FRANCE WAS THE COUNTRY IN WHICH MEN HAD BECOME THE MOST ALIKE.
If we carefully examine the state of society in France before the
Revolution we may see it under two very contrary aspects. It would seem
that the men of that time, especially those belonging to the middle
and upper ranks of society, who alone were at all conspicuous, were
all exactly alike. Nevertheless we find that this monotonous crowd
was divided into many different parts by a prodigious number of small
barriers, and that each of these small divisions formed a distinct
society, exclusively occupied with its own peculiar interests, and
taking no share in the life of the community at large.
When we consider this almost infinitesimal division, we shall perceive
that the citizens of no other nation were so ill prepared to act in
common, or to afford each other a mutual support during a crisis; and
that a society thus constituted might be utterly demolished in a moment
by a great revolution. Imagine all those small barriers thrown down by
an earthquake, and the result is at once a social body more compact and
more homogeneous than any perhaps that the world had ever seen.
I have shown that throughout nearly the whole kingdom the independent
life of the provinces had long been extinct; this had powerfully
contributed to render all Frenchmen very much alike. Through the
diversities which still subsisted the unity of the nation might already
be discerned; uniformity of legislation brought it to light. As the
eighteenth century advanced there was a great increase in the number
of edicts, royal declarations, and Orders in Council, applying the
same regulations in the same manner in every part of the empire. It
was not the governing body alone but the mass of those governed, who
conceived the idea of a legislation so general and so uniform, the same
everywhere and for all: this idea was apparent in all the plans of
reform which succeeded each other for thirty years before the outbreak
of the Revolution. Two centuries earlier the very materials for such
conceptions, if we may use such a phrase, would have been wanting.
Not only did the provinces become more and more alike, but in each
province men of various classes, those at least who were placed above
the common people, grew to resemble each other more and more, in spite
of differences of rank. Nothing displays this more clearly than the
perusal of the instructions to the several Orders of the States-General
of 1789. The interests of those who drew them up were widely different,
but in all else they were identical. In the proceedings of the earlier
States-General the state of things was totally different; the middle
classes and the nobility had then more common interests, more business
in common; they displayed far less reciprocal animosity; yet they
appeared to belong to two distinct races. Time, which had perpetuated,
and, in many respects, aggravated the privileges interposed between two
classes of men, had powerfully contributed to render them alike in all
other respects. For several centuries the French nobility had grown
gradually poorer and poorer. ‘Spite of its privileges the nobility is
ruined and wasted day by day, and the middle classes get possession of
the large fortunes,’ wrote a nobleman in a melancholy strain in 1755.
Yet the laws by which the estates of the nobility were protected still
remained the same, nothing appeared to be changed in their economical
condition. Nevertheless, the more they lost their power the poorer they
everywhere became, in exactly the same proportion.
It would seem as if, in all human institutions as in man himself, there
exists, independently of the organs which manifestly fulfil the various
functions of existence, some central and invisible force which is the
very principle of life. In vain do the organs appear to act as before;
when this vivifying flame is extinct the whole structure languishes and
dies. The French nobility still had entails (indeed Burke remarked,
that in his time entails were more frequent and more strict in France
than in England), the right of primogeniture, territorial and perpetual
dues, and whatever was called a beneficial interest in land. They had
been relieved from the heavy obligation of carrying on war at their own
charge, and at the same time had retained an increased exemption from
taxation; that is to say, they kept the compensation and got rid of the
burden. Moreover, they enjoyed several other pecuniary advantages which
their forefathers had never possessed; nevertheless they gradually
became impoverished in the same degree that they lost the exercise and
the spirit of government. Indeed it is to this gradual impoverishment
that the vast subdivision of landed property, which we have already
remarked, must be partly attributed. The nobles had sold their lands
piecemeal to the peasants, reserving to themselves only the seignorial
rights which gave them the appearance rather than the reality of
their former position. Several provinces of France, like the Limousin
mentioned by Turgot, were filled with a small poor nobility, owning
hardly any land, and living only on seignorial rights and rent-charges
on their former estates.[35]
‘In this district,’ says an Intendant at the beginning of the century,
‘the number of noble families still amounts to several thousands, but
there are not fifteen amongst them who have twenty thousand livres
a year.’ I find in some minutes addressed by another Intendant (of
Franche-Comté) to his successor, in 1750, ‘the nobility of this part
of the country is pretty good but extremely poor, and as proud as it
is poor. It is greatly humbled compared to what it used to be. It is
not bad policy to keep the nobles in this state of poverty in order
to compel them to serve, and to stand in need of our assistance. They
form,’ he adds, ‘a confraternity, into which those only are admitted
who can prove four quarterings. This confraternity is not patented
but only allowed; it meets only once a year, and in the presence of
the Intendant. After dining and hearing mass together, these noblemen
return, every man to his home, some on their rosinantes and the rest on
foot. You will see what a comical assemblage it is.’
This gradual impoverishment of the nobility was more or less apparent,
not only in France, but in all parts of the Continent, in which, as in
France, the feudal system was finally dying out without being replaced
by a new form of aristocracy. This decay was especially manifest and
excited great attention amongst the German States on the banks of the
Rhine. In England alone the contrary was the case. There the ancient
noble families which still existed had not only kept, but greatly
increased their fortunes; they were still first in riches as in power.
The new families which had risen beside them had only copied but had
not surpassed their wealth.
In France the non-noble classes alone seemed to inherit all the wealth
which the nobility had lost; they fattened, as it were, upon its
substance. Yet there were no laws to prevent the middle class from
ruining themselves, or to assist them in acquiring riches; nevertheless
they incessantly increased their wealth; in many instances they had
become as rich as, and often richer than the nobles. Nay, more, their
wealth was of the same kind, for, though dwelling in the town, they
were often landowners in the country, and sometimes they even bought
seignorial estates.
Education and habits of life had already created a thousand other
points of resemblance between these two classes of men. The middle
class man was as enlightened as the noble, and it deserves to be
remarked, his acquirements were derived from the very same source.
The same light shone upon both. Their education had been equally
theoretical and literary. Paris, which became more and more the sole
preceptor of France, had ended by giving to all minds one common form
and action.
At the end of the eighteenth century no doubt some difference was still
perceptible between the manners of the nobility and those of the middle
class, for nothing assimilates more slowly than that surface of society
which we call manners; at bottom, however, all men above the rank of
the common people were alike; they had the same ideas, the same habits,
the same tastes; they indulged in the same pleasures, read the same
books, and spoke the same language. The only difference left between
them was in their rights.
I much doubt whether this was the case in the same degree anywhere
else, even in England, where the different classes, though firmly
united by common interests, still differed in their habits and
feelings; for political liberty, which possesses the admirable power of
placing the citizens of a State in compulsory intercourse and mutual
dependence, does not on that account always make them similar; it is
the government of one man which, in the end, has the inevitable effect
of rendering all men alike, and all mutually indifferent to their
common fate.
FOOTNOTE:
[35] See Note XXIX., Seignorial Dues in different Provinces of France.