Judaica and Hebraica from the Library of
Arthur A. Cohen

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ON THE

STATE OF SOCIETY IN FKANCE

BEFORE

THE REVOLUTION OF 1789;

THE CAUSES WHICH LED TO THAT EVENT.

BY ALEXIS DE TOCQUEYILLE,
MEMBER OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY.

TRANSLATED EY

HENRY REEVE.

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
185G.

YAJ.E;

LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STKEET,
AND CHARING CUOSS.

( iii )

CONTENTS.

Page
Preliminary Notice  vii
BOOK I.
Chap. I. Opposing Judgments passed on the French Revolution
AT ITS ORIGIN  1
II. The fundamental and final object of the Revolution
was not, as has been supposed, the destruction of
Religious Authority and the weakening of Poli
tical Power  9
III. Showing that the French Revolution was a Political
Revolution which followed the course of Religious
Revolutions, and for what reasons  17
IV. Showing that nearly the whole of Europe had had
precisely the same Institutions, and that these In
stitutions were everywhere falling to pieces . . . . 24
V. What was the peculiar scope of the French Revo
lution  33

BOOK II.
I. Why Feudal Rights had become more odious to the
People in France than in any other country .. .. 38
II. Showing that Administrative Centralisation is an In
stitution anterior in France to the Revolution of
1789, and not the product of the revolution ob
of the Empire, as is commonly said  57
III. Showing that what is now called Administrative
Tutelage was an Institution, in France anterior to
the Revolution ,  ,.  75
a 2

iv CONTENTS.
Chap. PaSe
IV. Exceptional Administrative Jurisdictions and the
immunity of public officers are institutions of
France anterior to the Revolution  95
V. Showing how Centralisation had been able to
introduce itself among the ancient institutions
of France, and to supplant without destroying
THEM  105
VI. The Administrative Habits of France before the
Revolution  112
VII. Showing that of all European Nations France was
already the one in which the Metropolis had
acquired the greatest preponderance over the
Provinces, and where it most completely ab
sorbed the whole Empire  132
VIII. Showing that France was the country in which men
HAD BECOME THE MOST ALIKE  *  141
IX. Showing how Men thus similar were more divided
THAN EVER THEY HAD BEEN BEFORE INTO SMALL GROUPS,
FOREIGN AND INDIFFERENT TO EACH OTHER  149
X. The Destruction of Political Liberty and the Sepa
ration of Classes were the causes of almost all
the disorders which led to the dissolution of the
Old Society of France  178
XI. Of the species of Liberty which existed under the
Old Monarchy, and of the influence of that
Liberty on the Revolution  199
XII. Showing that the Condition of the French Pea
santry, notwithstanding the progress of civili
sation, WAS SOMETIMES 'WORSE IN THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY THAN IT HAD BEEN IN THE THIRTEENTH . . 222
XLII. Showing that towards the middle of the eighteenth
century Men of Letters became the leading Poli
tical Men of France, and of the effects of this
occurrence .. '  253

CONTENTS.
Chap. XIV. Showing how Irreligion had become a general and
dominant passion amongst the French of the
eighteenth century, and what influence this
fact had on the character of the revolution .. 272
XV. Showing that the French aimed at Reform before
Liberty  289
XVI. Showing that the reign of Louis XVI. was the most
prosperous epoch of the old French Monarchy,
and how this very prosperity accelerated the
Revolution  310
XVII. Showing that the French People were excited to
revolt by the means taken to relieve them .. 329
XVIH. Concerning some practices by which the Govern
ment completed the revolutionary education of
the People of France  344
XIX. Showing that a great Administrative Revolution
HAD PRECEDED THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION, AND
WHAT WERE THE CONSEQUENCES IT PRODUCED . . . . 353
XX. Showing that the Revolution proceeded naturally
FROM THE EXISTING STATE OF FRANCE  372
SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER.
On the Pays d'Etats, and especially on the Constitu
tions of Languedoc  387
Notes and Illustrations  407

PRELIMINARY NOTICE.

The book I now publish is not a history
of the French Revolution ; that history has
been written with too much success for me
to attempt to write it again. This volume
is a study on the Revolution.
The French people made, in 1789, the
greatest effort which was ever attempted
by any nation to cut, so to speak, their
destiny in halves, and to separate by an
abyss that which they had heretofore been
from that which they sought to become here
after. For this purpose they took all sorts of
precautions to carry nothing of their past
with them into their new condition; they
submitted to every species of constraint
in order to fashion themselves otherwise
than their fathers were ; they neglected no
thing which could efface their identity. *

Vill PRELIMINARY NOTICE.

I had always thought that they had suc
ceeded in this singular attempt much less
than was supposed abroad, and less than
they had at first supposed themselves. I
was convinced that they had unconsciously
retained from the former state of society
most of the sentiments, the habits, and
even the opinions, by means of which they
had effected the destruction of that state
of things; and that, without intending it,
they had used its remains to rebuild the
edifice of modern society, insomuch that
fully to understand the Revolution and its
work, we must forget for an instant tbat
France which we see before us, and examine
in her sepulchre that France which is no
more. This is what I have endeavoured to
do ; but I have had more difficulty than
I could have supposed in accomplishing
this task.
The first ages of the French Monarchy,
the Middle Ages, and the Revival of Letters,
have each given rise to vast researches and
profound disquisitions which have revealed

PRELIMINARY NOTICE. IX
to us not only the events of those periods
of history, but the laws, the customs, and
the spirit of the government and the nation
in those eras. But no one has yet taken
the trouble to investigate the eighteenth
century in the same manner and with the
same minuteness. We suppose that we
are thoroughly conversant with the French
society of that date, because we clearly dis
tinguish whatever glittered on its surface,
we possess in detail the lives of the most
eminent persons of that day, and the in
genuity or the eloquence of criticism has
familiarized us with the compositions of
the great writers who adorned it. But
as for the manner in which public affairs
were carried on, the practical working of
institutions, the exact relation in which the
different classes of society stood to each
other, the condition and the feelings of
those classes which were as yet neither
seen nor heard beneath the prevailing opi
nions and manners of the country, all our
ideas are confused and often inaccurate.

PRELIMINARY NOTICE.

I have undertaken to reach the core ot
this state pf society under the old monarchy
of France, which is still so near us in the
lapse of years, but concealed from us by
the Revolution.
'For this purpose I have not only read over
again the celebrated books which the eigh
teenth century produced, I have also studied
a multitude of works less known and less
worthy to be known, but which, from the
negligence of their composition, disclose,
perhaps, even better than more finished
productions, the real instincts of the time. /
I have applied myself to investigate tho
roughly all the public documents by which
the French may, at the approach of the
Revolution, have shown their opinions and
their tastes. The regular reports of the
meetings of the States, and subsequently
of the Provincial Assemblies, have supplied
me with a large quantity of evidence. I
have especially made great use of the In
structions drawn up by the Three Orders
in 1789. These Instructions, which form

PRELIMINARY NOTICE. XI
in original a long series of manuscript
volumes, will remain as the testament of
the old society of France, the supreme re
cord of its wishes, the authentic declaration
of its last intentions. Such a document is
unique in history. Yet this alone has not
satisfied me.
In countries in which the administrative
government is already powerful, there are
few opinions, desires, or sorrows — there are
few interests or passions, which are not
sooner or later stripped bare before it. In
the archives of such a government, not
only an exact notion of its procedure may
be acquired, but the whole country is exhi
bited. Any stranger who should have ac
cess to all the confidential correspondence
of the Home Department and the Pre
fectures of France, would soon know more
about the French than they know them
selves. In the eighteenth century, the
administration of the country, as will be
seen from this book, was highly centralized,
very powerful, prodigiously active. It was

xii PRELIMINARY NOTICE.
incessantly aiding, preventing, permitting.
It had much to promise— much to give.
Its influence was abeady felt in a thousand
ways, not only on the general conduct of
affairs, but on the condition of famihes and
the private life of every individual. More
over, as this administration was without
publicity, men were not afraid to lay bare
before its eyes even their most secret in
firmities. I have spent a great deal of
time in studying what remains of its pro
ceedings, both at Paris and in several pro
vinces.* There, as I expected, I have found the
whole structure of the old monarchy still
in existence, with its opinions, its passions,
its prejudices, and its usages. There every
* I have more especially used the Archives of some of
the great Intendancies, particularly that of Tours, which
are very complete, and relate to a very extensive district
placed in the centre of France, and peopled by a million
of inhabitants. My thanks are due to the young and able
keeper of these records, M. Grandmaison. Other districts,
amongst them that of the He de France, have shown me
that business was transacted in the same manner in the
greater part of the kingdom.

PRELIMINARY NOTICE. Xlll
man spoke his mind and disclosed his inner
most thoughts. I have thus succeeded in
acquiring information on the former state
of society, which those who lived in it did
not possess, for I had before me that which
had never been exposed to them.
As I advanced in these researches, I was
surprised perpetually to find again in the
France of that time many of the charac
teristic features of the France of our own.
I met with a multitude of feehngs which
I had supposed to be the offspring of the
Revolution — a multitude of ideas which I
had believed to originate there— a multi
tude of habits which are attributed to the
Revolution alone. Everywhere I found the
roots of the existing state of French society '
deeply embedded in the old soil. The
nearer I came to 1789, the more distinctly
I discerned the spirit which had presided
over the formation, the birth, and the
growth of the Revolution ; I gradually saw
the whole aspect of the Revolution un
covered before me; already it announced

Xiv PRELIMINARY NOTICE.
its temperament — its genius — itself. There,
too, 1 found not only the reason of what
it was about to perform in its first effort,
but still more, perhaps, an intimation of
what it was eventually to leave behind it.
For the French Revolution has had two
totally distinct phases; the first, during
which the French seemed eager to abolish
everything in the past; the second, when
they sought to resume a portion of what
they had relinquished. Many of the laws
and pohtical practices of the old monarchy
thus suddenly disappeared in 1789, but
they occur again some years later, as some
rivers are lost in the earth to burst forth
again lower down, and bear the same waters
to other shores.
The peculiar object of the work I now
submit to the public is to explain why this
great Revolution, which was in preparation
at the same time over almost the whole
continent of Europe, broke out in France
sooner than elsewhere ; why it sprang spon
taneously from the society it was about to

PRELIMINARY NOTICE. XV
destroy ; and lastly, how the old French
Monarchy came to fall so completely and
so abruptly. /
It is not my intention that the work I
have commenced should stop short at this
point. I hope, if time and my own powers
permit it, to follow, through the vicissitudes
of this long Revolution, these same French
men with whom I have lived so familiarly
under the old monarchy, and whom that state
of society had formed, — to see them modified
and transformed by the course of events,
but without changing their nature, and con
stantly appearing before us with features
somewhat different, but ever to be recognized. y
With them I shall proceed to review
that first epoch of 1789, when the love of
equality and that of freedom shared their
hearts — when they sought to found not
only the institutions of democracy, but the
institutions of freedom — not only to destroy
privileges, but to acknowledge and to sanc
tion rights : a time of youth, of enthusiasm,
of pride, of generous and sincere passion,

xvi PRELIMINARY NOTICE.
which, in spite of its errors, will live for
ever in the memory of men, and which
will still long continue to disturb the
slumbers of those who seek to corrupt or
to enslave them.
r Thus rapidly following the track of this
same Revolution, I shall attempt to show
by what events, by what faults, by what
miscarriages, this same French people was
led at last to relinquish its first aim, and
forgetful of freedom, to aspire only to be
come the equal servants of the World's
Master — how a government stronger and
far more, absolute than that which the Revo
lution had overthrown, grasped and con
centrated all the powers of the nation, sup
pressed the liberties which had been so
dearly bought, putting in their place the
^counterfeit of freedom — calling " sove
reignty of the people" the suffrages of
electors who can neither inform themselves
nor concert their operations, nor, in fact,
choose— calling " vote of taxes " the assent
of mute and enslaved assemblies ; and while

PRELIMINARY NOTICE. XVII
thus robbing the nation of the right of
self-government, of the great securities of'
law, of freedom of thought, of speech, and
of the pen, that is, of all the most precious
and the most noble conquests of 1789, still
daring to assume that mighty name. /
I shall pause at the moment when the
Revolution appears to me to have nearly
accomplished its work and given birth to
the modern society of France. That so
ciety will then fall under my observation:
I shall endeavour to point out in what it
resembles the society which preceded it, in
what it differs, what we have lost in this
immense displacement of our institutions,
what we have gained by it, • and, lastly,
what may be our future.
A portion of this second work is sketched
out, though still unworthy to be offered to
the public. Will it be given me to complete
it? Who can say? The destiny of men
is far more obscure than that of nations.
I hope I have written this book without
prejudice, but I do not profess to have

Xviii PRELIMINARY NOTICE.
written it without passion. No French
man should speak of his country and think
of his time unmoved. I acknowledge that
in studying the old society of France
in each of its parts I have never entirely
lost sight of the society of more recent
times. I have sought not only to discover
the disease of which the patient died, but
also the means by which life might have
been preserved. I have imitated that me
dical analysis which seeks in each expiring
organ to catch the laws of life. My object
has been to draw a picture strictly accu
rate, and at the same time instructive.
Whenever I have met amongst our pro
genitors with any of those masculine vir
tues which we most want and which we
least possess, — such as a true spirit of inde
pendence, a taste for great things, faith in
ourselves and in a cause — I have placed
them in relief: so too, when I have found
in the laws, the opinions, and the manners
of that time traces of some of those vices
which after having consumed the former

PRELIMINARY NOTICE. xiX
society of France still infest us, I have
carefully brought them to the hght, in
order that, seeing the evil they have done
us, it might better be understood what
evils they may still engender. To accom
plish this object I confess I have not
feared to wound either persons, or classes,
or opinions, or recollections of the past,
however worthy of respect they may be.
I have done so often with regret, but!
always without remorse. May those whom'
I have thus perhaps offended forgive me
in consideration of the honest and disinter
ested object which I pursue.
Many will perhaps accuse me of showing
in this book a very unseasonable love of
freedom — a thing for which it is said that
no one any longer cares in France.
I shall only beg those who may address
to me this reproach to consider that this is
no recent inclination of my mind. More
than twenty years ago, speaking of another
community, I wrote almost textually the
following observations. b2

XX PRELIMINARY NOTICE.
Amidst the darkness of the future three
truths may be clearly discovered. The first
is, that all the men of our time are impelled
by an unknown force which they may hope
to regulate and to check, but not to con
quer — a force which sometimes gently moves
them, sometimes hurries them along, to the
destruction of aristocracy. The second is,
that of all the communities in the world
those which will always be least able per
manently to escape from absolute govern
ment are precisely the communities in
which aristocracy has ceased to exist and
can never exist again. Lastly, the third is,
that despotism nowhere produces more
pernicious effects than in these same com
munities, for more than any other form of
government despotism favours the growth
of all the vices to which such societies are
specially liable, and thus throws an addi
tional weight on that side to which, by
their natural inclination, they were already
prone. Men in such countries, being no longer

PRELIMINARY NOTICE. XXI
connected together by any ties of caste, of
class, of corporation, of family, are but too
easily inclined to think of nothing but their
private interests, ever too ready to consider
themselves only, and to sink into the narrow
precincts of .self, in which all public virtue
is extinguished. Despotism, instead of
combating this tendency, renders it irre
sistible, for it deprives its subjects of every
common passion, of every mutual want, of
all necessity of combining together, of all
occasions of acting together. It immures
them in private life : they already tended
to separation ; despotism isolates them : they
were already chilled in their mutual regard ;
despotism reduces them to ice. ,
In such societies, in which nothing is
stable, every man is incessantly stimulated
by the fear of falling and by eagerness to
rise; and as money, while it has become
the principal mark by which men are
classed and distinguished, has acquired an
extraordinary mobility, passing without
cessation from hand to hand, transforming

Xxii PRELIMINARY NOTICE.
the condition of persons, raising or lower
ing that of famihes, there is scarcely a man
who is not compelled to make desperate
and continual efforts to retain or to acquire
it. The desire to be rich at any cost, the
love of business, the passion of lucre, the
pursuit of comfort and of material plea
sures, are therefore in such communities the
prevalent passions. They are easily diffused
through all classes, they penetrate even to
those classes which had hitherto been most
free from them, and would soon enervate
and degrade them all, if nothing checked
their influence. But it is of the very
essence of despotism to favour and extend
that influence. These debilitating passions
assist its work: they divert and engross
the imaginations of men away from public
affairs, and cause them to tremble at the
bare idea of a revolution. Despotism
alone can lend them the secrecy and the
shade which put cupidity at its ease, and
enable men to make dishonourable gains
whilst they brave dishonour. Without des-

PRELIMINARY NOTICE. xxiii
potic government such passions would be
strong : with it they are sovereign.
/Freedom alone, on the contrary, can
effectually counteract in communities of
this kind the vices which are natural to
them, and restrain them on the declivity
along which they glide. For freedom
alone can withdraw the members of such
a community from the isolation in which
the very independence of their condition
places them by compelling them to act/
together. Freedom alone can warm and
unite them day by day by the necessity of
mutual agreement, of mutual persuasion,
and mutual complaisance in the transaction
of their common affairs. Freedom alone
can tear them from the worship of money,
and the petty squabbles of their private
interests, to remind them and make them
feel that they have a Country above them
and about them. Freedom alone can some
times supersede the love of comfort by
more energetic and more exalted passions
— can supply ambition with larger objects

XXiv PRELIMINARY NOTICE.
than the acquisition of riches— can create
the light which enables us to see and to
judge the vices and the virtues of mankind./
Democratic communities which are not
free may be rich, refined, adorned, mag
nificent, powerful, by .the weight of their
uniform mass ; they may contain many
private merits, good fathers of famihes,
honest traders, estimable men of property ;
nay, many good Christians will be found
there, for their country is not of this world,
and the glory of their faith is to produce
such men amidst the greatest depravity of
manners and under the worst governments.
The Roman empire in its extreme decay
was full of such men. But that which, I
am confident, will never be found in such
societies, is a great citizen, or, above all, a
great people; nay, I do not hesitate to
affirm, that the common level of the heart
and the intellect will never cease to sink as
long as equality of conditions and despotic
power are combined there.
Thus I thought and thus I wrote twenty

PRELIMINARY NOTICE. XXV
years ago. I confess that since that time
nothing has occurred in the world to induce
me to think or to write otherwise. Having
expressed the good opinion I had of Free
dom at a time when Freedom was in favour,
I may be allowed to persist in that opinion
though she be forsaken.
Let it also be considered that even in
this I am less at variance with most of my
antagonists than perhaps they themselves
suppose. Where is the man who, by nature,
should have so mean a soul as to prefer
dependence on the caprices of one of his
fellow-creatures, to obedience to laws which
he has himself contributed to establish!
provided that his nation appear to him]
to possess the virtues necessary to use
freedom aright? There is no such man.
Despots themselves do not deny the excel
lence of freedom, but they wish to keep it
all to themselves, and maintain that all
other men are utterly unworthy of it. Thus
it is not on the opinion which may be
entertained of freedom that this difference

XXVi PRELIMINARY NOTICE.
subsists, but on the greater or the less
esteem we may have for mankind ; and it
may be said with strict accuracy, that the
taste a man may show for absolute govern
ment bears an exact ratio to the contempt
he may profess for his countrymen. I
pause before I can be converted to that
opinion. I may add, I think, without undue pre
tensions, that the volume now published
is the product of very extended labours.
Sometimes a short chapter has cost me
more than a year of researches. I might
have surcharged my pages with notes, but
I have preferred to insert them in a limited
number at the end of the volume, with a
reference to the pages of the text to which
they relate. In these notes the reader will
find some illustrations and proofs of what
I have advanced. I could largely aug
ment the quantity of them if this book
should appear to require it.

STATE OF SOCIETY IN FRANCE

BEFORE the

REVOLUTION OF 1789.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.
OPPOSING JUDGMENTS PASSED ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
AT ITS ORIGIN.
Nothing is ^better fitted to give a lesson in
modesty to philosophers and statesmen than the
history of the French Revolution ; for never
were there events more important, longer in
ripening, more fully prepared, or less foreseen.
The great Frederick himself, with all his
genius, failed to perceive what was coming, and
was almost in contact with it without seeing it.
Nay, more, he even acted in the spirit of the
Revolution beforehand, and was in some sort its
precursor, and already its agent ; yet he did not
recognize its approach, and when at length it
made its , pp<\->r;;jice, the new and extraordinary B

2 OPPOSING JUDGMENTS RESPECTING Book I.
features which were to distinguish its aspect,
amidst the countless crowd of human revolu
tions, still passed unheeded.
The curiosity of all other countries was on the
stretch. Every where an indistinct conception
arose amongst the nations that a new period was
at hand, and vague hopes were excited of great
changes and reforms ; but no one as yet had any
suspicion of what the Revolution was really to
become. Princes and their ministers lacked even
the confused presentiment by which the masses
were agitated ; they beheld in the Revolution only
one of those periodical disorders to which the
constitutions of all nations are subject, and of
which the only result is to open fresh paths for
the policy of their neighbours. Even when
they did chance to express a true opinion on the
events before them, they did so unconsciously.
Thus the principal sovereigns of Germany as-
embled at Pillnitz in 1791, proclaimed indeed
that the danger which threatened royalty in
France was common to all the established powers
of Europe, and that all were threatened by the
same peril ; but in fact they believed nothing of
the kind. The secret records of the period
prove that they held this language only as a

Chap. I. THE ' REVOLUTION AT ITS ORIGIN. 3
specious pretext to cover their real designs, or
at least to colour them in the eyes of the mul
titude. As for themselves, they were convinced that
the French Revolution was an accident merely
local and temporary, which they had only to
turn to good account. "With this notion they
laid plans, made preparations, and contracted
secret alliances ; they quarrelled among them
selves for the division of their anticipated spoils ;
split into factions, entered into combinations,
and were prepared for almost every events ex
cept that which was impending.
The English indeed, taught by their own his
tory and enlightened by the long practice of
pohtical freedom, perceived dimly, as through a
thick veil, the approaching spectre of a great
revolution ; but they were unable to distinguish
its real shape, and the influence it was so soon to
exercise upon the destinies of the world and
upon their own was unforeseen. Arthur Young,
who travelled over France just: as the Revolution
was on the point of breaking out, and who re
garded it as imminent,, so entirely mistook its
real character, that he thought it was a question
whether, it would not increase existing privi-
b 2

4 OPPOSING JUDGMENTS RESPECTING Book I.
leges. " As for the nobility and clergy," says
he, " if this Revolution were to make them still
more preponderant, I think it would do more
harm than good."
Burke, whose genius was illuminated by the
hatred with which the Revolution inspired him
from its birth, Burke himself hesitated, for a
moment uncertain, at the sight. His first pre
diction was that France would be enervated, and
almost annihilated by it. "France is, at this
time, in a political light, to be considered as
expunged out of the system of Europe : whether
she could ever appear in it again as a leading
power, was not easy to determine ; but at pre
sent he considered France as not politically
existing ; and, most assuredly, it would take up
much time to restore her to her former active
existence. Gallos quoque in bellis floruisse audivi-
mus, might possibly be the language of the
rising generation." *
The judgment of those on the spot was not
less erroneous than that of distant observers.
On the eve of the outbreak of the Revolution,
men in France had no distinct notion of what it
* Burke's speech on the army estimates, 1790.

Chap. I. THE REVOLUTION AT ITS ORIGIN. 5
would do. Amidst the numerous instructions to
the delegates of the States Greneral I have found
but two which manifest some degree of appre
hension of the people. The fears expressed all
relate to the preponderance likely to be retained
by royalty, or the Court, as it was still called.
The weakness and the short duration of the
States Greneral were a source of anxiety, and
fears were entertained that they might be sub
jected to violence. The nobility were espe
cially agitated by these fears. Several of their
instructions provide, " The Swiss troops shall
take an oath never to bear arms against the
citizens, not even in case of riot or revolt."
Only let the States Greneral be free, and all
abuses would easily be destroyed ; the reform ti.
be made was immense, but easy.
Meanwhile the Revolution pursued its course.
By degrees the head of the monster became
visible, its strange and terrible aspect was dis
closed : after destroying political institutions
it abolished civil institutions also ; after changing
the laws it changed the manners, the customs,
and even the language of France ; after over
throwing the fabric of government it shook the
foundations of society, and rose against the

6 DEVELOPMENT OP Book I.
Almighty himself. . The Revolution soon over
flowed the boundaries of France with a vehe
mence hitherto unknown, with new tactics, with
sanguinary doctrines, with armed opinions — to
use the words of Pitt — with an inconceivable
force which struck down the barriers of empires,
shattered the crowns of Europe, trampled on its
people, though, strange to say, it won them to its
cause ; and, as all these things came to pass, the
judgment of the world changed. That which at
first had seemed to the princes and statesmen of
Europe to be one of the accidents common in
the life of a nation, now appeared to them an
event so unprecedented, so contrary to all that
had ever happened in the world, and, at the
same time, so wide-spread, so monstrous, and so
incomprehensible, that the human mind was lost
in amazement at the spectacle. Some believed
that this unknown power, which nothing seemed
to foster or to destroy, which no one was able to
check, and which could not check itself, must
drive all human society to its final and complete
dissolution. Many looked upon it as the visible
action of the devil upon earth. " The French
Revolution has a Satanic character," says M. de
Maistre, as early as 1797. Others, on the con-

Chap. I. ITS REAL CHARACTER. 7
trary, perceived in it a beneficent design of
^Providence to change the face not only of
France but of the world, and to create, as it
were, a new asra of mankind. In many writers
of that time may be seen somewhat of the reli
gious terror which Salvian felt at the incursion
of the barbarians. Burke, reverting to his
first impressions, exclaimed, " Deprived of the
old government, deprived in a manner of all
government, France, fallen as a monarchy, to
common speculators might have appeared more
likely to be an object of pity or insult, according
to the disposition of the circumjacent powers,
than to be the scourge and terror of them all ;
but out of the tomb of the murdered monarchy
in France has arisen a vast, tremendous, un
formed spectre, in a far more terrific guise than
any which ever yet have overpowered the ima
gination and subdued the fortitude of man.
Going straight forward to its end unappalled by
peril, unchecked by remorse, despising all com
mon maxims and all common means, that hideous
phantom overpowered those who could not be
lieve it was possible she could at. all exist," &c*
* Letters on a Regicide Peace.

8 WHAT HAVE BEEN ITS EFFECTS ? Book I.
And was the event really as extraordinary as
it appeared to those who lived at the time when,
it took place? Was it so unprecedented, so
utterly subversive, so pregnant with new forms
and ideas as they imagined it to be ? What was
the real meaning, the real character — what have
been the permanent effects of this strange and
terrible Revolution? What did it, in reality,
destroy, and what has it created ?
The proper moment for examining and decid
ing these questions seems now to have arrived,
and we are now standing at the precise point
whence this vast phenomenon may best be
viewed and judged. We are far enough re
moved from the Revolution to be but slightly
touched by the passions which blinded those who
brought it ahout, and we are near enough to it
to enter into the spirit which caused these things
to happen. Ere long this will have become
more difficult ; for as all great revolutions, when
successful, sweep away the causes which engen
dered them, their very success serves to render
them unintelligible to later generations.

Chap. II. ATTACKS THE CHURCH.

CHAPTER II.
THE FUNDAMENTAL AND FINAL OBJECT OF THE REVOLUTION
WAS NOT, AS HAS BEEN SUPPOSED, THE DESTRUCTION
OF RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY AND THE WEAKENING OF POLI
TICAL POWER.
One of the first acts of the French Revolution
was to attack the Church ; and amongst all the
, passions born of the Revolution the first to be ex
cited and the last to be allayed were the passions
hostile to religion. Even when the enthusiasm^
for liberty had vanished, and tranquillity hadf
been purchased at the price of servitude, the
nation still revolted against religious authority.
Napoleon, who had succeeded in subduing the
liberal spirit of the French Revolution, made
vain efforts to restrain its antichristian spirit ;
and even in our own time we have seen men
who thought to atone for their servility towards
the meanest agents of political power by inso
lence towards God, and who, whilst they aban
doned all that was most free, most noble, and
most lofty in the doctrines of the Revolution,

10 THE CHURCH ATTACKED Book I.
flattered themselves that they still remained
true to its spirit by remaining irreligious.
Nevertheless it is easy now to convince our
selves that the war waged against religions was
but one incident of this great Revolution, a fea
ture striking indeed but transient in its aspect,
a passing result of the ideas, the passions, and
special events which preceded and prepared it,
and not an integral part of its genius.
The philosophy of the eighteenth century has
rightly been looked upori as one of the chief
causes of the Revolution, and it is quite true that
this philosophy was profoundly irreligious. But
we must be careful to observe that it contains
two distinct and separable parts.
One of these relates to all the new or newly
revived opinions concerning the condition of
society, and the principles of civil and political
laws, such, for instance, as the natural equality
of mankind, and the abolition of all privileges of
caste, of class, of profession, which is the conse
quence of that equality ; the sovereignty of the
people, the omnipotence of social power, the
uniformity of laws. All these doctrines were not
only causes of the French Revolution, they were
its very substance : of all its effects they are the

Chap. II. AS A POLITICAL INSTITUTION. H
most fundamental, the most lasting, and the
most true, as far as time is concerned.
In the other part of their doctrines the philo
sophers of the eighteenth century attacked the
Church with the utmost fury ; they fell foul of
her clergy, her hierarchy, her institutions, her
dogmas ; and, in order more surely to overthrow
them, they endeavoured to tear up the very
foundations of Christianity. But as this part of
the philosophy of the eighteenth century arose
out of the very abuses which the Revolution de-;
stroyed, it necessarily disappeared together with
them, and was as it were buriejd beneath_its_own
triumph. I will add but one word to make my
self more fully understood, as I shall return
hereafter to this important subject : it was in
the character of a political institution, far more
than in that of a religious doctrine, that Christi
anity had inspired such fierce hatreds; it was
not so much because the priests assumed autho
rity over the concerns of the next world, as be
cause they were landowners, landlords, tithe-
owners, and administrators in this world; not
because the Church was unable to find a place in
the new society which was about to be consti
tuted, but because she filled the strongest and

12 DEMOCRACY NOT NECESSARILY Book I.
most privileged place in the old state of society
which was doomed to destruction.
Observe how the progress of time has made
and still makes this truth more and more pal
pable day by day. In the same measure that the
political effects of the Revolution have become
more firmly established, its irreligious results
have been annihilated ; in the same measure that
all the old political institutions which the Re
volution attacked have been entirely destroyed —
that the powers, the influences, and the classes
which were the objects of its especial hostility
have been irrevocably crushed, until even the
hatred they inspired has begun to lose its in
tensity — in the same measure, finally, as the
clergy has separated itself more and more from
all that formerly fell with it, we have seen the
power of the Church gradually regain and re
establish its ascendency over the minds of men.
Neither must it be supposed that this pheno
menon is peculiar to France ; there is hardly
any Christian church in Europe that has not re
covered vitality since the French Revolution.
It is a great mistake to suppose that the de
mocratic state of society is necessarily hostile
to religion : nothing in Christianity, or even in

Chap. II. HOSTILE TO RELIGION OR ANARCHICAL. 13
Catholicism, is absolutely opposed to the spirit
of this form of society, and many things in demo
cracy are extremely favourable to it. Moreover,
the experience of all ages has shown that the
most living root of religious belief has ever
been planted in the heart of the people. All
the religions which have perished lingered
longest in that abode, and it would be strange
indeed if institutions which tend to give power
to the ideas and passions of the people were, as
a permanent and inevitable result, to lead the
minds of men towards impiety^y
What has just been said of religious, may
be predicated even more strongly of social,
authority. When the Revolution overthrew at once all
the institutions and all the customs which up to
that time had maintained certain gradations in
society and kept men within certainjbounds, it
seemed as if the result would be the total de
struction not only of one particular order of
society, but of all order ; not only of this or that
form of government, but of all social authority ;
and its nature was judged to be essentially anar
chical. Nevertheless, I maintain that this too
was true only in appearance.'

14 MIRABEAU'S VIEW OF THE Book I.
Within a year from the beginning of the
Revolution, Mirabeau wrote secretly to the King :
" Compare the new state of things with the old
rule ; there is the ground for comfort and hope.
One part of the acts of the National Assembly,
and that the more considerable part, is evidently
favourable to monarchical government. Is it
nothing to be without parliaments? without
the pays d'etat ? without a body of clergy ?•
without a privileged class ? without a nobility ?
The idea of forming a single class of all the
citizens would have pleased Richelieu ; this
equality of the surface facilitates the exercise of
power. Several successive reigns of an absolute
monarchy would not have done as much for the
royal authority as this one year of revolution."
Such was the view of the Revolution taken by a
man capable of guiding it.
As the object of the French Revolution was
not only to change an ancient form of govern
ment, but also to abolish an ancient state of
society, it had to attack at once every estab
lished authority, to destroy every recognized
influence, to efface all traditions, to create new
manners and customs, and, as it were, to purge
the human mind of all the ideas upon which

Chap. II. CREATION OF A GREAT CENTRAL POWER. 15
respect and obedience had hitherto been based.
Thence arose its singularly anarchical character.
But, clear away the ruins, and you behold an
immense central power, which has attracted and
absorbed into unity. all the fractions of authority
and influence which had formerly been dispersed
amongst a host of secondary powers, orders,
classes, professions, families and individuals, and
which were disseminated throughout the whole
fabric of society. The world had not seen such
a power since the fall of the Roman empire.
iThis power was created by the Revolution, or
\rather it arose spontaneously out of the ruins
/which the Revolution had left. The govern-
| ments which it founded are more perishable, it
j is true, but a. hundred times more powerful than
any of those which it overthrew ; we shall see
thereafter that their fragility and their power
were owing to the same causes.
It was this simple, regular, and imposing
form of power which Mirabeau perceived
through the dust and rubbish of ancient, half-
demolished institutions. This object, in spite of
its greatness, was still invisible to the eyes of
the many, but time has gradually unveiled it to
all eyes. At the present moment it especially

16 COPIED BY MODERN RULERS. Book 1.
attracts the attention of rulers : it is looked
upon with admiration and envy, not only by
those whom the Revolution has created, but by
those who are the most alien and the most
hostile to it ; each endeavours, within his own
dominions, to destroy immunities and to abolish
privileges. They confound ranks, they equalize
classes, they supersede the aristocracy by public
functionaries, local franchises by uniform enact
ments, and the diversities of authority by the
unity of a central government. They labour
at this revolutionary task with unwearied in
dustry, and, when they meet with occasional
obstacles, they do not scruple to copy the mea
sures as well as the maxims of the Revolution.
They have even stirred up the poor against the
rich, the middle classes against the nobility, the
peasants against their feudal lords. The French
Revolution has been at once their curse and
their instructor.

Chap. III. UNLIKE OTHER CIVIL REVOLUTIONS. 17

CHAPTER III.
SHOWING THAT THE FRENCH REVOLUTION WAS A POLITICAL
REVOLUTION WHICH FOLLOWED THE COURSE OF RELIGIOUS
REVOLUTIONS, AND FOR WHAT REASONS.
All mere civil and political revolutions have
had some country for their birthplace, and have
remained circumscribed within its limits. The
French Revolution, however, had no territorial
boundary — far from it ; one of its effects has
been to efface as it were all ancient frontiers
from the map of Europe. It united or it divided
mankind in spite of laws, traditions, characters,
and languages, turning fellow-countrymen into
enemies, and foreigners into brothers ; or rather,
it formed an intellectual country common to men
of every nation, but independent of all separate
nationalities. We should search all the annals of his
tory in vain for a political revolution of the
same character ; that character is only to be
found in certain religious revolutions. And ac-

18 ITS PECULIAR FEATURE— Book I.
cordingly it is to them that the French Revo
lution must be compared, if any light is to be
thrown upon it by analogy.
Schiller remarks, with truth, in his ' History
of the Thirty Years' War,' that the great Re
formation of the sixteenth century had the effect
of bringing together nations which scarcely knew
each other, and of closely uniting them by new
sympathies. Thus it was that Frenchmen warred
against Frenchmen, while Englishmen came to
their assistance ; men born on the most distant
shores of the Baltic penetrated into the very
heart of Germany in order to defend Germans
of whose existence they had never heard until
then. International wars assumed something
of the -character of civil wars, whilst in every
civil war foreigners were engaged. The former
interests of every nation were forgotten in be
half of new interests ; territorial questions were
succeeded by questions of principle. The rules
of diplomacy were involved in inextricable con
fusion, greatly to the^horror and amazement of
the politicians of the time. The very same thing
happened in Europe after 1789.
The French Revolution was then a political
, revolution, which in its operation and its aspect

Chap. III. PR0PAGAND1SM.. 19
resembled a religious one. It had every peculiar
and characteristic feature of a religious move
ment ; it not only spread to foreign countries,
but it was carried thither by preaching and by
propaganda. It is impossible to conceive a
stranger spectacle than that of a political revo
lution which inspires proselytism, which its ad
herents preach to foreigners with as much ardour
and passion as they have shown in enacting it
at home. Of all the new and strange things
(displayed to the world by the French. Revolu
tion, this assuredly is the newest. On pene
trating deeper into this matter, we shall most
likely discover that this similarity of effects
must be produced by a latent similarity of
causes. The general character of most religions is, that
they deal with man by himself, without taking
into consideration whatever the laws, the tradi
tions, and the customs of each country may have
added to his original nature. Their principal [
aim is to regulate the relations of man towards j
God, and the rights and duties of men towards
each other, independently of the various forms -
of society. The rules of conduct which they
inculcate apply less to the man of any particular c 2

20 ITS ABSTRACT AND Book I.
country or period than to man as a son, a father,
a servant, a master, or a neighbour. Being
thus based on human nature itself, they are ap
plicable to all men, and at all times, and in all
places. It is owing to this cause that religious
revolutions have so often spread over such vast
spheres of action, and have seldom been con
fined, like political revolutions, to the territory
of a single nation, or even of a single race. If
we investigate this subject still more closely, we
shall find that the more any religion has pos
sessed the abstract and general character to
which I refer, the wider has it spread, in spite
of all differences of laws, of climate, and of
races. The pagan religions of antiquity, which were
all more or less bound up with the political
constitution or the social condition of each nation,
and which displayed even in their dogmas a
certain national, and even municipal, character,
seldom spread beyond their own territorial limits.
They sometimes engendered intolerance and per
secution, but proselytism was to them unknown.
Accordingly there were no great religious revo
lutions in western Europe previous to the intro
duction of Christianity, which easily broke

Chap. III. UNIVERSAL CHARACTER. 21
through barriers that had been insurmount
able to the pagan religions, and rapidly con
quered a large portion of the human race. It is
no disrespect to this holy religion to say, that it
partly owed its triumph to the fact that it was
more free than any other faith from everything
peculiar to any one nation, form of government,
social condition, period, or race.
The French Revolution proceeded, as far as
this world is concerned, in precisely the same
manner that religious revolutions proceed with
regard to the next ; it looked upon the citizen
in the__ abstract, irrespective of any particular
society, just as most religions looked upon man
in genera] independently of time or country.
It did not endeavour merely to define what were
the especial rights of a French citizen, but what
were the universal duties and rights of all men
in political matters.
It was by thus recurring to that which was
least peculiar and, w-e might almost say, most
natural in the principles of society and of go
vernment that the French Revolution was ren
dered intelligible to all men, and could be imi
tated in a hundred different places.
As it affected, to tend more towards the rege-

22 OPPORTUNITY OF THE Book I.
neration of mankind than even towards the
reform of France, it roused passions such as the
most violent political revolutions had never
before excited. It inspired a spirit of proselytism
and created the propaganda. This gave to it that
aspect of a religious revolution which so terrified
its contemporaries, or rather, we should say, it
became a kind of new religion in itself — a reli
gion, imperfect it is true, without a God, without
a worship, without a future life, but which
nevertheless, like Islam, poured forth its soldiers,
its apostles, and its martyrs over the face of the
earth. It must not, however, be imagined that the
mode of operation pursued by the French Revo
lution was* altogether without precedent, or that
all the ideas which it developed were entirely
new. In every age, even in the depths of the
Middle Ages, there had been agitators who in
voked the universal laws of human society in
order to subvert particular customs, and who
have attempted to oppose the constitutions of
their own countries with weapons borrowed
from the natural rights of mankind. But all
these attempts had failed ; the firebrand which
ignited Europe in the eighteenth century had been

Chap. III. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 23
easily extinguished in the fifteenth. Revolutions
are not to be produced by arguments of this
nature until certain changes have already been
effected in the condition, the habits, and the
manners of a nation, by which the minds of men
are prepared to undergo a change.
There are periods in which men differ so com
pletely from each other, that the notion of a
single law applicable to all is entirely incompre
hensible to them. There are others in which it
is sufficient to show to them from afar off the
indistinct image of such a law, in order to make
them recognize it at once, and hasten to adopt
it. The most extraordinary phenomenon is not so
much that the French Revolution should have
pursued the course it did, and have developed
the ideas to which it gave rise, but that so many
nations should have reached a point at which
such a course could be effectually employed and
such maxims be readily admitted.

24 STATE OF EUROPE Book I.

CHAPTER IV.
SHOWING THAT NEARLY THE WHOLE OF EUROPE HAD HAD
PRECISELY THE SAME INSTITUTIONS, AND THAT THESE
INSTITUTIONS WERE EVERYWHERE FALLING TO PIECES.
The tribes which overthrew the Roman Empire,
and which in the end formed all the modern
nations of Europe, differed among each other in
race, in country, and in language ; they only
resembled each other in barbarism. Once esta
blished in the dominions of the empire they
engaged in a long and fierce struggle, and when
at length they had gained a firm footing they
found themselves divided by the very ruins they
had made. Civilization was almost extinct,
public order at an end, the relations between
man and man had become difficult and dangerous,
and the great body of European society was
broken up into thousands of small distinct and
hostile societies, each of which lived apart from
the rest. Nevertheless certain uniform laws
arose all at once out of the midst of this inco
herent mass.

Chap. IV. IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 25
These institutions were not copied from the
Roman legislation ; * indeed they were so much
opposed to it that recourse was had to the Ro
man law to alter and abolish them. They have
certain original characteristics which distinguish
them from all other laws invented by mankind.
They corresponded to each other in all their
parts, and, taken together, they formed a body
of law so compact that the articles of our modern
codes are not more perfectly coherent ; they
were skilfully framed laws intended for a half-
savage state of society.
It is not my purpose to inquire how such a
system of legislation could have arisen, spread,
and become general throughout Europe. But it
is certain that in the Middle Ages it existed
more or less in every European nation, and that
in many it prevailed to the exclusion of every
other. I have had occasion to study the political in
stitutions of the Middle Ages in France, in
England, and in Germany, and the further I
proceeded in my labours the more was I asto
nished at the prodigious similarity which existed
* See Note A., on the Power of the Roman Law in Germany.

