident and no longer
dwelling under their roofs." But in 1255, Hodes de Sully, having granted
a charter, renounced this right of real and personal taille for a right
of bourgeoisie, still maintained, (see further on).
5. Right to unclaimed property, cattle, furniture, effects, stray swarms
of bees, treasure-trove; (no profits from this for twenty years past).
6. Right to property of deceased persons without heirs, to that of
deceased bastards, the possessions of condemned criminals either to
death, to the galleys or to exile, etc., (no profit).
7. Right of the chase and of fishing, the latter worth fifteen livres
per annum.
8. Right of bourgeoisie (see article 4), according to the charter of
1255, and the court-roll of 1484. The wealthiest pay annually twelve
bushels of oats at forty livres and twelve deniers parasis; the less
wealthy nine bushels and nine deniers; all others six bushels and six
deniers. "These rights of bourgeoisie are well established, set forth in
all court-rolls and acknowledgments rendered to the king and perpetuated
by numerous admissions the motives that have led former stewards and
fermiers to interrupt the collection of these cannot be divined. Many of
the seigniors in Bourbonnais have the benefit of and exact these taxes
of their vassals by virtue of titles much more open to question than
those of the seigniors of Blet."
9. Rights of protection of the chateau of Blet. The royal edict of 1497,
fixing this charge for the inhabitants of Blet and all those dwelling
within the jurisdiction of its tribunals, those of Charly, Boismarvier,
etc., at five sous per fire per annum, which has been carried out. "Only
lately has the collection of this been suspended, notwithstanding its
recognition at no late date, the inhabitants all admitting themselves to
be subject to the said guet et garde of the chateau.
10. Right of toll on all merchandise and provisions passing through
the town of Blet, except grain, flour and vegetables. (A trial pending
before the Council of State since 1727 and not terminated in 1745; "the
collection thereof, meanwhile, being suspended").
11. Right of potage on wines sold at retail in Blet, ensuring to the
seignior nine pints of wine per cask, leased in 1782 for six years, at
sixty livres per annum.
12. Right of boucherie or of taking the tongues of all animals
slaughtered in the town, with, additionally, the heads and feet of all
calves. No slaughter-house at Blet, and yet "during the harvesting of
each year about twelve head of cattle are slaughtered." This tax is
collected by the steward and is valued at three livres per annum.
13. Right of fairs and markets, aunage, weight and measures. Five
fairs per annum and one market-day each week, but little frequented; no
grain-market. This right is valued at twenty-four livres per annum.
14. Corvées of teams and manual labor, through seigniorial right,
on ninety-seven persons at Blet (twenty-two carvées of teams and
seventy-five of manual labor), twenty-six persons at Brosses (five teams
and twenty-one hands). The seignior pays six sous for food, each corvée,
on men, and twelve sous on each corvee of four oxen. "Among those
subject to this corvée the larger number are reduced almost to beggary
and have large families, which often induces the seignior not to exact
this right rigorously." The reduced value of the corvées is forty-nine
livres fifteen sols.
15. Benalité (socome), of the mill, (a sentence of 1736 condemning Roy,
a laborer, to have his grain ground in the mill of Blet, and to pay a
fine for having ceased to have grain ground there during three years).
The miller reserves a sixteenth of the flour ground. The district-mill,
as well as the windmill, with six arpents adjoining, are leased at 600
livres per annum.
16. Banalité of the oven. Agreement of 1537 between the seignior and his
vassals: he allows them the privilege of a small oven in their domicile
of three squares, six inches each, to bake pies, biscuits and cakes;
in other respects subject to the district oven. He is entitled to
one-sixteenth of the dough; this right might produce 150 livres
annually, but, for several years, the oven has been dilapidated.
17. Right of the colombier, dove-cot. The chateau park contains one.
18. Right of bordelage. (The seignior is heir-at-law, except when the
children of the deceased live with their parents at the time of his
death. This right covers an area of forty-eight arpentss. For twenty
years, through neglect or from other causes, he has derived nothing from
this.
19. Right over waste and abandoned ground and to alluvial accumulations.
20. Right, purely honorary, of seat and burial in the choir, of incense
and of special prayer, of funeral hangings outside and inside the
church.
21. Rights of lods et ventes on copyholders, due by the purchaser of
property liable to this lien, in forty days. "In Bourbonnais, the lods
et ventes are collected at a third, a quarter, at the sixth, eighth and
twelfth rate." The seignior of Blet and Brosses collects at rate six. It
is estimated that sales are made once in eighty years; these rights bear
on 1,356 arpents which are worth, the best, 192 livres per arpent the
second best, 110 livres, the poorest, 75 livres. At this rate the 1,350
arpents are worth 162,750 livres. A discount of one-quarter of the lods
et ventes is allowed to purchasers. Annual revenue of this right 254
livres.