26 SIMILARITY. OF EUROPEAN INSTITUTIONS Book I.
j amongst all these various sets of laws ; and the
more did I wonder how nations so different, and
having so little intercourse, could have contrived
laws so much alike. Not but they continually
and almost immeasurably differ in their de
tails and in different countries, but the basis
is invariably the same. If I discovered a po
litical institution, a law, a fixed authority, in
the ancient Germanic legislature, I was sure, on
searching further, to find something exactly
analogous to it in France and in England. Each
of these three nations helped me more fully to
understand the others.
In all three the government was carried on
according to the same maxims, political assem
blies were formed out of the same elements, and
invested with the same .powers. Society was
divided in the same manner and the same gra
dation of classes subsisted in each ; in all three
the position of the nobles, their privileges, their
characteristics, and their disposition were identi
cal ; as men, they were not distinguishable, but
rather, properly speaking, the same men in every
place. The municipal constitutions were alike ; the
rural districts were governed in the same man-

Chap. IV. IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 27
ner. The condition of the peasantry differed
but little ; the land was owned, occupied, and
tilled after the same fashion, and the cultivators
were subjected to the same burthens. From the
confines of Poland to the Irish Channel, the
Lords' estate, the manorial courts, the fiefs, the
quit-rents, feudal service, feudal rights, and the
corporations or trading guilds, were all alike.
Sometimes the very names were the same ; and
what is still more remarkable, the same spirit
breathes in all these analogous institutions. I
think I may venture to affirm, that in the four
teenth century the social, political, administra
tive, judicial, economical, and literary institu
tions of Europe were more nearly akin to each
other than they are at the present time, when
civilization appears to have opened all the chan
nels of communication, and to have levelled
every obstacle.
It is no part of my scheme to relate how this
ancient constitution of Europe gradually became
wasted and decayed ; it is sufficient to remark
that in the eighteenth century it was every
where falling into ruin.* On. the whole, its
* See Note B., on the passage from Feudal to Democratic Mo
narchy.

28 ANCIENT CONSTITUTION OF EUROPE , Book. I.
decline was less marked in the east than in
the west of the continent ; but on all sides old
age and decrepitude were visible.
The progress of this gradual decay of the
institutions of the Middle Ages may be followed
in the archives of the different nations. It is
well known that each manor kept rolls called
terriers, in which from century to century were
recorded the limits of fiefs and the quit-rents,
the dues, the services to be rendered, and the local
customs. I have seen rolls of the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries which are masterpieces
of method, perspicuity, concision, and acuteness.
, The further we advance towards modern times
| the more obscure, ill-digested, defective, and
confused do they become, in spite of the general
progress of enlightenment. It seems as if poli
tical society were becoming barbarous, while
civil society advances towards civilization.
Even in Germany, where the ancient constitu
tion of Europe had preserved many more of its
primitive features than in France, some of the
institutions which it had created were already
completely destroyed. But we shall not be so
well able to appreciate the ravages of time
when we take into account what was gone, as

Chap. IV. DECAYED IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 29
when we examine the condition of that which
was left.
The municipal institutions which in the thir
teenth and fourteenth centuries had raised the
chief towns of Germany into rich and enlightened
small republics, still existed in the eighteenth ;
but they were a mere semblance of the past.
Their ancient traditions seemed to continue in
force ; the magistrates appointed by them bore
the same titles and seemed to perform the same
functions; but the activity, the energy, the
municipal patriotism, the manly and prolific
virtues which they formerly inspired, had dis
appeared. These ancient institutions appeared
to have collapsed without losing the form that
distinguished them.*
All the powers ofthe Middle Ages which were
still in existence seemed to be affected by the
same disease ; all showed symptoms of the same
languor and decay. Nay more, whatever was
mixed up with the constitution of that time, and
had retained a strong impression of it, even
without absolutely belonging to those institu
tions, at once lost its vitality. Thus it was
* See Note 0., on the Decay of the Free Towns of Germany.

30 ANCIENT CONSTITUTION OF EUROPE Book I.
that the aristocracy was seized with senile
debility ; even political freedom, which had
filled the preceding centuries with its achieve
ments, seemed stricken with impotency wherever
it preserved the peculiar characteristics im
pressed upon it by the Middle Ages. Wherever
the Provincial Assemblies had maintained their
ancient constitution unchanged, they checked
instead of furthering the progress of civilization ;
they seemed insensible and impervious to the
new spirit of the times. Accordingly the hearts
of the people turned from them towards their
sovereigns. The antiquity of these institutions
had not made them venerable : on the contrary,
Ihe older they grew the more they fell into dis
credit ; and, strangely enough, they inspired more
and more hatred in proportion as their decay
rendered them less capable of mischief. " The
actual state of things," said a German writer,
who was a friend and contemporary of the
period anterior to the French Revolution,
"seems to have become generally offensive to
all, and sometimes contemptible. It is strange
to see with what disfavour men now look upon
all that is old. New impressions creep into the
bosom of our families and disturb their peace.

Chap. IV. DECAYED IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 31
Our very housewives will no longer endure their
ancient furniture." Nevertheless, at this time
Germany, as well as France, enjoyed a high
state of social activity and constantly increasing
prosperity. But it must be borne in mind that
all the elements of life, activity and production,
were new, and not only new, but antagonistic to
the past.
Royalty no longer had anything in common
with the royalty of the Middle Ages, it enjoyed
other prerogatives, occupied a different place,
was imbued with a different spirit, and inspired
•different sentiments; the administration of the
IState spread in all directions upon the ruins of
local authorities; the organized array of public
officers superseded more and more the govern
ment of the nobles. All these new powers
employed methods and followed maxims which
the men of the Middle Ages had either not
known or had condemned ; and, indeed, they
belong to a state of society of which those men
could have formed no idea.
In England, where, at the first glance, the
ancient constitution of Europe might still seem
in full vigour, the case is the same. Setting
aside the ancient names and the old forms, in

32 RENOVATED IN ENGLAND. Book I,
England the feudal system was substantially
abolished in the seventeenth century, all classes
of society began to intermingle, the pretensions
of birth were effaced, the aristocracy was thrown
open, wealth was becoming power, equality was
established before the law, public employments
were open to all, the press became free, the
debates of Parliament public ; every one of
them new principles, unknown to the society of
the middle ages. It is precisely these new ele
ments, gradually and skilfully incorporated with
the ancient constitution of England, which have
revived without endangering it, and filled it
with new life and vigour without destroying the
ancient forms. In the seventeenth century
^England was already quite a modern nation,
which had still preserved, and, as it were, em
balmed some of the relics of the Middle Ages.
This rapid view of the state of things beyond
the boundaries of France was essential to the
comprehension of what is about to follow, for
no one who has seen and studied France only,
can ever— I venture to affirm— understand any
thing of the French Revolution.

Chap. V. SCOPE OF THE REVOLUTION. 33

CHAPTER Y.
WHAT WAS THE PECULIAR SCOPE OF THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION.
The preceding pages have had no other pur
pose than to throw some light on the subject
in hand, and to facilitate the solution of the
questions which I laid down in the beginning,
namely, what was the real object of the Revo
lution ? What was its peculiar character ? For
what precise reason it was made, and what did
it effect ?
The Revolution was not made, as some have
supposed, in order to destroy the authority of
religious belief. In spite of appearances, it was
essentially a social and political Revolution ; and
within the circle of social and political institu
tions it did not tend to perpetuate and give
stability to disorder, or (as one of its chief adver
saries has said) to methodise anarchy ; but rather
to increase the power and the rights of public
authority. It was not destined (as others have
believed) to change the whole character which

34 ABOLISHED FEUDAL INSTITUTIONS. Book I.
civilization had previously assumed, to check its
progress, or even essentially to alter any of the
fundamental laws upon which human society in
Western Europe is based. If we divest it of all
the accidental circumstances which altered its
aspect in different countries and at various times,
and consider only the Revolution itself, we shall
clearly perceive that its only effect has been to
abolish those political institutions which during
several centuries had been in force among the
greater part of the European nations, and which
are usually designated as feudal institutions, in
order to substitute a more uniform and simple
state of society and politics, based upon an
equality of social condition.
This was quite sufficient to constitute an im
mense revolution, for not only were these ancient
institutions mixed up and interwoven with al
most all the religious and political laws of Europe,
but they had also given rise to a crowd of ideas,
sentiments, habits, and manners which clung
around them.. Nothing less than a frightful
convulsion could suddenly destroy and expel
from the social body a part to which all its
organs adhered. This made the Revolution
appear even greater than it really was ; it

Chap. V. WHICH WERE ALREADY DECAYING. 35
seemed to destroy everything, for what it did
destroy was bound up with, and formed, as it were,
one flesh with everything in the social body.
However radical the Revolution may have
been, its innovations were, in fact, much less
than have been commonly supposed, as I shall
show hereafter. What may truly be said is,
that it entirely destroyed, or is still destroying j
(for it is not at an end), every part of the i
ancient state of society that owed its origin to ;
aristocratic and feudal institutions — everything ;
in any way connected with those institutions, or
in any degree, however slight, imbued with their
spirit. It spared no part of the old world, save
such as had always been foreign to those institu
tions, or could exist apart from them. Least of
all was the Revolution a fortuitous event. It
took the world by surprise, it is true, but it was
not the less the completion of a long process, the
sudden and violent •termination of a work which
had successively passed before the eyes of ten
generations. If it had not taken place, the old
social structure would equally have fallen sooner
in one place and later in another- — only it would
have crumbled away by degrees instead of
falling with a crash. The Revolution effected
d 2

36 BURKE MISCONCEIVED Book I.
on a sudden and by a violent and convulsive
effort, without any transition, without fore
thought, without mercy, that which would have
happened little by little if left to itself. This
was its work.
It is surprising that this view of the subject
which now seems so easy to discern, should have
been so obscured and confused even to the clearest
perceptions. " Instead of redressing their grievances," says
Burke of the representatives of the French
nation, " and improving the fabric of their state,
to which they were called by their monarch and
sent by their country, they were made to take a
very different course. They first destroyed all
Ihe balances and counterpoises which serve to fix
Jthe State and to give it a steady direction, and
which furnish sure correctives to any violent
spirit which may prevail in any of the orders.
These balances existed in the oldest constitution
and in the constitution of the country, and in
the constitution of all the countries in Europe.
These they rashly destroyed, and then they
melted down the whole into one incongruous,
ill-connected mass."*
* Burke's speech on the Army Estimates, 1790.

Chap. V. THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 37
Burke did not perceive that he had before his
eyes the very Revolution which was to abolish
the ancient common law of Europe ; he could
not discern that this and no other was the very
question at issue.
But why, we may ask, did this Revolution,
which was imminent throughout Europe, break
out in France rather than elsewhere, and why
did it there display certain characteristics which
have appeared nowhere else, or at least have
appeared only in part ? This second question is
well worthy of consideration, and the inquiry
will form the subject of the following book.

38 SERFDOM IN GERMANY. Book H.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.
WHY FEUDAL RIGHTS HAD BECOME MORE ODIOUS TO THE
PEOPLE IN FRANCE THAN IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY.
One circumstance excites at first sight surprise.
The Revolution, whose peculiar object it was, as
we have seen, everywhere to abolish the rem
nant of the institutions of the Middle Ages, did
not break out in the countries in which these in
stitutions, still in better preservation, caused the
people most to feel their constraint and their
rigour, but, on the contrary, in the countries
where their effects were least felt; so that the
burden seemed most intolerable where it was in
reality least heavy.
In no part of Germany, at the close of the
eighteenth century, was serfdom as yet com
pletely abolished,* and in the greater part of
* See Note D., Date of Abolition of Serfdom in Germany.

Chap. I. SERFDOM IN GERMANY. 39
Germany the people were still literally adscripti
glebce, as in the Middle Ages. Almost all
the soldiers who fought in the armies of Fre
deric II. and of Maria Theresa were in reality
serfs.* In most of the German States, as late as
1788, a peasant could not quit his domain, and
if he quitted it he might be pursued in all places
wherever he could be found, and brought back by
force. In that domain he lived subject to the
seignorial jurisdiction which controlled his do
mestic life and punished his intemperance or his
sloth. He could neither improve his condition,
nor change his calling, nor marry without the
good pleasure of his master. To the service of
that master a large portion of his time was due.
Labour rents (corvees) existed to their full extent,
and absorbed in some of these countries three
days in the week. The peasant rebuilt and re
paired the mansion of the lord, carted his pro
duce to market, drove his carriage, and went on
his errands. Several years of the peasant's
early life were spent in the domestic service of
the manor-house. The serf might, however,
become the owner of land, but his property
* See Note E.

40 SERFDOM ABOLISHED IN FRANCE. Book II.
always remained very incomplete. He was
obliged to till his field in a certain manner
under the eye of the master, and he could neither
dispose of it nor mortgage it at will. In some
cases he was compelled to sell its produce ; in
others he was restrained from selling it ; his ob
ligation to cultivate the ground was absolute.
Even his inheritance did not descend without
deduction to his offspring ; a fine was commonly
subtracted by the lordship.
I am not seeking out these provisions in ob
solete laws. They are to be met with even in
the Code framed by Frederic the Great and pro
mulgated by his successor at the very time of
the outbreak of the French Revolution.*
Nothing of the kind had existed in France
for a long period of time. The peasant came,
and went, and bought, and sold, and dealt, and,
laboured, as he pleased. The last traces of serf
dom could only be detected in one or two of
the eastern provinces annexed to France by
conquest; everywhere else the institution had
disappeared ; and indeed its abolition had
occurred so long before that even the date of it
* See Note F.

Chap. I. PEASANTS OWNERS OF LAND. 41
was forgotten. The researches of archaeologists
of our own day have proved that as early as the
thirteenth century serfdom was no longer to be
met with in Normandy.
But in the condition of the people in France
another and a still greater revolution had taken
place. The French peasant had not only ceased
to be a serf; he had become an Owner of Land.
This fact is still at the present time so imper
fectly established, and its consequences, as will
presently be seen, have been so remarkable, that
I must be permitted to pause for a moment to
examine it.
It has long been believed that the subdivision
of landed property in France dates from the
Revolution of 1789, and was only the result of
that Revolution. The contrary is demonstrable
by every species of evidence.
Twenty years at least before that Revolution,
Agricultural Societies were in existence which
already deplored the excessive subdivision ofthe
soil. " The division of inheritances," said M.
de Turgot, about the same time, " is such that
what sufficed for a single family is shared be
tween five or six children. These children and
their families can therefore no longer subsist

42 SUBDIVISION OF Book II.
..exclusively by the land." Necker said a few
years later that there were in France an immen
sity of small rural properties.
I have met with the following expressions in
a secret Report made to one of the provincial
Intendants a few years before the Revolution : —
" Inheritances are divided in an equal and
alarming manner, and as every one wishes to
have something of everything and everywhere,
the plots of land are infinitely divided and
perpetually subdivided." Might not this sen
tence have been written in our days ?
I have myself taken infinite pains to recon
struct, as it were, the survey of landed property
as it existed in France before the Revolution,
and I have in some cases effected my object. In
pursuance ofthe law of 1790, which established
the land-tax, each parish had to frame a return
of the landed properties then existing within its
boundaries. These returns have for the most
part disappeared; nevertheless I have found
them in a few villages, and by comparing them
with the rolls of the present holders, I have
found that, in these villages, the number of
landed proprietors at that time amounted to one-
half, frequently to two-thirds, of their present

Chap. I. LANDED PROPERTY. 43
number : a fact which is the more remarkable if
it be remembered that the total population of
France has augmented by more than one-fourth
since that period.
Already, as at the present time, the love of
the peasant for property in land was intense,
and all the passions which the possession of the
soil has engendered in his nature were already
inflamed. " Land is always Sold above its
value," said an excellent contemporary ob
server ; " which arises from the passion of all
the inhabitants to become owners of the soil. All
the savings of the lower orders which elsewhere
are placed out at private interest, or in the
public securities, are intended in France for the
purchase of land."
Amongst the novelties which Arthur Young
observed in France, when he visited that country
for the first time, none struck him more than the
great division of the soil among the peasantry,
He averred that half the soil of France belonged
to them in fee. " I had no idea," he often says,
" of such a state of things ;" and it is true that
such a state of things existed at that time no
where but in France, or in the immediate neigh
bourhood of France.

44 LANDED PROPERTY SUBDIVIDED Book II.
In England there had been peasant land
owners, but the number of them had already
considerably decreased. In Germany, there had
been at all times and in all parts of the country
a certain number of peasant freeholders, who
held portions of the soil in- fee. The peculiar,
and often eccentric laws which regulated the
property of these peasants, are to be met with in
the oldest of the Germanic customs ; but this
species of property was always of an exceptional
character, and the number of these small pro
prietors was very limited.*
The districts of Germany in which, at the close
of the eighteenth century, the peasants were
possessed of land and lived almost as freely as
in France, lay on the banks of the Rhine.f In
those same districts the revolutionary passions of
France spread with the utmost velocity, and have
always been most intense. The tracts of Germany
which remained, on the contrary, for the longest
time inacessible to these passions, are those where
no such tenures of land had yet been intro
duced. The observation deserves to be made.
It is then a vulgar error to suppose that the
* See Note G., Peasant Lands in Germany.
t See Note H., Nobility and Lands on the Rhine.

Chap. I. BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 45
subdivision of landed property in France dates
from the Revolution. This state of things is far
older. The Revolution, it is true, caused the
lands of the Church and a great portion of the
lands of the nobility to be sold ; but if any one
will take the trouble, as I have sometimes done,
to refer to the actual returns and entries of these
sales, it will be seen that most of these lands
were purchased by persons who already held
other lands ; so that though the property
changed hands, the number of proprietors in
creased far less than is supposed. There were
already an immensity of these persons, to borrow
the somewhat ambitious but, in this case, not
inaccurate expression of M. Necker.
The effect of the Revolution was not to divide
the soil, but to liberate it for a moment. All
these small landowners were, in reality, ill at
ease in the cultivation of their property, and
had to bear many charges or easements on the
land which they could not shake off.
These charges were no doubt onerous.* But
the cause which made them appear insupport
able was precisely that which might have seemed
* See Note I., Effect of Usury Laws on Land.

46 RURAL ADMINISTRATION Book II.
calculated to diminish the burden of them. The
peasants of France had been released, more than
in any other part of Europe, from the govern
ment of their lords, by a revolution not less
momentous than that which had made them
owners ofthe soil.
Although what is termed in France the An
cien Regime is still very near to us, since we
live in daily intercourse with men born under
its laws, that period seems already lost in the
night of time. The radical revolution which
separates us from it has produced the effect of
ages : it has obliterated all that it has not de
stroyed. Few persons therefore can now give
an accurate answer to the simple question — How
were the rural districts of France administered
before 1789 ? And indeed no answer can be
given to that question with precision and minute
ness, without having studied, not books, but the
administrative records of that period.
It is often said that the French nobility, which
had long ceased to take part in the government
of the state, preserved to the last the adminis
tration of the rural districts — the Seigneurs go
verned the peasantry. This again is very like
a mistake.

Chap. I. BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 47
In the eighteenth century all the affairs of
the parish were managed by a certain number of
parochial officers, who were no longer the agents
of the manor or domain, and whom the lord no
longer selected. Some of these persons were
nominated by the Intendant of the province,
others were elected by the peasants themselves.
The duty of these authorities was to assess the
taxes, to repair the church, to build schools, to
convoke and preside over the vestry or parochial
meeting. They attended to the property of the
parish and determined the application of it — they
sued and were sued in it's name. Not only the
lord of the domain no longer conducted the ad
ministration of these small local affairs, but he
did not even superintend it. All the parish
officers were under the government or the control
of the central power, as we shall show in a sub
sequent chapter. Nay, more, the Seigneur had
almost ceased to act as the representative of
the Crown in the parish, or as the channel of
communication between the King and his sub
jects. He was no longer expected to apply in
the parish the general laws of the realm, to call
out the militia, to collect the taxes, to promulgate
the mandates of the sovereign, or to distribute

48 POWER OF THE NOBLES LOST. Book II.
the bounty of the Crown. All these duties and
all these rights belonged to others. The Seigneur
was in fact no longer anything hut an inhabitant
of the parish, separated by his own immunities
and privileges from all the other inhabitants.
His rank was different, not his power. The
Seigneur is only the principal inhabitant was the
instruction constantly given by the Provincial
Intendants to their Subdelegates.
If we quit the parish, and examine the consti
tution of the larger rural districts, we shall find
the same state of things. Nowhere did the
nobles conduct public business either in their
collective or their individual capacity. This
was peculiar to France. Everywhere else the
characteristic features of the old feudal society
were partially preserved : the possession of the
soil and the government of those who dwelt on
the soil were still commingled.
England was administered as well as governed
by the chief owners of the soil. Even in those
parts of Germany, as in Prussia and in Austria,
in which the reigning princes had been most
successful in shaking off the control of the
nobles in the general affairs ofthe state, they had
left to that class, to a great degree, the adminis-

Chap. I. FEUDAL RIGHTS RETAINED. 49
tration of rural affairs, and though the landed
proprietor was, in some places, controlled by the
Government, his authority had nowhere been
superseded. To say the truth, the French nobility had
long since lost all hold on the administration of
public affairs, except on one single point, that
namely of justice. The principal nobles still
retained the right of having judges who de
cided certain suits in their name, and occasion
ally established police regulations within the
limits of their domain ; but the power of the
Crown had gradually cut down, limited, and sub
dued this seignorial jurisdiction to such a degree
that the nobles who still exercised it regarded it
less as a source of authority than as a source of
income. Such had been the fate of all the peculiar
rights of the French nobility. The political
element had disappeared ; the pecuniary element
alone remained, and in some instances had been
largely increased.
I speak at this moment of that portion of the
beneficial privileges of the aristocracy, which
were especially called by the name of feudal
rights, since they were the privileges which
peculiarly touched the people.

50 FEUDAL RIGHTS. Book II.
It is not easy to ascertain in what these rights
did precisely still consist in 1789, for the
number of them had been great, their diversity
amazing, and many of these rights had already
vanished or undergone a transformation; so
that the meaning of the terms by which they
were designated was perplexing even to con
temporaries, and is become obscure to us. Never
theless by consulting the works of the domanial
jurists of the eighteenth century, and from atten
tive researches into local customs, it will be found
that all the rights still in existence at that time
may be reduced to a small number of leading
heads ; all the others still subsisted, it is true,
but only in isolated cases.
The traces of seignorial labour-rents (corvees)
may almost everywhere Jbe_ .d,ete.C.tecL_ . but they
were already half extinguished. Most of the
(tolls on roads had been reduced or abolished ;
yet there were few provinces in which some
such tolls were not still to be met with. Every
where too Seigneurs levied dues on fairs and
markets. Throughout France they had the ex
clusive right of sporting. Generally they alone
could keep dovecotes and pigeons ; almost every
where the peasant was compelled to grind at the
seignorial mill, and to crush his grapes in the

Chap. I. FEUDAL RIGHTS. 51
seignorial wine-press. A very universal and
onerous seignorial right was that of the fine
called lods et ventes, paid to the lord every time
' lands were bought or sold within the boundaries
(. of his manor. All over the country the land was
burdened with quit-rents, rent-charges, or dues in
money or in kind, due to the lord from the copy
holder, and not redeemable by the latter. Under
all these differences one common feature may
be traced. All these rights were more or less
, connected with the soil or with its produce ; they
' all bore upon him who cultivates it.*
The spiritual lords of the soil enjoyed the
same advantages ; for the Church, which had a
different origin, a different purpose, and a differ
ent nature from the feudal system, had never
theless at last intimately mingled itself with that
system ; and though never completely incorpo
rated with that foreign substance, it had struck
so deeply into it as to be incrusted there .f
Bishops, canons, and incumbents held fiefs or
charges on the land in virtue of their ecclesias
tical functions. A convent had generally the
lordship of the village in which it stood. The
Church held serfs in the only part of France in
* See Note K., Abuse of Feudal Rights.
t See Note L., Ecclesiastical Feudal Rights. E 2

52 FEUDAL RIGHTS. Book II.
which they still existed; it levied its labour-
rents, its dues on fairs and markets ; it had the
common oven, the common mill, the common
wine-press, and the common bull. Moreover
| the clergy still enjoyed in France, as in all the
¦ rest of Christendom, the right of tithe.*
But what I am here concerned to remark is,
that throughout Europe at that time the same
feudal rights — identically the same — existed, and
that in most of the continental states they were
far more onerous than in France. I may quote
the single instance of the seignorial claim for
labour : in France this right was unfrequent and
mild ; in Germany it was still universal and
harsh. Nay more, many of the rights of feudal origin
which were held in the utmost abhorrence by
the last .generation of Frenchmen, and which
' they considered as contrary not only to justice
|but to civilisation — such as tithes, inalienable
rent-charges or perpetual dues, fines or heriots,
and what were termed, in the somewhat pomp
ous language of the eighteenth century, the ser
vitude of the soil, might all be met with at that
time, to a certain extent, in England, and many
* See Note M., Eights of the Abbey of Cherbourg.

Chap. I. FEUDAL RIGHTS, 53
of them exist in England to this day. Yet they
do not prevent the husbandry of England from
being the most perfect and the most productive
in the world, and the English people is scarcely
conscious of their existence.
How comes it then that these same feudal
rights excited in the hearts of the people of
France so intense a hatred that this passion has
survived its object, and seems therefore to be un-
extinguishable ? The cause of this phenomenon
is, that, on the one hand, the French peasant had
become an owner of the soil, and that, on the
other, he had entirely escaped from the govern
ment of the great landlords. Many other causes
might doubtless be indicated, but I believe these
two to be the most important.
If the peasant had not been an owner of the
isoil he would have been insensible to many of
the burdens which the feudal system had cast
(upon landed property. What matters tithe to
a tenant farmer ? He deducts it from his rent.
What matters a rent-charge to a man who is
not the owner of the ground ? What matter
even the impediments to free cultivation to a
man who cultivates for another ?
On the other hand, if the French peasant had

54 FEUDAL RIGHTS. Book II.
still lived under the administration of his land
lord, these feudal rights would have appeared far
less insupportable, because he would have re
garded them as a natural consequence of the
constitution of the country.
When an aristocracy possesses not only privi
leges but powers, when it governs and administers
the country, its private rights may he at once
more extensive and less perceptible. In the feudal
times, the nobility were regarded pretty much as
the government is regarded in our own ; the
.burdens they imposed were endured in consi
deration of the security they afforded. The
nobles had many irksome privileges ; they pos
sessed many onerous rights ; but they maintained
public order, they administered justice, they
caused the law to be executed, they came to the
relief of the weak, they conducted the business
of the community. In proportion as the nobility
ceased to do these things the burden of their
privileges appeared more oppressive, and their
existence became an anomaly.
Picture to yourself a French peasant of the
eighteenth century, or, I might rather say, the
peasant now before your eyes, for the man is
the same ; his condition is altered, but not his

Chap. I. FEUDAL RIGHTS. 55
character. Take him as he is described in the
documents I have quoted — so passionately ena
moured of the soil, that he will spend all his
savings to purchase it, and to purchase it at any
price. To complete this purchase he must first
pay a tax, not to the government, but to other
landowners of the neighbourhood, as uncon
nected as himself with the administration of
public affairs, and hardly more influential than
he is. He possesses it at last ; his heart is
buried in it with the seed he sows. This little
nook of ground, which is his own in this vast
universe, fills him with pride and independence.
But again these neighbours call him from his
furrow, and compel him to come to work for
them without wages. He tries to defend his
young crops from their game ; again they pre
vent him. As he crosses the river they wait
for his passage to levy a toll. He finds them at
the market, where they sell him the right of
selling his own produce ; and when, on his re
turn home, he wants to use the remainder of his
wheat for his own sustenance — of that wheat
which was planted by his hands, and has grown
under his eyes — he cannot touch it till he has
ground it at the mill and baked it at the bake-

56 FEUDAL RIGHTS. Book II.
house of these same men. A portion of the in
come of his little" property is paid away in quit-
rents to them also, and these dues can neither
be extinguished nor redeemed.
Whatever he does, these troublesome neigh
bours are everywhere on his path, to disturb his
happiness, to interfere with his labour, to con
sume his profits ; and when these are dismissed,
others in the black garb of the Church present
themselves to carry off the clearest profit of his
harvest. Picture to yourself the condition, the
wants, the character, the passions of this man,
and compute, if you are able, the stores of
hatred and of envy which are accumulated in
his heart.*
Feudalism still remained the greatest of all the
civil institutions of France, though it had ceased
to be a political institution. Reduced to these
proportions, the hatred it excited was greater
than ever ; and it may be said with truth that
the destruction of a part of the institutions of
the Middle Ages rendered a hundred times more
odious that portion which still survived.f
* See Note N., Irritation caused to the Peasantry by Feudal
Rights, and especially by the Feudal Rights of the Clergy.
t See Note 0., Effect of Feudalism on state of Real Property.

Chap. II. CENTRALISATION. 57

CHAPTER II.
SHOWING THAT ADMINISTRATIVE CENTRALISATION IS AN
INSTITUTION ANTERIOR IN FRANCE TO THE REVOLUTION
OF 1789, AND NOT THE PRODUCT OF THE REVOLUTION OR
OF THE EMPIRE, AS IS COMMONLY SAID.
At a period when political assemblies still existed
in France, I once heard an orator, in speak
ing of administrative centralisation, call it,
" that admirable achievement of the Revolu
tion which Europe envies us." I will concede
the fact that centralisation is an admirable
achievement ; I will admit that Europe envies
us its possession, but I maintain that it is not
an achievement of the Revolution. On the
contrary, it is a product of the former institu
tions of France, and, I may add, the only portion
of the political constitution of the monarchy
which survived the Revolution, inasmuch as it
was the only one that could be made to adapt
itself to the new social condition brought about
by that Revolution. The reader who has the
patience to read the present chapter with atten-

58 CENTRALISATION. Book II.
tion will find that I have proved to demonstra
tion this proposition.
I must first beg to be allowed to put out of
the question what were called les pays d'etat,
that is to say, the provinces that managed their
own affairs, or rather had the appearance, in
part, of managing them. These provinces,
placed at the extremities of the kingdom, did not
contain more than a quarter of the total popu
lation of France ; and there were only two
among them in which provincial liberty pos
sessed any real vitality. I shall revert to them
hereafter, and show to what an extent the cen
tral power had subjected these very states to the
common mould.* But for the present I desire to
give my principal attention to what was called in
the administrative language of the day, les pays
a" election, although, in truth, there were fewer
elections in them than anywhere else. These
districts encompassed Paris on every side, they
were contiguous, and formed the heart and the
better part of the territory of France.
To any one who may cast a glance over the
ancient administration of the kingdom, the first
* See Appendix for a fuller account of the local government of
Languedoc.

Chap. II. CENTRALISATION. 59
impression conveyed is that of a diversity of
regulations and authorities, and the entangled
complication ofthe different powers. France was
covered with administrative bodies and distinct
officers, who had no connexion with one another,
but who took part in the government in virtue
of a right which they had purchased, and which
could not be taken from them ; but their duties
were frequently so intermingled and so nearly
contiguous as to press and clash together within
the range of the same transactions.
The courts of justice took an indirect part in
the legislative power, and possessed the right of
framing administrative regulations which be
came obligatory within the limits of their own
jurisdiction. Sometimes they maintained an
opposition to the administration, properly so.
called,, loudly blamed its measures and proscribed
its agents. Police ordinances were promulgated
by simple justices in the towns and boroughs
where they resided.
The towns had a great diversity of constitu
tions, and their magistrates bore different designa
tions, sometimes as mayors, sometimes as consuls,
or again as syndics, and derived their powers
from different sources. Some were chosen by the

60 CENTRALISATION. Book II.
king, others by the lord of the soil or by the
prince holding the fief; some again were elected
for a year by their fellow citizens, whilst others
purchased the right of governing them per
manently. These different powers were the last remains
of the ancient system ; but something compara
tively new, or greatly modified, had by degrees
established itself among them, and this I have
yet to describe.
In the centre of the kingdom, and close to
the throne, there had been gradually formed an
administrative body of extraordinary authority,
in the grasp of which every power was united
after a new fashion ; this was the King's Coun
cil. Its origin was ancient, but the greater part
of its functions were of recent date. It was at
once a supreme court of justice, inasmuch as it
had the right to quash the judgments of all the
ordinary courts, and a superior administrative
tribunal, inasmuch as every special jurisdiction
was dependent on it in the last resort. It pos
sessed, moreover, as a council of state, subject to
the pleasure of the King, a legislative power,
for it discussed and proposed the greater part of
the laws, and fixed and assessed the taxes. As

Chap. II. CENTRALISATION. 61
the superior administrative board, it had to frame
the general regulations which were to direct the
agents of the government. Within its walls
all important affairs were decided and all se
condary powers controlled. Everything finally
came home to it ; from that centre was derived the
movement which set everything in motion. Yet
it possessed no inherent jurisdiction of its own.
The King alone decided, even when the council
appeared to advise, and even when it seemed to
administer justice it consisted of no more than
simple " givers of advice " — an expression used
by the parliament in one of its remonstrances.
This council was not composed of men of
rank, but of personages of middling or even low
extraction, former Intendants or other men of
that class thoroughly versed in the management
of business, all of whom were liable to dismissal
by the Crown. It generally proceeded in its
course quietly and discreetly, displaying less
pretension than real power ; and thus it had
but little lustre of its own, or, rather, it was lost
in the splendour of the throne to which it stood
so near ; at once so powerful, that everything
came within its scope, and so obscure, that it has
scarcely been remarked by history.

g2 CENTRALISATION. Book II.
As the whole administration of the country
was directed by a single body, so nearly the entire
management of home affairs was entrusted to
the care of one single agent — the Comptroller-
General. On opening an almanack of France
before the Revolution it will be found that each
province had its special minister ; but on study
ing the administration itself in the legal records
of the time, it will soon be seen that the minister
of the province had but few occasions of any
importance for exercising his authority. The
common course of business was directed by the
Comptroller-General, who gradually took upon
himself all the affairs that had anything to do
with money, that is to say, almost the whole
public administration ; and who thus performed
successively the duties of minister of finance,
minister ofthe interior, minister of public works,
and minister of trade.
As, in truth, the central administration had
only but one agent in Paris, so it had likewise
but a single agent in each province. Nobles
were still to be found in the eighteenth century
bearing the titles of governors of provinces ; they
were the ancient and often the hereditary repre
sentatives of feudal royalty. Honours were still

Chap. II. POWER OF THE INTENDANTS. 63
bestowed upon them, but they no longer had
any power. The Intendant was in possession of
the whole reality of government.
This Intendant was a man of humble extrac
tion, always a stranger to the province, and a
young man who had his fortune to make. He
never exercised his functions by any right of
election, birth, or purchase of office ; he was
chosen by the government among the inferior
members of the Council of State, and was always
subject to dismissal. He represented the body
from which he was thus severed, and, for that
reason, was called, in the administrative lan
guage of the time, a detached Commissioner.
All the powers which the Council itself possessed
were accumulated in his hands, and he exercised
them all in the first instance. Like the Council,
he was at once administrator and judge. He
corresponded with all the ministers, and in the
province was the sole agent of all the measures
of the government.
In each canton was placed below him an
officer nominated by himself, and removable at^
will, called the Subdelegate. The Intendant was1
very commonly a newly-created noble; the
Subdelegate was always a plebeian. He never-

64 POWER OF THE INTENDANTS^ Book II.
theless represented the entire government in the
small, circumscribed space assigned to him as
much as the Intendant did in the whole ; and he
was amenable to the Intendant as the Intendant
was to the minister.
The Marquis d'Argenson relates, in his ' Me
moirs,' that one day Law said to him, " I never
could have believed what I saw, when I was
Comptroller of Finance. Do you know that this
kingdom of France is governed by thirty In
tendants? You have neither parliament, nor
estates, nor governors. It is upon thirty Masters
of Requests, despatched into the provinces, that
their evil or their good, their fertility or their
sterility, entirely depend."
These powerful officers of the government
were, however, completely eclipsed by the rem
nants of the ancient aristocracy, and lost in the
brilliancy which that body still shed around it.
So that, even in their own time, they were
scarcely seen, although their finger was already
on everything. In society the nobles had over
such men the advantages of rank, wealth, and the
consideration always attached to what is ancient.
In the government, the nobility were immediately
about the person of the prince, and formed his

Chap. II. ASSESSMENT OF TAXES. 65
court, commanded the fleets, led the armies, and
in short, did all that most attracts the observation
of contemporaries, and too often absorbs the
attention of posterity. A man of high rank
would have been insulted by the proposal to
appoint him an Intendant. The poorest man of
family would generally have disdained the offer.
In his eyes the Intendants were the repre
sentatives of an upstart power, new men ap
pointed to govern the middle classes and thei
peasantry, and, as for the rest, very sorry com
pany.. Yet, as Law said, and as we shall
see, these were the men who governed France.
To commence with the right of taxation,
which includes, as it were, all other rights. It
is well known a part of the taxes were farmed.
In these cases the King's Council negotiated
with the financial companies, fixed the terms of
the contract, and regulated the mode of collec
tion. All the other taxes, such as the taille, the
capitation-tax, and the vingtiemes, were fixed and
levied by the agents of the central adminis
tration or under their all-powerful control.
The Council every year, by a secret decision,
fixed the amount of the taille and its numerous
accessaries, and likewise its distribution among
F

66 ASSESSMENT OF THE TAILLE. Book II.
the provinces. The taille had thus increased
from year to year though public attention was
never called to the fact, no noise being made
about it.
As the taille was an ancient tax, its assessment
and collection had been formerly confided to
local agents, who were all more or less inde
pendent of the government by right of birth
or election, or by purchase of office ; they were
the lords of the soil, the parochial collectors,
the treasurers of France, or officers termed the
elus. These authorities still existed in the eigh
teenth century, but some had altogether ceased
to busy themselves about the taille, whilst others
only did so in a very secondary and entirely
subordinate manner. Even here the entire
power was in the hands of the Intendant and
his agents ; he alone, in truth, assessed the taille
in the different parishes, directed and controlled
the collectors, and granted delays of payments
or exemptions.
As the other taxes, such as the capitation-tax,
were of recent date, the Government was no
longer embarrassed in respect to them by the
remnants of former powers, but dealt with them
without any intervention ofthe parties governed.

Chap. II. LEVY OF THE MILITIA. 67
The Comptroller-General, the Intendant, and
the Council fixed the amount of each quota.
Let us leave the question of money for that
of men.
It is sometimes a matter of astonishment how
the French can have so patiently borne the
yoke of the military conscription at the time of
the Revolution and ever since ; but it must be
borne in mind that they had been already broken
in to bear it for a long period of time. The
conscription had been preceded by the militia,
which was a heavier burthen, although the
amount of men required was less. From time
to time the young men in the country were
made to draw lots, and from among them were
taken a certain number of soldiers, who were
formed into militia regiments, in which they
served for six years.
As the militia was a comparatively modern
institution, none of the ancient feudal powers
meddled with it : the whole business was in
trusted to the agents of the central government
alone. The Council fixed the general amount of
men and the share of each province. The In
tendant regulated the number of men- to be
raised in each parish ; his Sub-delegate super-
f 2

68 ¦ DIRECTION OF PUBLIC WORKS. Book II.
intended the drawing of the lots, decided all
cases of exemption, designated those militiamen
who were allowed to remain with their families
and those who were to join the regiment, and
finally delivered over the latter to the military
authorities. There was no appeal except to
the Intendant or the Council.
It may be said with equal accuracy that,
except in the pays d'etat, all the public works,
even those that had a very special destination,
were decided upon and managed by the agents
of the central power alone.
There certainly existed local and independent
authorities, who, like the seigneur, the boards
of finance, and the grands voyers (surveyors of
public roads), had the power of taking a part
in such matters of public administration. But
all these ancient authorities, as may be seen by
the slightest examination of the administrative
documents of the time, bestirred themselves but
little, or bestirred themselves no longer. All
the great roads, and even the cross-roads leading
from one town to another, were made and kept up
.at the cost of the public revenue. The Council
decided the plan and contracted for its execution.
The Intendant directed the engineering works,

Chap. II. MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC ORDER. 69
and the Sub-delegate got together the compul
sory labourers who were to execute them. The
care of the bye-roads was alone left to the old
local authorities, and they became impassable.
As in our days, the body of the Ponts et
Chaussees was the great agent of the central
government in relation to public works, and, in
spite of the difference of the times, a very re
markable resemblance is to be found in their
constitution now and then. The administration
of the Ponts et Chaussees had a council and a
school, inspectors who annually travelled over
the whole of France, and engineers who resided
on the spot and who were appointed to direct
the works under the orders of the Intendant.
A far greater number of the institutions of the
old monarchy than is commonly supposed have
been handed down to the modern state of French
society, but in their transmission they have
generally lost their names, even though they
still preserve the same forms. As a rare excep
tion, the Ponts et Chaussees have preserved both
one and the other.
The Central Government alone undertook,
with the help of its agents, to maintain public
order in the provinces. The marechaussee, or

70 POLICE. Book II.
mounted police, was dispersed in small detach
ments over the whole surface of the kingdom,
and was everywhere placed under the control of
the Intendants. It was by the help of these
soldiers, and, if necessary, of regular troops,
that the Intendant warded off any sudden
danger, arrested vagabonds, repressed mendicity,
and put down the riots, which were continually
arising from the price of corn. It never hap
pened, as had been formerly the case, that the
subjects of the Crown were called upon to aid
the Government in this task, except indeed in
the towns, where there was generally a town-
guard, the soldiers of which were chosen and
the officers appointed by the Intendant.
The judicial bodies had preserved the right of
making police-regulations, and frequently exer
cised it ; but these regulations were only appli
cable to a part of the territory, and, more
generally, to one spot only. The Council had
the power of annulling them, and frequently did
annul them in cases of subordinate jurisdiction.
But the Council was perpetually making general
regulations applicable to all parts of the king
dom, either relative to subjects different from
those which the tribunals had already settled, or

Chap. II. ARRETS DU CONSEIL. 71
applicable to those which they had settled in
another manner. The number of these regula-^
tions, or arrSts du conseil, as they were then
called, was immense ; and they seem to have
constantly increased the nearer we approach the
Revolution. There is scarcely a single matter of
social economy or political organization that
was not reorganised by these arrits du conseil
during the forty years preceding that event.
Under the ancient feudal state of society, the
lord of the soil, if he possessed important rights,
had, at the same time, very heavy obligations.
It was his duty to succour the indigent in the
interior of his domains. The last trace of this
old European legislation is to be found in the
Prussian code of 1795, which says, " The lord
of the soil must see that the indigent peasants
receive an education. It is his duty to provide
means of subsistence to those of his vassals who
possess no land, as far as he is able. If any of
them fall into want, he must come to their
assistance." But no law of the kind had existed in France
for a long time. The lord, when deprived of
his former power, considered himself liberated
from his former obligations ; and no local au-

72 RELIEF OF THE POOK. Book II.
thority, no council, no provincial or parochial
association, had taken his place. No single
being was any longer compelled by law to take
care of the poor in the rural districts, and the
Central Government had boldly undertaken to
provide for their wants by its own resources.
Every year the Council assigned to each pro
vince certain funds derived from the general
produce of the taxes, which the Intendant dis
tributed for the relief of the poor in the different
parishes. It was to him that the indigent la
bourer had to apply, and, in times of scarcity, it
was he who caused corn or rice to be distributed
among the people. The Council annually issued
ordinances for the establishment of charitable
workshops (ateliers de charite) where the poorer
among the peasantry were enabled to find work
at low wages, and the Council took upon itself to
determine the places where these were necessary.
It may be easily supposed, that alms thus be
stowed from a distance were indiscriminate,
capricious, and always very inadequate.*
The Central Government, moreover, did not
confine itself to relieving the peasantry in time
* See Note P., Public Relief, and Note Q.

Chap. II. CENTRALISATION. 73
of distress : it also undertook to teach them the
art of enriching themselves, encouraged them in
this task, and forced them to it, if necessary.*
For this purpose, from time to time, it caused
distributions of small pamphlets upon the sci
ence of agriculture to be made by its Intendants
and their Sub-delegates, founded schools of agri
culture, offered prizes, and kept up, at a great
expense, nursery-grounds, of which it distributed
the produce. It would seem to have been more
wise to have lightened the weight and mo-.
dified the inequality of the burdens which then
oppressed the agriculture of the country, but
such an idea never seems to have occurred.
Sometimes the Council insisted upon compell
ing individuals to prosper, whether they would
or no. The ordinances constraining artisans
to use certain methods and manufacture certain
articles are innumerable ; and as the Intendants
had not time to superintend the application of
all these regulations, there were inspectors-
general of manufactures, who visited in the pro
vinces to insist on their fulfilment. Some of
the arrits du conseil even prohibited the cultiva-
* See Note R., Powers of the Intendant for the Regulation of
Trade.

74 CENTRALISATION. Book II.
tion of certain crops, which the Council did not
consider proper for the purpose ; whilst others
ordered the destruction of such vines as had
been, according to its opinion, planted in an un
favourable soil. So completely had the Govern
ment already changed its duty as a sovereign
into that of a guardian.

Chap. III. MUNICIPAL RIGHTS ABOLISHED. 75

CHAPTER III.
SHOWING THAT WHAT IS NOW CALLED ADMINISTRATIVE
TUTELAGE WAS AN INSTITUTION IN FRANCE ANTERIOR
TO THE REVOLUTION.
In France municipal freedom outlived the feudal
system. Long after the landlords were no longer
the rulers of the country districts, the towns
still retained the right of self-government.
Some of the towns of France continued down
to nearly the close of the seventeenth century to
form,as it were, small democratic commonwealths,
in which the magistrates were freely elected by
the whole people and were responsible to the
people — in which municipal life was still public
and animated — in which the city was still proud
of her rights and jealous of her independence.
These elections were generally abolished for
the first time in 1692. The municipal offices
were then what was called put up to sale (mises
en offices was the technical expression), that is
to say, the King sold in each town to some of

76 SALE OF MUNICIPAL OFFICES. Book II.
the inhabitants the right of perpetually goyern-
ing^all their. townsmen.
This measure cost the towns at once their free
dom and their well being ; for if the practice of
the sale of commissions for a public employment
sometimes proved useful in its effects when
applied to the courts of justice — since the first
condition of the good administration of justice is
the complete independence of the judge — this
system never failed to be extremely mischievous
whenever it was applied to posts of adminis
trative duty, which demand, above all things,
responsibility, subordination, and zeal. The
government of the old French monarchy was
perfectly aware of the real effects of such a
system. It took great care not to adopt for
itself the same mode of proceeding which it
applied to the towns, and scrupulously abstained
from putting up to sale the commissions of its
iown Intendants and Sub-delegates.
And it well deserves the whole scorn of history
that this great change was accomplished without
any political motive. Louis XI. had curtailed
the municipal liberties of the towns, because he
was alarmed by their democratic character ;*
* See Note S., Spirit of the Government of Louis XI.

Chap. HI. SALE OF MUNICIPAL OFFICES. 77
Louis XIV. destroyed them under no such fears.
The proof is that he restored these rights to
all the towns which were rich enough to buy
them back again. In reality, his object was not
to abolish them but to traffic in them, and if they
were actually abolished, it was without meaning
it, by a mere fiscal expedient. The same thing
was carried on for more than eighty years.
Seven times within that period the Crown resold
to the towns the right of electing their magis
trates, and as soon as they had once more tasted
this blessing, it was snatched away to be sold to
them once more. The motive of the measure
was always the same, and frequently avowed.
" Our financial necessities," says the preamble to
an edict of 1722, " compel us to have recourse
to the most effectual means of relieving them."
The mode was effectual, but it was ruinous to
those who bore this strange impost. " I am
struck with the enormity of the sums which
have been paid at all times to purchase back the
municipal offices," writes an Intendant to the
Comptroller-General in 1764. " The amount
of these sums spent in useful improvements
would have turned to the advantage of the town,
which has, on the contrary, felt nothing but the

78 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. Book II.
weight of authority and the privileges of these
offices." I have not detected a more shameful
feature in the whole aspect of the government
of France before the Revolution.
It seems difficult to say with precision at the
present time how the towns of France were
governed in the eighteenth century ; for, besides
that the origin of the municipal authorities
fluctuated incessantly, as has just been stated,
each town still preserved some fragments of its
former constitution and its peculiar customs.
There were not, perhaps, two towns in France in
which everything was exactly similar ; but this
apparent diversity is fallacious, and conceals a
general resemblance.*
In 1764 the government proposed to make a
general law on the administration of the towns
of France, and for this purpose it caused reports
to be sent in by the Intendants of the Crown
on the existing municipal government of the
country. I have discovered- a portion of the
results of this inquiry, and I have fully satisfied
myself by the perusal of it that the municipal
affairs of all these towns were conducted in much
* See Note T., Administration of a French Town in the Eigh
teenth Century.

Chap. III. MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 79
the same manner. The distinctions are merely
superficial and apparent — the groundwork is
everywhere the same.
In most instances the government of the towns
was vested in two assemblies. All the great
towns were thus governed, and some of the small
ones. The first of these assemblies was composed
of municipal officers, more or less numerous
according to the place. These formed the execu
tive body of the community, the corporation or
corps de la ville, as it was then termed. The
members of this body exercised a temporary
power, and were elected when the King had
restored the elective power, or when the town
had been able to buy up its offices. They held
their office permanently upon a certain payment
to the Crown, when the Crown had appropriated
the patronage and succeeded in disposing of it by
sale, which was not always the case ; for this sort
of commodity declined in value precisely in pro
portion to the increasing subordination of the
Ijnunicipal authority to the central power. These
municipal officers never received any stipend,
but they were remunerated by exemptions from
taxation and by privileges. No regular grada
tion of authority seems to have been established

80 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. Book II.
among them — their administration was collective.
The mayor was the president of the corporation,
not the governor of the city.
The second assembly, which was termed the
general assembly, or as we should say in England
the livery, elected the corporation, wherever it
was still subject to election, and always continued
to take a part in the principal concerns of the
town. In the fifteenth century this general assembly
frequently consisted of the whole population.
" This custom," said one of the authors of these
Reports, " was consistent with the popular spirit
of our forefathers." At that time the whole
people elected their own municipal officers ; this
-body was sometimes consulted by the corporation,
and to this body the corporation was responsible.
At the end of the seventeenth century the same
state of things might sometimes be met with.
In the eighteenth century the people acting
as a body had ceased to meet in this general as
sembly ; it had by that time become representa
tive. But, it must be carefully remarked, that
this body was no longer anywhere elected by the
bulk of the community, or impressed with its
spirit. It was invariably composed of notables,

Chap. III. MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 81
some of whom sate there in virtue of a personal
right; others were deputed by guilds or com
panies, from which each of them received impera
tive instructions.
As this century rolled on, the number of these
notables sitting in virtue of their own right
augmented in the popular assembly ; the delegates
of the working guilds fell away or disappeared
altogether. They were superseded by the dele
gates of the great companies, or in other words,
the assembly contained only burgesses and
scarcely any artisans. Then the citizens, who are
not so easily imposed on by the empty semblance
of liberty as is sometimes supposed, ceased every
where to take an interest in the affairs of the
town, and lived like strangers within their own
walls. In vain the civic magistrates attempted
from time to time to revive that civic patriotism
which had done so many wonders in the Middle
Ages. The people remained deaf. The greatest
interests of the town no longer appeared to affect
the citizens. They were asked to give their suf
frages when the vain counterfeit of a free elec
tion had been retained ; but they stood aloof
Nothmg is more frequent in history than such
an occurrence. Almost all the princes who have

82 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. Book II.
destroyed freedom have attempted at first to
preserve the forms of freedom, from Augustus
to our own times ; they flattered themselves that
they should thus combine the moral strength
which public assent always gives, with the con
veniences which absolute power can alone offer.
But almost all of them have failed in this en
deavour, and have soon discovered that it is
impossible to prolong these false appearances
where the reality has ceased to exist.
In the eighteenth century the municipal go
vernment of the towns of France had thus every
where degenerated into a contracted oligarchy.
A few families managed all the public business
for their own private purposes, removed from
the eye of the public, and with no public respon
sibility. Such was the morbid condition of this
administration throughout the whole of France.
All the Intendants pointed it out ; but the only
remedy they suggested was the increasing sub
jection of. the local authorities to the central
government. In this respect, however, it was difficult for
success to be more complete. Besides the Royal
edicts, which from time to time modified the
administration of all the towns in France, the

Chap. III. OVERRULED BY ORDERS IN COUNCIL. 83
local by-laws of each town were frequently
overruled by Orders in Council, which were
not registered — passed on the recommenda
tion of the Intendants, without any previous
inquiry, and sometimes without the citizens of
the towns themselves knowing anything of the
matter.* " This measure," said the inhabitants of a
town which had been affected by a decree of this
nature, " has astonished all the orders of the
city, who expected nothing of the kind."
The towns of France at this period could
neither establish an octroi on articles of con
sumption, nor levy a rate, nor mortgage, nor
sell, nor sue, nor farm their property, nor admi
nister that property, nor even employ their own
surplus revenues, without the intervention of an
Order in Council, made on the report of the
Intendant. All their public works were executed
in conformity to plans and estimates approved
by the Council. These works were adjudged to
contractors before the Intendant or his Subdele-
gates, and were generally entrusted to the engi
neers or architects of the State. These facts will
* See Note U. G 2

84 CENTRALISATION. Book II.
doubtless excite the surprise of those who sup
posed that the whole present condition of France
is a novelty.
But the central government interfered more
directly in the municipal administration of the
towns than even these rules would seem to in
dicate ; its power was far more extended than
its right to exercise it.
I meet with the following passage in a circu
lar instruction, addressed about the middle of
the last century by a Comptroller-general to all
the Intendants of the kingdom : " You will pay
particular attention to all that takes place in the
municipal assemblies. You will take care to
have a most exact report of everything done
there and of all the resolutions taken, in order
to transmit them to me forthwith, accompanied
with your own opinion on the subject."
In fact it may be seen, from the correspon
dence of the Intendant with his subordinate offi
cers, that the government had a finger in all the
concerns of every town, the least as well as the
greatest. The government was always con
sulted — the government had always a decided
opinion on every point. It even regulated
the public festivities, ordered public rejoicings,

Chap. III. SUBSERVIENCY OF THE TOWNS. 85
caused salutes to be fired, and houses to be
illuminated. On one occasion I observe that a
member of the burgher-guard was fined twenty
livres by the Intendant for having absented
himself from a Te Deum.
The officers of these municipal corporations
had therefore arrived at a becoming sense of
their own insignificance. " We most humbly
supplicate you, Monseigneur " (such was the
style in which they addressed the King's Intend
ant), " to grant us your goodwill and protection.
We will endeavour not to show ourselves un
worthy of them by the submission we are ready
to show to all the commands of your Greatness."
" We have never resisted your will, Mon
seigneur," was the language of another body of
these persons, who still assumed the pompous
title of Peers of the City.
Such was the preparation of the middle classes
for government, and of the people for liberty.
If at least this close dependence of the towns
on the -state had preserved their finances ! but
such was not the case. It is sometimes argued
that without centralisation the towns would
ruin themselves. I know not how that may be,

86 • PAROCHIAL ADMINISTRATION. Book II.
but I know that in the eighteenth century cen
tralisation did not prevent their ruin. The
whole administrative history of that time is
replete with their embarrassments.
If we turn from the towns to the villages, we
meet with different powers and different forms
of government, but the same dependence.*
I find many indications of the fact, that in
the Middle Ages the inhabitants of every village
formed a community distinct from the Lord of
the soil. He, no doubt, employed the community,
superintended it, governed it; but the village
held in common certain property, which was
absolutely its own ; it elected its own chiefs, and
administered its affairs democratically.
This ancient constitution of the parish may be
traced in all the nations in which the feudal
system prevailed, and in all the countries to
which these nations have carried the remnants
of their laws. These vestiges occur at every
turn in England, and the system was in full
vigour in Germany sixty years ago, as may be
demonstrated by reading the code of Frederic
the Great. Even in France in the eighteenth
* See Note V., Administration of a Village in the Eighteenth
Century.

Chap. III. PAROCHIAL CONSTITUTION. 87
century, some traces of it were still in exist
ence. I remember that, when I proceeded, for the
first time, to ascertain from the archives of one
of the old Intendancies of France, what was
meant by a parish before the Revolution, I was
surprised to find in this community, so poor
and so enslaved, several of the characteristics
which had struck me long ago in the rural town
ships of the United States, and which I had then
erroneously conceived to be a peculiarity of
society in the New World. Neither in the one
nor in the other of these communities is there
any permanent representation or any municipal
body, in the strict sense of that term ; both the
one and the other were administered by officers
acting separately under the direction of the
whole population. In both, meetings were held
from time to time, at which all the inhabitants,
assembled in one body, elected their own magis
trates and settled their principal affairs. These
two parishes, in short, are as much alike as
that which is living can he like that which is
dead. Different as have been the destinies of these

88 PAROCHIAL OFFICERS. Book II.
two corporate beings, their birth was in fact the

same.

Transported at once to regions far removed
from the feudal system, and invested with un
limited authority over itself, the rural parish of
the Middle Ages in Europe is become the town
ship of New England. Severed from the Lord
ship of the soil, but grasped in the powerful
hand of the State, the rural parishes of France
assumed the form I am about to describe.
In the eighteenth century the number and the
name of the parochial officers varied in the dif
ferent provinces of France. The ancient records
show that these officers were more numerous
when local life was more active, and that they
diminished in number as that life declined. In
most of the parishes they were, in the eigh
teenth century, reduced to two persons — the one
named the ' Collector,' the other most commonly
named the ' Syndic' Generally, these parochial
officers were either elected, or supposed to be so ;
but they had everywhere become the instru
ments of the State rather than the representa
tives of the community. The Collector levied
the taille, under the direct orders of the In-

Chap. IH. THE COLLECTOR AND SYNDIC. 89
tendant. The Syndic, placed under the daily
direction of the Subdelegate of the Intendant,
represented that personage in all matters re
lating to public order or affecting the Govern
ment. He became the principal agent of the
Government in relation to military service, to
the public works of the State, and to the exe
cution of the general laws of the kingdom.
The Seigneur, as we have already seen, stood
aloof from all these details of Government ; he
had even ceased to superintend them, or to assist
in them ; nay more, these duties, which had
served in earlier times to keep up his power, ap
peared unworthy of his attention in proportion to
the progressive decay of that power. It would
at last have been an offence to his pride to re
quire him to attend to them. He had ceased to
govern ; but his presence in the parish and his
privileges effectually prevented any good go
vernment from being established in the parish
in place of his own. A private person differing
so entirely from the other parishioners — so in
dependent of them, and so favoured by the laws
— weakened or destroyed the authority of all
rules. The unavoidable contact with such a person

90 ANCIENT PAROCHIAL FREEDOM. Book IL
in the country had driven into the towns, as
I shall subsequently have occasion to show,
almost all those inhabitants, who had either a
competency or education, so that none remained
about the Seigneur but a flock of ignorant and
uncultivated peasants, incapable of managing
the administration of their common interests.
"A parish," as Turgot had justly observed,
" is an assemblage of cabins, and of inhabit
ants as passive as the cabins they dwell in."
The administrative records of the eighteenth
century are full of complaints of the incapacity,
indolence, and ignorance of the parochial collec
tors and Syndics. Ministers, Intendants, Sub-
delegates, and even the country gentlemen, are
for ever deploring these defects ; but none of
them had traced these defects to their cause.
Down to the Revolution the rural parishes of
France had preserved in their government
something of that democratic aspect which they
had acquired in the Middle Ages. If the paro
chial officers were to be elected, or some matter
of public interest to be discussed, the village bell
summoned the peasants to the church-porch,
where the poor as well as the rich were entitled
to present themselves. In these meetings there

Chap. III. CRUSHED BY CENTRALISATION. 91
was not indeed any regular debate or any deci
sive mode of voting, but every one was at
liberty to speak his mind ; and it was the duty
of the notary, sent for on purpose, and operating
in the open air, to collect these different opinions
and enter them in a record of the proceedings.
When these empty semblances of freedom are
compared with the total impotence which was
connected with them, they afford an example, in
miniature, ofthe combination ofthe most absolute
government with some of the forms of extreme
democracy ; so that to oppression may be added
the absurdity of affecting to disguise it. This
democratic assembly of the parish could indeed
express its desires, but it had no more power to
execute its will than the corporate bodies in the
towns. It could not speak until its mouth had
been opened, for the meeting could not be held
without the express permission of the Inten
dant, and, to use the expression of those times,
which adapted their language to the fact, " under
his good pleasure." Even if such a meeting
were unanimous, it could neither levy a rate,
nor sell, nor buy, nor let, nor sue, with
out the permission of the King's Council. It
was necessary to obtain a minute of Council to

92 PUNISHMENT OF PAROCHIAL OFFICERS. Book II.
repair the damage caused by the wind to the
church steeple, or to rebuild the falling gables
of the parsonage. The rural parishes most re
mote from Paris were just as much subject to
this rule as those nearest to the capital. I have
found records of parochial memorials to the
Council for leave to spend 25 livres.
The inhabitants had indeed, commonly, re
tained the right of electing their parochial
magistrates by universal suffrage ; but it fre
quently happened that the Intendant designated
to this small electoral body a candidate who
never failed to be returned by a unanimity of
suffrages. Sometimes, when the election had
been made by the parishioners themselves, he
set it aside, named the Collector and Syndic of
his own authority, and adjourned indefinitely a
fresh election. There are thousands of such
examples. It is difficult to conceive a more cruel fate
than that of these parochial officers. The lowest
agent of the Central Government, the Subdele
gate, bent them to every caprice. Often they
were fined, sometimes imprisoned; for the se
curities which elsewhere defended the citizens
against arbitrary proceedings, had ceased to exist

Chap. III. LOSS OF CORPORATE AUTHORITY. 93
for them : " I have thrown into prison," said an
Intendant in 1750, " some ofthe chief persons in
.the villages who grumbled, and I have made
these parishes pay the expense of the horsemen
of the patrol. By these means they have been
easily check-mated." The consequence was, that
these parochial functions were not considered as
honours, but as burdens to be evaded by every
species of subterfuge.
Yet these last remnants of the ancient paro
chial government were still dear to the peasantry
of France ; and even at the present day, of all
public liberties the only one they thoroughly
comprehend is parochial freedom. The only
business of a public nature which really interests
them is to be found there. Men, who readily
leave the government of the whole nation in the
hand of a master, revolt at the notion of not
being able to speak their mind in the adminis
tration of their own village. So much weight
is there yet in forms the most hollow.
What has been said of the towns and parishes
of France may be extended to almost all the
corporate bodies which had any separate exist
ence and collective property.
Under the social condition of France anterior

94 CENTRALISATION. Book II.
to the Revolution of 1789, as well as at the pre
sent day, there was no city, town, borough,
village, or hamlet in the kingdom — there was
neither hospital, church fabric, religious house,
nor college, which could have an independent
will in the management of its private affairs, or
which could administer its own property accord
ing to its own choice. Then, as now, the ex
ecutive administration therefore held the whole
French people in tutelage ; and if that insolent
term had not yet been invented, the thing itself
already existed.

Chap. IV. EXCEPTIONAL JURISDICTIONS. 95

CHAPTER IY.
EXCEPTIONAL ADMINISTRATIVE JURISDICTIONS AND THE IM
MUNITY OF PUBLIC OFFICERS ARE INSTITUTIONS OF FRANCE
ANTERIOR TO THE REVOLUTION.*
In no country in Europe were the ordinary
Courts of justice less dependent on the govern
ment than in France ; but in no country were
extraordinary Courts of justice more extensively
employed. These two circumstances were more
nearly connected than might be imagined. As
the King was almost entirely powerless in rela
tion to the judges of the land — as he could

* [Que la justice administrative et la garantie des fonctionnaires
sont des institutions de V Ancien Regime. The difficulty of rendering
these terms into intelligible English arises from the fact that at no
time in the last two centuries of the history of England has the
executive administration assumed a peculiar jurisdiction to itself or
removed its officers from the jurisdiction of the courts of common
law in this country. It will be seen in this chapter that the ordi
nary jurisdictions of France have always been liable to be superseded
by extraordinary judicial authorities when the interests of the
government or the responsibility of its agents were at stake. The
arbitrary jurisdiction of all such irregular tribunals was, in fact,
abolished in England in 1641 by the Act under which fell the
Court of Star Chamber and the High Commission.]

96 EXCEPTIONAL JURISDICTIONS. Book II.
neither dismiss them, nor translate them, nor
even, for the most part, promote them— as, in
short, he held them neither by ambition nor by
fear, their independence soon proved embar
rassing to the Crown. The result had been, in
France, more than anywhere else, to withdraw
from their jurisdiction the suits in which the
authority of the Crown was directly interested,
and to call into being, as it were beside them,
a species of tribunal more dependent on the
sovereign, which should present to the subjects
of the Crown some semblance of justice without
any real cause for the Crown to dread its control.
In other countries, as, for instance, in some
parts of Germany, where the ordinary courts of
justice had never been as independent of the
government as those of France, no such pre
cautions were taken, and no administrative jus
tice (as it was termed) existed. The sovereign
was so far master of the judges, that he needed
no special commissions.
The edicts and declarations- of the Kings of
France, published in the last century of the
monarchy, and the Orders in Council promul
gated within the same period, almost all pro
vided on behalf of the Government, that the

Chap. IV. EXCEPTIONAL JURISDICTIONS. 97
differences to which any given measure might
give rise, and the litigation which might ensue,
should be exclusively heard before the Intendants
and before the Council. " It is moreover ordered
by his Majesty, that all the disputes which may
arise upon the execution of this order, with
all the circumstances and incidents thereunto
belonging, shall be carried before the Intendant
to be judged by him, saving an appeal to the
Council, and all courts of justice and tribunals
are forbidden to take cognizance of the same."
Such was the ordinary form of these decrees.
In matters which fell under laws or customs
of an earlier date, when this precaution had not
been taken, the Council continually intervened,
by way of what was termed evocation, or the
calling up to its own superior jurisdiction from
the hands of the ordinary officers of justice suits
in which the administration of the State had
an interest. The registers of the Council are
full of minutes of evocation of this nature. By
degrees the exception became the rule, and a
theory was invented to justify the fact.* It came
to be regarded as a maxim of state, not in the
* See Note X. H

98 EXCEPTIONAL JURISDICTIONS. Book II.
laws of France, but in the minds of those by
whom those laws were applied, that all suits
in which a public interest was involved, or which
arose out of the construction to be put on any
act of the administration, were not within the
competency of the ordinary judges, whose only
business it was to decide between private interests.
On this point we, in more recent times, have
only added a mode of expression ; the idea had
preceded the Revolution of 1789.
Already at that time most of the disputed
questions which arose out of the collection of
the revenue were held to fall under the exclu
sive jurisdiction of the Intendant and the King's
council.* So, too, with reference to the regula
tion of public waggons and stage-coaches, drain
age, the navigation of rivers, &c. ; and in general
all the suits in which the pubhc authorities were
interested came to be disposed by administrative
tribunals only. The Intendants took the greatest
care that this exceptional jurisdiction should
be continually extended. They urged on the
Comptroller General, and stimulated" the Council.
The reason one of these officers assigned to
* See Note Y.

Chap. IV. EXCEPTIONAL JURISDICTIONS. 99
induce the Council to call up one of these suits
deserves to be remembered. " An ordinary
judge,", said he, " is subject to fixed rules, which
compel him to punish any transgression of the
law ; but the Council can always set aside rules
for a useful purpose."
On this principle, it often happened that the
Intendant or the Council called up to their own
jurisdiction suits which had an almost imper
ceptible connexion with any subject of adminis
trative interest, or even which had no perceptible
connexion with such questions at all. A coun
try gentleman quarrels with his neighbour, and
being dissatisfied with the apparent disposition
of his judges, he asks the Council to evoke his
cause. The Intendant reports that, " although
this is a case solely affecting private rights,
which fall under the cognizance of the courts
of justice, yet that his Majesty can always, when
he pleases, reserve to himself the decision of
any suit whatever, without rendering any ac
count at all of his motives."
It was generally before the Intendant or
before the Provost of the Marechaussee that all
the lower x»rder of people were sent for trial,
by this process of evocation, when they had
h 2

100 EXCEPTIONAL JURISDICTIONS. Book II.
been guilty of public disturbances. Most of the
riots so frequently caused by the high price of
corn gave rise to transfers of jurisdiction, of this
nature. The Intendant then summoned to his
court a certain number of persons, who formed a
sort of local council, chosen by himself, and with
their assistance he proceeded to try criminals.
I have found sentences delivered in this manner,
by which men were condemned to the galleys,
and even to death. Criminal trials decided by
the Intendant were still common at the close of
the seventeenth century.
Modern jurists in discussing this subject of
administrative jurisdictions assert, that great
progress has been made since the Revolution.
" Before that era," they say, " the judicial and
administrative powers were confounded ; they
have since been distinguished and assigned to
their respective places." To appreciate correctly
the progress here spoken of, it must never be
forgotten, that if on the one hand the judicial
power under the old monarchy was incessantly
extending beyond the natural sphere of its autho
rity, yet on the other hand that sphere was
never entirely filled by it. To see one of these
facts without the other is to form an in-

Chap. IV. EXCEPTIONAL JURISDICTIONS. 101
complete and inaccurate idea of the subject.
Sometimes the courts of law were allowed to
enact regulations on matters of public adminis
tration, which was manifestly beyond their juris
diction ; sometimes they were restrained from
judging regular suits, which was to exclude
them from the exercise of their proper functions.
The modern law of France has undoubtedly re
moved the administration of justice from those
political institutions into which it had very im
properly been allowed to penetrate before the
Revolution ; but at the same time, as has just
been shown, the government continually in
vaded the proper sphere of the judicial autho
rities, and this state of things is unchanged,
as if the confusion of these powers were not
equally dangerous on the one side as on the
other, and even worse in the latter mode ; for
the intervention of a judicial authority in admi
nistrative business is only injurious to the trans
action of affairs, but the intervention of admi
nistrative power in judicial proceedings depraves
mankind, and tends to render men at once revo
lutionary and servile.
Amongst the nine or ten constitutions which
have been established in perpetuity in France

102 EXCEPTIONAL JURISDICTIONS. Book II.
within the last sixty years, there is one in which
it was expressly provided that no ageiit of the
administration can be prosecuted before the ordi
nary courts of law without having previously
obtained the assent of the Government to such
a prosecution.* This clause appeared to be so
well devised that when the constitution to which
it belonged was destroyed, this provision was
saved from the wreck, and it has ever since been
carefully preserved from the injuries of revolu
tions. The administrative body still calls the
privilege secured to them by this article one of
the great conquests of 1789; but in this they
are mistaken, for under the old monarchy the
Government was not less solicitous than it is in
our own times to spare its officers the unpleasant
ness of rendering an account in a court of law,
like any other private citizens. The only es
sential difference between the two periods is this :
before the Revolution the Government could
only shelter its agents by having recourse to
illegal and arbitrary measures ; since the Revo-
* [The article referred to is the 75th article of the ..Constitution de
l'An VIII., which provided that the agents of the executive govern
ment, other than the ministers, could only be prosecuted for their
conduct in the discharge of their functions, in virtue of a decision
of the Council of State.]

Chap. IV. EXCEPTIONAL JURISDICTIONS. 103
lution it can legally allow them to violate the
laws. When the ordinary tribunals of the old mo
narchy allowed proceedings to be instituted
against any officer representing the central
authority of the Government, an Order in
Council usually intervened to withdraw the
accused person from the jurisdiction of his
judges, and to arraign him before commissioners
named by the Council ; for, as was said by a
councillor of state of that time, a public officer
thus attacked would have had to encounter an
adverse prepossession in the minds of the ordi
nary judges, and the authority ofthe King would
have been compromised. This sort of interfere
ence occurred not only at long intervals, but
every day — not only with reference to the chief
agents of the Government, but to the least. The
slightest thread of a connexion with the admi
nistration sufficed to relieve an officer from all
other control. A mounted overseer of the Board
of Public Works, whose business was to direct
the forced labour of the peasantry, was prose
cuted by a peasant whom he had ill treated. The
Council evoked the cause, and the chief engineer
of the district, writing confidentially to the In-

104 EXCEPTIONAL JURISDICTIONS. Book II.
tendant, said on this subject : " It is quite true
that the overseer is greatly to blame, but that is
not a reason for allowing the case to follow the
ordinary jurisdiction ; for it is of the utmost im
portance to the Board of Works that the courts
of common law should not hear or decide on the
¦complaints of the peasants engaged in forced
labour against the overseers of these works. If
this precedent were followed those works would
be disturbed by continual litigation, arising out
of the animosity of the public against the officers
of the Government."
On another occasion the Intendant himself
wrote to the Comptroller-General with reference
to a Government contractor, who had taken his
materials in a field which did not belong to him.
" I cannot sufficiently represent to you how inju
rious it would be to the interests of the Admi
nistration if the contractors were abandoned to
the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, whose
principles can never be reconciled to those of
the Government."
These lines were written precisely a hundred
years ago, but it appears as if the administrators
who wrote them were our own contemporaries.

Chap. V. CENTRALISATION. 105

CHAPTER V.
SHOWING HOW CENTRALISATION HAD BEEN ABLE TO INTRO
DUCE ITSELF AMONG THE ANCIENT INSTITUTIONS OF
FRANCE, AND TO SUPPLANT WITHOUT DESTROYING THEM.
Let us now briefly recapitulate what has been
said in the three preceding chapters. A single
body or institution placed in the centre of the
kingdom regulated the public administration of
the whole country ; the same Minister directed
almost all the internal affairs of the kingdom ;
in each province _ a single Government agent
managed all the details ; no secondary adminis
trative bodies existed, and none which could act
until they had been set in motion by the autho
rity of the State ; courts of extraordinary juris
diction judged the causes in which the adminis
tration was interested, and sheltered all its
agents. What is this but the centralisation
with which we are so well acquainted ? Its
forms were less marked than they are at pre
sent ; its course was less regular, its existence

106 CENTRALISATION. , Book II.
more disturbed ; but it is the same being. It
has not been necessary to add or to withdraw
any essential condition ; the removal of all that
once surrounded it at once exposed it in the
shape that now meets our eyes.
Most of the institutions which I have just de
scribed have been imitated subsequently, and
in a hundred different places ;* but they were
at that time peculiar to France ; and we shall
shortly see how great was the influence they
had on the French Revolution and on its results.
But how came these institutions of modern
date to be established in France amidst the ruins
of feudal society ?
It was a work of patience, of address, and of
time, rather than of force or pf absolute power.
At the time when the Revolution occurred,
scarcely any part of the old administrative edi
fice of France had been destroyed ; but another
structure had been, as it were, called into ex
istence beneath it.
There is nothing to show that the govern
ment of the old French monarchy followed any
deliberately concerted plan to effect this difficult
* See Note Z., Traces in Canada of Centralisation of the old
French Monarchy.

Chap. V. RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENTS. 107
operation. That government merely obeyed
the instinct which leads all governments to aim
at the exclusive management of affairs — an in
stinct which ever remained the same in spite of
the diversity of its agents. The monarchy had
left to the ancient powers of France their vene
rable names and their honours, but it had gradu
ally subtracted from them their authority. They
had not been expelled but enticed out of their
domains. By the indolence of one man, by the
egotism of another, the government had found
means to occupy their places. Availing itself of
all their vices, never attempting to correct but
only to supersede them, the government at last
found means to substitute for almost all of them
its own sole agent, the Intendant, whose very
name was unknown when those powers which
he supplanted came into being.
The judicial institutions had alone impeded
the government in this great enterprise ; but
even there the State had seized the substance of
power, leaving only the shadow of it to its ad
versaries. The Parliaments of France had not
been excluded from the sphere of the adminis
tration, but the Government had extended itself
gradually in that direction so as to appropriate

108 RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENTS. Book II.
almost the whole of it. In certain extraordi
nary and transient emergencies, in times of
scarcity, for instance, when the passions of the
people lent a support to the ambition of the ma
gistrates, the central Government allowed the
Parliaments to administer for a brief interval,
and to leave a trace upon the page of history :
but the Government soon silently resumed its
place, and gently extended its grasp over every
class of men and of affairs.
In the struggles between the French Par
liaments and the authority of the Crown, it
will be seen on attentive observation that these
encounters almost always took place on the field
of politics, properly so ealled, rather than on
that of administration. These quarrels gene
rally arose from the introduction of a new tax ;
that is to say, it was not administrative power
which these rival authorities disputed, but legis
lative power to which the one had as little right
ful claim as the other.
This became more and more the case as the
Revolution approached. As the passions of the
people began to take fire, the Parliaments as
sumed a more active part in politics ; and as at the
same time the central power and its agents were

Chap. V. CENTRAL POWER OF THE REVOLUTION. 109
becoming more expert and more adroit, the Par
liaments took a less active part in the adminis
tration of the country. They acquired every day
less of the administrator and more of the tribune.
The course of events, moreover, incessantly
opens new fields of action to the executive
Government, where judicial bodies have no ap
titude to follow ; for these are new transactions
not governed by precedent, and alien to judicial
routine. The great progress of society continu
ally gives birth to new wants, and each of these
wants is a fresh source of power to the Govern
ment, which is alone able to satisfy them.
Whilst the sphere of the administration of jus
tice by the courts of law remains unaltered, that '
of the executive government is variable and
constantly expands with civilisation itself*
The Revolution which was approaching, and
which had already begun to agitate the mind of
the whole French people, suggested to them a
multitude of new ideas, which the central power
of the Government could alone realise. The
Revolution developed that power before it over
threw it, and the agents of the Government
* See Note 2 A., Example of the Intervention of the Council.

110 CENTRALISATION RESTORED Book II.
underwent the same process of improvement as
everything else. This fact becomes singularly
apparent from the study of the old administra
tive archives. The Comptroller-General and
the Intendant of 1780 no longer resemble the
Comptroller-General and the Intendant of 1740 ;
the administration was already transformed, the
agents were the same, but they are impelled
by a different spirit. In proportion as it be
came more minute and more comprehensive, it
also became more regular and more scientific.
It became more temperate as its ascendancy
became universal ; it oppressed less, it directed
more. The first outbreak of the Revolution destroyed
this grand institution of the monarchy ; but it
was restored in 1800. It was not, as has so
often been said, the principles of 1789 which
triumphed at that time and ever since in the
public administration of France, but, on the
contrary, the principles of the administration
anterior to the Revolution, which then resumed
their authority and have since retained it.
If I am asked how this fragment of the state
of society anterior to the Revolution could thus
be transplanted in its entirety, and incorporated

Chap. V. BY THE EMPIRE. HI
into the new state of society which had sprung up,
I answer that if the principle of centralisation did
not perish in the Revolution, it was because that
principle was itself the precursor and the com
mencement of the Revolution ; and I add that
when a people has destroyed Aristocracy in its
social constitution, that people is sliding by its
own weight into centralisation. Much less exer
tion is then required to drive it down that decli
vity than to hold it back. Amongst such a
people all powers tend naturally to unity, and it
is only by great ingenuity that they can still be
kept separate. The democratic Revolution which
destroyed so many of the institutions of the
French monarchy, served therefore to consolidate
the centralised administration, and centralisation
seemed so naturally to find its place in the society
which the Revolution had formed that it might
easily be taken for its offspring.

112 ADMINISTRATIVE HABITS. Book II.

CHAPTER VI.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE HABITS OF FRANCE BEFORE THE
REVOLUTION.
It is impossible to read the letters addressed by
an Intendant of one of the provinces of France,
under the old monarchy, to his superiors and his
subordinates, without admiring the similitude
engendered by similar institutions between the
administrators of those times and the adminis
trators of our own. They seem to join hands
across the abyss of the Revolution which lies
between them. The same may be said of the
people they govern. The power of legislation
over the minds of men was never more distinctly
visible. The Ministers of the Crown had already con
ceived the design of taking actual cognizance
of every detail of business and of regulating
everything by their own authority from Paris.
As time advanced and the administration
became more perfect, this passion increased.