22. Right of tithe and of charnage. The seignior has obtained all tithe
rights, save a few belonging to the canons of Don-le-Rol and to the
prior of Chaumont. The tithes are levied on the thirteenth sheaf. They
are comprised in the leases.
23. Right of terrage or champart: the right of collecting, after the
tithes, a portion of the produce of the ground. "In Bourbonnais, the
terrage is collected in various ways, on the third sheaf, on the fifth,
sixth, seventh, and commonly one-quarter; at Blet it is the twelfth."
The seignior of Blet collects terrage only on a certain number of the
farms of his seigniory; "in relation to Brosses, it appears that all
domains possessed by copyholders are subject to the right." These rights
of terrage are comprised in the leases of the farms of Blet and of
Brosses.
24. Cens, surcens and rentes due on real property of different kinds,
houses, fields, meadows, etc., situated in the territory of the
seigniory. In the seigniory of Blet, 810 arpents, divided into 511
portions, in the hands of 120 copyholders, are in this condition, and
their cens annually consists of 137 francs in money, sixty-seven bushels
of wheat, three of barley, 159 of oats, sixteen hens, 130 chickens, six
cocks and capons; the total valued at 575 francs. On the Brosses estate,
eighty-five arpents, divided into 112 parcels, in the hands of twenty
copyholders, are in this condition, and their total cens is fourteen
francs money, seventeen bushels of wheat, thirty-two of barley,
twenty-six hens, three chickens and one capon; the whole valued at 126
francs.
25. Rights over the commons (124 arpents in Blet and 164 arpents in
Brosses).
The vassals have on these only the right of use. "Almost the whole of
the land, on which they exercise this right of pasturage, belongs to the
seigniors, save this right with which they are burdened; it is granted
only to a few individuals."
26. Rights over the fiefs mouvants of the barony of Blet. Some
are situated in Bourbonnais, nineteen being in this condition. In
Bourbonnais, the fiefs, even when owned by plebeians, simply owe la
bouche et les mains to the seignior at each mutation. Formerly the
seignior of Blet enforced, in this case, the right of redemption which
has been allowed to fall into desuetude. Others are situated in Berry
where the right of redemption is exercised. One fief in Berry, that
of Cormesse held by the archbishop of Bourges, comprising eighty-five
arpents, besides a portion of the tithes, and producing 2,100 livres per
annum, admitting a mutation every twenty years, annually brings to the
seignior of Blet 105 livres.
Besides the charges indicated there are the following:
1. To the curate of Blet, his fixed salary. According to royal enactment
in 1686, this should be 300 livres. According to arrangement in 1692,
the curate, desirous of assuring himself of this fixed salary, yielded
to the seignior all the dimes, novales, etc. The edict of 1768 having
fixed the curate's salary at 500 livres, the curate claimed this sum
through writs. The canons of Dun-le-Roi and the prior of Chaumont,
possessing tithes on the territory of Blet, were obliged to pay a
portion of it. At present it is at the charge of the seignior of Blet.
2. To the guard, besides his lodging, warming and the use of three
arpents, 200 livres.
3. To the steward or registrar, to preserve the archives, look after
repairs, collect lods et ventes, and fines, 432 livres, besides the use
of ten arpente.
4. To the king, the vingtièmes. Formerly the estates of Blet and Brosses
paid 810 livres for the two vingtièmes and the two sous per livre. After
the establishment of the third vingtième they paid 1,216 livres.
*****
NOTES:
[Footnote 6201: Archives nationales, G. 319 ("Etat actuel de la
Direction de Bourges au point de vue des aides," 1774).]
[Footnote 6202: Blet, at the present day, contains 1,629 inhabitants.
(This was around 1884, in 1996 it remains a small commune and a village
of 800 people on the route nationale N76 between Bourges and Sancoins.
SR.)]
[Footnote 6203: The farms of Blet and Brosses really produce nothing for
the proprietor, inasmuch as the tithes and the champart (field-rents),
(articles 22 and 23), are comprehended in the rate of the leases.]
*****
END-NOTE 3:
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ACTUAL AND NOMINAL REVENUES OF ECCLESIASTICAL
DIGNITIES AND BENEFICES.
According to Raudot ("La France avant la Revolution," p.84), one-half
extra must be added to the official valuation; according to Boiteau
("Etat de la France en 1789," p.195), this must be tripled and even
quadrupled. I think that, for the episcopal sees, one-half extra should
be added and, for the abbeys and priories, double, and sometimes triple
and even quadruple the amount. The following facts show the variation
between official and actual sums.
1. In the "Almanach Royal," the bishopric of Troyes is valued at 14,000
livres; in "France Ecclésiastique of 1788," at 50,000. According
to Albert Babeau ("Histoire de la Révolution dans le department de
l'Aube"), it brings in 70,000 livres. In "France Ecclésiastique," the
bishopric of Strasbourg is put down at 400,000 livres. According to the
Duc de Lévis ("Souvenirs," p. 156) it brings in at least 600,000 livres
income.