Chap. VI. THE COMPTROLLER-GENERAL. , 113
Towards the end ofthe eighteenth century not
a charitable workshop could be established in a
distant province of France until the Comptroller-
General himself had fixed the cost, drawn up the
scheme, and chosen the site. If a refuge for
mendicity was to be erected the Minister must
be informed of the names of the beggars who
frequent it — when they arrive — when they de
part. As early as the middle of the same cen
tury (in 1733) M.d'Argenson wrote — " The de
tails of business thrown upon the Ministers are
immense. Nothing is done without them, no
thing except by them, and if their information
is not as extensive as their powers, they are
obliged to leave everything to be done by
clerks, who become in reality the masters."
The Comptroller-General not only called for
reports on matters of business, but even for
minute particulars relating to individuals. To
procure these particulars the Intendant applied
in his turn to his Subdelegates, and of course
repeated precisely what they told him, just as if
he was himself thoroughly acquainted with the
subject. In order to direct everything from Paris and
to know everything there, it was necessary to

114 RETURNS TO THE COUNCIL. Book II.
invent a thousand checks and means of control.
The mass of paper documents was already enor
mous, and such was the tedious slowness of these
administrative proceedings, that I have re
marked it always took at least a year before a
parish could obtain leave to repair its steeple
or to rebuild the parsonage: more frequently
two or three years elapsed before the demand
was granted.
The Council itself remarked in one of its mi
nutes (29th March, 1773) that " the adminis
trative formalities lead to infinite delays, and
too frequently excite very well-grounded com
plaints ; these formalities are, however, all ne
cessary," added the Council.
I used to believe that the taste for statistics
belonged exclusively to the administrators of
the present day, but I was mistaken. At the
time immediately preceding the Revolution of
1789 small printed tables were frequently sent
to the Intendant, which he merely had to get
filled up by his Subdelegates and by the Syndics
of parishes. The Comptroller-General required
reports upon the nature of the soil, the methods
of cultivation, the quality and quantity of the
produce, the number of cattle, and the occupa-

Chap. VI. REPORTS BY SUBDELEGATES. 115
tions and manners of the inhabitants. The in
formation thus obtained was neither less circum
stantial nor more accurate than that afforded
under similar circumstances by Subprefects and
Mayors at the present day. The opinions re
corded on these occasions by the Subdelegates, as
to the character of those under their authority,
were for the most part far from favourable.
They continually repeated that " the peasants
are naturally lazy, and would not work unless
forced to do so in order to live." This econo
mical doctrine seemed very prevalent amongst
this class of administrators.
Even the official language of the two periods
is strikingly alike. In both the style is equally
colourless, flowing, vague, and feeble ; the pe
culiar characteristics of each individual writer
are effaced and lost in a general mediocrity. It
is much the same thing to read the effusions
of a modern Prefect or of an ancient Intendant.
Towards the end of the century, however,
when the peculiar language of Diderot and Rous
seau had had time to spread and mingle with the
vulgar tongue, the false sensibility, with which
the works of those writers are filled, infected
the administrators and reached even the finan-
i 2

116 THE COMPTROLLER-GENERAL. Book II.
ciers. The official style, usually so dry in its
texture, was become more unctuous and even
tender. A Subdelegate laments to the Intendant
of Paris " that in the exercise of his functions
he often feels grief most poignant] to a feeling
heart." Then, as at the present time, the Government
distributed certain charitable donations among
the various parishes, on condition that the in
habitants should on their part make certain
alms. When the sum thus offered by them was
sufficient, the Comptroller-General wrote on the
margin of the list of contributions, " Good ; ex
press satisfaction ;" but if the sum was con
siderable, he wrote, " Good ; express satisfaction
and sensibility."
The administrative functionaries, nearly all
belonging to the middle ranks, already formed a
class imbued with a spirit peculiar to itself, and
possessing traditions, virtues, an honour and a
pride of its own. This was, in fact, the aris
tocracy of the new order of society, completely
formed and ready to start into life ; it only
waited until the Revolution had made room
for it.
The administration of France was already

Chap. VI. ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICERS. 117
characterized by the violent hatred which it
entertained indiscriminately towards all those
not within its own pale, whether belonging to
the nobility or to the middle classes, who at
tempted to take any part in public affairs. The
smallest independent body, which seemed likely
to be formed without its intervention, caused
alarm ; the smallest voluntary association, what
ever was its object, was considered troublesome ;
and none were suffered to exist but those which
it composed in an arbitrary manner, and over
which it presided. Even the great industrial
companies found little favour in the eyes of the
administration ; in a word, it did not choose that
the citizens should take any concern whatever
in the examination of their own affairs, and pre
ferred sterility to competition. But, as it has
always been necessary to allow the French people
the indulgence of a little licence to console them
for their servitude, the Government suffered
them to discuss with great freedom all sorts of
general and abstract theories of religion, phi
losophy, morals, and even politics. It was ready
enough to allow the fundamental principles upon
which society then rested to be attacked, and the
existence of God himself to be discussed, provided

118 NEWSPAPERS. Book II.
no comments were made upon the very least of
its own agents. Such speculations were supposed
to be altogether irrelevant to the State.
Although the newspapers of the eighteenth
century, or as they were then called the gazettes,
contained more epigrams than polemics, the ad
ministration looked upon this small power with
a very jealous eye. It was indulgent enough
towards books, but already extremely harsh
towards newspapers ; so, being unable altogether
to suppress them, it endeavoured to turn them
to its own purposes. Under the date of 1761
I find a circular addressed to all the Intend
ants throughout the kingdom, announcing that
the King (Louis XV.) had directed that in
future the ' Gazette de France' should be drawn
up under the inspection of the Government ;
" his Majesty being desirous," says the circular,
" to render that journal interesting and to insure
to it a superiority over all others. In conse
quence whereof," adds the Minister, " you will
take care to send me a bulletin of everything
that happens in your district likely to engage
the curiosity of the public, more especially what
ever relates to physical science, natural history,
or remarkable and interesting occurrences." This

Chap. VI. THE GAZETTE. 119
circular is accompanied by a prospectus setting
forth that the new Gazette, though appearing
oftener and containing more matter than the
journal which it supersedes, will cost the sub
scribers much less.
Furnished with these documents, the Intendant
wrote to his Subdelegates and set them to work ;
but at first they replied that they knew nothing.
This called forth a second letter from the Mi
nister, complaining bitterly of the sterility of the
province as to news. " His Majesty commands
me to tell you that it is his intention that you
should pay very serious attention to this matter,
and that you should give the most precise order
to your agents." Hereupon the Subdelegates
undertake the task. One of them reported that
a smuggler of salt had been hung, and had dis
played great courage ; another that a woman in
his district had been delivered of three girls at a
birth ; a third that a dreadful storm had occurred,
though without doing any mischief. One of
them declared that in spite of all his efforts he
had been unable to discover anything worth
recording, but that he will subscribe himself to
so useful a journal, and will exhort all respect
able persons to follow his example. All these

120 THE GAZETTE. Book II.
efforts seem, however, to have produced but
little effect, for a fresh letter informs us that
" the King, who has the goodness," as the Mi
nister says, " himself to enter into the whole
detail of the measures for perfecting the Gazette,
and who wishes to give to this journal the su
periority and celebrity it deserves, has testified
much dissatisfaction on seeing his views so ill
carried out."
History is a picture-gallery, containing few
originals and a great many copies.
It must be admitted, however, that in France
the central Government never imitated those
Governments of the South of Europe which
seem to have taken possession of everything only
in order to render everything barren. The
French Government frequently showed great
intelligence as to its functions, and always dis
played prodigious activity. But its activity was
often unproductive and even mischievous, be
cause at times it endeavoured to do that which
was beyond its power, or that which no one could
control. It rarely attempted or quickly abandoned the
most necessary reforms, which could only be
carried out by persevering energy ; but it con-

Chap. VI. FREQUENT CHANGES IN THE LAWS. 121
stantly changed its by-laws and its regulations.
Within the sphere of its presence nothing re
mained in repose for a moment. New regula
tions succeeded each other with such extraor
dinary rapidity that the agents of Government,
amidst the multiplicity of commands theyreceived,
often found it difficult to discover how to obey
them. Some municipal officers complained to
the Comptroller-General himself of the extreme
mobility of this subordinate legislation. " The
variation of the financial regulations alone," said
they, " is such,' that a municipal officer, even
were his appointment permanent, has no time
for anything but studying the new rules as fast
as they come out, even to the extent of being
forced to neglect his own business."
Even when the law itself was not altered
its application varied every day. Without
seeing the working of the administration under
the old French Government in the secret docu
ments which are still in existence, it is impos
sible to imagine the contempt into which the
law eventually falls, even in the eyes of those
charged with the application of it, when there
are no longer either political assemblies or public
journals to check the capricious activity, or to

122 CONTRADICTORY LAWS. Book II.
set bounds to the arbitrary and changeable
humour of the Ministers and their offices.
We hardly find a single Order in Council that
does not recite some anterior laws, often of very
recent date, which had been enacted but never
executed. There was not an edict, a royal decla
ration, or any solemnly registered letters-patent,
that did not encounter a thousand impediments
in its application. The letters of the Comptrollers-
General and the Intendants show that the go
vernment constantly permitted things to be
done, by exception, at variance with its own
orders. It rarely broke the law, but the law
was perpetually made to bend slightly in all di
rections to meet particular cases and to facilitate
the conduct of affairs.
An Intendant writes to the Minister with re
ference to a duty of octroi from which a con
tractor of public works wanted to be exempted :
" It is certain that according to the strict letter
of the edicts and decrees which I have just
quoted, no person throughout the kingdom is
exempted from these duties ; but those who are
versed in the knowledge of affairs are well aware
that these imperative enactments stand on the
same footing as to the penalties which they im-

Chap. VI. LAWS INOPERATIVE. 123
pose, and that although they are to be found in
almost every edict, declaration, and decree for
the imposition of taxes, they have never pre
vented exceptions from being made."
The whole essence of the then state of France
is contained in this passage : rigid rules and lax
practice were its characteristics.
Any one who should attempt to judge the
government of that period by the collection of
its laws would fall into the most absurd mis
takes. Under the date 1757 I have found a
royal declaration condemning to death any one
who shall compose or print writings contrary to
religion or established order. The bookseller
who sells and the pedlar who hawks them are
to suffer the same punishment.. Was this in the
age of St. Dominic ? It was under the su
premacy of Voltaire.
It is a common subject of complaint against
the French that they despise the law ; but when,
alas ! could they have learned to respect it ? It
may be truly said that amongst the men of the
period I am describing the place which should
be filled in the human mind by the notion of
law was empty. Every petitioner entreated
that the established order of things' should be

124 LAWS NOT RESPECTED. Book II.
set aside in his favour with as much vehemence
and authority as if he were demanding that it
should be properly enforced ; and indeed its au
thority was never alleged against him but as a
means of getting rid of his importunities. The
submission of the people to the existing powers
was still complete, but their obedience was the
effect of custom rather than of will, and when
by chance they were stirred up, the slightest
excitement led at once to violence, which again T
was almost always repressed by counter-violence
and arbitrary power, not by the law.
In the eighteenth century the central au
thority in France had not yet acquired that
sound and vigorous constitution which it has
since exhibited ; nevertheless, as it had already
succeeded in destroying all intermediate au
thorities, and had left only a vast blank between
itself and the individuals constituting the na
tion, it already appeared to each of them from
a distance as the only spring of the social
machine, the sole and indispensable agent of
public life.
Nothing shows this more fully than the
writings even of its detractors. When the long
period of uneasiness which preceded the Revo-

Chap. VI. FAITH IN CENTRAL POWER 125
lution began to be felt, all sorts of new sys
tems of society and government were concocted.
The ends which these various reformers had in
view were various, but the means they proposed
were always the same. They wanted to employ
the power of the central authority in order to
destroy all existing institutions, and to recon
struct them according to some new plan of their
own device ; no other power appeared to them
capable of accomplishing such a . task. The
power of the State ought, they said, to be as
unlimited as its rights ; all that was required was
to force it to make a proper use of both. The
elder Mirabeau, a nobleman so imbued with the
notion of the rights of his order that he openly
called the Intendants " intruders," and declared
that if the appointment of the magistrates was
left altogether in the hands of the government
the courts of justice would soon be mere "bands
of commissioners," — Mirabeau himself looked
only to the action of the central authority to
realize his visionary schemes.
These ideas were not confined to books ; they
found entrance into men's minds, modified their
customs, affected their habits, and penetrated
throughout society, even into every-day life.

126 EVEN AMONG FARMERS. Book II.
No one imagined that any important affair
could be properly carried out without the inter
vention of the State. Even the agriculturists
— a class usually refractory to precept — were
disposed to think that if agriculture did not im
prove it was the fault ofthe Government, which
did not give them sufficient advice and assist
ance. One of them writes to an Intendant in a
tone of irritation which foreshadows the coming
Revolution. " Why does not the Government
appoint inspectors to go once a year into the.
provinces to examine the state of cultivation, to
instruct the cultivators how to improve it — to
tell them what to do with their cattle, how to
fatten, rear, and sell them, and where to take
them to market? These inspectors should he
well paid ; and the farmers who exhibited proofs
of the best system of husbandry should receive
some mark of honour."
Agricultural inspectors and crosses of honour !
Such means of encouraging agriculture never
would have entered into the head of a Suffolk
farmer. In the eyes of the majority of the French
the Government was alone able to ensure public
order ; the people were afraid of nothing but

Chap. VI. POLICE. 127
the patrols, and men of property had no con
fidence in anything else. Both classes regarded
the trooper on his rounds not merely as the chief
defender of order, but as order itself. "No
one," says the provincial assembly of Guyenne,
" can fail to observe that the sight of a patrol
is well calculated to restrain those most hostile
to all subordination." Accordingly every one
wanted to have a squadron of them at his own
door. The archives of an intendancy are full
of requests of this nature ; no one seemed to
suspect that, under the guise of a protector, a
master might be concealed.*
Nothing struck the emigres so much on
their arrival in England as the absence of this
military force. It filled them with surprise, and
often even with contempt, for the English. One
of them, a man of ability, but whose education
had not prepared him for what he was to see,
wrote as follows : — " It is perfectly true that
an Englishman congratulates himself on having
been robbed, on the score that at any rate there
is no patrol in his country. A man may lament
* See Note ^B, Additional Patrols.

128 ABSENCE OF POLICE IN ENGLAND. Book II.
anything that disturbs public tranquillity, but
he will nevertheless comfort himself, when he
sees the turbulent restored to society, with the
reflection that the letter of the law. is stronger
than all other considerations. Such false notions,
however," he adds, " are not absolutely universal ;
there are some wise people who think otherwise,
and wisdom must prevail in the end."
But that these eccentricities of the English
could have any connexion with their liberties
never entered into the mind of this observer.
He chose rather to explain the phenomenon by
more scientific reasons. " In a country," said
he, " where the moisture of the climate, and the
want of elasticity in the air, give a sombre tinge
to the temperament, the people are disposed to
give themselves up. to serious objects. The
English people are naturally inclined to occupy
themselves with the affairs of government, to
which the French are averse."
The French Government having thus assumed
the place of Providence, it was natural that
every one should invoke its aid in his individual
necessities. Accordingly we find an immense
number of petitions which, while affecting to

Chap. VI. PETITIONS TO GOVERNMENT. 129
relate to the public interest, really concern only
small individual interests.* The boxes in which
they are contained are perhaps the only place in
which all the classes composing that society of
France, which has long ceased to exist, are still
mingled. It is a melancholy task to read them :
we find peasants praying, to be indemnified for
the loss of their cattle or their horses ; wealthy
landowners asking for assistance in rendering
their estates more productive ; manufacturers
soliciting from the Intendant privileges by
which they may be protected from a trouble
some competition, and very frequently con
fiding the embarrassed state of their affairs to
him, and begging him to obtain for them relief,
or a loan from the Comptroller-General. It
appears that some fund was set apart for this
purpose. Even the nobles were often very importunate
solicitants ; the only mark of their condition is
the lofty tone in which they begged. The tax
of twentieths was to many of them the principal
link in the chain of their dependence. Their
quota of this tax was fixed every year by the
Council upon the report of the Intendant, and
* See Note 2C, Bureaux de Tabac. K -

130 TAX OF TWENTIETHS. Book II.
to him they addressed themselves in order to
obtain delays and remissions. I have read a
host of petitions of this nature made by nobles,
nearly all men of title, and often of very high
rank, in consideration, as they stated, of the
insufficiency of their revenues, or the disordered
state of their affairs. The nobles usually ad
dressed the Intendant as " Monsieur ; " but I
have observed that, under these circumstances,
they invariably called him " Monseigneur," as
was usually done by men of the middle class.
Sometimes pride and poverty were drolly
mixed in these petitions. One of the nobles
wrote to the Intendant: "Your feeling heart
will never consent to see the father of a family
of my rank strictly taxed by twentieths like a
father of the lower classes."
In periods of scarcity, which were so frequent
during the eighteenth century, the whole popu
lation of each district looked to the Intendant,
and appeared to expect to be fed by him alone.
It is true that every man already blamed the
Government for all his sufferings. The most
inevitable privations were ascribed to it, and
even the inclemency of the seasons was made a
subject of reproach to it.

Chap. VI. RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF CENTRALISATION. 131
We need not be astonished at the marvellous
facility with which centralisation was re-esta
blished in France at the beginning of this cen
tury.* The men of 1789 had overthrown the
edifice, but its foundations remained deep in the
very minds of the destroyers, and on these
foundations it was easy to build it up anew,
and to build it more stable than it had ever
been before. * See Note 2 D, Extinction of Local Activity.

K 2

132 PREPONDERANCE OF PARIS. Book II-

CHAPTER VII.
SHOWING THAT OF ALL EUROPEAN NATIONS FRANCE WAS
ALREADY THE ONE IN WHICH THE METROPOLIS HAD
ACQUIRED THE GREATEST PREPONDERANCE OVER THE
PROVINCES, AND WHERE IT MOST COMPLETELY ABSORBED
THE WHOLE EMPIRE.
The political preponderance of capital cities
over the rest of the empire is caused neither by
their situation, their size, or their wealth, but
by the nature of the government.
London, which contains the population of a
kingdom, has never hitherto exercised a sove
reign influence over the destinies of Great Bri
tain. No citizen of the United States ever imagined
that the inhabitants of New York could decide
the fate of the American Union. Nay more, no
one even in the State of New York conceives
that the will of that city alone could direct the
affairs of the nation. Yet New York at this
moment numbers as many inhabitants as Paris
contained when the Revolution broke out.

Chap. VII. PREPONDERANCE OF PARIS. 133
At the time of the wars of religion in France
Paris was as thickly peopled in proportion to
the rest of the kingdom as in 1789. Neverthe
less, at that time it had no decisive power. At
the time of the Fronde Paris was still no more
than the largest city in France. In 1789 it
was already France itself.
As early as 1740 Montesquieu wrote to one
of his friends, " Nothing is left in France but
Paris and the distant provinces, because Paris
has not yet had time to devour them." In 1750
the Marquis de Mirabeau, a fanciful but some
times deep thinker, said, in speaking of Paris
without naming it : " Capital cities are neces
sary ; but if the head grows too large, the body
becomes apoplectic and the whole perishes.
What then will be the result, if by giving
over the provinces to a sort of direct depend
ence, and considering their inhabitants only as
subjects of the Crown of an inferior order, to
whom no means of consideration are left and
no career for ambition is open, every man pos
sessing any talent is drawn towards the capital !"
He called this a kind of silent revolution which
must deprive the provinces of all their men of
rank, business, and talent.

134 PREPONDERANCE OF PARIS. Book II.
The reader who has followed the preceding
chapters attentively already knows the causes of
this phenomenon ; it would be a needless tax on
his patience to enumerate them afresh in this
place. This revolution did not altogether escape the
attention of the Government, but chiefly by its
physical effect on the growth of the city. The
Government saw the daily extension of Paris
and was afraid that it would become difficult
to administer so large a city properly. A
great number of ordinances issued by the Kings
of France, chiefly during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, were destined to put a
stop to the growth of Paris. These sove
reigns were concentrating the whole public life
of France more and more in Paris or at its
gates, and yet they wanted Paris to remain
a small city. The' erection of new houses was
forbidden, or else commands were issued that
they should be built in the most costly man
ner and in unattractive situations which were
fixed upon beforehand. Every one of these
ordinances, it is true, declares, that in spite
of the preceding ones Paris had continued to
spread. Six times during the course of his

Chap. VII. PREPONDERANCE OF PARIS. 135
reign did Louis XIV., in the height of his
power, in vain attempt to check the increase of
Paris ; the city grew continually in spite of all
edicts. Its political and social preponderance
increased even' faster than its walls, not so
much owing to what took place within them as
to the events passing without.
During this period all local liberties gradually
became extinct, the symptoms of independent
vitality disappeared. The distinctive features
of the various provinces became confused, and
the last traces of the ancient public life were
effaced. Not that the nation was falling into
a state of languor ; on the contrary, activity
everywhere prevailed, but the motive principle
was no longer anywhere but in Paris. I will
cite but one example of this from amongst a
thousand. In the reports made to the Minister
on the condition of the bookselling trade, I find
that in the sixteenth century and at the begin
ning of the seventeenth, many considerable
printing-offices existed in provincial towns which
are now without printers, or where the printers
are without work. Yet there can be no doubt
that many more literary productions of all kinds
were published at the end of the eighteenth

136 PREPONDERANCE OF PARIS. Book II.
century than during the sixteenth, but all mental
activity now emanated from the centre alone ;
Paris had totally absorbed the provinces. At
the time when the French Revolution broke
out, this first revolution was fully accomplished.
The celebrated traveller Arthur Young left
Paris soon after the meeting of the States-
General, and a few days before the taking of
the Bastille ; the contrast between that which
he had just seen in the city and that which he
found beyond its walls filled him with surprize.
In Paris all was noise and activity ; every hour
produced a fresh political pamphlet; as many as
ninety-two were published in a week. " Never,"
said he, " did I see such activity in publishing,
even in London." Out of Paris all seemed inert
and silent ; few pamphlets and no newspapers
were printed. Nevertheless, the provinces were
agitated and ready for action, but motionless ; if
the inhabitants assembled from time to time, it
was in order to hear the news which they ex
pected from Paris. In every town Young asked
the inhabitants what they intended to do ? " The
answer," he says, "was always the same : ' Ours
is but a provincial town ; we must wait to see
what will be done at Paris.' These people," he

Chap. VII. PREPONDERANCE OF PARIS. 137
adds, " do not even venture to have an opinion
until they know what is thought at Paris."
Nothing was more astonishing than the ex
traordinary ease with which the Constituent
Assembly destroyed at a single stroke all the
ancient French provinces, many of which were
older than the monarchy, and then divided the
kingdom methodically into eighty-three distinct
portions, as though it had been the virgin soil
of the New World. Europe was surprised and
alarmed by a spectacle for which it was so little
prepared. " This is the first time," said Burke,
that we have seen men tear their native land
in pieces in so barbarous a manner." No doubt
it appeared like tearing in pieces living bodies,
but, in fact, they were only corpses that were
thus dismembered.
While Paris was thus finally establishing its
supremacy externally, a change took place
within its own walls equally deserving the
notice of history. After having been a city
merely of exchange, of business, of consumption,
and of pleasure, Paris had now become a manu
facturing town ; a second fact, which gave to
the first a new and more formidable character.
The origin of this change was very remote ;

138 PARIS— INCREASE OF ARTIZANS. Book II.
it appears that even during the middle ages
Paris was already the most industrious as well
as the largest city of the kingdom. This be
comes more manifest as we approach modern
times. In the same degree that the business of
administration was brought to Paris, industrial
affairs found their way thither. As Paris be
came more and more the arbiter of taste, the
sole centre of power and of the arts, and the
chief focus of national activity, the industrial
life of the nation withdrew and concentrated
itself there in the same proportion.
Although the statistical documents anterior
to the Revolution are, for the most part, de
serving of little confidence, I think it may
safely be affirmed that, during the sixty years
which preceded the French Revolution, the
number of artizans in Paris was more than
doubled ; whereas during the same period the
general population of the city scarcely increased
one third.
Independently of the general causes which I
have stated, there were other very peculiar
causes which attracted working men to Paris
from all parts of France, and agglomerated them
by degrees in particular quarters of the town,

Chap. VII. PARIS— INCREASE OF ARTIZANS. 139
which they have ended by occupying almost
exclusively. The restrictions imposed upon
manufactures by the fiscal legislation of the
time were lighter at Paris than anywhere else
in France ; it was nowhere so easy to escape
from the tyranny of the guilds. Certain fau
bourgs, such as the Faubourg St. Antoine, and
of the Temple specially, enjoyed great privi
leges of this nature. Louis XVI. considerably
enlarged these immunities of the Faubourg St.
Antoine, and did his best to gather together
an immense working population in that spot,
" being desirous," said that unfortunate monarch,
in one of his edicts, " to bestow upon the artizans
of the Faubourg St. Antoine a further mark of
our protection, and to relieve them from the
restrictions which are injurious to their interests
as well as to the freedom of trade."
The number of workshops, manufactories, and
foundries had increased so greatly in Paris, to
wards the approach of the Revolution, that the
Government at length became alarmed at it.
The sight of this progress inspired it with many
imaginary terrors. Amongst other things, we
find an Order in Council, of 1782, stating that
" the King, apprehending that the rapid increase

140 PARIS THE MISTRESS OF FRANCE. Book II.
of manufactures would cause a consumption of
wood likely to become prejudicial to the supply
of the city, prohibits for the future the creation
of any establishment of this nature within a cir
cuit of fifteen leagues round Paris." The real
danger likely to arise from such an agglomera
tion gave no uneasiness to any one.
Thus then Paris had become the mistress of
France, and the popular army which was
destined to make itself master of Paris was al
ready assembling.
It is pretty generally admitted, I believe, now,
that administrative centralisation and the omni
potence of Paris have had a great share in the
overthrow of all the various governments which
have succeeded one another during the last forty
years. It will not be difficult to show that the
same state of things contributed largely to the
sudden and violent ruin of the old monarchy,
and must be numbered among the principal
causes of that first Revolution which has produced
all the succeeding ones.

Chap. VIII. SIMILARITY OF FRENCH PEOPLE. 141

CHAPTER VIII.
SHOWING THAT 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 pecu
liar 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 sup-

142 SIMILARITY OF FRENCH PEOPLE. Book II.
port 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 the
earthquake, and the result is at once a social
body more compact and more homogeneous than
any that perhaps the world had ever seen.
I have shown that throughout nearly the
whole kingdom the independent life of the pro
vinces had long been extinct ; this had power
fully contributed to render all Frenchmen very
much alike. Through the diversities which still
subsisted the unity of the nation might already
he 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 man
ner 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 legisla
tion so general and so uniform, the same every
where 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 earher the very

Chap. VIII. SEPARATION OF CLASSES. 143
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
ofthe States-General of 1789. The interests of
those who drew them up were widely different,
but in all else they were alike.
In the proceedings of the earlier States-Gene
ral 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 ; but
they still 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

144 DECLINE OF THE NOBILITY. Book II.
its privileges the nobility is ruined and wasted
day by day, and the middle classes get posses
sion 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 struc
ture 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 obliga
tion of carrying on war at their own charge,
and at the same time had retained an increased

Chap. VIII. DECLINE OF THE NOBILITY. 145
exemption from taxation ; that is to say, they
kept the compensation and got rid of the bur
den. Moreover, they enjoyed several other pe
cuniary advantages which their forefathers had
never possessed ; nevertheless they gradually be
came 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 at
tributed. The nobles had sold their lands piece
meal to the peasants, reserving to themselves
only the seignorial rights which gave them the
appearance rather than the reality of their for
mer 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.*
" 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
* See Note 2E, Seignorial Dues in different Provinces of France,
L

146 DECLINE OF THE NOBILITY. Book II.
minutes addressed by another Intendant (of
Franche-Comte) 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 com
pel them to serve, and to stand in need of our
assistance. They form," he adds, " a confra
ternity, 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 Intend
ant. 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 aristo
cracy. This decay was especially manifest and ex
cited great attention amongst the G erman States
on the banks of the Rhine. In England alone the
contrary was the case. There the ancient noble

Chap. VIII. THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 147
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 and often richer than the
nobles. Nay, more, their wealth was of the same
kind, for, though "dwelling in the towns, they
were often landowners in the country, and some
times 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
l 2

148 THE NOBILITY AND THE MIDDLE CLASS. Book II.
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 be
tween 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 Eng
land, 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 needful intercourse and
mutual dependence, does not on that account
always make them alike ; it is the government
of one man which, in the end, has the inevitable
effect of rendering all men alike, Itofl all mutually
indifferent to their common fate.

Chap. IX. ISOLATION OF CLASSES. 149

CHAPTER IX.
SHOWING HOW MEN THUS SIMILAR WERE MORE DIVIDED
THAN EVER THEY HAD BEEN BEFORE INTO SMALL GROUPS,
FOREIGN AND INDIFFERENT TO EACH OTHER.
Let us now look at the other side of the picture,
and we shall see that these same Frenchmen,
who had so many points of resemblance amongst
themselves, were, nevertheless, more completely
isolated from each other than perhaps the inha
bitants of any other country, or than had ever
been the case before in France.
It seems extremely probable that, at the time
of the first establishment of the feudal system in
Europe, the class which was subsequently called
the nobility did not at once form a caste, but
was originally composed of the chief men of the
nation, and was therefore, in the beginning,
merely an aristocracy. This, however, is a
question which I have no intention of discussing
here ; it will be sufficient to remark that, during
the Middle Ages, the nobility had become a

150 CASTE AND ARISTOCRACY. Book II.
caste, that is to say, that its distinctive mark was
birth. It retained, indeed, one of the proper charac
teristics of an aristocracy, that of being a go
verning body of citizens ; but birth alone de
cided who should be at the head of this body.
Whoever was not born noble was excluded from
this close and particular class, and could only fill
a position more or less exalted but still subordi
nate in the State.
Wherever on the continent of Europe the
feudal system had been established it ended in
caste; in England alone it returned to aristo
cracy. It has always excited my surprise that a fact
which distinguishes England from all other
modern nations, and which alone can throw
light upon the peculiarities of its laws, its spirit,
and its history, has not attracted to a still greater
degree the attention of philosophers and states
men, and that habit has rendered it, as it were,
imperceptible to the English themselves. It has
frequently been seen by glimpses, and imperfectly
described, but no complete and distinct view has,
. I believe, ever been taken of it. Montesquieu, it
is true, on visiting Great Britain in 1739, wrote,

Chap. IX. INTERMARRIAGES. 151
" I am now in a country which has little resem
blance to the rest of Europe :" but that is all.
It was indeed, not so much its parliament, its
liberty, its publicity, or its jury, which at that
time rendered England so unlike the rest of
Europe ; it was something far more peculiar and
far more powerful. England was the only
country in which the system of caste had been
not only modified, but effectually destroyed.
The nobility and the middle classes in England
followed the same business, embraced the same
-professions, and, what is far more significant,
intermarried with each other. The daughter of
the greatest nobleman could already without
disgrace marry a man of yesterday.
In order to ascertain whether caste, with the
ideas, habits, and barriers it creates amongst
a nation, is definitively destroyed, look at its
marriages. They alone give the decisive fea
ture which we seek. At this very day, in
France, after sixty years of democracy, we shall
generally seek it in vain. The old and the
new families, between which no distinction any
longer appears to exist, avoid as much as pos
sible to intermingle with each other by mar
riage.

152 THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN. Book II.
It has often been remarked that the English
nobility has been more prudent, more able, and
less exclusive than any other. It would have
been much nearer the truth to say, that in Eng
land, for a very long time past, no nobility, pro
perly so called, has existed, if we take the word
in the ancient and limited sense it has every
where else retained.
This singular revolution is lost in the night
of ages, but a living witness of it yet survives
in the idiom of language. For several cen
turies the word gentleman has altogether changed
its meaning in England, and the word roturier
has ceased to exist. It would have been im
possible to translate literally into English the
well-known line from the ' Tartuffe,' even when
Moliere wrote it in 1664 : —
Et tel qu'on le voit, il est ton gentilhomme.
If we make a further application of the science
of languages to history, and pursue the fate of
the word gentleman through time and through
space, the offspring of the French gentilhomme,
we shall find its application extending in Eng
land in the same proportion in which classes
draw near one another and amalgamate. In

Chap. IX. THE FRENCH GENTILHOMME. 153
each succeeding century it is applied to per
sons placed somewhat lower in the social scale.
At length it travelled with the English to
America, where it is used to designate every
citizen indiscriminately. Its history is that of
democracy itself.
In France the word gentilhomme has always
been strictly limited to its original meaning ;
since the Revolution it has been almost disused,
but its application has never changed. The
word which was used to designate the members
of the caste was kept intact, because the caste
itself was maintained as separate from all the
rest as it had ever been.
I go even further, and assert that this caste
had become far more exclusive than it was
when the word was first invented, and that in
France a change had taken place in the oppo
site direction of that which had occurred in
England. Though the nobility and the middle class in
France had become far more alike, they were at
the same time more isolated from each other —
two things which are so essentially distinct
that the former, instead of extenuating the
latter, may frequently aggravate it.

154 FEUDAL SERVICE. Book II.
• During the Middle Ages, and whilst the feudal
system was still in force, all those who held
land under a lord (and who were properly called
vassals, in feudal law) were constantly asso
ciated with the lord, though many of them
were not noble, in the government of the
Seignory; indeed this was the principal condi
tion of their tenures. Not only were they bound
to follow the lord to war, but they were bound, in
virtue of their holdings, to spend a certain part
qf the year at his court, that is, in helping him
to administer justice, and to govern the inha
bitants. The lord's court was the mainspring
of the feudal system of government ; it played
a part in all the ancient laws of Europe, and
very distinct vestiges of it may still be found in
many parts of Germany. The learned feudalist,
Edme de Freminville, who, thirty years before
the French Revolution, thought fit to write a
thick volume on feudal rights and on the reno
vation of manor rolls, informs us that he had seen,
in " the titles of a number of manors, that the
vassals were obliged to appear every fortnight at
the lord's court, and that being there assembled
they judged conjointly with the lord and his
ordinary judge, the assizes and differences which

Chap. IX. IMPORTANCE OF THE TIERS-ETAT. 155
had arisen between the inhabitants." He adds,
that he had found " there were sometimes
eighty, one hundred and fifty, and even as many
as two hundred vassals in one lordship, a great
number of whom were roturiers." I have quoted
this, not as a proof, for a thousand others might
be adduced, but as an example of the manner
in which at the beginning, and for long after
wards, the rural classes were united with the
nobility, and mingled with them daily in the
conduct of affairs. That which the lord's court
did for the small rural proprietors, the Provin
cial Estates, and subsequently the States-General,
effected for the citizens of the towns.
It is impossible to study the records of the
States-General of the fourteenth century, and
above all of the Provincial Estates of the same
period, without being astonished at the import
ance of the place which the Tiers-etat filled in
those assemblies, and at the power it wielded in
them. As a man, the burgess of the fourteenth cen
tury was, doubtless, very inferior to the burgess
of the eighteenth ; but the middle class, as a
body, filled a far higher and more secure place
¦in political society. Its right to a share in the

156 NOBILITY AND MIDDLE CLASS Book II.
government was uncontested ; the part which
it played in political assemblies was always con
siderable, and often preponderating. The other
classes of the community were forced to a con
stant reckoning with the people.
But what strikes us most is, that the nobility
and the Tiers-etat found it at that time so much
easier to transact business together, or to offer
a common resistance, than they have ever found
it since. This is observable not only in the
States-General of the fourteenth century, many
of which had an irregular and revolutionary
character impressed upon them by the disasters
of the time, but in the Provincial Estates of
the same period, where nothing seems to have
interrupted the regular and habitual course of
affairs. Thus, in Auvergne, we find that the
three Orders took the most important measures
in common, and that the execution of them was
superintended by commissioners chosen equally
from all three. The same thing occurred at the
same time in Champagne. Every one knows
the famous act by which, at the beginning of
the same century, the nobles and burgesses of a
large number of towns combined together to de
fend the franchises of the nation and the privi-t

Cuap. IX. GRADUALLY ESTRANGED. 157
leges of their provinces against the encroachments
of the Crown. During that period of French
history we find many such episodes, which appear
as if borrowed from the history of England.
In the following centuries events of this charac
ter altogether disappeared.*
The fact is, that as by degrees the government
of the lordships became disorganised, and the
States-General grew rarer or ceased altogether
¦ — that as the general liberties of the country
were finally destroyed, involving the local liber
ties in their ruin — the burgess and the noble
ceased to come into contact in public life. They
no longer felt the necessity of standing by one
another, or of a mutual compact ; every day ren
dered them more independent of each other,
but at the same time estranged them more
and more. In the eighteenth century this re
volution was fully accomplished ; the two con
ditions of men never met but by accident in
private life. Thenceforth the two classes were
not merely rivals but enemies. t
One circumstance which seems very peculiar
to France, was that at the very time when the
* See Note 2F, Self-government adverse to Spirit of Caste.
f See Note 2 G.

158 EXEMPTION OF NOBLES Book II.
order of nobility was thus losing its political
powers, the nobles individually acquired several
privileges which they had never possessed before,
or increased those which they already enjoyed.
It was as if the members enriched themselves
with the spoil of the body. The nobility had
less and less right to command, but the nobles
had more and more the exclusive prerogative of
being the first servants of the master. It was
more easy for a man of low birth to become an
officer under Louis XIV. than under Louis XVI. ;
this frequently happened in Prussia at a time
when there was no example of such a thing in
France. Every one of these privileges once
obtained adhered to the blood and was insepa
rable from it. The more the French nobility
ceased to be an aristocracy, the more did it be
come a caste.
Let us take the most odious of all these pri
vileges, that of exemption from taxation.* It is
easy to perceive that from the fifteenth century
until the French Revolution, this privilege was
continually increasing, and that it increased with
the rapid progress of the public burdens. When,
* See Note 2 H, Extent of Exemptions from Taxation.

Chap. IX. FROM TAXATION. 159
as under Charles VII., only 1,200,000 livres
were raised by the taille, the privilege of being
exempted from it was but small ; but when,
under Louis XVI., eighty millions were raised
by the same tax, the privilege of exemption
becamevery great. When the taille was the
only tax levied on the non-noble classes, the
exemption of the nobility was little felt ; but
when taxes of this description were multiplied a
thousand fold under various names and shapes —
when four Other taxes had been assimilated
with the taille — when burdens unknown inth e
Middle Ages, such as the application of forced
labour by the Crown to all public works or
services, the militia, &c. — had been added to the
taille with its accessories, and were distributed
with the same inequality, then indeed the ex
emption of birth appeared immense. The
inequality, though great, was indeed still more
apparent than real, for the noble was often
reached through his farmer by the tax which
he escaped in his own person ; but in such
matters as this the inequality which is seen
does more harm than that which is felt.
Louis XIV., pressed by the financial difficul
ties which overwhelmed him towards the end of

160 UNEQUAL TAXATION. Book IT.
his reign, had established two common taxes —
the capitation tax and the twentieths ; but,
as if the exemption from taxation had been
in itself a privilege so venerable that it was
necessary to respect it in the very act by which
it was infringed, care was taken to render the
mode of collection different even when the tax
was common. For one class it remained harsh
and degrading, for the other indulgent and
honourable.* Although inequality under taxation prevailed
throughout the whole continent of Europe, there
were very few countries in which it had become
so palpable or was so constantly felt as in France.
Throughout a great part of Germany most of
the taxes were indirect ; and even with respect
to the direct taxes, the privilege of the nobility
frequently consisted only in bearing a smaller
share of the common burden .t There were,
moreover, certain taxes which fell only upon the
nobles, and which were intended to replace the
gratuitous military service which was no longer
exacted. Now, of all means of distinguishing one man
* See Note 2I, Indirect Privileges under Taxation.
t See Notes 2 K and 2 L.

Chap. IX. GRANTS OF NOBILITY. 161
from another and of marking the difference of
classes, inequality of taxation is the most per
nicious and the most calculated to add isolation
to inequality, and in some sort to render both
irremediable. Let us look at its effects. When
the noble and the middle classes are not liable
to the same tax, the assessment and collection
of each year's revenue draws afresh with sharp
ness and precision the line of demarcation be
tween them. Every year each member of the
privileged order feels an immediate and press
ing interest in not suffering himself to be con
founded with the mass, and makes a fresh effort
to place himself apart from it.*
As there is scarcely any matter of public
business that does not either arise out of or
result in a tax, it follows that as soon as the two
classes are not equally liable to it, they can no
longer have any reason for common delibera
tion, or any cause of common wants and desires ;
no effort is needed to keep them asunder ; the
occasion and the desire for common action has
been removed.
In the highly-coloured description which Mr.
* See Note 2M, Nobles favoured in Collection of Taxes. M

162 ARISTOCRACY IN ENGLAND. Book II.
Burke gave of the ancient constitution of
France, he urged in favour of the constitution
of the French nobility, the ease with which the
middle classes could be ennobled by acquiring an
office : he fancied that this bore some analogy to
the open aristocracy of England. Louis XI.
had, it is true, multiplied the grants of nobility ;
with him it was a means of lowering the aristo
cracy : his successors lavished them in order to
obtain money. Necker informs us, that in his
time the number of offices which conferred
nobility amounted to four thousand. Nothing
like this existed in any other part of Europe,
but the analogy which Burke sought to establish
between France and England on this score was
all the more false.
If the middle classes of England, instead of
making war upon the aristocracy, have re
mained so intimately connected with it, it is not
specially because the aristocracy, is open to all,
but rather, as has been said, because its outline
was indistinct and its limit unknown — not so
much because any man could be admitted into
it as because it was impossible to say with cer
tainty when he took rank there— so that all
who approached it might look upon themselves

Chap. IX. SEPARATION OF CLASSES. 163
as belonging to it, might take part in its rule,
and derive either lustre or profit from its in
fluence. Whereas the barrier which divided the no
bility of France from the other classes, though
easily enough past, was always fixed and
visible, and manifested itself to those who re
mained without, by striking and odious tokens.
He who had once crossed it was separated from
all those whose ranks he had just quitted by
privileges which were burthensome. and humi
liating to them.
The system of creating new nobles, far from
lessening the hatred of the roturier to the noble
man, increased it beyond measure ; it was en
venomed by all the envy with which the new
noble was looked upon by his former equals.
For this reason the Tiers etat, in all their com
plaints, always displayed more irritation against
the newly-ennobled than against the old nobi
lity ; and far from demanding that the gate
which led out of their own condition should be
made wider, they incessantly required that it
should be contracted.
At no period of French history had it been
so easy to acquire nobility as in 1789, and never
m 2

164 ARROGANCE OF THE NOBLES. Book II.
were the middle classes and the nobility so com
pletely separated. Not only did the nobles
refuse to endure, in their electoral colleges, any
one who had the slightest taint of middle-class
blood, but the middle classes also as carefully
excluded all those who might in any degree be
looked upon as noble. In some provinces the
newly-ennobled were rejected hy one class be
cause they were not noble enough, and by the
other because they were too much so. This,
it is said, was the case with the celebrated
Lavoisier. If, leaving the nobility out of the question,
we turn our attention to the middle classes, we
shall find the same state of things ; the man of
the middle classes living almost as far apart
from the common people as the noble was from
the middle class.
Almost the whole of the middle class before
the Revolution dwelt in the towns. Two causes
had principally led to this result — the privileges
of the nobles and the taille. The Seigneur who
lived on his estates usually treated his peasants
with a certain good-natured familiarity, but his
arrogance towards his neighbours of the middle
class was unbounded. It had never ceased to

Chap. IX. THE TAILLE. 165
augment as his political power had diminished,
and for that very reason ; for, on the one hand,
as he had ceased to govern, he no longer had
any interest in conciliating those who could
assist him in that task ; whilst, on the other, as
has frequently been observed, he tried to con
sole himself for the loss of real power by an
immoderate display of his apparent rights.
Even his absence from his estates, instead of re
lieving his neighbours, only served to increase
their annoyance. Absenteeism had not even
that good effect, for privileges enforced by proxy
were all the more insupportable.
I am not sure, however, that the taille, and all
the taxes which had been assimilated to it, were
not still more powerful causes.
I could show, I think, in very few words, why
the taille and its accessories pressed much more
heavily on the country than on the towns ;
but the reader would probably think it super
fluous. It will be sufficient to point out that the
middle classes, gathered together in the towns,
could find a thousand means of alleviating the
weight of the taille, and often indeed of avoid
ing it altogether, which not one of them could
have employed singly had he remained on the

166 THE MIDDLE CLASSES. Book II.
estate to which he belonged. Above all, he
thereby escaped the obligation of collecting the
taille, which he dreaded far more than that of
paying it, and not without reason ; for there
never was, under the old French Government,
or, I believe, under any Government, a worse
condition than that of parochial collector of the
taille. I shall have occasion to show this here
after. Yet no One in a village except the
nobles could avoid this office ; and rather than
subject himself to it, the rich man of the middle
class let his estates and withdrew to the neigh
bouring town. Turgot coincides with all the
secret documents which I have had an oppor
tunity of consulting, when he says, that " the
collection of the taille converts all the non-
noble landowners of the' country into burgesses
of the towns." Indeed this, to make a passing
remark, was one of the chief causes why France
was fuller of towns, and especially of small
towns, than almost any other country in Eu
rope. Once ensconced within the walls of a town, a
wealthy though low-born member of the middle
class soon lost the tastes and ideas of rural life ;
he became totally estranged from the labours

Chap. IX. s THEIR PASSION FOR PLACE. 167
and the affairs of those of his own class whom
he had left behind. His whole life was now
devoted to one single object ; he aspired to be
come a public functionary in his adopted town.
It is a great mistake to suppose that the
passion for place, which fills almost all French
men of our time, more especially those belonging
to the middle ranks, has arisen since the Revo
lution; its birth dates several centuries back,
and it has constantly increased in strength,
thanks to the variety of fresh food with which
it has been incessantly supplied.
Places under the old Government did not
always resemble those of our day, but I believe
they were even more numerous ; the number of
petty places was almost infinite. It has been
reckoned that between the years 1693 and 1790
alone, forty thousand such places were created,
almost all within the reach of the lower middle
class. I have counted that, in 1750, in a pro
vincial town of moderate size, no less than one
hundred and nine persons were engaged in the
administration of justice, and one hundred and
twenty-six in the execution of the judgments
delivered by them — all inhabitants of the town.
The eagerness with which the townspeople of

168 THE MIDDLE CLASSES. Book II.
the middle class sought to obtain these places
was really unparalleled. No sooner had one of
them become possessed of a small capital than,
instead of investing it in business, he immedi
ately laid it out in the purchase of a place.
This wretched ambition has done more harm to
the agriculture and the trade of France than the
guilds or even the taille. When the supply of
places failed, the imagination of placehunters
instantly fell to work to invent new ones. A
certain Sieur Lemberville published a memorial
to prove that it was quite in accordance with
the interest of the public to create inspectors for
a particular branch of manufactures, and he con
cluded by offering himself for the employment.
Which of us has not known a Lemberville ? A
man endowed with some education and small
means, thought it not decorous to die without
having been a government officer. " Every
man, according to his condition," says a con
temporary writer, " wants to be something by
command of the King."
The principal difference in this respect be
tween the time of which I have been speaking
and the present is, that formerly the Govern
ment sold the places ; whereas now it gives
them away. A man no longer pays his money

Chap. IX. EXEMPTIONS FROM TAXATION. 169
in order to purchase a place ; he does more, he
sells himself.
Separated from the peasantry by the differ
ence of residence, and still more by the manner
of life, the middle classes were also for the most
part divided from them by interest. The privi
leges of the nobles with respect to taxation were
justly complained of, but what then can be said
of those enjoyed by the middle class? The
offices which exempted them wholly or in part
from public burthens were counted by thou
sands : one exempted from the militia, another
from the corvee, a third- from the taille. " Is
there a parish," says a writer of the time, " that
does not contain, independently of the nobles
and ecclesiastics, a number of inhabitants who
have purchased for themselves, by dint of places
or commissions, some sort of exemption from
taxation ? " One of the reasons why a certain
number of offices destined for the middle classes
were, from time to time, abolished, is the dimi
nution of the receipts caused by the exemption
of so large a number of persons from the taille.
I have no doubt that the number of those ex
empted was as great, and often greater, among
the middle class than among the nobility..
These miserable prerogatives filled those who

170 THE COMMON PEOPLE Book II.
were deprived of them with envy, and those
who enjoyed them with the most selfish pride.
Nothing is more striking throughout the eigh
teenth century than the hostility of the citizens
of the towns towards the surrounding peasantry,
and the jealousy felt by the peasants of. the
townspeople. " Every single town," says Tur
got, " absorbed by its own separate interests, is
ready to sacrifice to them the country and the
villages of its district." " You have often been
obliged," said he, elsewhere, in addressing his
Subdelegates, " to repress the constant tendency
to usurpation and encroachment which charac
terizes the conduct of the towns towards the coun
try people and the villages of their district."
Even the common people who dwelt within
the walls of the towns with the middle classes
became estranged from and almost hostile to
them. Most of the local burthens which they
imposed were so contrived as to press most
heavily on the lower classes. More than once I
have had occasion to ascertain the truth of what
Turgot also says in another part of his works,
namely, that the middle classes of the towns
had found means to regulate the octrois in such
a manner that the burthen did not fall on them
selves.

Chap. IX. ESTRANGED FROM MIDDLE CLASSES. 171
What is most obvious in every act of the
French middle classes, was their dread of being
confounded with the common people, and their
passionate desire to escape by every means in
their power from popular control.
" If it were his Majesty's pleasure," said the
burgesses of a town, in a memorial addressed
to the Comptroller-General, " that the office
of mayor should become elective, it would be
proper to oblige the electors to choose him only
from , the chief notables, and even from the
corporation." We have seen that it was a part of the policy
of the Kings of France successively to withdraw
from the population of the towns the exercise
of their political rights. From Louis XI. to
Louis XV. their whole legislation betrays this
intention ; frequently the burgesses themselves
seconded that intention, sometimes they sug
gested it.
At the time of the municipal reform of 1764,
an Intendant consulted the municipal officers of
a small town on the point of preserving to the
artizans and working-classes — autre menu -peuple
— the right of electing their magistrates. These
officers replied that it was true that " the people
had never abused this right, and that it would

172 THE MIDDLE CLASSES— Book II.
doubtless be agreeable to preserve to them the
consolation of choosing their own masters ; but
that it would be still better, in the interest of good
order and the public tranquillity, to make over
this duty altogether to the Assembly of Notables."
The Subdelegate reported, on his side, that he
had held a secret meeting, at his own house,- of
the " six best citizens of the town." These six
best citizens were unanimously of opinion that
the wisest course would be to entrust the election,
not even to the Assembly of Notables, as the
municipal officers had proposed, but to a certain
number of deputies chosen from the different
bodies of which that Assembly was composed.
The Subdelegate, more favourable to the liberties
of the people than these burgesses themselves,
reported their opinion, but added, as his own,
that " it was nevertheless very hard upon the
working-classes to pay, without any means of
controlling the expenditure of the money, sums
imposed on them by such of their fellow-citizens
who were probably, by reason of the privileged
exemptions from taxation, the least interested in
the question."
Let us complete this survey. Let us now
consider the middle classes as distinguished from

Chap. IX. THE COMMON PEOPLE. 173
the people, just as we have previously considered
the nobility as distinguished from the middle
classes.* We shall discover in this small portion
of the French nation, thus set apart from the
rest, infinite subdivisions. It seems as if the
people of France was like those pretended
simple substances in which modern chemistry
perpetually detects new elements by the force of
its analysis. I have discovered not less than
thirty-six distinct bodies among the notables of
one small town. These distinct bodies, though
already very diminutive, were constantly em
ployed in reducing each other to still narrower
dimensions. They were perpetually throwing
off the heterogeneous particles they might still
contain, so as to reduce themselves to the most
simple elements. Some of them were reduced
by this elaborate process to no more than three
or four members, but their personality only be
came more intense and their humour more con-

* [The use of the French term bourgeois, here and in some other
passages translated " middle classes," is a further proof of the esti
mation of the power once exercised by that class in the community.
In English the corresponding term burgess has remained insepar
able from the exercise of municipal rights ; and we have no dis
tinctive appellation, irrespective of political rights, for the large class
which separates the nobility from the populace. That class is, in
fact, in this country, both socially and politically, the people.]

174 QUESTIONS OF PRECEDENCY Book II.
tentious. All of them were separated from each
other by some diminutive privileges, the least
honourable of which was still a mark of honour.
Between them raged incessant disputes for pre
cedency. The Intendant, and even the Courts
of justice, were distracted by their quarrels,
" It has just been decided that holy-water is to
be offered to the magistrates (le prdsidial) before
it is offered to the corporation. The Parliament
hesitated, but the King has called up the affair
to his Council, and decided it himself. It was
high time ; this question had thrown the whole
town into a ferment." If one of these bodies
obtained precedency over another in the general
Assembly of Notables, the latter instantly with
drew, and preferred abandoning altogether the
public business of the community rather than
submit to an outrage on its dignity. — The body
of periwig-makers of the town of La Fleche
decided " that it would express in this manner
its well-founded grief occasioned by the prece
dency which had been granted to the bakers."
A portion of the notables of another town
obstinately refused to perform their office, be
cause, as the Intendant reported, " some artisans
have been introduced into the Assembly, with

Chap. IX. IN SMALL TOWNS. 175
whom the principal burgesses cannot bear to be
associated." " If the place of sheriff," said the
Intendant of another province, " be given to a
notary, the other notables will be disgusted, as
the notaries are here men of no birth, not being
of the families of the notables, and all of them
having been clerks." The " six best citizens,"
whom I have already mentioned, and who so
readily decided that the people ought to be
deprived of their political rights, were singu
larly perplexed when they had to determine
who the notables were to be, and what order of
precedency was to be established amongst them.
In such a strait they presume only to express
their doubts, fearing, as they said, " to cause
to some of their fellow-citizens too sensible a
mortification." The natural vanity of the French was
strengthened and stimulated by the incessant
collision of their pretensions in these small
bodies, and the -legitimate pride of the citizens
was forgotten. Most of these small corpora
tions, of which I have been speaking, already
existed in the sixteenth century; but at that
time their members, after having settled among
themselves the business of their own fraternity,

176 SELFISHNESS OF Book II,
joined all the other citizens to transact in com
mon the public business of the city. In the eigh
teenth century these bodies were almost entirely
wrapped up in themselves, for the concerns of
their municipal life had become scarce, and they
were all managed by delegates. Each of these
small communities, therefore, lived only for
itself, was occupied only with itself, and had
no affairs but its own interests.
Our forefathers had not yet acquired the term
of individuality, which we have coined for our
own use, because in their times there was no
such thing as an individual not belonging to
some group of persons, and who could consider
himself as absolutely alone ; but each of the
thousand little groups, of which French society
was then composed, thought only of itself. It was,
if I may so express myself, a state of collective
individuality, which prepared the French mind
for that state of positive individuality which is
the characteristic of our own time.
But what is most strange is that all these men,
who stood so much aloof from one another, had
become so extremely similar amongst themselves
that if their positions had been changed no dis
tinction could have been traced between them.

Chap. IX. EVERY CLASS. 177
Nay more, if any one could have sounded their
innermost convictions, he would have found that
the slight barriers which still divided persons in
all other respects so similar, appeared to them
selves alike contrary to the public interest and
to common sense, and that in theory they already
worshipped the uniformity of society and the
unity of power. Each of them clung to his own
particular condition, only because a particular
condition was the distinguishing mark of others ;
but all were ready to confound their own con
dition in the same mass, provided no one re
tained any separate lot or rose above the common
level.

178 POPULAR CHARACTER OF THE Book II.

CHAPTER X.
THE DESTRUCTION OF POLITICAL LIBERTY AND THE SEPA
RATION OF CLASSES WERE THE CAUSES OF ALMOST ALL
THE DISORDERS WHICH LED TO THE DISSOLUTION OF THE
OLD SOCIETY OF FRANCE.
Of all the disorders which attacked the consti
tution of society in France, as it existed before
the Revolution, and led to the dissolution of that
society, that which I have just described was
the most fatal. But I must pursue the inquiry
to the source of so dangerous and strange an
evil, and show how many other evils took their
origin from the same cause.
If the English had, from the period of the
Middle Ages, altogether lost, like the French,
political freedom and all those local franchises
which cannot long exist without it, it is highly
probable that each of the different classes of
which- the English aristocracy is composed would
have seceded from the rest, as was the case in
France and more or less all over the continent,
and that all those classes together would have

Chap. X. ENGLISH ARISTOCRACY. 179
separated themselves from the people. But free
dom compelled them always to remain within
reach of each other, so as to combine their
strength in time of need.
It is curious to observe how the British aris
tocracy, urged even by its own ambition, has
contrived, when it seemed necessary, to mix
familiarly with its inferiors, and to feign to con
sider them as its equals. Arthur Young, whom
I have already quoted, and whose book is one of
the most instructive works which exist on the
former state of society in France, relates that hap
pening to be one day at the country-house of the
Due de la Rochefoucauld, at La Roche Guyon,
he expressed a wish to converse with some of the
best and most wealthy farmers of the neighbour
hood. " The Duke had the kindness to order
his steward to give me all the information I
wanted relative to the agriculture of the country,
and to speak to such persons as were necessary
on points that he was in doubt about. At an
English nobleman's house there would have
been three or four farmers asked to meet me,
who would have dined with the family among
ladies of the first rank. I do not exaggerate
when I say that I have had this at least an
n 2

180 EXEMPTIONS FROM TAXATION. Book II.
hundred times in the first houses of our islands.
It is, however, a thing that in the present state
of manners in France would not be met with
from Calais to Bayonne, except by chance in the
house of some great Lord, who had been much
in England, and then not unless it were asked
for. I once knew it at the Duke de Lian-
court's." *
Unquestionably the English aristocracy is of
a haughtier nature than that of France, and
less disposed to mingle familiarly with those who
live in a humbler condition ; but the obligations
of its own rank imposed that duty upon it. It
submitted that it might command. For centuries
no inequality of taxation has existed in England,
except such exemptions as have been succes
sively introduced for the relief of the indigent
classes. Observe to what results different po
litical principles may lead nations so nearly con
tiguous ! In the eighteenth century, the poor
man in England enjoyed the privilege of exemp
tion from taxation ; the rich in France. In one
country the aristocracy has taken upon itself
the heaviest public burdens, in order to retain
* See Note 2N, Arthur Young's Tour.

Chap. X. TAXES LEVIED BY THE CROWN. 181
the government of the State; in the other the
aristocracy retained to the last exemption from
taxation as a compensation for the loss of political
power. In the fourteenth century the maxim " No tax
without the consent of the taxed" — n'impose
qui ne veut — appeared to be as firmly established
in France as in England. It was frequently
quoted; to contravene it always seemed an act
of tyranny ; to conform to it was to revert to the
law. At that period, as I have already remarked,
a multitude of analogies may be traced between
the political institutions of France and those of
England ; but then the destinies of the two
nations separated and constantly became more
unlike, as time advanced. They resemble two
lines starting from contiguous points at a slight
angle, which diverge indefinitely as they are
prolonged. I venture to affirm that when the French
nation, exhausted by the protracted disturbances
which had accompanied the captivity of King
John and the madness of Charles VI., suffered
the Crown to levy a general tax without the
consent of the people, and when the nobility had
the baseness to allow the middle and lower classes

182 GENERAL SUBSIDIES. Book II.
to be so taxed on condition that its own exemp
tion should be maintained, at that very time was
sown the seed of almost all the vices and almost
all the abuses which afflicted the ancient society
of France during the remainder of its existence,
and ended by causing its violent dissolution ; and
I admire the rare sagacity of Philippe de Corn-
mines when he says, " Charles VII., who gained
the point of laying on the taille at his pleasure,
without the consent of the States of the Realm,
laid a heavy burden on his soul and on that of
his successors, and gave a wound to his kingdom
which will not soon be closed."
Observe how that wound widened with the
course of years ; follow step by step that fact to
its consequences.
Forbonnais says with truth in his learned ' Re
searches on the Finances of France,' that in the
Middle Ages the sovereigns generally lived on
the revenues of their domains ; and " as the ex
traordinary wants of the State," he adds, " were
provided for by extraordinary subsidies, they
were levied equally on the clergy, the nobility,
and the people."
The greater part of the general subsidies voted
by the three Orders in the course of the four-

Chap. X. THE TAILLE LEVIED BY THE CROWN. 183
teenth century were, in point of fact, so levied.
Almost all the taxes established at that time were
indirect, that is, they were paid indiscriminately
by all classes of consumers. Sometimes the tax
was direct ; but then it was assessed, not on pro
perty, but on income. The nobles, the priests,
and the burgesses were bound to pay over to the
King, for a year, a tenth, for instance, of all
their incomes. This remark as to the charges
voted by the Estates of the Realm applies equally
to those which were imposed at the same period
by the different Provincial Estates within their
own territories.*
It is true that already, at that time, the direct
tax known by the name of the taille was never
levied on the noble classes. The obligation of
gratuitous military service was the ground of
their exemption ; but the taille was at that time
partially in force as a general impost, belonging
rather to the seignorial jurisdictions than to the
kingdom. When the King first undertook to levy taxes
by his own authority, he perceived that he must
select a tax which did not appear to fall directly
'¦ See Note 20.

184 INEQUALITY OF TAXATION. Book II.
on the nobles; for that class, formidable and
dangerous to the monarchy itself, would never
have submitted to an innovation so prejudicial
to their own interests. The tax selected by the
Crown was, therefore, a tax from which the
nobles were exempt, and that tax was the taille.
Thus to all the private inequalities of condition
which already existed, another and more general
inequality was added, which augmented and per
petuated all the rest. From that time this tax
spread and ramified in proportion as the demands
of the public Treasury increased with the func
tions of the central authority ; it was soon
decupled, and all the new taxes assumed the
character of the taille. Every year, therefore,
inequality of taxation separated the classes of
society and isolated the individuals of whom they
consisted more deeply than before. Since the
object of taxation was not to include those most
able to pay taxes, but those least able to defend
themselves from paying, the monstrous conse
quence was brought about that the rich were
exempted and the poor burfhened. It is related
that Cardinal Mazarin, being in want of money,
hit upon the expedient of levying a tax upon the
principal houses in Paris, but that having en-

Chap. X. FINANCIAL EXPEDIENTS. 185
countered some opposition from the parties con
cerned, he contented himself with adding the
five millions he required to the general brevet of
the taille. He meant to tax the wealthiest of the
King's subjects ; he did tax the most indigent ;
but to the Treasury the result was the same.
The produce of taxes thus unjustly allotted had
limits; but the demands of the Crown had none.
Yet the Kings of France would neither convoke
the States-General to obtain subsidies, nor would
they provoke the nobility to demand that measure
by imposing taxes on them without it.
Hence arose that prodigious and mischievous
fecundity of financial expedients, which so pe
culiarly characterised the administration of the
public resources during the last three centuries
of the old French monarchy.
It is necessary to study the details of the admi
nistrative and financial history of that period, to
form a conception of the violent and unwarrant
able proceedings which the want of money may
prescribe even to a mild government, but with
out publicity and without control, when once
time has sanctioned its power and delivered it
from the dread of revolution — that last safe
guard of nations.

186 FINANCIAL EXPEDIENTS. Book II.
Every page in these annals tells of possessions
of the Crown first sold and then resumed as un
saleable ; of contracts violated and of vested
interests ignored ; of sacrifices wrung at every
crisis from the public creditor, and of incessant
repudiations of public engagements.*
Privileges granted in perpetuity were per
petually resumed. If we could bestow our com
passion on the disappointments of a foolish vanity,
the fate of those luckless persons might deserve
it, who purchased letters of nobility, but who were
exposed during the whole of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries to buy over and over again
the empty honours or the unjust privileges which
they had already paid for several times. Thus
Louis XIV. annulled all the titles of nobility
acquired in the preceding ninety-two years,
though most of them had been conferred by him
self ; but they could only be retained upon fur
nishing a fresh subsidy, all these titles having been
obtained by surprise, said the edict. The same
example was duly followed by Louis XV. eighty
years later.
The militia-man was forbidden to procure a
* See Note 2P, Violation of Vested and Corporate Rights.

Chap. X. FINANCIAL EXPEDIENTS. 187
substitute, for fear, it was said, of raising the
price of recruits to the State.
Towns, corporations, and hospitals were com
pelled to break their own engagements in order
that they might be able to lend money to the
Crown. Parishes were restrained from under
taking works of public improvement, lest by
such a division of their resources they should
pay their direct taxes with less punctuality.
It is related that M. Orry and M. Trudaine,
of whom one was the Comptroller-General and
the other the Director-General of Public Works,
had formed a plan for substituting, for the forced
labour of the peasantry on the roads, a rate to
be levied on the inhabitants of each district for
the repair of their thoroughfares. The reason
which led these able administrators to forego
that plan is instructive : they feared, it is said,
that when a fund had been raised by such a rate
it would be impossible to prevent the Treasury
from appropriating the money to its own pur
poses, so that ere long the rate-payers would
have had to support both the new money pay
ment and the old charge of forced labour. I do
not hesitate to say that no private person could
have escaped the grasp of the criminal law who

188 DUES OF FRANC-FIEF. Book II.
should have managed his own fortune as the
Great Louis in all his glory managed the for
tune of the nation.
If you stumble upon any old establishment of
the Middle Ages which maintained itself with
every aggravation of its original defects in
direct opposition to the spirit of the age, or
upon any mischievous innovation, search to the
root of the evil — you will find it to be some
financial expedient perpetuated in the form of
an institution. To meet the pressure of the
hour new powers were called into being which
lasted for centuries.
A peculiar tax, which was called the due of
franc-fief, had been levied from a distant period
on the non-noble holders of noble lands. This
tax established between lands the same distinc
tion which existed between the classes of society,
and the one constantly tended to increase the
other. Perhaps this due of franc-fief contri
buted more than any other cause to separate the
roturier and the noble, because it prevented
them from mingling together in that which
most speedily and most effectually assimilates
men to each other — in the possession of land.
A chasm was thus opened between the noble

Chap. X. DUES OF FRANC-FIEF. 189
landowner on the one hand, and his neighbour
the non-noble landowner, on the other. No
thing, on the contrary, contributed to hasten the
cohesion of these two classes in England more
than the abolition, as early as the sixteenth
century, of all outward distinctions between the
fiefs held under the Crown and lands held in
villenage.* In the fourteenth century this feudal tax of
franc-fief was light, and was only levied here
and there ; but in the eighteenth century, when
the feudal system was well nigh abolished, it
was rigorously exacted in France every twenty
years, and it amounted to one whole year's
revenue. A son paid it on succeeding his
father. " This tax," said the Agricultural
Society of Tours in 1761, "is extremely inju
rious to the improvement of the art of hus
bandry. Of all the imposts borne by the
King's subjects there is indisputably none so
vexatious and so onerous to the rural population."
" This duty," said another contemporary writer,
" which was at first levied but once in a lifetime,
* [This remark must be taken with some qualification as to the
fact. These distinctions are not wholly eradicated at the present
day in England, but they are mere questions of property, not of
personal rank or political influence.]

190 MONOPOLIES OF Book II.
is become in course of time a very cruel bur
then." The nobles themselves would have been
glad that it should be abolished, for it prevented
persons of inferior condition from purchasing
their lands ; but the fiscal demands of the State
required that it should be maintained and in
creased.* The Middle Ages are sometimes erroneously
charged with all the evils arising from the
trading or industrial corporations. But at their
origin these guilds and companies served only as
means to connect the members of a given call
ing with each other, and to establish in each
trade a free government in miniature, whose
business it was at once to assist and to control
the working classes. Such, and no more, seems
to have been the intention of Saint Louis.
It was not till the commencement of the six
teenth century, in the midst of that period
which is termed the Revival of arts and letters,
that it was proposed for the first time to con
sider the right to labour in a particular vocation
as a privilege to be sold by the Crown. Then
it was that each Company became a small close
* See Note 2Q.

Chap. X. THE GUILDS. 191
aristocracy, and at last those monopolies were
established which were so prejudicial to the pro
gress of the arts and which so exasperated the
last generation. From the reign of Henry IIL,
who generalised the evil, if he did not give
birth to it, down to Louis XVI., who extirpated
it, it may be said that the abuse of the system of
guilds never ceased to augment and to spread at
the very time when the progress of society ren
dered those institutions more insupportable, and
when the common sense of the public was most
opposed to them. Year after year more profes
sions were deprived of their freedom ; year after
year the privileges of the incorporated trades
were increased. Never was the evil carried to
greater lengths than during what are commonly
called the prosperous years of the reign of Louis
XIV., because at no former period had the want
of money been more imperious, or the resolution
not to raise money with the assent of the nation
more firmly taken.
Letrone said with truth in 1775 — " The State
has only established the trading companies to
furnish pecuniary .resources, partly by the pa
tents which it sells, partly by the creation of
new offices which the Companies are forced to

192 SALE OF PUBLIC OFFICES. Book II.
buy up. The Edict of 1673 carried the prin
ciples of Henry III. to their furthest conse
quences by compelling all the Companies to take
out letters of confirmation upon payment for the
same ; and all the workmen who were not yet
incorporated in some one of these bodies were
compelled to enter them. This wretched expe
dient brought in three hundred thousand livres."
We have already seen how the whole muni
cipal constitution of the towns was overthrown,
not by any political design, but in the hope of
picking up a pittance for the Treasury.
This same want of money, combined with tbe
dread of obtaining it from the States-General of
the kingdom, gave rise to the venality of public
offices, which became at last a thing so strange
that its like had never been seen in the world.
It was by this institution, engendered by the
fiscal spirit of the Government, that the vanity
of the middle classes was kept on the stretch for
three centuries and exclusively directed to the
acquisition of public employments, and thus was
the universal passion for places made to penetrate
to the bowels of the nation, where it became the
common source of revolutions and of servitude.
As the financial embarrassments of the State

Chap. X. SUPPRESSION OF OFFICES. 193
increased new offices sprung up, all of which
were remunerated by exemptions from taxation
and by privileges ; and as these offices were pro
duced by the wants of the Treasury, not of the
administration, the result was the creation of an
almost incredible number of employments which
were altogether superfluous or mischievous.* As
early as 1664, upon an inquiry instituted by
Colbert, it was found that the capital invested
in this wretched property amounted to nearly
five hundred millions of livres. Richelieu had
suppressed, it was said, a hundred thousand
offices : but they cropped out again under other
names.f For a little money the State renounced
the right of directing, of controlling, and of
compelling its own agents. An administrative
engine was thus gradually built up so vast,
so complicated, so clumsy, and so unproductive,
that it came at last to be left swinging on in
space, whilst a more simple and handy instru
ment of government was framed beside it, which
really performed the duties these innumerable
public officers were supposed to be doing.
It is clear that none of these pernicious insti-
* See Note 2R, Exemptions of Public Officers from Taxation.
t See Note 2S.

194 PROTESTS OF STATES-GENERAL. Book II.
tutions could have subsisted for twenty years if
they could have been brought under discussion.
None of them would have been established or
aggravated if the Estates had been consulted, or
if their remonstrances had been listened to when
by chance they were still called together. Rarely
as the States-General were convoked in the last
ages of the monarchy, they never ceased to pro
test against these abuses. On several occasions
these assemblies pointed out as the origin of all
these evils the power of arbitrarily levying taxes
which had been arrogated by the King, or to
borrow the identical terms employed by the ener
getic language of the fifteenth century, " the
right of enriching himself from the substance of
the people without the consent and deliberation
of the Three Estates." Nor did they confine
themselves to their own rights alone ; they
demanded with energy, and frequently they
obtained, greater deference to the rights of the
provinces and towns. In every session some
voices were raised in those bodies against the
inequality of the public burthens. They fre
quently demanded the abolition of the system of
close guilds ; they attacked with increasing vigour
in each successive age the venality of public

Chap. X. OPPRESSION DISGUISED. 195
employments. " He who sells office sells justice,
which is infamous," was their language. When
that venality was established, they still com
plained of the abusive creation of offices. They
denounced so many useless places and dangerous
privileges, but always in vain. These institu
tions had been previously established against
themselves ; they had originated in the desire
not to convoke these assemblies, and in the
necessity of disguising from the French nation
the taxation which it was unsafe to exhibit in its
real aspect.
And it must be observed that the best kings
were as prone to have recourse to these practices
as the worst. Louis XII. completed the introduc
tion of the venality of public offices ; Henry IV.
extended the sale of them to reversions. The
vices of the system were stronger than the vir
tues of those who applied it.
This same desire of escaping from the control
of the States-General caused the Parliaments to
be entrusted with most of their political functions ;
the result was an intermixture of the judicial
and administrative offices, which proved ex
tremely injurious to the good conduct of business.
It was necessary to seem to afford some new
o2

196 SEPARATION OF CLASSES. Book II.
guarantees in place of those which were taken
away ; for though the French support absolute
power patiently enough, so long as it be not op
pressive, they never like the sight of it ; and it is
always prudent to raise about it some appearance
of barriers, which serve at least to conceal what
they do not arrest.
Lastly, it was this desire of preventing the
nation, when asked for its money, from asking
back its freedom, which gave rise to an incessant
watchfulness in separating the classes of society,
so that they should never come together, or
combine in a common oresistance, and that the
government should never have on its hands at
once more than a very small number of men
separated from the rest of the nation. In the
whole course of this long history, in which have
figured so many princes remarkable for their
ability, sometimes remarkable for their genius,
almost always remarkable for their courage, not
one of them ever made an effort to bring to
gether the different classes of his people, or to
unite them otherwise than by subjecting them
to a common yoke. One exception there is, in
deed, to this remark : one king of France there
was who not only desired this end, but applied

Chap. X. SEPARATION OF CLASSES. 197
himself with his whole heart to attain it ; that
prince — for such are the inscrutable judgments
of Providence — was Louis XVI.
The separation of classes was the crime of the
old French monarchy, but it became its excuse ;
for when all those who constitute the rich and
enlightened portion of a nation can no longer
agree and co-operate in the work of government,
a country can by no possibility administer itself,
and a master must intervene.
" The nation," said Turgot, with an air of
melancholy, in a secret report addressed to the
Kang, " is a community, consisting of different
orders ill compacted together, and of a people
whose members have very few ties between them
selves, so that every man is exclusively engrossed
by his personal interest. Nowhere is any com
mon interest discernible. The villages, the towns,
have not any stronger mutual relations than the
districts to which they belong. They cannot
even agree among themselves to carry on the
public works which they require. Amidst this
perpetual conflict of pretensions and of under
takings your Majesty is compelled to decide
everything in person or by your agents. Your
special injunctions are expected before men will

198 SEPARATION OF CLASSES. Book II.
contribute to the public advantage, or respect the
rights of others, or even sometimes before they
will exercise their own."
It is no slight enterprise to bring more closely
together fellow-citizens who have thus been liv
ing for centuries as strangers or as enemies to
each other, and to teach them how to carry on
their affairs in common. To divide them was a far
easier task than it then becomes to reunite them.
Such has been the memorable example given
by France to the world. When the different
classes which divided the ancient social system of
France came once more into contact sixty years
ago, after having been isolated so long, and by
so many barriers, they encountered each other on
those points on which they felt most poignantly,
and they met in mutual hatred. Even in this
our day their jealousies and their animosities
have survived them.

Chap. XI. LIBERTY UNDER THE OLD MONARCHY, 199

CHAPTER XI.
OF THE SPECIES OF LIBERTY WHICH EXISTED UNDER THE
OLD MONARCHY, AND OF THE INFLUENCE OF .THAT
LIBERTY ON THE REVOLUTION.
If the reader were here to interrupt the perusal
of this book, he would have but a very imperfect
impression of the government of the old French
Monarchy, and he would not understand the
state of society produced by the Revolution.
Since the citizens of France were thus divided
and thus contracted within themselves, since the
power of the Crown was so extensive and so
great, it might be inferred that the spirit of in
dependence had disappeared with public liberty,
and that the whole French people were equally
bent in subjection. Such was not the case : the
Government had long conducted absolutely and
alone all the common affairs of the nation ; but
it was as yet by no means master of every indi
vidual existence.
Amidst many institutions already prepared
for absolute power some liberty survived ; but it

200 LIBERTY UNDER Book II.
was a sort of strange liberty, which it is not
easy at the present day to conceive aright, and
which must be very closely scrutinised to com
prehend the good and the evil resulting from it.
Whilst the central Government superseded all
local powers, and filled more and more the
whole sphere of public authority, some institu
tions which the Government had allowed to
subsist, or which it had created, some old cus
toms, some ancient manners, some abuses even,
served to check its action, to keep alive in the
hearts of a large number of persons a spirit of
resistance, and to preserve the consistency and
the independent outline of many characters.
Centralisation had already the same tendency,
the same mode of operation, the same aims as
in our own time, but it had not yet the same
power. Government having, in its eagerness
to turn everything into money, put up to sale
most of the public offices, had thus deprived
itself of the power of giving or withdrawing
those offices at. pleasure. Thus one of its pas
sions had considerably impaired the success of
another : its rapacity had balanced its ambition.
The State was therefore incessantly reduced to
act through instruments which it had not forged,

Chap. XI. THE OLD MONARCHY. 201
and which it could not break. The consequence
was that its most absolute will was frequently
paralysed in the execution of it. This strange
and vicious constitution of the public offices thus
stood in stead of a sort of political guarantee
against the omnipotence of the central power.
It was a sort of irregular and ill-constructed
breakwater, which divided the action and checked
the stroke of the supreme power.
Nor did the Government of that day dispose
as yet of that countless multitude of favours,
assistances, honours, and moneys which it has
now to distribute ; it was therefore far less able
to seduce as well as to compel.
The Government moreover was imperfectly
acquainted with the exact limits of its power.*
None of its rights were regularly acknowledged
or firmly established ; its range of action was
already immense, but that action was still hesi
tating and uncertain, as one who gropes along a
dark and unknown track. This formidable ob
scurity, which at that time concealed the limits
of every power and enshrouded every right,
though it might be favourable to the designs of
princes against the freedom of their subjects,
* See Note 2T.

202 LIBERTY UNDER THE OLD MONARCHY. Book II.
was frequently not less favourable to its de
fence. The administrative power, conscious of the
novelty of its origin and of its low extraction,
was ever timid in its action when any obstacle
crossed its path. It is striking to observe, in
reading the correspondence of the French Mi
nisters and Intendants of the eighteenth century,
how this Government, which was so absolute
and so encroaching as long as its authority is
not contested, stood aghast at the aspect ofthe
least resistance ; agitated by the slightest criti
cism, alarmed by the slightest noise, ready on
all such occasions to stop, to hesitate, to parley,
to treat, and often to fall considerably below the
natural limits of its power. The nerveless
egotism of Louis XV., and the mild benevolence
of his successor, contributed to this state of
things. It never occurred to these sovereigns
that they could be dethroned. They had no
thing of that harsh and restless temper which
fear has since often imparted to those who
govern. They trampled on none but those
whom they did not see.
Several of the privileges, of the prejudices, of
the false notions most opposed to the establish-

Chap. XI. THE NOBILITY. 203
ment of a regular and salutary free government,
kept alive amongst many persons a spirit of
independence, and disposed them to hold their
ground against the abuses of authority.
The Nobles despised the Administration, pro
perly so called, though they sometimes had oc
casion to apply to it. Even after they had
abandoned their former power, they retained
something of that pride of their forefathers
which was alike adverse to servitude and to
law. They cared little for the general liberty
of the community, and readily allowed the hand
of authority to lie heavy on all about them ; but
they did not admit that it should lie heavy on
themselves, and they were ready in case of need
to run all risks to prevent it. At the com
mencement of the Revolution that nobility of
France which was about to fall with the throne,
still held towards the King, and still more to
wards the King's agents, an attitude far higher,
and language far more free, than the middle
class, which was so soon to overthrow the
monarchy. Almost all the guarantees against
the abuse of power which France possessed
during the thirty-seven years of her representa
tive government, were already loudly demanded.
by the nobles. In reading the instructions of

204 THE CLERGY— Book II.
that Order to the States-General, amidst its pre
judices and its crotchets, the spirit and some of
the great qualities of an aristocracy may still be
felt.* It must ever be deplored that, instead of
bending that nobility to the discipline of law, it
was uprooted and struck to the earth. By that
act the nation was deprived of a necessary por
tion of its substance, and a wound was given to
freedom which will never be healed. A class
which has marched for ages in the first rank
has acquired, in this long and uncontested exer
cise of greatness, a certain loftiness of heart, a
natural confidence in its strength, and a habit
of being looked up to, which makes it the most
resisting element in the frame of society. Not
only is its own disposition manly, but its example
serves to augment the manliness of every other
class. By extirpating such an Order its very
enemies are enervated. Nothing can ever com
pletely replace it ; it can be born no more ; it
may recover the titles and the estates, but not
the soiil of its progenitors.
The Clergy, who have since frequently shown
themselves so servilely submissive to the tem
poral sovereign in civil matters, whosoever that
* See Note 2U. Instructions of the Order of Nobility at the
States General of 1789.

Chap. XI. ITS INDEPENDENCE. 205
temporal sovereign might be, and who become
his most barefaced flatterers on the slightest in
dication of favour to the Church, formed at that
time one of the most independent bodies in the
nation, and the only body whose peculiar liber
ties would have enforced respect*
The provinces had lost their franchises ; the
rights of the towns were reduced to a shadow.
No ten noblemen could meet to deliberate to
gether on any matter without the express per
mission of the King. But the Church of France
retained to the last her periodical assemblies.
Within her bosom even ecclesiastical power was
circumscribed by limits which were respected.f
The lower clergy enjoyed the protection of solid
guarantees against the tyranny of their superiors,
and was not prepared for passive obedience to
the Sovereign by the uncontrolled despotism of
the bishop. I do not attempt to pass any judg
ment on this ancient constitution of the Church ;
I merely assert that by this constitution the
spirit of the priesthood was not fashioned to
political servility.

* See Note 2V, Religious Administration of an Ecclesiastical
Province in the Eighteenth Century.
t See Note 2X, Spirit of the Clergy.

206 THE CLERGY Book II.
Many of the ecclesiastics were moreover
gentlemen of birth, and they brought with them
into the Church the pride and indocility of their
condition. All of them had, moreover, an
exalted rank in the State, and certain privileges
there. The exercise of those feudal rights, which
had proved so fatal to the moral power ofthe
Church, gave to its members, in their individual
capacity, a spirit of independence towards the
civil authority.
But that which especially contributed to give
the clergy the opinions, the wants, the feelings,
and often the passions of citizens, was the own
ership of land. I have had the patience to read
most of the reports and debates still remaining
to us from the old Provincial Estates of France,
and particularly those of Languedoc, a pro
vince in which the clergy participated even
more than elsewhere in the details of the public
administration ; I have also examined the jour
nals of the Provincial Assemblies, which sat
in 1779 and 1787. Bringing with me in this
inquiry the impressions of our own times, I have
been surprised to find bishops and priests, many
of whom were equally eminent for their piety
and for their learning, drawing up reports on

Chap. XI. AS LANDOWNERS. 207
the construction of a road or a canal, discussing
with great science and skill the best methods
to augment the produce of agriculture, to en
sure the well-being of the inhabitants, and to
encourage industry, these churchmen being
always equal, and often superior, to all the lay
men engaged with them in the transaction of
the same affairs.
I maintain, in opposition to an opinion which
is very generally and very firmly established,
that the nations which deprive the Roman
Catholic clergy of all participation in landed
property, and convert their incomes into sala
ries, do in fact only promote the interests of
the Papacy, and those of the temporal Ruler,
whilst they renounce an important element of
freedom amongst themselves.
A man who, as far as the best portion of his
nature is concerned, is the subject of a foreign
authority, and who in the country where he
dwells can have no family, will only be linked
to the soil by one durable tie* — namely, landed
property. Break that bond, and he belongs to
no place in particular. In the place where the
accident of birth may have cast him, he lives
like an alien in the midst of a civil community,

208 THE CLERGY Book II.
scarcely any of whose civil interests can directly
affect him. His conscience binds him to the
Pope ; his maintenance to the Sovereign. His
only country is the Church. In every political
event he perceives little more than the advan
tage or the loss of his own profession. Let but
the Church be free and prosperous, what matters
all the rest ? His most natural political state is
that of indifference — an excellent member of the
Christian commonwealth, but elsewhere a worth
less citizen. Such sentiments and such opinions
as these in a body of men who are the directors
of childhood, and the guardians of morality,
cannot fail, to enervate the soul of the entire na
tion in relation to public life.
A correct impression of the revolution which
may be effected in the human mind by a change
wrought in social conditions, may be obtained
from a perusal of the Instructions given to the
Delegates of the Clergy at the States-General
of 1789.*
The clergy in those documents frequently
showed their intolerance, and sometimes a tena
cious attachment to several of their former pri
vileges ; but, in other respects, not less hostile
* See Note 2Y.

Chap. XI. AS POLITICAL REFORMERS. 209
to despotism, not less favourable to civil liberty,
not less enamoured of political liberty, than the
middle classes or the nobility, this Order pro
claimed that personal liberty mujst be secured, not
by promises alone, but by a form of procedure
analogous to the Habeas Corpus Act. They de
manded the destruction of the State prisons, the
abolition of extraordinary jurisdictions and of
the practice of evoking causes to the Council of
State, publicity of debates, the permanence of
judicial officers, the admissibility of all ranks to
public employments, which should be open to
merit alone ; a system of military recruiting less
oppressive and humiliating to the people, and
from which none should be exempted ; the ex
tinction by purchase of seignorial rights, which,
sprung from the feudal system, were, they said,
contrary to freedom ; unrestricted freedom of
labour ; the suppression of internal custom
houses ; the multiplication of private schools, in
so much that one gratuitous schoolshould exist
in every parish ; lay charitable institutions in
all the rural districts, such as workhouses aud
workshops of charity ; and every kind of encou
ragement to agriculture.
In the sphere of politics, properly so called,

210 LIBERALITY OF THE CLERGY. Book II.
the clergy proclaimed louder than any other
class, that the nation had an indefeasible and
inalienable right to assemble to enact laws and
to vote taxes. No Frenchman, said the priests
of that day, can be forced to pay a tax which he
has not voted in person or by his representative.
The clergy further demanded that States-General
freely elected should annually assemble ; that
they should in presence of the nation discuss all
its chief affairs ; that they should make general
laws paramount to all usages or particular privi
leges ; that the deputies should be inviolable and
the ministers of the Crown constantly respon
sible. The clergy also desired that assemblies
of States should be created in all the provinces,
and municipal corporations in all the towns.
Of divine right not a word.
Upon the whole, and notwithstanding the no
torious vices of some of its members, I question
if there ever existed in the world a clergy more
remarkable than the Catholic clergy of France
at the moment when it was overtaken by the
Revolution — a clergy more enlightened, more
national, less circumscribed within the bounds of
private duty and more alive to public obliga
tions, and at the same time more zealous for the

Chap. XI. THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 211
faith : — persecution proved it. I entered on the
study of these forgotten institutions full of preju
dices against the clergy of that day : I conclude
that study full of respect for them. They had
in truth no defects but those inherent in all
corporate bodies, whether political or religious,
when "they are strongly constituted and knit to
gether ; -such as a tendency to aggression, a cer
tain intolerance of disposition, and an instinctive
— sometimes a blind — attachment to the particu
lar rights of their Order.
The Middle Classes of the time preceding the
Revolution were also much better prepared than
those of the present day to show a spirit of inde
pendence. Many even of the defects of their
social constitution contributed to this result. We
have already seen that the public employments
occupied by these classes were even more nume
rous than at present, and that the passion for ob
taining these situations was equally intense. But
mark the difference of the age. Most of those
places being neither given nor taken away by
the Government, increased the importance of those
who filled them without placing them at the mercy
of the ruler ; hence, the very cause which now
completes the subjection of so many persons was
p 2

212 INDEPENDENCE OF MIDDLE CLASSES. Book II.
precisely that which most powerfully enabled them
at that time to maintain their independence.
The immunities of all kinds which so un
happily separated the middle from the lower
classes, converted the former into a spurious
aristocracy, which often displayed the pride
and the spirit of resistance of the real aristo-
•cracy. In each of those small particular asso
ciations which divided the middle classes into
so many sections, the general advantage was
readily overlooked, but the interests and the
rights of each body were always kept in view.
The common dignity, the common privileges
were to be defended.* No man could ever lose
himself in the crowd, or find a hiding-place
for base subserviency. Every man stood, as it
were, on a stage, extremely contracted it is true,
but in a glare of light, and there he found
himself in presence of the same audience, ever
ready to applaud or to condemn him.
The art of stifling every murmur of resistance
was at that time far less perfected than it is at
present. France had not yet become that dumb
region in which we dwell : every sound on the
* See Note 2Z.

Chap. XL COURTS OF JUSTICE. 213
contrary had an echo, though political liberty
was still unknown, and every voice that was
raised might be heard afar.
That which more especially in those times
ensured to the oppressed the means of being
heard was the constitution of the Courts of Jus
tice. France had become a land of absolute
government by her political- and administrative
institutions, but her people were still free by her
institutions of justice. The judicial administra
tion of the old monarchy was complicated, trou
blesome, tedious, and expensive : there were no
doubt great faults, but servility towards the
Government was not to be met with there — that
servility which is but another form of venality,
and the worst form. That capital vice, which
not only corrupts the judge, but soon infects the
whole body of the people, was altogether un
known to the elder magistracy. The judges
could not be removed, and they sought no pro
motion — two things alike necessary to their in
dependence ; for what matters it that a judge
cannot be constrained if there are a thousand
means of seduction ?
It is true that the power of the Crown had
succeeded in depriving the Courts of ordinary

214 COURTS OF JUSTICE. Book II.
jurisdiction of the cognizance of almost all the
suite in which the public authorities were inte
rested ; but though they had been stripped, they
still were feared. Though they might he pre
vented from recording their judgments, the Go
vernment did not always dare to prevent them
frcm receiving complaints or from recording their
opinions ; and as the language of the Courts still
preserved the tone of that old language of France
which loved to call things by their right names,
the magistrates not unfrequently stigmatized the
acts ofthe Government as arbitrary and despotic*
The irregular intervention of the Courts in the
affairs of government, which often disturbed the
conduct of them, thus served occasionally to pro
tect the liberties of the subject. The evil was
great, but it served to curb a greater evil.
In these judicial bodies and all around them
the vigour of the ancient manners of the nation
was preserved in the midst of modern opinions.
The Parliaments of France doubtless thought
more of themselves than of the common
wealth; but it must be acknowledged that, in
defence of their own independence and honour,
* See Note 3A, Example of the Language of the Courts of
Justice.