2. In the same work, the abbey of Jumiéges is assigned for 23,000
livres. I find, in the papers of the ecclesiastic committee, it brings
to the abbé 50,000 livres. In this work the abbey of Bèze is estimated
at 8,000 livres. I find it bringing to the monks alone 30,000, while the
abbés portion is at least as large. ("De l'Etat religieux, par les abbés
de Bonnefoi et Bernard.," 1784). The abbé thus receives 30,000 livres,
Bernay (Eure), is officially reported at 16,000. The "Doleances" of the
cahiers estimate it at 57,000. Saint-Amand is put down as bringing to
the Cardinal of York 6,000 livres and actually brings him 100,000. (De
Luynes, XIII. 215).
Clairvaux, in the same work, is put down at 9,000, and in Warroquier
("Etat Général de la France en 1789,") at 60,000. According to Beugnot,
who belongs to the country, and a practical man, the abbé has from
300,000 to 400,000 livres income.
Saint-Faron, says Boiteau, set down at 18,000 livres, is worth 120,000
livres.
The abbey of Saint-Germain des Près (in the stewardships), is put down
at 100,000 livres. The Comte de Clermont, who formerly had it, leased
it at 160, 000 livres, "not including reserved fields and all that the
farmers furnished in straw and oats for his horses." (Jules Cousin,
"Comte de Clermont and his Court.")
Saint-Waas d'Arras, according to "La France Ecclésiastique," brings
40,000 livres. Cardinal de Rohan refused 1,000 livres per month for
his portion offered to him by the monks. (Duc de Lévis, "Souvenirs," p.
156). Its value thus is about 300,000 livres.
Remiremont, the abbess always being a royal princess, one of the most
powerful monasteries, the richest and best endowed, is officially valued
at the ridiculous sum of 15,000 livres.
****
END-NOTE 4:
ON THE EDUCATION OF PRINCES AND PRINCESSES.
An entire chapter might be devoted to this subject; I shall cite but a
few texts.
(Barbier, "Journal," October, 1670). The Dauphine has just given birth
to an infant.
"La jeune princesse en est a sa quatrieme nourrice. . . . Jai appris
à cette occasion que tout se fait par forme à la cour, suivant un
protocole de médecin, en sorte que c'est un miracle d'élever un prince
et une princesse. La nourrice n'a d'autres fonctions que de donner à
têter à l'enfant quand on le lui apporte; elle ne peut pas lui toucher.
Il y a des remueuses et femmes préposées pour cela, mais qui n'ont
point d'ordre à recevoir de la nourrice. Il y a des heures pour remuer
l'enfant, trois ou quatre fois dans la journée. Si l'enfant dort, on le
réveille pour le remuer. Si, après avoir été changé, il fait dans ses
langes, il reste ainsi trois ou quatre heures dans son ordure. Si une
epingle le pique, la nourrice ne doit pas l'ôter; il faut chercher
et attendre une autre femme; l'enfant crie dans tons ces cas, il se
tuurmente et s'échauffe, en sorte que c'est une vraie misère que toutes
ces cérémonies."
(Madame de Genlis, "Souvenirs de Félicie," p.74. Conversation with
Madame Louise, daughter of Louis XV., and recently become a Carmelite).
"I should like to know what troubled you most in getting accustomed to
your new profession?
"You could never imagine," she replied, smiling. "It was the descent
of a small flight of steps alone by myself. At first it seemed to me a
dreadful precipice, and I was obliged to sit down on the steps and slide
down in that attitude."--"A princess, indeed, who had never descended
any but the grand staircase at Versailles, leaning on the arm of her
cavalier in waiting and surrounded by pages, necessarily trembled on
finding herself alone on the brink of steep winding steps. (Such is) the
education, so absurd in many respects, generally bestowed on persons of
this rank; always watched from infancy, followed, assisted, escorted and
everything anticipated, (they) are thus, in great part, deprived of the
faculties with which nature has endowed them."
Madame Campan, "Mémoires," I. 58, 28.
"Madame Louise often told me that, although twelve years of age, she had
not fully learned the alphabet. . . .
"It was necessary to decide absolutely whether a certain water-bird was
fat or lean. Madame Victoire consulted a bishop. . . . He replied
that, in a doubt of this kind, after having the bird cooked it would be
necessary to puncture it on a very cold silver dish and, if the juice
coagulated in one-quarter of an hour, the bird might be considered fat.
Madame Victoire immediately put it to test; the juice did not coagulate.
The princess was highly delighted, as she was very fond of this species
of game. Fasting (on religious grounds), to which Madame Victoire was
addicted, put her to inconvenience; accordingly she awaited the midnight
stroke of Holy Saturday impatiently. A dish of chicken and rice and
other succulent dishes were then at once served up."