Chap. XI. SPIRIT OF THE BAR. 215
they always bore themselves with intrepidity,
and that they imparted their spirit to all that
came near them.
When in 1770 the Parliament of Paris was
broken, the magistrates who belonged to it sub
mitted to the loss of their profession and their
power without a single instance of any indi
vidual yielding to the will of the sovereign.
Nay, more, some Courts of a different kind, such
as the Court of Aids, which were neither affected
nor menaced, voluntarily exposed themselves to
the same harsh treatment, when that treatment
had become certain. Nor is this all ; the leading
advocates who ^practised before the Parliament
resolved of their own accord to share its fortune ;
they renounced all that made their glory and
their wealth, and condemned themselves to
silence rather than appear before dishonoured
judges. I know of nothing in the history of free
nations grander than what occurred on this oc
casion, and yet this happened in the eighteenth
century, hard by the court of Louis XV.
The habits of the French Courts of justice had
become in .many respects the habits of the na
tion. The Courts of justice bad given birth to the
notion that every question was open to discus-

216 POPULAR CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH Book II.
sion and every decision subject to appeal, and
likewise to the use of publicity, and to a taste
for forms of proceeding — things adverse to ser
vitude : this was the only part of the education of
a free people which the institutions of the old mo
narchy had given to France. The administration
itself had borrowed largely from the language
and the practice of the courts. The King con
sidered himself obliged to assign motives for his
edicts, and to state his reasons before he drew the
conclusion ; the Council of State caused its orders
to be preceded by long preambles ; the Intend
ants promulgated their ordinances in the forms
of judicial service. In all the. administrative
bodies of any antiquity, such, for example, as
the body of the Treasurers of France or that of
the elus (who assessed the taille), the cases were
publicly debated and decided after argument at
the bar. All these usages, all these formalities,
were so many barriers to the arbitrary power of
the sovereign.
The people alone, applying that term to the
lower orders of society, and especially the people
of the rural districts, was almost always unable
to offer any resistance to oppression except by
violence.

Chap. XL BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 217
Most of the means of defence which I have
here passed in review were, in fact, beyond their
reach ; to employ those means, a place in society
where they could be seen, or a voice loud enough
to make itself heard, was requisite. But above
the ranks ofthe lower orders there was not a man
in France who, if he had the courage, might not
contest his obedience and resist in giving way.
The King spoke as the chief of the nation
rather than as its master. "We glory," said
Louis XVI., at his accession, in the preamble of
a decree, " we glory to command a free and
generous nation." One of his ancestors had
already expressed the same idea in older lan
guage, when, thanking the States-General for
the boldness of their remonstrances, he said,
" We like better to speak to freemen than to
serfs." The men of the eighteenth century knew little
of that sort of passion for comfort which is the
mother of servitude— a relaxing passion, though
it be tenacious and unalterable, which mingles
and intertwines itself with many private virtues,
such as domestic affections, regularity of life,
respect for religion, and even with the lukewarm,
though assiduous, practice of public worship,

218 THEIR AMBITION Book II.
which favours propriety but proscribes heroism,
and excels in making decent livers but base citi
zens. The men of the eighteenth century were
better and they were worse.
The French of that age were addicted to joy
and passionately fond of amusement ; they were
perhaps more lax in their habits, and more
vehement in their passions and opinions than
those of the present day, but they were strangers
to the temperate and decorous sensualism that
we see about us. In the upper classes men
thought more of adorning life than of rendering it
comfortable ; they sought to be illustrious rather
than to be rich. Even in the middle ranks the
pursuit of comfort never absorbed every faculty
of the mind ; that pursuit was often abandoned
for higher and more refined enjoyments ; every
man placed some object beyond the love of
money before his eyes. " L know my country
men," said a contemporary writer, in language
which, though eccentric, is spirited : " apt to
melt and dissipate the metals, they are not prone
to pay them habitual reverence, and they will
not be slow to turn again to their former idols,
to valour, to glory, and, I will add, to mag
nanimity."

Chap. XI. THEIR LOYALTY. 219
The baseness of mankind is, moreover, not to
be estimated by the degree of their subserviency
to a sovereign power : that standard would be
an incorrect one. However submissive the
French may have been before the Revolution to
the will of the King, one sort of obedience was
altogether unknown to them ; they knew not
what it was to bow before an illegitimate and
contested power — a power but little honoured,
frequently despised, but which is willingly en
dured because it may be serviceable or because
it may hurt. To this degrading form of servi
tude they were ever strangers. The King in
spired them with feelings which none of the
most absolute princes who have since appeared
in the world have been able to call forth, and
which are become incomprehensible to the pre
sent generation, so entirely has the Revolution
extirpated them from the hearts of the nation.
They loved him with the affection due to a
father ; they revered him with the respect due to
God. In submitting to the most arbitrary of his
commands they yielded less to compulsion than
to loyalty, and thus they frequently preserved
great freedom of mind even in the most complete
dependence. To them the greatest evil of obedi-

220 THEIR LIBERTY Book II.
ence was compulsion ; to us it is the least : the
worst is in that servile sentiment which leads
men to obey. We have no right to despise our
forefathers. Would to God that we could reco
ver, with their prejudices and their faults,
something of their greatness !
It would then be a mistake to think that the
state of society in France before the Revolution
was one of servility and dependence.* Much
more liberty existed in that society than in our
own time ; but it was a species of irregular and
intermittent liberty, always contracted within
the bounds of certain classes, linked to the notion
of exemption and of privilege, which rendered it
almost as easy to defy the law as to defy arbitrary
power, and scarcely ever went far enough to
furnish to all classes of the community the most
natural. and necessary securities.")" Thus reduced,
and thus deformed, liberty was still not unfruitful.
It was this liberty which, at the very time when
centralization was tending more and more to
equalize, to emasculate, and to dim the character
of the nation, still preserved amongst a large
* See Note 3B.
t See Note 3C, Of the Reasons which frequently put a restraint
on Absolute Government under the Monarchy.

Chap. XI. ILL-REGULATED. 221
class of private persons their native vigour, their
colour, and their outline, fostered self-respect in
the heart, and often caused the love of glory to
predominate over every other taste. By this
liberty were formed those vigorous characters,
those proud and daring spirits which were about
to appear, and were to make the French Revo
lution at once the object of the admiration and
the terror of succeeding generations. It would
have been most strange that virtues so masculine
should have grown on a soil where freedom was
no more.
But if this sort of ill-regulated and morbid
liberty prepared the French to overthrow des
potism, perhaps it likewise rendered them less
fit than any other people to establish in lieu of
that despotism the free and peaceful empire of
constitutional law.

222 FRENCH PEASANTRY. Book II.

CHAPTER XII.
SHOWING THAT THE CONDITION OF THE FRENCH PEA
SANTRY, NOTWITHSTANDING THE PROGRESS OF CIVILI
ZATION, WAS SOMETIMES WORSE IN THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY THAN IT HAD BEEN IN THE THIRTEENTH.
In the eighteenth century the French peasantry
could no longer be preyed upon by petty feudal
despots ; they were seldom the object of violence
on the part of the government; they enjoyed
civil liberty, and were owners of a portion of the
soil ; but all the other classes of society stood
aloof from this class, and perhaps in no other
part of the world had the peasantry ever lived
so entirely alone. The effects of this novel and
singular kind of oppression deserve a very atten
tive separate consideration.
As early as the beginning of the seventeenth
century, Henry IV. complained, as we learn
from Perefix, that the nobles were quitting the
rural districts. In the middle of the eighteenth
century this desertion had become almost gene
ral ; all the records of the time indicate and de
plore the fact, economists in their writings, the

Chap. XII. ABSENTEEISM OF THE GENTRY. . 223
Intendants in their reports, agricultural societies
in their proceedings. A more authentic proof
of the same fact is to be found in the registers of
the capitation tax. The capitation tax was levied
at the actual place of residence, and it was paid
by the whole of the great nobility and by a por
tion of the landed gentry at Paris.
In the rural districts none remained but such
of the gentry as their limited means compelled
to stay there. These persons must have found
themselves placed in a position with reference
to the peasants, his neighbours, such as no rich
proprietor can be conceived to have occupied
before.* Being no longer in the position of a
chief, they had not the same interest as of old
to attend to, or assist, or direct the village popu
lation ; and, on the other hand, not being sub
ject to the same burthens, they could neither feel
much sympathy for poverty which they did not
share, nor for grievances to which they were not
exposed. The peasantry were no longer the sub
jects of the gentry ; the gentry were not yet the
fellow-citizens of the peasantry— a state of things
unparalleled in history.
This gave rise to a sort of absenteeism of feel-
* See Notes 3D and 3 E.

224 . HABITS OF THE GENTRY. Book II.
ing, if I may so express myself, even more fre
quent and more effectual than absenteeism pro
perly so called. Hence it arose that a gentle
man residing on his estate frequently displayed
the views and sentiments which his steward
would have entertained in his absence ; like his
steward, he learned to look upon his tenants as
his debtors, and he rigorously exacted from them
all that he could claim by law or by custom,
which sometimes rendered the application of the
last remnant of feudal rights more harsh than it
had been in the feudal times.
Often embarrassed, and always needy, the
small gentry lived shabbily in their country-
houses, caring only to amass money enough to
spend in town during the winter. The people,
who often find an expression which hits the
truth, had given to these small squires the name
of the least of the birds of prey, a hobereau, a
sort of Squire Kite.
No doubt individual exceptions might be pre
sented to these observations ; I speak of classes,
which ought alone to detain the attention of
history. That there were in those times many
rich landowners who, without any necessary oc
casion and without a common interest, attended

Chap. XII. ABSENTEEISM OF THE GENTRY. 225.
to the welfare of the peasantry, who wijll deny ?
But these were persons who struggled! success
fully against the law of their new condition,
which, in spite of themselves, was driving them
into indifference, as it was driving their former
vassals into hatred.
This abandonment of a country life by the
nobility has often been attributed to the peculiar
influence of certain ministers and certain kings
— by some to Richelieu, by others to Louis XIV-
It was, no doubt, an idea almost always pur
sued by the Kings of France, during .the three
last centuries of the monarchy, to separate the
gentry from the people, and to attract the former
to Court and to public employments. This was
especially the case in the seventeenth century,
when the nobility were still an object of fear to
royalty. Amongst the questions addressed to
the Intendants, they were sometimes asked —
" Do the gentry of your province like to stay at
home, or to go abroad ? "
A letter from an Intendant has been found
giving his answer on this subject; he laments
that the gentry of his province like to remain
with their peasants, instead of fulfilling their
duties about the King. And let it here be well
Q

226 ENCOURAGED BY THE COURT. Book II.
remarked, that the province of which this
Intendant was speaking was Anjou — that pro
vince which was afterwards La Vendee. These
country gentlemen who refused, as he said, to
fulfil their duties about the King, were the only
country gentlemen who defended with arms in
their hands the monarchy in France, and died
there fighting for the Crown ; they owed this
glorious distinction simply to the fact that they
had found means to retain their hold over the
peasantry — that peasantry with whom they were
blamed for wishing to live.
Nevertheless the abandonment of the country
by the class which then formed the head of the
French nation must not be mainly attributed to
the direct influence of some ofthe French kings.
The principal and permanent cause of this fact
lay not so much in the will of certain men as in
the slow and incessant influence of institutions ;
and the proof is, that when, in the eighteenth
century, the Government endeavoured to combat
this evil, it could not even check the progress
of it. In proportion as the nobility completely
lost its political rights without acquiring others,
and as local freedom disappeared, this emigra
tion of the nobles increased. It became unne-

Chap. XII. EFFECT ON THE RURAL DISTRICTS. 227
cessary to entice them from their homes ; they
cared not to remain there. Rural life had be
come distasteful to them.
What I here say of the nobles applies in all
countries to rich landowners. In all centralized
countries the rural districts lose their wealthy
and enlightened inhabitants. I might add that
in all centralized countries the art of cultivation
remains imperfect and unimproved — a com
mentary on the profound remark of Montes
quieu, which determines his meaning, when he
says that " land produces less by reason of its
own fertility than of the freedom of its inhabi
tants." But I will not transgress the limits of
my subject.
We have seen elsewhere that the middle
classes, equally ready to quit the rural districts,
sought refuge from all sides in the towns. On
no point are all the records of French society
anterior to the Revolution more agreed. They
show that a second generation of rich peasants
was a thing almost unknown. No sooner had a
farmer made a little money by his industry than
he took his son from the plough, sent him to
the town, and bought him a small appointment.
From that period may be dated the sort of
Q 2

228 PARISH PRIESTS. Book II.
strange aversion which the French husbandman
often displays, even in our own times, for the
calling which has enriched him. The effect has
survived the cause.
To say the truth, the only man of education —
or, as he would be called in England, the only
gentleman — who permanently resided amongst
the peasantry and in constant intercourse with
them, was the parish-priest. The result was
that the priest would have become the master of
the rural populations, in spite of Voltaire, if he
had not been himself so nearly and ostensibly
linked to the political order of things ; the pos
session of several political privileges exposed
him in some degree to the hatred inspired by
those political institutions.*
The peasant was thus almost entirely sepa
rated, from the upper classes ; he was removed
from those of his fellow-creatures who might
have assisted and directed him. In proportion
as they attained to enlightenment or compe
tency, they turned their backs on him ; he stood,
as it were, tabooed and set apart in the midst of
the nation.
* See Note 3F, Example of the mischievous Effects of the Pe
cuniary Rights ofthe Clergy,

Chap. XII. CONDITION OF FRENCH VILLAGES. 229
This state of things did not exist in an equal
degree amongst any of the other civilized na
tions of Europe, and even in France it was
comparatively recent. The peasantry of the
fourteenth century were at once more oppressed
and more relieved. The aristocracy sometimes
tyrannised over them, but never forsook them.
In the eighteenth century, a French village
was a community of persons, all of whom
were poor, ignorant, and coarse ; its magis
trates were as rude and as contemned as the
people ; its syndic could not read ; its collector
could not record in his own handwriting the
accounts on which the income of his neigh
bours and his own depended. Not only had
the former lord of the manor lost the right of
governing this community, but he had brought
himself to consider it a sort of degradation to
take any part in the government of it. To assess
the taille, to call out the militia, to regulate the
forced labour, were servile offices, devolving on
the syndic. The central power of the State alone
took any care of the matter, and as that power
was very remote, and had as yet nothing to fear
from the inhabitants ofthe villages, the only care
it took of them was to extract revenue.

230 THE TAILLE. Book II.
Let me show you what a forsaken class of society
becomes which no one desires to oppress, but
which no one attempts to enlighten or to serve.
The heaviest burthens which the. feudal
system had imposed on the rural population
had, without doubt, been withdrawn and miti
gated ; but it is not sufficiently known that for
these burthens others had been substituted, per
haps more onerous. The peasant had not to
endure all the evils endured by his forefathers,
but he supported many hardships which his fore
fathers had never known.
The taille had been decupled, almost exclu
sively at the cost of the peasantry, in the pre
ceding two centuries. And here a word must
be said of the manner in which this tax was
levied, to show what barbarous laws may be
founded and maintained in civilised ages, when
the most enlightened men in the nation have
no personal interest in changing them.
I find in a confidential letter, written by the
Comptroller-General himself, in 1772, to the
Intendants, a description of this tax, which is a
model of brevity and accuracy. " The taille,"
said that minister, " arbitrarily assessed, collec
tively levied as a personal, not a real, tax in the

Chap. XII. THE TAILLE. 231
greater part of France, is subject to continual
variations from all the changes whicli happen
every year in the fortunes of the tax-payers."
The whole is in these three phrases. It is im
possible to depict more ably the evil by which
the writer profited.
The whole sum to be paid by each parish was
fixed every three years. It perpetually varied,
as the minister says, so that no farmer could
foresee a year beforehand what he would have
to pay in the year following. In the internal
economy of each parish any one of the peasants
named by the Collector was entrusted with the
apportionment of the tax on the rest.
I have said I would explain what was the
condition of this Collector. Let us take this
explanation in the language of the Assembly
of the Province of Berri in 1779, a body not
liable to suspicion, for it was entirely composed
of privileged persons, who paid no taille, and
were chosen by the King. " As every one
seeks to evade this office of collector," said
this Assembly, " each person must fill it in
turn. The levy of the taille is therefore en
trusted every year to a fresh collector, without
regard to his ability or his integrity ; the

232 THE TAILLE. Book II.
preparation of each roll of assessments bears
marks, therefore, of the personal character of the
officer who makes it. The collector stamps on
it his own fears, or foibles, or vices. How,
indeed, could he do better? He is acting in
darkness, for who can tell with precision the
wealth of his neighbour or the proportion of his
wealth to that of another ? Nevertheless the
opinion of the collector alone is to decide these
points, and he is responsible with all his pro
perty and even his person for the receipts. He
is commonly obliged for two whole years to lose
half his days in running after the tax-payers.
Those who cannot read are obliged to find a
neighbour to perform the office for them."
Turgot had already said of another province,
a short time before, " This office of collector
drives to despair, and generally to ruin, those
on whom it is imposed ; by this means all the
wealthier families of a village are successively
reduced to poverty."
This unhappy officer was, however, armed
with the most arbitrary powers ;* he was almost
as much a tyrant as a martyr. Whilst he was
* See Note a G.

Chap. XII. THE TAILLE. 233
discharging functions by which he ruined him
self he had it in his power to ruin everybody
else. " Preference for his relations," to recur
to the language of the Provincial Assembly,
" or for his friends and neighbours, hatred and
revenge against his enemies, the want of a
patron, the fear of affronting a man of property
who had work to give, were at issue with every
feeling of justice." Personal fear often har
dened the heart of the collector ; there were
parishes in which he never went out but escorted
by constables and bailiffs. " When he comes
without the constable," said an Intendant to a
Minister, in 1764, "the persons liable to the
tax will not pay." " In the district of Ville-
franche alone," says the Provincial Assembly of
Guienne, " there were one hundred and six
officers constantly out to serve writs and levy
distraints." To evade this violent and arbitrary taxation
the French peasantry, in the midst of the eigh
teenth century, acted like the Jews in the
Middle Ages. They were ostensibly paupers,
even when by chance they were not so in
reality. They were afraid to be well off, and not
without reason, as may be seen from a docu-

234 THE TAILLE. Book II.
ment which I select, not from Guienne, but a
hundred leagues off. The Agricultural Society
of Maine announced in its Report of 1761, that it
proposed to distribute cattle by way of prizes and
encouragements. " This plan was stopped," it
adds, " on account of the dangerous consequences
to he apprehended by a low jealousy ofthe winners
of these prizes, which, by means of the arbitrary
assessment of the public taxes, would occasion
them annoyance in the following year."
Under this system of taxation each tax-payer
had, in fact, a direct and permanent interest to
act as a spy on his neighbours, and to denounce
to the collector the progress of their fortunes.
The whole population was thus trained to dela
tion and td hatred. Were not such things
rather to be expected in the domains of a rajah
of Hindostan ?
There were, however, at the same time in
France certain districts in which the taxes were
raised with regularity and moderation; these
were called the pays d'etat* It is true that to
these districts the right of levying their own
taxes had been left. In Languedoc, for ex-
* See Note 3 H, Superiority of method adopted in ' the Pays
d'Etats.

Chap. XII. THE TAILLE. 235
ample, the taille was assessed on real property,
and did not vary according to the means of the
holder. Its fixed and known basis was a survey
which had been carefully made, and was re
newed every thirty years, and in which the
lands were divided, according to their fertility,
into three classes. Every tax-payer knew be
forehand exactly what his proportion of the
charge amounted to. If he failed to pay, he
alone, or rather his land alone, was liable. If
he thought the assessment unjust, he might
always require that his share should be compared
with that of any other inhabitant of the parish,
on the principle of what is now termed in
France an appeal to proportionate equality.
These regulations are precisely those which
are now followed in France ; they have not
been improved since that time, but they have
been generalised : for if deserves observation,
that although the form of the public adminis
tration in France has been taken from the
Government anterior to the Revolution, nothing
else has been copied from that Government.
The best of the administrative forms of proceed
ing in modern France have been borrowed from
the old Provincial Assemblies, and not from the

236 THE TAILLE. Book II.
Government. The machine was adopted, but its
produce rejected.
The habitual poverty of the rural population
had given birth to maxims little calculated to
put an end to it. if If nations were well
off," said Richelieu, in his Political Testament,
" hardly would they keep within the rules." In
the eighteenth century this maxim was modi
fied, but it was still believed that the peasantry
would not work without the constant stimulus of
necessity, and that want was the only security
against idleness. That is precisely the theory
which is sometimes professed with reference to
the negro population of the colonies. It was
an opinion so generally diffused amongst those
who governed that almost all economists have
thought themselves obliged to combat it at
length. The primary object of the taille was to
enable the King to purchase recruits so as to
dispense the nobles and their vassals from mili
tary service; but in the seventeenth century
the obligation of military service was again im
posed, as we have seen, under the name of the
militia, and henceforth it weighed upon the
common people only, and almost exclusively on
the peasantry.

Chap. XII. REPUGNANCE TO THE MILITIA. 237
The infinite number of police reports from
the constables, which are still to be found
amongst the records of any iritendancy, all re
lating to the pursuit of refractory militia-men
or deserters, suffice to prove that this force was
not raised without obstacles. It seems, indeed,
that no public burthen was more insupportable
to the peasantry than this : to evade it they
frequently fled into the woods, where they
were pursued by the armed authorities. This
is the more singular, when we see the facility
with which the conscription works in France in
the present times.
This extreme repugnance of the peasantry of
France before the Revolution to the militia was
attributable less to the principle of the law
than to the manner in which the law was exe
cuted ; more especially from the long period of
uncertainty, during which it threatened those
liable to be drawn (they could be taken until
forty years of age, unless they were married), — ¦
from the arbitrary power of revision, which
rendered the advantage of a lucky number
almost useless — from the prohibition to obtain a
substitute — from disgust at a hard and perilous
profession, in which all hope of advancement
was forbidden ; but, above all, from the feeling

238 REPUGNANCE TO THE MILITIA. Book II.
that this oppressive burthen rested on them
selves alone, and on the most wretched amongst
themselves, the ignominy of this condition ren
dering its hardships more intolerable.
I have had means of referring to many of
the returns of the draft for the militia, as it was
made in 1769 in a large number of parishes.
In all these returns there are some exemptions :
this man is a gentleman's servant ; that, the
gamekeeper of an abbey ; a third is only the
valet of a man of inferior birth, but who,
at least, " lives like a nobleman." Wealth
alone afforded an exemption ; when a farmer
annually figured amongst those who paid the
largest sum in taxes, his sons were dispensed
from the militia : that was called encouragement
of agriculture. Even the economists, who, in
all other points, were great partisans of social
equality, were not shocked hy this privilege;
they only suggested that it should be extended,
or, in other words, that the burthen of the
poorest and most friendless of the peasants
should become more severe. " The low pay of
the soldier," said one of these writers, "the
manner in which he is lodged, dressed, and fed,
and his entire state of dependence, would render

Chap. XII. FORCED LABOUR. 239
it too cruel to take any but a man of the lowest
orders," Down to the close of the reign of Louis XIV.
the high roads were not repaired, or were re
paired at the cost of those who used them,
namely, the State and the adjacent landowners.
But about that time the roads began to be
repaired by forced labour only, that is to say,
exclusively at the expense of the peasantry.*
This expedient for making roads without pay
ing for them was thought so ingenious, that
in 1737 a circular of the Comptroller-General
Orry established it throughout France. The
Intendants were armed with the right of im
prisoning the refractory at pleasure, or of send
ing constables after them.f
From that time, whenever trade augmented,
so that more roads were wanted or desired, the
corvee or forced labour extended to new lines,
and had more work to do. It appears from
the Report made in 1779 to the Provincial As
sembly of Berry, that the works executed by
forced labour in that poor province were esti-
* See Note 3I, Repair of Roads bow regarded.
t See Note 3K, Commitments for non-performance of Com
pulsory Labour.

240. FORCED LABOUR. Book II.
mated in one year at 700,000 livres. In 1787
they were computed at about the same sum in
Lower Normandy. Nothing can better demon
strate the melancholy fate of the rural popula
tion ; the progress of society, which enriches all
the other classes, drives them to despair, and
civilization itself turns against that class alone.
I find about the same time, in the correspond
ence of the Intendants, that leave was to be
refused to the peasants to do their forced labour
on the private roads of their own villages, since
this labour was to be reserved to the great -high
roads only, or, as they were then called, " the
King's highway." The strange notion that
the cost of the roads was to be defrayed by
the poorest persons, and hy those who were the
least likely to travel by them, though of recent
date, took such root in the minds of those who
were to profit by it, that they soon imagined
that the thing could not be done differently.*
In 1776 an attempt was made to commute this
forced labour into "a local rate, but the same
inequality survived, and affects this new species
of tax.Though originally a seignorial right, the
* See Note 3L.

Chap. XII. FORCED LABOUR. 241
system of forced labour, by becoming a royal
right, was gradually extended to almost all
public works. In 1719 I find it was employed
to build barracks. " Parishes are to send their
best workmen," said the Ordinance, " and all
other works are to give way to this." The
same forced service was used to escort convicts
to the galleys and beggars to the workhouse ;*
it had to cart the baggage of troops as often
as they changed their quarters, a burthen which
was very onerous at a time when each regiment
carried heavy baggage after it. Many carts
and oxen had to be collected for the purpose.f
This sort of obligation, which signified little
at its origin, became one of the most burden
some when standing armies grew more numerous.
Sometimes the Government contractors loudly
demanded the assistance of forced labour to con
vey timber from the forests to the naval arsenals.
These peasants commonly received certain wages,
but they were arbitrarily fixed and low.J The
burthen of an impost so ill-assessed sometimes
became so heavy as to excite the uneasiness
of the receivers of the taille. "The outlay
* See Note 3M, Escort of Galley-slaves.
t See Note 3N. t See Note 30. R

242 RURAL IMPROVEMENTS. Book II.
required of the peasants on the roads," said
one of these officers in 1751, "is such, that
they will soon be quite unable to pay the taille."
Could all these new oppressions have been
established if there had been in the vicinity of
these peasants any men of wealth and educa
tion, disposed and able, if not to defend them, at
least to intercede for them, with that common
master who already held in his grasp the for
tunes of the poor and of the rich ?
I have read a letter of a great landowner;
writing in 1774 to the Intendant of his province,
to induce him to open a road. This road, he
said, would cause the prosperity of the village,
and for several reasons ; he then went on to
recommend the establishment of a fair, which
would double, he thought, the price of produce.
With excellent motives, he added that with the
assistance of a small contribution a school might
be established, which would furnish the King
with more' industrious subjects. It was the first
time that these necessary ameliorations had oc
curred to him ; he had only thought of them in
the preceding two years, which he had been
compelled by a lettre de cachet to spend in his
own house. " My exile for the last two years in

Chap. XII. MENDICITY. 243
my estates," he candidly observed, " has con
vinced me of the extreme utility of these things."
It was more especially in times of scarcity that
the relaxation or total interruption of the ties of
patronage and dependence, which formerly con
nected the great rural proprietors and the pea
santry, was manifest. At such critical times
the central Government, alarmed by its own
isolation and weakness, sought to revive for the
nonce the personal influences or the political
associations which the Government itself had
destroyed ; they were summoned to its aid, but
they were summoned in vain, and the State was
astonished to find that those persons were defunct
whom it had itself deprived of life.
In this extremity some of the Intendants —
Turgot, for instance — in the poorest provinces,
issued illegal ordinances to compel the rich land
owners to feed their tenants till the next harvest.
I have found, under the date of 1770, letters
from several parish priests, who propose to the
Intendants to tax the great landowners, both
clerical and lay, " who possess vast estates which
they do not inhabit, and from which they draw
large revenues to be spent elsewhere."
At all times the villages were infested with
, R 2

244 SUPPRESSION OF MENDICITY. Book II.
beggars ; for, as Letrone observes, the poor were
relieved in the towns, but in the country, during
the winter, mendicity was their only resource.
Occasionally these poor wretches were treated
with great violence. In 1767 the Duke de
Choiseul, then Minister, resolved suddenly to
suppress mendicity in France. The correspond
ence of the Intendants still shows with what
rigour his measures were taken. The patrol
was ordered at once to take up all the beggars
found in the kingdom ; it is said that more than
50,000 of them were seized. Able-bodied vaga
bonds were to be sent to the galleys ; as for the
rest, more than forty workhouses were opened
to receive them. It would have been more to
the purpose to have opened the hearts of the
rich. This Government of the ancient French mo
narchy, which was, as I have said, so mild and
sometimes so timid, so full of formalities, of
delays, and of scruples, when it had to do with
those who were placed above the common people,
was often harsh and always prompt in proceed
ing against the lower orders, especially against
the peasantry. Amongst the records which I
have examined, I have not seen one relating to

Chap. XII. IMPROVEMENT PREVENTED. 245
the arrest of a man of the middle class by order
of the Intendant ; but the peasants were arrested
continually, some for forced labour, some for
begging, some for the militia, some by the police
or for a hundred other causes. The former
class enjoyed independent courts of justice, long
trials, and a public procedure ; the latter fell
under the control of the provost-marshal, sum
marily and without appeal.*
" The immense distance which exists between
the common people and all the other classes of
society," Necker wrote in 1785, " contributes to
avert our observation from the manner in which
authority may be handled in relation to all those
persons lost in a crowd. Without the gentleness
and humanity which characterise the French and
the spirit of this age, this would be a continual
subject of sorrow to those who can feel for others
under burdens from which they are themselves
exempt." But this oppression was less apparent in the
positive evil done to those unhappy classes than
in the impediments which prevented them from
improving their own condition. They were free
* See Note 3P.

246 INDIGENCE OF PEASANTRY. Book II.
and they were owners of land, yet they remained
almost as ignorant, and often more indigent, than
the serfs, their forefathers. They were still with
out industrial employment, amidst all the won
derful creations of the modern arts ; they were
still uncivilized in a world glittering with civili
zation. If they had retained the peculiar intel
ligence and perspicacity of their race, they had
not been taught to use these qualities ; they could
not even succeed in the cultivation of the soil,
the only thing they had to do. " The husbandry
I see 'before me is that of the tenth century,"
was the remark of a celebrated English agri
culturist in France. They excelled in no pro
fession but in that of arms ; there at least they
came naturally and necessarily into contact with
the other classes.
In this depth of isolation and indigence the
French peasantry lived ; they lived enclosed and
inaccessible within it. I have been surprised
and almost shocked to perceive tbat less than
twenty years before the Catholic worship was
abolished without resistance in France and the
churches desecrated, the means taken to ascertain
the population of a district were these : the parish
priests reported the number of persons who had

Chap. XII. THEIR MERRIMENT FALLACIOUS. 247
attended at Easter at the Lord's table — an esti
mate was added for the probable number of
children and of the sick ; the result gave the
whole body of the population. Nevertheless the
spirit of the age had begun to penetrate by many
ways into these untutored minds ; it penetrated
by irregular and hidden channels, and assumed
the strangest shapes in their narrow and obscure
capacities. Yet nothing seemed as yet externally
changed ; the manners, the habits, the faith of
the peasant, seemed to be the same ; he was sub
missive, and was even merry.
There is something fallacious in the merriment
which the French often exhibit in the midst of
the greatest calamities. It only proves that be
heving this ill fortune to be inevitable, they seek
to throw it off by not thinking of it, but not that
they do not feel it. Open to them a door of
escape from the evil they seem to bear so lightly,
and they will rush towards it with such violence
as to pass over your body without so much as
seeing you, if you are on their path.
These things are clear to us, from our point of
observation ; but they were invisible to contem
porary eyes. It is always with great difficulty
that men belonging to the upper classes succeed

248 ISOLATION OF CLASSES. Book II.
in discerning with precision what is passing in
the mind of the common people, and especially
of the peasantry. The education and the manner
of life of the peasantry give them certain views
of their own, which remain shut to all other
classes. But when the poor and the rich have
scarcely any common interests, common griev
ances, or common business, the darkness which
conceals the mind of the one from' the mind of
the other becomes impenetrable, and the two
classes might live for ever side by side without
the slightest interpenetration. It is curious to
observe in what strange security all- those who
inhabited the upper or the middle stories of the
social edifice were living at the very time when
the Revolution was beginning, and to mark how
ingeniously they discoursed on the virtues of the
common people, on their gentleness, on their
attachment to themselves, on their innocent di
versions ; the absurd and terrible contrast of 93
was already beneath their feet.
Let us here pause for a moment as we proceed
to consider, amidst all these minute particulars
which I have been describing, one of the greatest
laws of Providence in the government of human
societies.

Chap. XII. ISOLATION OF CLASSES. 249
The French nobility persisted in standing aloof
from the other classes ; the landed gentry ended
by obtaining exemptions from most of the public
burdens which rested upon them ; they imagined
that they should preserve their rank whilst they
evaded its duties, and for a time this seemed to
be so. But soon an internal and invisible malady
appeared to have infected their condition ; it
dwindled away though no one touched it, and
whilst their immunities increased their substance
declined. The middle classes, with which they
had been so reluctant to mingle, grew in wealth
and in intelligence beside them, without them,
and against them ; they had rejected the middle
classes as associates and as fellow citizens ; but
they were about to find in those classes their
rivals, soon their enemies, at length their masters.
A superior power had relieved them from the
care of directing, of protecting, of assisting their
vassals ; but as that power had left them in the
full enjoyment of their pecuniary rights and
their honorary privileges, they conceived that
nothing was lost to them.* As they still marched
first, they still thought they were leading ; and
indeed they had still about them men whom, in
the language of the law, they named their subjects

250 ISOLATION OF CLASSES. Book II.
—others were called their vassals, their tenants,
their farmers. But, in reality, none followed
them; they were alone, and when those very
classes rose against them, flight was their only
resource. Although the destinies of the nobility and
the middle classes have differed materially from
each other, they have had one point of resem
blance : the men of the middle classes had ended
by living as much apart from the common people
as those of the upper classes. Far from drawing
nearer to the peasantry, they had withdrawn
from all contact with their hardships ; instead
of uniting themselves closely to the lower
orders, to struggle in common against a com
mon inequality, they only sought to establish
fresh injustices in their own favour ; and they
were as eager to obtain exceptions for them
selves as the nobles were to maintain their pri
vileges. These peasants, from whom the middle
classes had sprung, were not only become
strangers to their descendants, but were lite
rally unknown by them ; and it was not until
arms had been placed by the middle classes in
their hands that those classes perceived what
unknown passions they had. kindled — passions

Chap. XII. ISOLATION OF CLASSES. 251
which they could neither guide nor control, and
which ended by turning their promoters into
their victims.
In all future ages the ruins of that great
House of France, which had seemed destined to
extend over the whole of Europe, will be the
wonder of mankind ; but those who read its
history with attention will understand without
difficulty its fall. Almost all the vices, almost
all the errors, almost all the fatal prejudices I
have had occasion to describe, owed either their
origin, or their duration, or their extent to the
arts practised by most of the kings of France to
divide their subjects in order to govern them
more absolutely.
But when the middle classes were thus
thoroughly severed, from the nobility, and the
peasantry from the nobility, as well as from the
middle classes — when, by the progress of the
same influences within each class, each of them
was internally subdivided into minute bodies,
almost as isolated from each other as the classes
to which they belonged, the result was one
homogeneous mass, the parts of which no longer
cohered. Nothing was any longer so organ
ised as to thwart the Government — nothing

252 ISOLATION OF CLASSES. Book II.
so as to assist it ; insomuch that the whole
fabric of the grandeur of the monarchy might
fall to pieces at once and in a moment as soon as
the society on which it rested was disturbed.
And the people, which alone seemed to have
learnt something from the misconduct and the
mistakes of all its masters, if indeed it escaped
their empire, failed to shake off the false notions,
the vicious habits, the evil tendencies which
those masters had imparted to it, or allowed it
to assume. Sometimes that people has carried
the predilections of a slave into the enjoyment
of its liberty, alike incapable of self-government
and hostile to those who would have directed it.
I now resume my track ; and, losing sight of
the old and general facts which have prepared
the great Revolution I design to paint, I pro
ceed to the more particular and more recent
incidents which finally determined its occurrence,
its origin, and its character.

Chap. XIII. MEN OF LETTERS. 253

CHAPTER XIII.
SHOWING THAT TOWARDS THE MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY MEN OF LETTERS BECAME THE LEADING POLI
TICAL MEN OF FRANCE, AND OF THE EFFECTS OF THIS
OCCURRENCE.
France had long been the most literary of all
the nations of Europe; although her literary
men had never exhibited such intellectual
powers as they displayed about the middle of
the 1 8th century, or occupied such a position as
that which they then assumed. Nothing of the
kind had ever been seen in France, or perhaps
in any other country. They were not con
stantly mixed up with public affairs as in Eng
land : at no period, on the contrary, had they
lived more apart from them. They were in
vested with no authority, whatever, and filled
no public offices in a society crowded with public
officers ; yet they did not, like the greater part
of their brethren in Germany, keep entirely
aloof from the arena of politics and retire into
the regions of pure philosophy and polite litera-

254 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF Book II.
ture. They busied themselves incessantly with
matters appertaining to government, and this
was, in truth, their special occupation. Thus
they were continually holding forth on the
origin and primitive forms of society, the pri
mary rights of the citizen and of government,
the natural and artificial relations of men, the
wrong or right of customary laws, and the prin
ciples of legislation. While they thus pene
trated to the fundamental basis ofthe constitu
tion of their time, they examined its structure
with minute care and criticised its general plan.
All, it is true, did not make a profound and
special study of these great problems : the greater
part only touched upon them cursorily, and as
it were in sport : but they all dealt with them
more or less. This species of abstract and
literary politics was scattered in unequal doses
through all the works of the period : from the
ponderous treatise to the popular song, not one
of these but contained some grains of it.
As for the political systems of these writers,
they varied so greatly one from the other that
any attempt to reconcile them, or to form any
one theory of government out of them, would
be an impracticable task. Nevertheless, by dis-

Chap, XIII. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 255
carding matters of detail, so as to get at the
first leading ideas, it may be easily discovered
that the authors of these different systems
agreed at least in one very general notion,
which all of them seem to have alike conceived,
and which appears to have pre-existed in their
minds before all their peculiar ideas, and to
have been their common fountain-head. How
ever widely they may have diverged in the rest
of their course, they all started from this point.
They all agreed that it was expedient to substi
tute simple and elementary rules, deduced from
reason and natural law, for the complicated tra
ditional customs which governed the society of
their time. Upon a strict scrutiny it may be
seen that what might be called the political phi
losophy of the eighteenth century consisted, pro
perly speaking, in this one notion.
These opinions were by no means novel ; for
three thousand years they had unceasingly tra
versed the imaginations of mankind, though
without being able to stamp themselves there.
How came they at last to take possession of the
minds of all the writers of this period ? Why,
instead of progressing no farther than the heads
of a few philosophers, as had frequently been the

256 PHILOSOPHERS OF Book II.
case, had they at last reached the masses, and
assumed the strength and the fervour of a politi
cal passion to such a degree, that general and
abstract theories upon the nature of society
became daily topics of conversation, and even
inflamed the imaginations of women and of the
peasantry ? How was it that literary men, pos
sessing neither rank, nor honours, nor fortune,
nor responsibility, nor power, became, in fact,
the principal political men of the day, and even
the only political men, inasmuch as whilst others
held the reins of government, they alone grasped
its authority ?
A few words may suffice to show what an
extraordinary and terrible influence these cir
cumstances, which apparently belong only to the
history of French literature, exercised upon the
Revolution, and even upon the present condition
of France.
It was not by chance that the philosophers of
the 18th century thus coincided in entertaining
notions so opposed to those which still served as
bases to the society of their time : these ideas
had been naturally suggested to them by the
aspect of the society which they had all before
their eyes. The sight of so many unjust or

Chap. XIII. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 257
absurd privileges, the burthen of which was
more and more felt whilst their cause was less
and less understood, urged, or rather precipitated
the minds of one and all to the idea of the
natural equality of man's condition. Whilst they
looked upon so many strange and irregular in
stitutions, born of other times, which no one
had attempted either to bring into harmony with
each other or to adapt to modern wants, and
which appeared hkely to perpetuate their exist
ence though they had lost their worth, they
learned to abhor what was ancient and traditional,
and naturally became desirous of re-constructing
the social edifice of their day upon an entirely new
plan — a plan which each one traced solely by the
light of his reason.*
These writers were predisposed, by their own
position, to relish general and abstract theories
upon the subject of government, and to place in
them the blindest confidence. The almost im
measurable distance in which they lived from
practical duties afforded them no experience to
moderate the ardour of their character ; nothing
warned them of the obstacles which the actual
* See Note 3Q.

258 PHILOSOPHERS OF Book II.
state of things might oppose to reforms, however
desirable. They had no idea of the perils which
always accompany the most needful revolutions ;
they had not even a presentiment of them, for
the complete absence of all political liberty had
the effect of rendering the transaction of public
affairs not only unknown to them, but even in
visible. They were neither employed in those
affairs themselves, nor could they see what those
employed in them were doing. They were con
sequently destitute of that superficial instruction
which the sight of a free community, and the
tumult of its discussions, bestow even upon those
who are least mixed up with government. Thus
they became far more bold in innovation, more
fond of generalizing and of systems, more dis
dainful of the wisdom of antiquity, and still more
confident in their individual reason, than is com
monly to be seen in authors who write specula
tive books on politics.
The same state of ignorance opened to them
the ears and hearts of the people. It may be
confidently affirmed that if the French had stiU
taken part, as they formerly had done, in the
States General, or if even they had found a
daily occupation in the administration of the

Chap. XIII. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 259
affairs of the country in the assemblies of their
several provinces, they would not have allowed
themselves to be inflamed as they were by the
ideas of the writers of the day, since they would
have retained certain habits of public business
which would have preserved them from the evils
of pure theory.
Had they been able, like the English, gradually
to modify the spirit of their ancient institutions
by practical experience without destroying them,
they would perhaps have been less inclined to
invent new ones. But there was not a man who
did not daily feel himself injured in his fortune,
in his person, in his comfort, or his pride by some
old law, some ancient political custom, or some
other remnant of former authority, without per
ceiving at hand any remedy that he could him
self apply to his own particular hardship. It
appeared that the whole constitution of the
country must either be endured or destroyed.
The French, however, had still preserved one
liberty amidst the ruin of every other : they
were still free to philosophize almost without
restraint upon the origin of society, the essen
tial nature of governments, and the primordial
rights of mankind. s 2

260 PHILOSOPHEBS OF Book II.
All those who felt themselves aggrieved by
the daily application of existing laws were soon
enamoured of these literary politics. The same
taste soon reached even those who by nature or
by their condition of life seemed the farthest re
moved from abstract speculations. Every tax
payer wronged by the unequal distribution of the
taille was fired by the idea that all men ought
to be equal ; every little landowner devoured by
the rabbits of his noble neighbour was delighted
to be told that all privileges were without
distinction contrary to reason. Every public
passion thus assumed the disguise of philosophy ;
all political action was violently driven back into
the domain of literature ; and the writers of the
day, undertaking the guidance of public opinion,
found themselves at one time in that position
which the heads of parties commonly hold in
free countries. No one in fact was any longer
in a condition to contend with them for the
part they had assumed.
An aristocracy in all its vigour not only
carries on the affairs of a country, but directs
public opinion, gives a tone to literature, and the
stamp of authority to ideas ; but the French
nobility of the eighteenth century had entirely
lost this portion of its supremacy : its influence

Chap. XIII. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 261
had followed the fortunes of its power ; and the
position it had occupied in the direction of the
public mind had been left entirely vacant to
the writers of the day, to stretch themselves out
in at their ease. Nay more, this very aristo
cracy whose place they thus assumed, favoured
their undertaking. So completely had it for
gotten the fact that general theories once ad
mitted, "inevitably transform themselves in time
into political passions and deeds, that doctrines
the most adverse to the peculiar rights, and even
to the existence of the nobility, were looked upon
as ingenious exercises of the mind ; the nobles
even shared as a pleasant pastime in these dis
cussions, and quietly enjoyed their immunities
and privileges whilst they serenely discussed the
absurdity of all established customs.
Astonishment has frequently been expressed
at the singular blindness with which the higher
classes under the old monarchy of France thus
contributed to their own ruin. But whence
could they have become more enlightened ?
Free institutions are not less necessary to show
the greater citizens their perils than to secure
to the lesser their rights. For more than a cen
tury since the last traces of public life had disap
peared in France, no shock, no rumour had ever

262

THE REVOLUTION UNEXPECTED Book II.

warned those most directly interested in the
maintenance of the ancient constitution that the
old building was tottering to its fall. As nothing
had changed in its external aspect, they imagined
that everything had remained the same. Their
minds were thus bounded by the same horizon at
which that of their fathers had stopped. In the
puhlic documents of the year 1789 the nobility
appears to have been as much preoccupied with
the idea of the encroachments of the royal power
as it could possibly have been in those of the
fifteenth century. On the other hand, the unfor
tunate Louis XVI. just before his own destruction
by the incursion of democracy, still continued
(as has been justly remarked by Burke) to look
upon the aristocracy as the chief rival of the
royal power, and mistrusted it as much as if he
was still living in the days of the Fronde. The
middle and lower classes on the contrary were
in his eyes, as in those of his forefathers, the
surest support of the throne.
But that which must appear still more strange
to men of the present day — men who have the
shattered fragments of so many revolutions be
fore their eyes— is the fact, that not the barest
notion of a violent revolution ever entered into

Chap. XIII. BY ITS CONTEMPORARIES. 263
the minds of the generation which witnessed it.
Such, a notion was never discussed, for it was
never conceived. Those minor shocks which
the exercise of political liberty is continually
imparting to the best constituted societies, serve
daily to call to mind the possibility of an earth
quake, and to keep public vigilance on the alert ;
but in the state of society of France in the
eighteenth century, on the brink of this abyss,
nothing had yet indicated that the fabric leaned.
On examining with attention the Instructions
drawn up by the three Orders before their con
vocation in 1789 — by all the three, the nobility
and clergy, as well as the Tiers-Etat — noting
seriatim all the demands made for the changes of
laws or customs, it will be seen with a sort of
terror, on terminating this immense labour, and
casting up the sum total of all these particular
requirements, that what was required is no less
than the simultaneous and systematic abolition
of every law and every usage current through
out the country ; and that what was impending
must be one of the most extensive and dangerous
revolutions that ever appeared in the world.
Yet the very men who were so shortly to be
come its victims knew nothing of it. They

264 THE REVOLUTION UNEXPECTED Book II.
fancied that the total and sudden transformation
of so ancient and complicated a state of society
was to be effected, without any concussion, by
the aid and efficacy of reason alone ; and they
fatally forgot that maxim which their forefathers,
four hundred years before, had expressed in the
simple and energetic language of their time :
" Par requierre de trop grande franchise et liberte' s
chet-on en trop grande servaige." (By requiring
too great liberty and franchise, men fall into too
great servitude.)
It was not surprising that the nobility and
middle classes, so long excluded from all public
action, should have displayed this strange inex
perience ; but what astonishes far more is, that
the very men who had the conduct of public
affairs, the ministers, the magistrates, and the
intendants, should not have evinced more fore
sight. Many of them, nevertheless, were very
clever men in their profession, and were
thoroughly possessed of all the details of the
public administration of their time ; but in that
great science of government, which teaches the
comprehension of the general movement of
society, the appreciation of what is passing in the
minds of the masses, and a foreknowledge of the

Chap. XIII. BY ITS CONTEMPORARIES. 265
probable results — they were just as much no
vices as the people itself. In truth, it is only the
exercise of free institutions that can teach the
statesman this principal portion of his art.
This may easily be seen in the Memoir ad
dressed by Turgot to the King in 1775, in which,
among other matters, he advised his Majesty to
summon a representative assembly, freely elected
by the whole nation, to meet every year, for six
weeks, about his own person, but to grant it no
effective power. His proposal was, that this
assembly should take cognisance of administra
tive business, but never of the government —
should offer suggestions rather than express a
will — and, in fact, should be commissioned to
discuss laws, but not to make them. " In this
wise," said the Memoir, "the royal power would
be enlightened, but not thwarted, and public
opinion contented without danger : for these
assemblies would have no authority to oppose
any indispensable operation ; and if, which is
most improbable, they should not lend them
selves to their duty, his Majesty would still be
the master to do as he pleases."
It was impossible to show greater ignorance
of the true bearing of such a measure, and of

266 SOURCE OF THE POWER Book II.
the spirit of the times. It has frequently hap
pened, it is true, that towards the end of a revo
lutionary period, such a proposal as that made
by Turgot has been carried into effect with im
punity, and that a shadow of liberty has been
granted without the reality. Augustus made
the experiment with success. A nation fatigued
by a prolonged struggle may willingly consent to
be duped in order to obtain repose ; and history
shows that enough may then be done to satisfy it,
by collecting from all parts of the country a
certain number of obscure or dependent indivi
duals, and making them play before it the part
of a political assembly for the wages they receive.
There have been several examples of the kind.
But at the commencement of a revolution such
experiments always fail ; they inflame, without
satisfying the people. This truth, known to
the humblest citizen of a free country, was not
known to Turgot, great administrator as he was.
If now it be taken into consideration that this
same French nation, so ignorant of its own
public affairs, so utterly devoid of experience,
so hampered by its institutions, and so powerless
to amend them, was also in those days the most
lettered and witty nation of the earth, it may

Chap. XIII. ACQUIRED BY THE WRITERS. 267
readily be understood how the writers of the
time became a great political power, and ended
by being the first power in the country.
In England those who wrote on the subject
of government were connected with those who
governed ; the latter applied new ideas to
practice — the former corrected or controlled
their theories by practical observation. But in
France the political world remained divided into
two separate provinces, with no mutual inter
course. One portion governed ; the other esta
blished abstract principles on which all govern
ment ought to be founded. Here measures were
taken in obedience to routine ; there general
laws were propounded, without even a thought
as to the means of their application. These kept
the direction of affairs ; those guided the intelli
gence of the nation.
Above the actual state of society — the consti
tution of which was still traditional, confused,
and irregular, and in which the laws remained
conflicting and contradictory, ranks sharply
sundered, the conditions of the different classes
fixed whilst their burdens were unequal — an
imaginary state of society was thus springing
up, in which everything appeared simple and

268 THESE OPINIONS STRENGTHENED Book II.
co-ordinate, uniform, equitable, and agreeable to
reason. The imagination of the people gra
dually deserted the former state ©f things in
order to seek refuge in the latter. Interest was
lost in what was, to foster dreams of what might
be ; and men thus dwelt in fancy in this ideal
city, which was the work of literary invention.
The French Revolution has been frequently
attributed to that of America. The American
Revolution had certainly considerable influence
upon the French ; but the latter owed less to
what was actually done in the United States
than to what was thought at the same time in
France. Whilst to the rest of Europe the Revo
lution of America still only appeared a novel
and strange occurrence, in France it only ren
dered more palpable and more striking that
which was already supposed to be known. Other
countries it astonished ; to France it brought
more complete conviction. The Americans
seemed to have done no more than execute what
the literary genius of France had already con
ceived; they gave the substance of reality to
that which the French had excogitated. It was
as if Fenelon had suddenly found himself in
Salentum.

Chap. XIII. BY THE REVOLUTION IN AMERICA. 269
This circumstance, so novel in history, of the
whole political education of a great people being
formed by its literary men, contributed more
than anything perhaps to bestow upon the
French Revolution its peculiar stamp, and to
cause those results which are still perceptible.
The writers of the time not only imparted their
ideas to the people who effected the Revolution,
but they gave them also their peculiar tempera
ment and disposition. The whole nation ended,
after being so long schooled by them, in the
absence of all other leaders and in profound
ignorance of practical affairs, by catching up the
instincts, the turn of mind, the tastes, and even
the humours of those who wrote ; so that, when
the time for action came, it transported into the
arena of politics all the- habits of literature.
A study of the history of the French Revolu
tion will show that it was carried on precisely in
that same spirit which has caused so many ab
stract books to be written on government. There
was the same attraction towards general theories,
complete systems of legislation, and exact sym
metry in the laws — the same contempt of ex
isting facts — the same reliance upon theory —
the same love of the original, the ingenious,

270 POLITICAL LANGUAGE Book II.
and the novel in institutions — the same desire to
reconstruct, all at once, the entire constitution
by the rules of logic, and upon a single plan,
rather than to seek to amend it in its parts.
The spectacle was an alarming one ; for that
which is a merit in a writer is often a fault in a
statesman : and the same things which have
often caused great books to be written, may lead
to great revolutions.
Even the political language of the time caught
something of the tone in which the authors spoke :
it was full of general expressions, abstract terms,
pompous words, and literary turns. This style,
aided by the political passions which it expressed,
penetrated through all classes, and descended'
with singular facility even to the lowest. Con
siderably before the Revolution, the edicts of
Louis XVI. frequently spoke of the law of nature
and the rights of man; and I have found in
stances of peasants who, in their memorials, called
their neighbours " fellow-citizens," their Intend
ant " a respectable magistrate," their parish-
priest " the minister of the altar," and God " the
Supreme Being," and who wanted nothing but
spelling to become very indifferent authors.
These new qualities became so completely in-

Chap. XIII. OF THE REVOLUTION. 271
corporated with the old stock of the French
character, that habits resulting only from this
singular education have frequently been attri
buted to the natural disposition of the French.
It has been asserted that the taste, or rather the
passion, which the French have displayed during
the last sixty years for general ideas and big
words in political discussion, arose from some
characteristic peculiar to the French race, which
has been somewhat pedantically called " the
genius of France," as if this pretended charac
teristic could suddenly have displayed itself at
the end of the last century, after having re
mained concealed during the whole history of
the country.
It is singular that the French have preserved
the habits which they had derived from litera
ture, whilst they have almost entirely lost their
ancient love of literature itself. I have been
frequently astonished in the course of my own
public life, to see that men who had never read
the works of the eighteenth century, or of any
other, and who had a great contempt for authors,
nevertheless so faithfully retain some of the
principal defects which were displayed before
their birth by the literary spirit of that day.

272 DECAY OF CHRISTIANITY Book II.

CHAPTER XIV.
SHOWING HOW IRRELIGION HAD BECOME A GENERAL AND
DOMINANT PASSION AMONGST THE FRENCH OF THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, AND WHAT INFLUENCE THIS
FACT HAD ON THE CHARACTER OF THE REVOLUTION.
From the time of the great Revolution of the
sixteenth century, when the spirit of free in
quiry undertook to decide which were false
and which were true among the different tra
ditions of Christianity, it had never ceased to
engender certain minds of a more curious or a
holder stamp, who contested or rejected them
all. The same spirit that, in the days of Luther,
had at once driven several millions of Catholics
out of the pale of Catholicism, continued to drive
in individual cases some few Christians out of
the pale of Christianity itself. Heresy was fol
lowed by unbelief.
It may be said generally that in the eighteenth
century Christianity had -lost over the whole of
the continent of Europe a great part of its
power ; but in most countries it was rather neg-

Chap. XIV. ON THE CONTINENT. 273
lected than violently contested, and even those
who forsook it did so with regret. Irreligion
was disseminated among the Courts and wits of
the age ; but it had not yet penetrated into the
hearts of the middle and lower classes. It was
still the caprice of some leading intellects, not the
opinion of the vulgar. " It is a prejudice com
monly diffused throughout Germany," said Mira
beau, in 1787, "that the Prussian provinces are
full of atheists ; when, in truth, although some
freethinkers are to be met with there, the people
of those parts are as much attached to religion
as in the most superstitious countries, and even a
great number of fanatics are to be found there."
To this he added, that it was much to be re
gretted that Frederick II. had not sanctioned the
marriage of the Catholic clergy, and, above all,
had refused to leave those priests who married
in possession of the income of their ecclesiastical
preferment ; " a measure," he continued, " which
we should have ventured to consider worthy
of the great man." No where but in France
had irreligion become a general passion, fervid,
intolerant, and oppressive. .
There the state of things was such as had
never occurred before. In other times, esta-
T

274 THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION Book II.
blished religions had been attacked with vio
lence ; but the ardour evinced against them
had always taken rise in the zeal inspired by a
new faith. Even the false and detestable reli
gions of antiquity had not had either numerous
or passionate adversaries until Christianity arose
to supplant them; till then they were quietly
and noiselessly dying out in doubt and indiffer
ence — dying, in fact, the death of religions, by
old age. But in France the Christian religion
was attacked with a sort of rage, without any
attempt to substitute any other belief. . Con
tinuous and vehement efforts having been made
to expel from the soul of man the faith that
had filled it, the soul was left empty. A mighty
multitude wrought with ardour at this thank
less task. That absolute incredulity in mat
ters of religion which is so contrary to the
natural instincts of man, and places his soul in
so painful a condition, appeared attractive to the
masses. That which until then had only pro
duced the effect of a sickly languor, began to
generate fanaticism and a spirit of propa-
gandism. The occurrence of several great writers, all
disposed to deny the truths of the Christian

Chap. XIV. ATTACKED BY THE WRITERS. 275
religion, can hardly be accepted as a sufficient
explanation of so extraordinary an event. For
how, it may be asked, came all these writers,
every one of them, to turn their talents in
this direction rather than any other ? Why,
among them all, cannot one be found who took
it into his head to support the other side ? and,
finally, how was it that they found the ears of
the masses far more open to listen to them than
any of their predecessors had done, and men's
minds so inclined to beheve them ? The efforts
of all these writers, and above all their success,
can only be explained by causes altogether pecu
liar to their time and their country. The spirit
of Voltaire had already been long in the world :
but Voltaire himself, in truth, could never have
attained his supremacy, except in the eighteenth
century and in France.
It must first be acknowledged that the
Church was not more open to attack in France
than elsewhere. The corruptions and abuses
which had been allowed to creep into it were
less, on the contrary, there than in most other
Catholic countries. The Church of France was
infinitely more tolerant than it had ever been
previously and than it still was among other

276. THE CHURCH AND Book IT.
nations. Consequently, the peculiar causes of
this phenomenon must be looked for less in the
condition of religion itself than in that of
society. For the thorough comprehension of this fact,
what was said in the preceding chapter must
not be lost sight of — namely, that the whole
spirit of political opposition excited by the cor
ruption of the Government, not being able to
find a vent in public affairs, had taken refuge in
literature, and that the writers of the day had
become the real leaders of the great party
which tended to overthrow the social and poli
tical institutions of the country.
This being well understood, the question is
altered. We no longer ask in what the Church
of that day erred as a religious institution, but
how far it stood opposed to the political revolu
tion which was at hand, and how it was more
especially irksome to the writers who were the
principal promoters of this revolution.
The Church, by the first principles of her eccle
siastical government, was adverse to the prin
ciples which they were desirous of establishing in
civil government. The Church rested principally
upon tradition ; they professed great contempt

Chap. XIV. THE WRITERS. 277
for all institutions based upon respect for the
past. The Church recognised an authority su
perior to individual reason : they appealed to
nothing but that reason. The Church was
founded upon an hierarchy : they aimed at an
entire subversion of ranks. To have come to a
common understanding it would have been ne
cessary for both sides to have recognised the
fact, that political society and religious society,
being by nature essentially different, cannot be
regulated by analogous laws. But at that time
they were far enough from any such conclusion :
and it was fancied that, in order to attack the
institutions of the State, those of the Church
must be destroyed, which served as their founda
tion and their model.
Moreover, the Church was itself the first of
the political powers of the time.; and, although
not the most oppressive, the most hated ; for
she had contrived to mix herself up with those
powers, without having any claim to that po
sition either by her nature or her vocation ;
she often sanctioned in them the very defects
she blamed elsewhere ; she covered them with
her own sacred inviolability, and seemed de
sirous of rendering them as immortal as herself.

278 MOTIVES OF HOSTILITY Book II.
An attack upon the Church was sure at once to
chime in with the strong feeling of the public.
But, besides these general reasons, the literary
men of France had more special, and, so to say,
personal reasons for attacking the Church in the
first instance. The Church represented pre
cisely that portion of the Government which
stood nearest and most directly opposed to
themselves. The other powers of the state
were only felt by them from time to time :
but the ecclesiastical authority being specially
employed in keeping watch over the pro
gress of thought, and the censorship of books,
was a daily annoyance to them. By defending
the common liberties of the human mind against
the Church, they were combating in their own
cause, and they began by bursting the shackles
which pressed most closely upon themselves.
Moreover, the Church appeared to them to be,
and was, in fact, the most open and the worst
defended side of all the vast edifice which they
were assailing. Her strength had declined at
the same time that the temporal power of the
Crown had increased. After having been first
the superior of the temporal powers, then their
equal, she had come down to be their client ; and

Chap. XIV. TO THE CHURCH. 279
a sort of reciprocity had been established be
tween them. The temporal powers lent the
Church their material force, whilst the Church
lent them her moral authority ; they caused
the Church to be obeyed, the Church caused
them to be respected — a dangerous interchange
of obligations in times of approaching revolu
tion, and always disadvantageous to a power
founded not upon constraint but upon faith.
Although the Kings of France still called
themselves the eldest sons of the Church, they
fulfilled their obligations towards her most neg
ligently : they evinced far less ardour in her pro
tection than in the defence of their own govern
ment. They did not, it is true, permit any
direct attack upon her, but they suffered her to be
transfixed from a distance by a thousand shafts.
The sort of semi-constraint which was at that
time imposed upon the enemies of the Church,
instead of diminishing their power, augmented
it.- There are times when the restraint imposed
on literature succeeds in arresting the progress
of opinions ; there are others when it accelerates
their course : but a species of control similar to
that then exercised over the press, has inva
riably augmented its power a hundredfold.

280 RESTRAINT ON THE PRESS. Book II.
Authors were persecuted enough to excite
compassion — not enough to inspire them with
terror. They suffered from that kind of annoy
ance which irritates to opposition, not from the
heavy yoke which crushes. The prosecutions
directed against them, which were almost always
dilatory, noisy, and vain, appeared less calcu
lated to prevent their writing than to excite
them to the task. A complete liberty of the
press would have been less prejudicial to the
Church. " You consider our intolerance more favour
able to the progress of the mind than your un
limited liberty," wrote Diderot to David Hume
in 1768. " D'Holbach, Helvetius, Morelet, and
Suard, are not of your opinion." Yet it was
the Scotchman who was right : he possessed the
experience of the free country in which he lived.
Diderot looked upon the matter as a literary
man — Hume, as a politician.
If the first American who might be met by
chance, either in his own country or abroad,
were to be stopped and asked whether he con
sidered religion useful to the stability of the
laws and the good order of society, he would
answer, without hesitation, that no civilized

Chap. XIV. INFIDELITY FAILS IN ENGLAND. 281
society, but more especially none in a state of
freedom, can exist without religion. Respect
for religion is, in his eyes, the greatest guarantee
of the stability of the State and of the safety of
the community. Those who are ignorant of the
science of government know that fact at least.
Yet there is not a country in the world where
the boldest doctrines of the philosophers of the
eighteenth century, on political subjects, have
been more adopted than in America : their anti-
religious doctrines alone have never been able
to make way there, even with the advantage of
an unlimited liberty of the press.
As much may be said of the English.* French
irreligious philosophy had been preached to
them even before the greater part of the French
philosophers were born. It was Bolingbroke
who set up Voltaire. Throughout the eighteenth
century infidelity had celebrated champions in
England. Able writers and profound thinkers
espoused that cause, but they were never able
to render it triumphant as in France ; inasmuch
as all those who had anything to fear from
revolutions eagerly came to the rescue of the
* See Note 3R, Infidelity in England.

282 CHURCH OF ENGLAND TRIUMPHS. Book II.
established faith. Even those who were the
most mixed up with the French society of the
day, and who did not look upon the doctrines of
French philosophy as false, rejected them as
dangerous. Great political parties, as is always
the case in free countries, were interested in
attaching their cause to that of the Church ;
and Bolingbroke himself became the ally of
the bishops. The clergy, animated by these ex
amples, and never finding itself deserted, com
bated manfully iri its own cause. The Church
of England, in spite of the defects of its consti
tution, and the abuses of every kind that
swarmed within it, supported the shock victo
riously. Authors and orators rose Avithin it,
and applied themselves with ardour to the
defence of Christianity. The theories hostile to
that religion, after having been discussed and
refuted, were finally rejected by the action of
society itself, and without any interference on the
part of the government.
It is not necessary, however, to seek examples
beyond France itself. What Frenchman would
ever think in our times of writing such books
as those of Diderot or Helvetius ? Who would
read them now ? and, it may almost be said,

Chap. XIV. INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. 283
who even knows their titles? The imper
fect experience of public life which France has
acquired during the last sixty years has been
sufficient to disgust the French with this dan
gerous literature. It is only necessary to see
how much the respect for religion has gradually
resumed its sway among the different classes of
the nation, according as each of them acquired
that experience in the rude school of Revolution.
The old nobility, which was the most irreligious
class before 1789, became the most fervent after
1793 : it was the first infected, and the first
cured. When the bourgeoisie felt itself struck
down in its triumph, it began also, in its turn,
gradually to revert to religious faith. Little by
little, respect for religion penetrated to all the
classes in which men had anything to lose by
popular disturbances ; and infidelity disappeared,
or at least hid its head more and more, as the
fear of revolutions arose.
But this was by no means the case at the
time immediately preceding the Revolution of
1789. The French had so completely lost all
practical experience in the great affairs of man
kind, and were so thoroughly ignorant of the
part held by religion in the government of

284 INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. Book II.
empires, that infidelity first established itself in
the minds of the very men who had the greatest
and most pressing personal interest in keeping
the State in order and the people in obedience.
Not only did they themselves embrace it, but
in their blindness, they disseminated it below
them. They made impiety the pastime of their
vacant existence.
The Church of France, so prolific down to
that period in great orators, when she found
herself deserted by all those who ought to have
rallied by a common interest to her cause, be
came mute. It seemed at one time that, pro
vided she retained her wealth and her rank,
she was ready to renounce her faith.
As those who denied the truths of Christianity
spoke aloud, and those who still believed held
their peace, a state of things was the result which
has since frequently occurred again in France,
not only on the question of religion, but in very
different matters. Those who still preserved
their ancient belief, fearing to be the only men
who still remained faithful to it, and more afraid
of isolation than of error, followed the crowd
without partaking its opinions. Thus, that
which was still only the feeling of a portion of

Chap. XIV. INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. 285
the nation, appeared to be the opinion of all, and,
from that very fact, seemed irresistible even to
those who had themselves given it this false ap
pearance. The universal discredit into which every form
of religious belief had fallen, at the end of the
last century, exercised without any doubt, the
greatest influence upon the whole of the French
Revolution : it stamped its character. Nothing
contributed more to give its features that terrible
expression which they wore.
In seeking to distinguish between the different
effects which irreligion at that time produced in
France, it may be seen that it was rather by dis
turbing men's minds than by degrading their
hearts, or even corrupting their morals, that
it disposed the men of that day to go to such
strange excesses.
When religion thus deserted the souls of men,
it did not leave them, as is frequently the case,
empty and debilitated. They were filled for the
time with sentiments and ideas that occupied its
place, and did not, at first, allow them to be
utterly prostrate.
If the French who effected the Revolution
were more incredulous than those of the present

286 INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. Book II.
day in matters of religion, at least they had one
admirable faith which the present generation has
not. They had faith in themselves. They never
doubted of the perfectibility and power of man :
they were burning with enthusiasm for his glory :
they believed in his worth. They placed that
proud confidence in their own strength which so
often leads to error, but without which a people is
only capable of servitude : they never doubted of
their call to transform the face of society and re
generate the human race. These sentiments and
passions became like a sort of new religion to
them, which, as it produced some of those great
effects which religions produce, kept them from
individual selfishness, urged them on even to
self-sacrifice and heroism, and frequently ren
dered them insensible to all those petty objects.
which possess the men of the present day.
After a profound study of history we may
still venture to affirm that there never was a re
volution, in which, at the commencement, more'
sincere patriotism, more disinterestedness, more
true greatness, were displayed by so great a
number of men. The nation then exhibited the
principal defect, bnt, at the same time, the prin
cipal ornament which youth possesses, or rather

Chap. XIV. INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. 287
did possess, namely, inexperience and gene
rosity. Yet irreligion had produced an enormous
public evil. Iri most of the great political revo
lutions, which, up to that period, had appeared
in the world, those who had attacked the esta
blished laws had respected the creeds of the
country : and, in the greater part of the reli
gious revolutions, those who attacked religion
made no attempt to change, at one blow, the
nature and order of all the established authori
ties, and to raze to the ground the ancient con
stitution of the government. In the greatest
convulsions of society one point, at least, had
remained unshaken.
But in the French Revolution, the religious
laws having been abolished at the same time that
the civil laws were overthrown, the minds of
men were entirely upset : they no longer knew
either to what to cling, or where to stop ; and
thus arose a hitherto unknown species of revolu
tionists, who carried their boldness to a pitch of
madness, who were surprised by no novelty and
arrested by no scruple, and who never hesitated
to put any design whatever into execution. Nor
must it be supposed that these new beings have

288 INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. Book II.
been the isolated and ephemeral creation of a
moment, and destined to pass away as that mo
ment passed. They have since formed a race of
beings which has perpetuated itself, and spread
into all the civilised parts of the world, every
where preserving the same physiognomy, the
same passions, the same character. The present
generation found it in the world at its birth : it
still remains before our eyes.

Chap. XV. REFORM BUT NOT LIBERTY. 289

CHAPTER XV
THAT THE FRENCH AIMED AT REFORM BEFORE LIBERTY.
It is worthy of observation that amongst all the
ideas and all the feelings which led to the
French Revolution, the idea and the taste for
political liberty, properly so called, were the
last to manifest themselves and the first to dis
appear. For some time past the ancient fabric of the
Government had begun to be shaken ; it tottered
already, but liberty was not. yet thought of.
Even Voltaire had scarcely thought about -it ;
three years' residence in England had shown
him what that liberty is, but without attaching
him to it. The sceptical philosophy which was
then in vogue in England enchanted him ; the
political laws of England hardly attracted his
attention ; he was more struck by their defects
than by their merits. In his letters on Eng
land, which are one of his best pieces, Parlia
ment is hardly mentioned ; the fact was that he
u

290 THE POLITICAL ECONOMISTS. Book II.
envied the English their literary freedom with
out caring for their political freedom, as if the
former could ever long exist without the latter.
Towards the middle of the eighteenth cen
tury, a certain number of writers began to ap
pear who devoted themselves especially to ques
tions of public administration, and who were
designated, in consequence of several principles
which they held in common, by the general name
of political economists or physiocrates. The eco
nomists have left less conspicuous traces in
history than the French philosophers ; perhaps
they contributed less to the approach of the
Revolution ; yet I think that the true charac
ter of the Revolution may best be studied
in their works. The French philosophers con
fined themselves for the most part to very gene
ral and very abstract opinions on government ;
the economists, without abandoning theory,
clung more closely to facts. The former said
what might be thought; the latter sometimes
pointed out what might be done. All the insti
tutions which the Revolution was about to anni
hilate for ever were the peculiar objects of their
attacks ; none found favour in their sight. All
the institutions, on the contrary, which may be

Chap. XV. THE POLITICAL ECONOMISTS. 291
regarded as the product of the Revolution, were
announced beforehand by these economical
writers, and ardently recommended ; there is
hardly one of these institutions of which the
germ may not be discovered in some of their
writings; and those writings may be said to
contain all that is most substantial in the Revo
lution itself.
Nay, more, their books already bore the
stamp of that revolutionary and democratic
temper which we know so well : they breathe
not only the hatred of certain privileges, but
even diversity was odious to them ; they would
adore equahty, even in servitude. All that
thwarts their designs is to be crushed. They
care little for plighted faith, nothing for private
rights — or rather, to speak accurately, private
rights have already ceased in their eyes to exist
— public utility is everything. Yet these were
men, for the most part, of gentle and peaceful
lives, worthy persons, upright magistrates, able
administrators ; but the peculiar spirit of their
task bore them onwards.
The past was to these economists a subject
of endless contempt. " This nation has been
governed for centuries on false principles," said
u 2

292 THE POLITICAL ECONOMISTS. Book IL
Letronne, " everything seems to have been done
by hap-hazard." Starting from this notion,
they set to work ; no institution was so ancient
or so well-established in the history of France
that they hesitated to demand its suppression
from the moment that it incommoded them or
injured the symmetry of their plans. One of
these writers proposed to obliterate at once all
the ancient territorial divisions of the kingdom,
and to change all the names of the provinces,
forty years before the Constituent Assembly
executed this scheme.
They had already conceived the idea of all
the social and administrative reforms which the
Revolution has accomplished before the idea of
free institutions had begun to cross their minds.
They were, indeed, extremely favourable to the
free exchange of produce, and to the doctrine of
laissez faire et laissez passer, the basis of free
trade and free labour ; but as for political liber
ties, properly so called, these did not occur to
their minds, or, if perchance they did occur
to their imaginations, such ideas were at once
rejected. Most of them began to display con
siderable hostility to deliberative assemblies, to
local or secondary powers, and, in general, to

Chap. XV. NATIONAL EDUCATION. 293
all the checks which have been established, at
different times, in all free nations, -to balance the
central' power ofthe government. " The system
of checks," said Quesnay, "is a fatal idea in
government." "The speculations on which a
system of checks has been devised are chimeri
cal," said a friend of the same writer.
The sole guarantee invented by them against
the abuse of power was public education ; for,
as Quesnay elsewhere observes, " despotism is
impossible when the nation is enlightened."
" Struck by the evils arising from abuses of
authority," said another of his disciples, " men
have invented a thousand totally useless means
of resistance, whilst they have neglected the
only means which are truly efficacious, namely,
public, general, and continual instruction in the
principles of essential justice and natural order."
This literary nonsense was, according to these
thinkers, to supply the place of all political
securities. Letronne, who so bitterly deplored the forlorn
condition in which the Government had left the
rural districts, who described them as without
roads, without employment, and without in
formation, never conceived that their concerns

294 TURGOT. Book II.
might " be more successfully carried on if the
inhabitants themselves were entrusted with the
management of them.
Turgot himself, who deserves to rank far
above all the rest for the elevation of his cha
racter and the singular merits of his genius, had
not much more taste than the other economists
for political liberty, or, at least, that taste came
to him later, and when it was forced upon him
by public opinion. To him, as well as to all the
others, the chief political security seemed to be a
certain kind of public instruction, given by the
State, on a particular system and with a parti
cular tendency. His confidence in this sort of
intellectual drug, or, as one of his contem
poraries expressed it, " in the mechanism of an
education regulated by principles," was bound
less. " I venture to assure your Majesty," said
he, in a report to the King, proposing a plan of
this nature, " that in ten years your people will
have changed out of knowledge ; and that by
their attainments, by their morality, and by
their enlightened zeal for your service and for
that of the country, France will be raised far
above all other nations. Children who are now
ten years of age will then have grown up as

Chap. XV. THE POLITICAL ECONOMISTS. 295
men prepared for the public service, attached to
their country, submissive, not through fear but
through reason, to authority, humane to their
fellow-citizens, accustomed to recognize and to
respect the administration of justice."
Political freedom had been so long destroyed
in France that men had almost entirely for
gotten what are its conditions and its effects.
Nay, more, the shapeless ruins of freedom which
still remained, and the institutions which seemed
to have been formed to supply its place, ren
dered it an object of suspicion and of prejudice.
Most of the Provincial Assemblies which were
still in existence retained the spirit of the
Middle Ages as well as their obsolete formalities,
and they checked rather than advanced the
progress of society. The Parliaments, which
alone stood in lieu of political bodies, had no
power to prevent the evil which the Govern
ment did, and frequently prevented the good
which the Government attempted to do.
To accomplish the revolution which they
contemplated by means of all these antiquated
instruments appeared impracticable to the school
of economists. To confide the execution of their
plans to the nation,. mistress of herself, was not

296 THE POLITICAL ECONOMISTS. Book II.
more agreeable to them ; for how was it pos
sible to cause a whole people to adopt and
follow a system of reform so extensive and so
closely connected in all its parts ? It seemed
to them more easy and more proper to make
the administrative power of the Crown itself the
instrument of their designs.
That new administrative; power had not
sprung from the institutions of the Middle Ages,
nor did it bear the mark of that period ; in
spite of its errors they discovered in it some
beneficial tendencies. Like themselves it was
naturally favourable to equality of condi
tions and to uniformity of rules ; as much as
themselves it cordially detested all the ancient
powers which were born of feudalism or tended
to aristocracy. In all Europe no machine of
government existed so well organized, so vast,
or so strong. To find such a government ready
to their hands seemed to them, a most fortunate
circumstance ; they would have called it provi
dential, if it had been the fashion then, as it
now is, to cause Providence to intervene on all
occasions. " The state of France," said Le
tronne, " is infinitely better than that of Eng
land, for here reforms can be accomplished which

Chap. XV. THE POLITICAL ECONOMISTS. 297
will change the whole condition of the country
in a moment ; whilst amongst the English such
reforms may always be thwarted by political
parties." The point was, then, not to destroy this abso
lute power, but to convert it. " The State must
govern according to the rules of essential order,"
said Mercier de la Riviere, " and when this is
the case it ought to be all powerful." " Let the
State thoroughly understand its duty, and then
let it be altogether free." From Quesnay to the
Abbe Bodeau they were all of the same mind.
They not only relied on the royal administra
tion to reform the social condition of their own
age, but they partially borrowed from it the
idea of the future government they hoped to
found. The latter was framed in the image
of the former.
These economists held that it is the business
of the State not only to command the nation,
but to fashion it in a certain manner, to form the
character of the population upon a certain pre
conceived model, to inspire the mind with such
opinions and the heart with such sentiments as
it may deem necessary. In fact, they set no
limits to the rights of the State, nor to what it

298 -THE POLITICAL ECONOMISTS. Book II.
could effect. The State was not only to reform
men, but to transform them — perhaps, if it
chose, to make others ! " The State can
do with men what it pleases," said Bodeau.
That proposition includes all their theories.
This unlimited social power which the French
economists had conceived was not only greater
than any power they ever beheld, but it differed
from every other power by its origin and its
nature. It did not flow directly from the Deity,
it did not rest on tradition; it was an imper
sonal power ; it was not called the King, but
the State ; it was not the inheritance of a
family, but the product and the representative
of all. It entitled them to bend the right of
every man to the will of all the rest.
That peculiar form of tyranny which is called
Democratic Despotism, and which was utterly
unknown to the Middle Ages, was already
familiar to these writers. No gradations in
society, no distinctions of classes, no fixed ranks,
— a people composed of individuals nearly alike
and entirely equal — this confused mass being
recognized as the only legitimate sovereign, but
carefully deprived- of all the faculties which
could enable it either to direct or even to super-

Chap. XV. THE POLITICAL ECONOMISTS. 299
intend its own government. Above this mass a
single delegate, charged to do everything in its
name without consulting it. To control this
delegate, public opinion, deprived of its organs ;
to arrest him, revolutions, but no laws. In prin
ciple, a subordinate agent ; in fact, a master.
As nothing was as yet to be found about
them which came up to this ideal, they sought
it in the depths of Asia. I affirm, without
exaggeration, that there is not one of these
writers who has not, in some of his productions,
passed an emphatic eulogy on China. That, at
least, is always to be found in their books ; and,
as China is still very imperfectly known, there
is no trash they have not written about that
empire. That wretched and barbarous govern
ment, which a handful of Europeans can over
power when they please, appeared to them the
most perfect model to be copied by all the
nations of the earth. China was to them what
England, and subsequently the United States,
became for all Frenchmen. They expressed
their emotion and enchantment at the aspect of
a country, whose sovereign, absolute but unpre
judiced, drives a furrow once a year with his
own hands in honour of the useful arts ; where

300 SOCIALISM. Book II.
all public employments are obtained by compe
titive examinations,- and which has a system of
philosophy for its religion and men of letters
for its aristocracy.
It is supposed that the destructive theories
which are designated in our times by the name
of socialism are of recent origin : this, again, is
a mistake ; these theories are contemporary with
the first French school of economists. Whilst
they were intent on employing the all-powerful
government they bad conceived in order to
change the form of society, other writers grasped
in imagination the same power to subvert its
foundations. In the Code de la Nature, by Morelly, will
be found, side by side with the doctrines of the
economists on the omnipotence and unlimited
rights of the state, several of the political
theories which have most alarmed the French
nation in these later times, and which are
supposed to have been born before our eyes —
community of goods, the right to labour, absolute
equality of conditions, uniformity in all things,
a mechanical regularity in all the movements of
individuals, a tyranny to regulate every action
of daily life, and the complete absorption of the

Chap. XV. SOCIALISM. 301
personality of each member of the community
into the whole social body.
" Nothing in society shall belong in singular
property to any one," says the first article of
this code. " Property is detestable, and who
soever shall attempt to re-establish it, shall be
shut up for life, as a maniac or an enemy of
mankind. Every citizen is to be supported,
maintained, and employed at the public ex
pense," says Article II.
" All productions are to be stored in public
magazines, to be distributed to the citizens and
to supply their daily wants. Towns will be
erected on the same plan ; all private dwellings
or buildings will be alike ; at five years of age
aU children will be taken, from their parents and
brought up in common at the cost of the State
and in a uniform manner."
Such a book might have been written yester
day : it is a hundred years old. It appeared in
1755, at the very time when Quesnay founded
his school. So true it is that centralisation and
socialism are products of the same soil ; they are
to each other what the grafted tree is to the
wild stock.
Of all the men of their time, these economists

302 REFORM DESIRED, Book IT.
are those who would appear most at home in
our own ; their passion for equality is so strong,
and their taste for freedom so questionable, that
one might fancy they are our contemporaries.
In reading the speeches and the books of the
men who figured in the Revolution of 1789, we
are suddenly transported into a place and a state
of society quite unknown to us ; but in perusing
the books of this school of economists one may
fancy we have been living with these people,
and have just been talking with them.
About the year 1750 the whole French na
tion would not have been disposed to exact a
larger amount of political freedom than the
Economists themselves. The taste and even the
notion of freedom had perished with the use
of it. The nation desired reform rather than
rights ; and if there had been at that time on
the throne of France a sovereign of the energy
and the character of Frederic the Great, I doubt
not that he would have accomplished in society
and in government many of the great changes
which have been brought about by the Revolu
tion, and this not only without the loss of his
crown, but with a considerable augmentation of
his power. It is said that one of the ablest

Chap. XV. RATHER THAN RIGHTS. 303
ministers of Louis XV., M. de Machault, had a
glimpse of this idea, and imparted it to his
master ; but such undertakings are not the result
of advice : to be able to perform them a nian
must have been able to conceive them.
Twenty years later the state of things was
changed. A vision of political freedom had
visited the mind of France, and was every day be
coming more attractive, as may be inferred from
a variety of symptoms. The provinces began to
conceive the desire to manage once more their
own affairs. The notion that the whole people has
a right to take part in the government diffused
itself and took possession ofthe public. Recollec
tions ofthe old States-General were revived. The
nation, which detested its own history, recalled
no other part of it with pleasure but this. This
fresh current of opinion bore away the Economists
themselves, and compelled them to encumber their
unitarian system with some free institutions.
When, in 1771, the Parliaments were de
stroyed, the same public, which had so often
suffered from their prejudices, was deeply affected
by their fall. It seemed as if with them fell the
last barrier which could still restrain the arbi
trary power of the crown.

304 -VOLTAIRE'S MISTAKE. Book II.
This opposition astonished and irritated Voh
taire. " Almost all the kingdom is m a state of
effervescence and consternation," he wrote to
one of his friends ; " the ferment is as great in
the provinces as at Paris itself. Yet this edict
seems to be full of useful reforms. To abolish
the sale of public situations, to render the
administration of justice gratuitous, to prevent
suitors from coming from all corners of the
kingdom to Paris to ruin themselves there, to
charge the crown with the payment of the ex
penses of the seignorial jurisdictions — are not
these great services rendered to the nation ?
These Parliaments, moreover, have they not been
often barbarous and persecutors ? I am really
amazed at the out of the way people who take the
part of these insolent and indocile citizens. For
my own part I think the King right ; and since
we must serve, I think it better to serve under a
lion born of a good family, and who is by birth
much stronger than I am, than under two hun
dred rats of my own condition." And he adds,
by way of excuse, " Remember that I am bound
to appreciate highly the favour the King has
conferred on all the lords of manors, hy under
taking to pay the expenses of their jurisdictions."