("Journal de Dumont d'Urville," commanding the vessel on which
Charles X. left France in 1830. Quoted by Vaulabelle, History of the
Restoration, VIII. p.465).
"The king and the Duc d'Angoulême questioned me on my various campaigns,
but especially on my voyage around the world in the 'Astrolabe.'
My narrative seemed to interest them very much, their interruptions
consisting of questions of remarkable naiveté, showing that they
possessed no notions whatever, even the most superficial, on the
sciences or on voyages, being as ignorant on these points as any of the
old rentiers of the Marais.
*****
Note 5.
On the rate of direct taxation.
The following figures are extracted from the proces-verbaux of the
provincial assemblies (1778-1787)
*****
Access--Total en
Taille. iores de Capitation Impot des multiples
la taille. taillable. routes. de la taille.
Ile-de-France, 4,296,040 2,207,826 2,689,287 519,989 2,23
Lyonnais, 1,356,954 903,653 898,089 315,869 2,61
Géneralité de Rouen, 2,671,939 1,595,051 1,715,592 598,258[6501] 2,46
Généralité de Caen, 1,939,665 1,212,429 1,187,823 659,034 2,56
Berry, 821,921 448,431 464,955 236,900 2,50
Poitou, 2,309,681 1,113,766 1,403,402 520,000 2,30
Soissonnats, 1,062,392 911,883 734,899 462,883 2,94
Orléanais, 2,353,892 1,256,125 1,485,720 586,385 2,34
Champagne, 1,783,850 1,459,780 1,377,371 807,280 3,00
Généralité d'Alencon, 1,742,655 1,120,041 1,067,849 435,637 2,47
Auvergne 1,999,040 1,399,678 1,753,026 310,468 2,70
Généralité d'Auch, 1,440,533 931,261 797,268 316,909[6502] 2,35
Haute-Guyenne, 2,531,314 1,267,619 1,268,855 308,993[6503] 2,47
*****
The principal of the taille being one, the figures in the last column
represent, for each province, the total of the four taxes in relation
to the taille. The average of all these is 2.53. The accessories of
the taille, the poll-tax and the tax for roads, are fixed for each
assessable party, pro rata to his taille. Multiply the sum representing
the portion of the taille deducted from a net income by 2.53, to know
the sum of the four taxes put together and deducted from this income.
This part varies from province to province, from parish to parish, and
even from individual to individual. Nevertheless we may estimate that
the taille, on the average, especially when bearing on a small peasant
proprietor, without protector or influence, abstracts one-sixth of his
net income, say 16 fr. 66 c. on 100 francs. For example, according to
the declarations of the provincial assemblies, in Champagne, it deducts
3 sous and 2/3 of a denier per livre, or 15 fr. 28 c. on 100 francs; in
the Ile-de-France, 35 livres 14 sous on 240 livres, or 14 fr. 87 c. on
100; in Auvergne, 4 sous per livre of the net income, that is to say,
20 %. Finally, in the generalship of Auch, the provincial assembly
estimates that the taille and accessories absorb three-tenths of the
net revenue, by which it is evident that, taking the amounts of the
provincial budget, the taille alone absorbs eighteen fr. ten c. on 100
francs of revenue.
Thus stated, if the taille as principal absorbs one-sixth of the net
income of the subject of the taille, that is to say, 16 fr. 66 c. on
100, the total of the four taxes above mentioned, takes 16 fr. 66 c. X
2,53 = 42 fr. 15 c. on 100 fr. income. To which must be added 11 fr. for
the two vingtièmes and 4 sous per livre added to the first vingtième,
total 53 fr. 15 c. direct tax on 100 livres income subject to the
taille.
The dime, tithe, being estimated at a seventh of the net income,
abstracts in addition 14 ft. 28 c. The feudal dues being valued at the
same sum also take off 14 fr. 28 c., total 28 fr. 56 c. Sum total of
deductions of the direct royal tax, of the ecclesiastic tithes, and of
feudal dues, 81 fr. 71c. on 100 fr. income. There remain to the tax.
payer 18 fr. 29 C.
*****
NOTES:
[Footnote 6501: This amount is not given by the provincial assembly;
to fill up this blank I have taken the tenth of the taille, of the
accessories and of the assessable poll-tax, this being the mode followed
by the provincial assembly of Lyonnais. By the declaration of June
2, 1717, the tax on roads may be carried to one-sixth of the three
preceding taxes it is commonly one-tenth or, in relation to the
principal of the taille, one-quarter.]
[Footnote 6502:--Same remark.--]
[Footnote 6503: The provincial assembly carries this amount to
one-eleventh of the taille and accessories combined.]
End of The Ancient Regime, by Hippolyte A. Taine