Chap. XV. PEOPLE ILL PREPARED FOR REFORM. 305
Voltaire, who had long been absent from
Paris, imagined that public opinion still remained
at the point where he had left it. But he was
mistaken. The French people no longer confined
themselves to the desire that their affairs should
be better conducted ; they began to wish to con
duct their affairs themselves, and it was manifest
that the great Revolution, to which everything
was contributing, would be brought about not
only with the assent of the people, but by their
hands. From that moment, I believe that this radical
Revolution, which was to confound in common
ruin all that was worst and all that was best in
the institutions and condition of France, became
inevitable. A people so ill-prepared to act for
themselves could not undertake a universal and
simultaneous reform without a universal destruc
tion. An absolute sovereign would have been
a less dangerous innovator. For myself, when
I reflect that this same Revolution, which de
stroyed so many institutions, opinions, and
habits adverse to freedom, also destroyed so
many others of those things without which free
dom can hardly exist, I incline to the belief that
had it been wrought by a despot it would per-

306 INSTITUTIONS AND OPINIONS Book II.
haps have left the French nation less unfit one
day to become a free people, than wrought as it
was by the sovereignty of the people and by the
people themselves.
What has here been said must never be lost
sight of by those who would understand the his
tory ofthe French Revolution.
When the love of the French for political
freedom was awakened, they had already con
ceived a certain number of notions on matters of
government, which not only did not readily ally
themselves with the existence of free institutions,
but which were almost contrary to them.
They had accepted as the ideal of society a
people having no aristocracy but that of its
public officers, a single and all-powerful adminis
tration, directing the affairs of State, protecting
those of private persons. Meaning to be free,
they by no means meant to deviate from this
first conception : only they attempted to recon
cile it to that of freedom.
They, therefore, undertook to combine an un
limited administrative centralisation with a pre
ponderating legislative body — the administra
tion of a bureaucracy with the government of
electors. The nation as a whole bad all the

Chap. XV. UNFIT FOR FREEDOM. 307
rights of sovereignty ; each citizen taken singly
was thrust into the strictest dependence : the
former was expected to display the experience
and the virtues of a free people — the latter the
qualities of a faithful servant.
This desire of introducing political freedom in
the midst of institutions and opinions essentially
alien or adverse to it, but which were already
established in the habits or sanctioned by the
taste of the French themselves, is the main
cause of the abortive attempts at free govern
ment which have succeeded each other in
France for more than sixty years ; and which
have been followed by such disastrous revolu
tions, that, wearied by so many efforts, dis
gusted by so laborious and so sterile a work,
abandoning their second intentions for their
original aim, many Frenchmen have arrived
at the conclusion that to live as equals under a
master is after all not without some charm.
Thus it is that the French of the present day
are infinitely more similar to the Economists
of 1750 than to their fathers in 1789.
I have often asked myself what is the source
of that passion for political freedom which in
all ages has been the fruitful mother of the
x 2

308 SOURCE OF THE PASSION Book II.
greatest things which mankind have achieved —
and in what feelings that passion strikes root
and finds its nourishment.
It is evident that when nations are ill di
rected they soon conceive the wish to govern
themselves ; but this love of independence,
which only springs up under the influence of
certain transient evils produced by despotism, is
never lasting : it passes away with the accident
that gave rise to it ; and what seemed to be the
love of freedom was no more than the hatred of
a master. That which nations made to be free
really hate is the curse of dependence.
Nor do I believe that the true love of freedom
is ever born of the mere aspect of its material
advantages; for this aspect may frequently
happen to be overcast. It is very true that in
the long run freedom ever brings, to those who
know how to keep it, ease, comfort, and often
wealth ; but there are times at which it disturbs
for a season the possession of these blessings ;
there are other times when despotism alone can
confer the ephemeral enjoyment of them. The
men who prize freedom only for such things as
these are not men who ever long preserved it.
That which at all times has so strongly at-

Chap. XV. FOR POLITICAL FREEDOM. 309
tached the affection of certain men is the attrac
tion of freedom itself, its native charms inde
pendent of its gifts — the pleasure of speaking,
acting, and breathing without restraint, under
no master but God and the law. He who seeks
in freedom aught but herself is fit only to serve.
There are nations which have indefatigably
pursued her through every sort of peril and
hardship. They loved her not for her material
gifts ; they regard herself as a gift so precious
and so necessary that no other could console
them for the loss of that which consoles them for
the loss of everything else. Others grow weary of
freedom in the midst of their prosperities ; they
allow her to be snatched without resistance from
their hands, lest they should sacrifice by an effort
that well-being which she had bestowed upon
them. For them to remain free, nothing was
wanting but a taste for freedom. I attempt no
analysis of that lofty sentiment to those who
feel it not. It enters of its own accord into the
large hearts God has prepared to receive it ; it
fills them, it enraptures them ; but to the meaner
minds which have never felt it, it is past finding
out.

310 EXHAUSTION OF FRANCE Book II.

CHAPTER XVI.
SHOWING THAT THE REIGN OF LOUIS XVI. WAS THE MOST
PROSPEROUS EPOCH OF THE OLD FRENCH MONARCHY,
AND HOW THIS VERY PROSPERITY ACCELERATED THE
REVOLUTION.
It cannot be doubted that the exhaustion of the
kingdom under Louis XIV. began long before
the reverses of that monarch. The first indi-
cation of it is to be perceived in the most
glorious years of his reign. France was ruined
long before she had ceased to conquer. Vauban
left behind him an alarming essay on the admi
nistrative statistics of his time. The Intendants
of the provinces, in the reports addressed by
them to the Duke of Burgundy at the close of
the seventeenth century, and before the dis
astrous war of the Spanish Succession had begun,
all allude to the gradual decline of the nation,
and they speak of it not as a very recent oc
currence : " The population has considerably
decreased in this district," says one of them.
" This town, formerly so rich and flourishing,

Chap. XVI. UNDER LOUIS XIV. 31 1
is now without employment," says another. Or
again : " There have been manufactures in this
province, but they are now abandoned ; " or,
" the farmers formerly raised much more from
the soil than they do at present; agriculture
was in a far better condition twenty years ago."
" Population and production have diminished by
about one-fifth in the last thirty years," said an
Intendant of Orleans at the same period. The
perusal of these reports might be recommended
to those persons who are favourable to absolute
government, and to those princes who are fond
of war.
As these hardships had their chief source in the
evils of the constitution, the death of Louis XIV.,
and even the restoration of peace, did not restore
the prosperity of the nation. It was the general
opinion of all those who wrote on the art of
government or ori social economy in the first
moiety of the eighteenth century, that the pro
vinces were not recovering themselves ; many
even thought that their ruin was progressive.
Paris alone, they said, grows in wealth and in
extent. Intendants, ex-ministers, and men of
business were of the same opinion on this point
as men of letters.

312 PORTENTS OF THE REVOLUTION. Book II.
For myself, I confess that I do not believe in
this continuous decline of France throughout
the first half of the eighteenth century ; but an
opinion so generally entertained amongst persons
so well informed, proves at least that the country
was making at that time no visible progress.
All the administrative records connected with
this period of the history of France which have
fallen under my observation denote, indeed, a
sort of lethargy in the community. The go
vernment continued to revolve in the orbit of
routine without inventing any new thing ; the
towns made scarcely an effort to render the con
dition of their inhabitants more comfortable or
more wholesome ; even in private life no consi
derable enterprise was set on foot.
About thirty or forty years before the Revo
lution broke out the scene began to change. It
seemed as if a sort of inward perturbation, not
remarked before, thrilled through the social
frame. At first none but a most attentive eye
could discern it; but gradually this movement
became more characterised and more distinct.
Year by year it gained in rapidity and in extent ;
the nation stirs, and seems about to rise once
more. But, beware ! It is not the old life of

Chap. XVI. INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION. 313
France which re-animates her. The breath of a
new life pervades the mighty body, but pervades
it only to complete its dissolution.
Restless and agitated in their own condition,
all classes are straining for something else ; to
better that condition is the universal desire, but
this desire is so feverish and wayward that it
leads men to curse the past, and to conceive a
state of society altogether the reverse of that
which lies before them.
Nor was it long before the same spirit pene
trated to the heart of the Government. The
Government was thus internally transformed
without any external alteration ; the laws of the
kingdom were unchanged, but they were differ
ently applied.
I have elsewhere remarked that the Comp
trollers-General and the Intendants of 1760
had no resemblance to the same officers in 1780.
The correspondence of the public offices demon
strates this fact in detail. Yet the Intendant of
1780 had the same powers, the same agents, the
same arbitrary authority as his predecessor, but
not the same purposes ; the only care of the
former was to keep his province in a state of
obedience, to raise the militia, above all to

314 CHANGE IN THE Book II.
collect the taxes; the latter has very different
views, his head is full of a thousand schemes for
the augmentation of the wealth of the nation.
Roads, canals, manufactures, commerce, are the
chief objects of his thoughts ; agriculture more
particularly attracts his notice. Sully came into
fashion amongst the administrators of that age.
Then it was that they began to form the agri
cultural societies, which I have already men
tioned; they established exhibitions, they dis
tributed prizes. Some of the circulars of the
Comptroller-General were more like treatises on
husbandry than official correspondence.
In the collection of all the taxes the change
which had come over the mind of the governing
body was especially perceptible. The existing
law was still unfair, arbitrary and harsh, as it
had long been, but all its defects were mitigated
in the application of it.
" When I began to study our fiscal laws,"
says M. MoUien,* in his Memoirs, " I was ter-

* [Count MoUien was educated in the fiscal service ofthe old mo
narchy, and after having escaped the perils of the Revolution he
became Minister of the Treasury to the Emperor Napoleon, and under
the Restoration a Peer of France. He left Memoirs of his Adminis
tration, which have been printed for private circulation by his widow,
the estimable Countess Mollien, in four volumes octavo, but not

Chap. XVI. COLLECTION OF THE TAXES. 31 5
rifled by what I found there : fines, imprison
ment, corporal punishment, were placed at the
disposal of exceptional courts for mere over
sights; the clerks of the revenue farms had
almost all property and persons in their power,
subject to the discretion of their oaths. Fortu
nately I did not confine myself to the mere
perusal of this code, and I soon had occasion to
find out that between the text of the law and its
application there was the same difference as
between the manners of the old and the new
race of financiers."
" The collection of taxes may undoubtedly
give rise to infinite abuses and annoyances,"
said the Provincial Assembly of Lower Nor
mandy in 1787 ; " we must, however, do justice
to the gentleness and consideration with which
these powers have been exercised for some years
past." The examination of public records fully bears
out this assertion. They frequently show a
genuine respect for the life and liberty of man,

yet published. These Memoirs are a model of personal integrity and
financial judgment, the more remarkable as it was the fate of M.
MoUien to live in times when these qualities were equally rare.
The work was reviewed in the ' Quarterly Review,' 1849-1850.

316 BENEVOLENCE OF LOUIS XVI. Book II.
and more especially a sincere commiseration for
the sufferings of the poor, which before would
have been sought for in vain. Acts of violence
committed by the fiscal officers on paupers had
become rare ; remissions of taxation were more
frequent, relief more abundant. The King aug
mented all the funds intended to establish work
shops of charity in the rural districts, or "to assist
the indigent, and he often founded new ones.
Thus more than 80,000 livres were distributed
by the State in this manner in the district of
Upper Guienne alone in 1779 ; 40,000 in 1784
in that of Tours ; 48,000 in that of Normandy
in 1787. Louis XVI. did not leave this portion
ofthe duties of government to his Ministers only ;
he sometimes took it upon himself. When, in
1776, an edict of the Crown fixed the compensa
tion due to the peasantry whose fields were de
vastated by the King's game in the neighbourhood
of the Royal seats, and established a simple and
certain method of enforcing the payment of it,
the King himself drew the preamble of the
decree. Turgot relates that this virtuous and
unfortunate Prince handed the paper to him
with these words : " You see that I too have
been at work." If we were to pourtray the
Government of the old French monarchy, such

Chap. XAI., INCREASED PROSPERITY. 317
as it was in the last years of its existence, the
image would be too highly flattered, and too
unlike the reality.
As these changes were brought about in the
minds of the governing class and of the go
verned, the prosperity of the nation expanded
with a rapidity heretofore unknown. It was
announced by numerous symptoms : the popula
tion largely augmented ; the wealth of the
country augmented more largely still. The
American war did not arrest this movement;
the State was embarrassed by it, but the com
munity continued to enrich itself by becoming
more industrious, more enterprising, more in
ventive. " Since 1774," says one of the members of
the administration of that time, " different kinds
of industry have by their extension enlarged the
area" of taxation on all commodities." If we
compare the terms of arrangement agreed upon
at different periods of the reign of Louis XVI.
between the State and the financial companies
which farmed the public revenue, the rate of
payment will be found to have risen at each
renewal with increasing rapidity. The farm of
1786 produced fourteen millions more than that
of 1780. " It may be reckoned that the produce

318 INCREASED PROSPERITY. Book II.
of duties on consumption is increasing at the
rate of two millions per annum," said Necker, in
his Report of 1781.
Arthur Young declared that, in 1788, Bor
deaux carried on a larger trade than Liverpool ;
he adds — " Latterly the progress of maritime
commerce has been more rapid in France than
in England ; trade has doubled there in the last
twenty years."
With due regard to the difference of the times
we are speaking of, it may be established that
in no one of the periods which have followed
the Revolution of 1789 has the national pros
perity of France augmented more rapidly than
it did in the twenty years preceding that event.*
The period of thirty-seven years of the constitu
tional monarchy of France, which were times of
peace and progress, can alone be compared in
this respect to the reign of Louis XVI.
The aspect of this prosperity, already so great
and so rapidly increasing, may well be matter of
surprise, if we think of all the defects which the
Government of France still included, and all the
restrictions against which the industry of the
nation had still to contend. Perhaps there may
* See Note 3S, Progress of France.

Chap. XVI. INCREASED PROSPERITY. 319
be politicians who, unable to explain the fact,
deny it, being of the opinion of Moliere's phy
sician that a patient cannot recover against the
rules of art. How are we to believe that France
prospered and grew rich with unequal taxation,
with a diversity of customary law, with internal
custom-houses, with feudal rights, with guilds,
with purchased offices, &c. ? In spite of all this,
France was beginning to grow rich and expand
on every side, because within all this clumsy and
ill-regulated machinery, which seemed calculated
to check rather than to impel the social engine,
two simple and powerful springs were concealed,
which already sufficed to keep the fabric together,
and to drive it along in the direction of public
prosperity — a Government which was still power
ful enough to maintain order throughout the
kingdom, though it had ceased to be despotic ;
a nation which, in its upper classes, was already
the most enlightened arid the most free on the
continent of Europe, and in which every man
could enrich himself after his own fashion and
preserve the fortune he had once acquired.
The King still spoke the language of an arbi
trary ruler, but in reality he himself obeyed that
public opinion which inspired or influenced him

320 PUBLIC OPINION. Book II.
day by day, and which he constantly consulted,
flattered, feared ; absolute by the letter of the
law, limited by their practice. As early as 1784,
Necker said in a public document as a thing not
disputed : " Most foreigners are unable to form
an idea of the authority now exercised in France
by public opinion ; they can hardly understand
what is that invisible power which makes itself
obeyed even in the King's palace ; yet such is the
fact." Nothing is more superficial than to attribute
the greatness and the power of a people exclu
sively to the mechanism of its laws ; for, in this
respect, the result is obtained not so much by the
perfection of the engine as by the amount of the
propelling power. Look at England, whose ad
ministrative laws still at the present day appear
so much more complicated, more anomalous, more
irregular, than those of France ! * Yet is there a
country in Europe where the national wealth is
greater, where private property is more extended,
varied, and secure, or where society is more
stable and more rich ? This is not caused by the
excellence of any laws in particular, but by the
spirit which pervades the whole legislation of
* See Note 3T, Judicial Institutions of England.

Chap. XVI. REFORM BEGUN BY THE MONARCHY. 321
England. The imperfection of certain organs
matters nothing, because the whole is instinct
with life.
As the prosperity, which I have just described,
began to extend in France, the community never
theless became more unsettled and uneasy ; public
discontent grew fierce ; hatred against all esta
blished institutions increased. The nation was
visibly advancing towards a revolution.
Nay more, those parts of France which were
about to become the chief centres of this revolu
tion were precisely the parts of the territory
where the work of improvement was most per
ceptible. An examination of what remains of
the archives of the ancient circumscription of the
He de France readily shows that the abuses of
the monarchy had been soonest and most effec
tually reformed in the immediate vicinity of
Paris.* There, the liberty and property of the
peasants were already better secured than in any
other of what were termed the pays d' election.
Personal forced service had disappeared long
before 1789. The taille was levied with greater
regularity, moderation, and fairness, than in any
* See Note 3 U, Privileges of the District of Paris, Y

322 PRIVILEGES OF THE ILE DE FRANCE. Book II.
other part of France. The ordinance made in
1772 for the amelioration of this tax in this dis
trict, is a striking proof of what an Intendant
could do for the advantage or for the misery of
a whole province. As seen through this docu
ment, the aspect of the tax was already changed.
Government commissioners Avere to proceed
every year to each parish ; the community was
to assemble before them ; the value of the taxable
property was to be publicly established, and the
resources of every taxpayer to be ascertained in
his presence ; in short, the taille was assessed
with the assent of all those who had to pay it.
The arbitrary powers of the village syndic, the
unprofitable violence of the fiscal officers, were
at an end. The taille no doubt retained its in
herent defects under any system of collection :
it lighted upon but one class of taxpayers, and
lay as heavy on industry as upon property ; but
in all other respects it widely differed from that
which still bore the same name in the neighbour
ing divisions of the territory.
Nowhere, on the contrary, Avere the institu
tions of the whole monarchy less changed than
on the banks of the Loire, near the mouths of
that river, in the marshes of Poitou and the

Chap. XVI. DANGERS OF REFORM. 323
heaths of Britanny. Yet there it was that the
fire of civil War was kindled and kept alive, and
that the fiercest and longest resistance was op
posed to the Revolution ; so that it might be said
that the French found their position the more
intolerable precisely where it had become better.
Surprising as this fact is, history is full of such
contradictions. It is not always by going from bad to worse
that a country falls into a revolution. It happens
most frequently that a people, which had sup
ported the most crushing laws without complaint,
and apparently as if they were Unfelt, throws
them off with violence as soon as the burthen
begins to be diminished. The state of things
destroyed by a revolution is almost always some
what better than that which immediately pre
ceded it ; and experience has shown that the most
dangerous moment for a bad government is
usually that when it enters upon the work of
reform. Nothing short of great political genius
can save a sovereign who undertakes to relieve
his subjects after a long period of oppression.
The evils which were endured with patience so
long as they were inevitable seem intolerable as
soon as a hope can he entertained of escaping
y 2

324 EXTRAVAGANT HOPES OF REFORM. Book II.
from them. The abuses which are removed
seem to lay bare those which remain, and to
render the sense of them more acute; the evil
has decreased, it is true, but the perception of
the evil is more keen. Feudalism in all its
strength had not inspired as much aversion to
the French as it did on the eve of its disappear
ance. The slightest arbitrary proceedings of
Louis XVI. seemed more hard to bear than all
the despotism of Louis XIV.* The brief deten
tion of Beaumarchais produced more excite
ment in Paris than the Dragonnades.
No one any longer contended in 1780 that
France was in a state of decline ; there seemed,
on the contrary, to be just then no bounds
to her progress. Then it was that the theory
of the continual and indefinite perfectibility of
man took its origin. Twenty years before no
thing was to be hoped of the future : then no
thing was to be feared. The imagination,
grasping at this near and unheard of felicity,
caused men to overlook the advantages they
already possessed, and hurried them forward to
something new.
Independently of these general reasons, there
* See Note 8V.

Chap. XVI. FINANCIAL EMBARRASSMENTS. 325
were other causes of this phenomenon which
were more peculiar and not less powerful. Al
though the financial administration had improved
with everything else, it still retained the vices
which are inherent in absolute government. As
ihe financial department was secret and uncon
trolled, many of the worst practices which had
prevailed under Louis XIV. and Louis XV. were
still followed. The very efforts which the Go
vernment made to augment the public prosperity
— the relief and the rewards it distributed — the
public works it caused to be executed — con
tinually increased the expenditure without adding
to the revenue in the same proportion ; hence the
King was continually thrown into embarrass
ments greater than those of his predecessors.
Like them, he left his creditors unpaid ; like
them, he borrowed in all directions, but without
publicity and without competition, and the cre
ditors of the Crown were never sure of receiving
their interest ; even their capital was always at
the mercy of the sovereign.
A witness worthy of credit, for he had seen
these things with his own eyes and was better
qualified than any other person to see them well,
remarks on this subject :— " The French were

326 RISK OF THE FUNDHOLDERS Book II.
exposed to nothing but risks in their relations
with their own Government. If they placed
their capital in the State stocks, they could never
reckon with certainty on the payment of interest
to a given day ; if they built ships, repaired the
roads, clothed the army, they had nothing to
cover their advance and no certainty of repay
ment, so that they were reduced to calculate the
ehances of a Government contract as if it were a
loan on terms of the utmost risk." And the
same person adds very judiciously : " At this
time, when the rapid growth of industry had de
veloped amongst a larger number of men the love
of property and the taste and tho desire of com
fort, those who had entrusted a portion of their
property to the State were the more impatient
of a breach of contract on the part of that creditor
who was especially bound to fulfil his obligations."
The abuses which are here imputed to the
French administration were not at all new ; what
was new was the impression they produced.
The vices of the financial system had even been
far more crying in former times ; but changes
had taken place in Government and in society
which rendered them infinitely more perceptible
than they were of old.

Chap. XVI. AND PUBLIC CREDITORS. 327
The Government, having become more active
in the last twenty years, and having embarked
in every species of undertaking which it had
never thought of before, was at last become the
greatest consumer of the produce of industry and
the greatest contractor of public works in the
kingdom. The number of persons who had pe
cuniary transactions with the State, who were
interested in Government loans, lived by Govern
ment wages, or speculated in Government con
tracts, had prodigiously increased. Never before
had the fortune of the nation and the fortunes of
private persons been so much intermingled. The
mismanagement of the public finances, which had
long been no more than a public evil,, thus
became to a multitude of families a private
calamity. In 1789 the State was indebted nearly
600 millions of francs to creditors who were
almost all in debt themselves, and who inoculated
with their own dissatisfaction against the Govern
ment all those whom the irregularity of the
pubhc Treasury caused to participate in their
embarrassments. And it must be observed, that
as malcontents of this class became more nume
rous, they also became more exasperated ; for
the love of speculation, the thirst for wealth,

328 THEIR DISCONTENT. Book II.
the taste for comfort, having grown and extended
in proportion to the business transacted, the same
evils which they might have endured thirty
years before without complaint, now appeared
altogether insupportable.
Hence it arose that the fundholders, the traders,
the manufacturers, and other persons engaged in
business or in monetary affairs, who generally
form the class most hostile to political innova
tion, the most friendly to existing governments,
whatever they may be, and the most submissive
to the laws even when they despise and detest
them, were on this occasion the class most eager
and resolute for reform. They loudly demanded
a complete revolution in the whole' system of
finance, without reflecting that to touch this part
of the Government was to cause every other part
to fall.
How could such a catastrophe be averted?
On the one hand, a nation in which the desire
of making fortunes extended every day — on the
other, a Government which incessantly excited
this passion, which agitated, inflamed, and beg
gared the nation, driving by either path on its
own destruction.

Chap. XVII. SUPPOSED APATHY OF THE PEOPLE. 329

CHAPTER XVII.
SHOWING THAT THE FRENCH PEOPLE WERE EXCITED TO
REVOLT BY THE MEANS TAKEN TO RELIEVE THEM.'
As the common people of France had not
appeared for one single moment on the theatre
of public affairs for upwards of one hundred
and forty years, no one any longer imagined
that they could ever again resume their posi
tion. They appeared unconscious, and were
therefore believed to be deaf; accordingly,
those who began to take an interest in their
condition talked about them in their presence
just as if they had not been there. It seemed
as if these remarks could only be heard by those
who were placed above the common people, and
that the only danger to be apprehended was
that they might not be fully understood by the
upper classes.
The very men who had most to fear from
the fury of the people declaimed loudly in their
presence on the cruel injustice under which the
people had always suffered. They pointed out

330 POPULAR GRIEVANCES Book II.
to each other the monstrous vices of those insti
tutions which had weighed most heavily upon
the lower orders : they employed all their
powers of rhetoric in depicting the miseries of
the common people and their ill-paid labour ;
and thus they infuriated while they endeavoured
to relieve them. I do not speak of the writers,
but of the Government, of its chief agents, and
of those belonging to the privileged class itself.
When the King, thirteen years before the
Revolution, tried to abolish the use of compul
sory labour, he said, in the preamble to this
decree, " With the exception of a small number
of provinces (the pays d'etat), almost all the
roads throughout the kingdom have been made
by the gratuitous labour of the poorest part of
our subjects.. Thus the whole burthen has fallen
on those who possess nothing but their hands,
and who are interested only in a secondary
degree in the existence of roads ; those really
interested are the landowners, nearly all privi
leged persons, whose estates are increased in
value by the construction of roads. By forcing
the poor to keep them up unaided, and by com
pelling them to give their time and labour with
out remuneration, they are deprived of their sole

Chap. XVII, OPENLY DISCUSSED. 331
resource against want and hunger, because they
are made to labour for the profit of the rich."
When, at the same period, an attempt was
made to abolish the restrictions Avhich the
system of trading companies or guilds imposed
on artizans, it was proclaimed, in the King's
name, "that the right to work is the most
sacred of all possessions ; that every law by
which it is infringed violates the natural rights
of man, and is null and void in itself; that the
existing corporations are moreover grotesque
and tyrannical institutions, the result of sel
fishness, avarice, and violence." Such words as
these were dangerous, no doubt, but, what was
infinitely more so, was that they were spoken in
vain. A few months later the corporations and
the system of compulsory labour were again
established. It is said that Turgot was the Minister who
put this language into the King's mouth, but
most of Turgot's successors made him hold no
other. When, in 1780, the King announced to
his subjects that the increase of the taille would,
for the future, be subject to public registration,
he took care to add, by way of commentary,
" Those persons who are subject to the taille,

332 ABUSES OPENLY Book II.
besides being harassed by the vexations incident
to its collection, have likewise hitherto been
exposed to unexpected augmentations of the tax,
insomuch that the contributions paid by the
poorest part of our subjects has increased in a
much greater" proportion than those paid by all
the rest." When the King, not yet venturing to
place all the public burthens on an equal footing,
attempted at least to establish equality of taxa
tion in those which were already imposed on the
middle class, he said, " His Majesty hopes that
rich persons will not consider themselves ag
grieved by being placed on the common level,
and made to bear their part of a burthen which
they ought long since to have shared in more
equally." But it was, above all, at periods of scarcity
that nothing was left untried to inflame the
passions of the people far more than to provide
for their wants. In order to stimulate the
charity of the rich, one Intendant talked of
"the injustice and insensibility of those land
owners who owe all they possess to the labours
of the poor, and who let them die of hunger at
the very moment they are exhausting them
selves in augmenting the returns of landed pro-

Chap. XVII. DENOUNCED BY THE CROWN. 333
perty." The King, too, thus expressed himself
on a similar occasion : " His Majesty is deter
mined to defend the people against manoeuvres
which expose them to the want of the most need
ful food, by forcing them to give their labour
at any price that the rich choose to bestow.
The King will not suffer one part of his subjects
to be sacrificed to the avidity of the other."
Until the very end of the monarchy the strife
which subsisted between the different adminis
trative powers gave occasion for all sorts of
demonstrations of this kind ; the contending
parties readily imputed to each other the
miseries of the people. A strong instance of
this appeared in the quarrel which arose, in
1772, between the Parliament of Toulouse and
the King, with reference to the transport of
grain. " The Government, by its bad measures,
places the poor in danger of dying of hunger,"
said the Parliament. "The ambition of the
Parliament and the avidity of the rich are the
cause of the general distress," retorted the King.
Thus both parties were endeavouring to impress
the minds of the common people with the belief
that their superiors are always to blame for
their sufferings.

334 IMPRUDENT CONTEMPT FOR Book II.
These things are not contained in the secret
correspondence of the time, but in public do
cuments which the Government and the Par
liaments themselves took care to have printed
and published by thousands. The King took
occasion incidentally to tell very harsh truths
both to his predecessors and to himself. " The
treasure of the State," said he, on one occasion,
" has been biirthened by the lavish expenditure
of several successive reigns. Many of our in
alienable domains have been granted on leases
at nominal rents." On another occasion he was
made to say, with more truth than prudence,
" The privileged trading companies mainly
owed their origin to the fiscal avidity of the
Crown." Farther on, he remarked that " if use
less expenses have often been incurred, and if
the taille has increased beyond all bounds, it has
been because the Board of Finance found an
increase of the taille the easiest resource inas
much as it was clandestine, and was therefore
employed, although many other expedients
would have been less burthensome to our
people."* * See Note SX, Arbitrary Augmentation of Taxes.

Chap. XVII. THE LOWER CLASSES. 335
All this was addressed to the enlightened
part of the nation, in order to convince it of the
utility of certain measures which private in
terests rendered unpopular. As for the common
people, it was assumed that if they listened they
did not understand.
It must be admitted that at the bottom of all
these charitable feelings there remained a strong
bias of contempt for these very wretches whose
miseries the higher classes so sincerely wished
to relieve : and that we are somewhat reminded,
by this display of compassion, of the notion of
Madame Duchatelet, who, as Voltaire's secretary
tells us, did not scruple to undress herself be
fore her attendants, not thinking it by any
means proved that flunkies are men. And let
it not be supposed that Louis XVI. or his
ministers were the only persons who held the
dangerous language which I have just cited ; the
privileged persons, who were about to become
the first objects of the popular fury, expressed
themselves in exactly the same manner before
their inferiors. It must be admitted that in
France the higher classes of society had begun
to pay attention to the condition of the poor
before they had any reason to fear them ; they

336 SYMPATHY WITH Book II.
interested themselves in their fate at a time
when they had not begun to believe that the
sufferings of the poor were the precursors of
their own perdition. This was peculiarly
visible in the ten years which preceded 1789 ;
the peasants were the constant objects of com
passion, their condition was continually dis
cussed, the means of affording them relief were
examined, the chief abuses from which they
suffered were exposed, and the fiscal laws which
pressed most heavily upon them were con
demned; but the manner in which this new
born sympathy was expressed was as imprudent
as the long-continued insensibility which had
preceded it.
If we read the reports of the provincial assem
blies which met in some parts of France in 1779,
and subsequently throughout the kingdom, and
if we study the other public records left by them,
we shall be touched by the generous sentiments
expressed in them, and astonished at the wonder
ful imprudence of the language in which they
are expressed.
The Provincial Assembly of Lower Normandy
said, in 1787, " We have too frequently seen
the money destined by the King for roads serve

Chap. XVII. THE COMMON PEOPLE. 337
only to increase the prosperity of the rich with
out any benefit to the people. It has often been
employed to render the approach to a country
mansion more pleasing instead of making a more
convenient entrance to a town or village." In
the same assembly the Orders of nobility and
clergy, after describing the abuses of compulsory
labour, spontaneously offered to contribute out
of their own funds 50,000 livres towards the
improvement of the roads, in order, as they
said, that the roads of the province might be
made practicable without any further cost to the
people. It would probably have cost these pri
vileged classes less to abolish the compulsory
system, and to substitute for it a general tax of
which they should pay their quota ; but though
willing to give up the profit derived from ine
quality of taxation, they liked to maintain the
appearance of the privilege. While they gave
up that part of their rights which was pro
fitable, they carefully retained that which was
odious. Other assemblies, composed entirely of land
owners exempt from the taille, and who fully in
tended to continue so, nevertheless depicted in
the darkest colours the hardships which the

338 SYMPATHY FOR Book II.
taille inflicted on the poor. They drew a frightful
picture of all its abuses, which they circulated
in all directions. But the most singular part of
the affair is that to these strong marks of the in
terest they felt in the common people, they from
time to time added public expressions of con
tempt for them. The people had already become
the object of their sympathy without having
ceased to be the object of their disdain.
The Provincial Assembly of Upper Guyenne,
speaking of the peasants whose cause they so
warmly pleaded, called them coarse and ignorant
creatures, turbulent spirits, and rough and intract
able characters. Turgot, who did so much for the
people, seldom spoke of them otherwise.*
These harsh expressions were used in acts in
tended for the greatest publicity, and meant to
meet the eyes of the peasants themselves. It
seemed as though the framers of them imagined
that they were living in a country like Gallicia,
where the higher classes speak a different lan
guage from the lower, and cannot be, understood
by them. The feudalists of the eighteenth cen
tury, who frequently displayed towards the rate-
* See Note 3Y, Manner in which Turgot spoke of the Country
People.

Chap. XVII. THE COMMON PEOPLE. 339
payers and others who owed them feudal services,
a disposition to indulgence, moderation, and jus
tice, unknown to their predecessors, still spoke
occasionally of " vile peasants." These insults
seem to have been " in proper form," as the
lawyers say.
The nearer we approach towards 1789, the
more lively and imprudent does this sympathy
for the hardships of the common people become.
I have held in my hands the circulars addressed
by several Provincial Assemblies in the very be
ginning of 1788 to the inhabitants of the dif
ferent parishes, calling upon them to state in
detail all the grievances of which they might
have to complain.
One of these circulars is signed by an abbe, a
great lord, three nobles, and a man ofthe middle
class, all members of the Assembly, and acting in
its name. This committee directed the Syndic
of each parish to convoke all the peasants, and to
inquire of them what they had to say against
the manner in which the various taxes which
they paid were assessed and collected. " We
are generally aware," they say, " that most of
the taxes, especially the gabelle and the taille,
have disastrous consequences for the cultivators, z 2

340 REPORTS ON PERSONS Book II.
but we are anxious to be acquainted with every
single abuse." The curiosity of the Provincial
Assembly did not stop there ; it investigated the
number of persons in the parish enjoying any
privileges with respect to taxes, whether nobles,
ecclesiastics, or roturiers, and the precise nature
of these privileges ; the value of the property of
those thus exempted ; whether or not they re
sided on their estates ; whether there was much
church property, or, as the phrase then was,
land in mortmain, which was out of the market,
and its value. All this even was not enough to
satisfy them ; they wanted to be told the share
of duties, taille, additional dues, poll-tax, and
forced labour-rate which the privileged class
would have to pay, supposing equality of taxa
tion existed.
This was to inflame every man individually
by the catalogue of his own grievances ; it
pointed out to him the authors of his wrongs,
emboldened him by showing the smallness of
their number, and fired his heart with cupi
dity, envy, and hatred. It seemed as if the
Jacquerie, the Maillotins, and the Sixteen were
totally forgotten, and that no one was aware that
the French people, which is the quietest and

Chap. XVII. ENJOYING SPECIAL PRIVILEGES. 341
most kindly disposed in the world, so long as it
remains in its natural frame of mind, becomes
the most barbarous as soon as it is roused by
violent passions.
Unfortunately I have not been able to pro
cure all the returns sent in by the peasants in
reply to these fatal questions ; but I have found
enough to show the general spirit which per
vaded them.
In these Reports the names of every privileged
person, whether of the nobility or the middle
class, is carefully mentioned ; his mode of life is
frequently described, and always in an unfavour
able manner. The value of his property is
curiously examined ; the number and extent of
his privileges is insisted on at length, and espe
cially the injury they do to all the other inhabit
ants of the village. The bushels of corn which
have to be paid to him as dues are reckoned up ;
his income is calculated in an envious tone — an
income by which no one profits, they say. The
occasional dues of the parish priest — his stipend,
as they are already called- — are pronounced to
be excessive ; it is remarked with bitterness that
everything at church must be paid for, and
that a poor man cannot even get buried gratis.

342 HATRED OF TAXATION. Book II.
As to the taxes, they are all unfairly assessed
and oppressive ; not one of them finds favour,
and they are all spoken of in a tone of violence
which betrays exasperation.
" The indirect taxes are detestable," they
say ; " there is not a household in which the
clerk of the excise does not come and search,
nothing is sacred from his eyes and hands. The
registration dues are crushing. The collector
of the taille is a tyrant, whose rapacity leads him
to avail himself of every means of harassing
the poor. The bailiffs are no better ; no honest
farmer can be secure from their ferocity. The
collectors are forced to ruin their neighbours in
order to avoid exposing themselves to the vo
racity of these despots."
The Revolution not only announces its ap
proach in this inquiry, it is already there, speak
ing its own proper language and showing its
face without disguise.
Amid all the differences which exist between
the religious Revolution of the sixteenth century
and the French Revolution of the eighteenth,
one contrast is peculiarly striking ; in the six
teenth century most of the great nobles changed
their religion from motives of ambition or cu-

Chap, XVII. EFFECTS OF INCITING THE PEOPLE. 343
pidity ; the people, on the contrary, from con
viction and without any hope of profit. In the
eighteenth century the reverse was the case ;
disinterested convictions and generous sym
pathies then agitated the enlightened classes
and incited them to revolution, while a bitter
feeling of their wrongs and an ardent desire to
alter their position excited the common people.
The enthusiasm of the former put the last stroke
to inflaming and arming the rage and the de
sires of the latter.

344 REVOLUTIONARY INFLUENCE Book II.

CHAPTER XVIII.
CONCERNING SOME PRACTICES BY WHICH THE GOVERNMENT
COMPLETED THE REVOLUTIONARY EDUCATION OF THE
PEOPLE OF FRANCE.
Tee government itself had long been at work
to instil into and rivet in the minds of the com
mon people many of the ideas which have since
been called revolutionary — ideas hostile to indi
vidual liberty, opposed to private rights, and
favourable to violence.
The King was the first to show with how
much contempt it was possible to treat the most
ancient, and apparently the best established, in
stitutions. Louis XV. shook the monarchy and
hastened the Revolution quite as much by his
innovations as by his vices, by his energy as
by his indolence. When the people beheld the
fall and disappearance of a parliament almost
contemporary with the monarchy itself, and
which had until then seemed as immoveable as
the throne, they vaguely perceived that they
were drawing near a time of violence and of

Chap. XVIII. OF THE CROWN. 345
chance when everything may become possible,
when nothing, however ancient, is respected,
and nothing, however new, may not be tried.
During the whole course of his reign Louis
XVI. did nothing but talk of reforms to be ac
complished. There are few institutions of which
he did not foreshadow the approaching ruin,
before the Revolution came to effect it. After
removing from the statute-book some of the
worst of these institutions he very soon replaced
them ; it seemed as if he wanted only to loosen
their roots, leaving to others the task of striking
them down. By some of the reforms which he
effected himself, ancient and venerable customs
were suddenly changed without sufficient pre
paration, and established rights were occasionally
violated. These reforms prepared the way for
the Revolution, not so much by overthrowing
the obstacles in its way, as by showing the
people how to set about making it. The evil
was increased by the very purity and disinte
restedness of the intentions which actuated the
King and his ministers ; for .no example is more
dangerous than that of violence exerted for a
good purpose by honest and well-meaning men.
At a much earlier period Louis XIV. had

346 CONTEMPT. FOR PRIVATE PROPERTY. . Book II.
publicly broached in his edicts the theory that all
the land throughout the kingdom had originally
been granted conditionally hy the State, which
was thus declared to be the only true owner,
and that all others were possessors whose titles
might be contested, and whose rights were im-
, perfect. This doctrine had arisen out of the
feudal system of legislation ; but it was not pro
claimed in France until feudalism was dying out,
and was never adopted by the Courts of justice.
It is, in fact, the germ of modern socialism, and
it is curious enough to see it first springing up
under royal despotism.
During the reigns which followed that of
Louis XIV., the administration day by day in
stilled into the people in a manner still more
practical and comprehensible the contempt in
which private property was to be held. When
during the latter half of the eighteenth century
the taste for public works, especially for roads,
began to prevail, the government did not scruple
to seize all the land needed for its undertakings,
and to pull down the houses which stood in the
way. The French Board of Works was already-
just as enamoured of the geometrical beauty of
straight lines as it has been ever since ; it care-

Chap. XVIII. LAND SEIZED FOR ROADS. 347
fully avoided following the existing roads if they
were at all crooked, and rather than make the
slightest deviation it cut through innumerable
properties. The ground thus damaged or de
stroyed was never paid for but at an arbitrary
rate and after long delay, or frequently not
at all.*
When the Provincial Assembly of Lower
Normandy took the administration out of the
hands of the Intendant, it was discovered that
the price of all the land seized by authority in
the preceding twenty years for making roads
was still unpaid. The debt thus contracted by
the State, and not discharged in this small corner
of France, amounted to 250,000 livres. The
number of large proprietors thus injured was
limited ; hiit the small ones who suffered were
very numerous, for even then the land was much
subdivided.^ Every one of these persons had
learnt by his own experience how little re
spect the rights of an individual can claim when
the interest of the public requires that they
should be invaded — a doctrine which he was not

* See Note 3Z, Growth of Revolutionary Opinions under the
old Monarchy.
t See Note <A.

348 SPOLIATION OF CHARITIES. Book II.
likely to forget when the time came for applying
it to others for his own advantage.
In a great number of parishes charitable en
dowments had formerly existed, destined by
their founders to assist the inhabitants in
certain cases, and in conformity to the testa
mentary bequest. Most of these endowments
were destroyed during the later days of the mo
narchy, or diverted from their original objects
by mere Orders in Council, that is to say, by the
arbitrary act of Government. In most instances
the funds thus left to particular villages were
taken from them for the benefit of neighbouring
hospitals. At the same time the property of
these hospitals was in its turn diverted to pur
poses which the founder had never had in view,
and would undoubtedly not have approved. An
edict of 1780 authorised all these establishments
to sell the lands which had been devised to them
at various times to be held by them for ever,
and permitted them to hand over the purchase-
money to the State, which was to pay the in
terest upon it. This, they said, was making a
better use of the charity of their forefathers than
they had done themselves. They forgot that
the surest way of teaching mankind to violate

Chap. XVIII. COMPULSORY REQUISITIONS. 349
the rights of the living is to pay no regard to
the will of the dead. The contempt displayed
by the Administration of the old French mo
narchy for testamentary dispositions has never
been surpassed by any succeeding power. No
thing could be more unlike the scrupulous
anxiety which leads the English to invest every
individual citizen with the force of the whole
social body in order to assist him in maintaining
the effect of his last dispositions, and which
induces them to pay even more respect to his
memory than to himself.
Compulsory requisitions, the forced sale of
provisions, and the maximum, are measures not
without their precedents under the old monarchy.
I have discovered instances in which the officers
of Government, during periods of scarcity, fixed
beforehand the price of the provisions which the
peasants brought to market ; and when the latter
stayed away from fear of this constraint, ordi
nances were promulgated to compel them to
come under penalty of a fine.
But nothing taught a more pernicious lesson
than some of the forms adopted by criminal
justice when the common people were in ques
tion. The poor were even then far better pro-

350 ARBITRARY ARRESTS Book II.
tected than has generally been supposed against
the aggressions of any citizen richer or more
powerful than themselves ; but when they, had
to do with the State, they found only, as I have
already described, exceptional tribunals, pre
judiced judges, a hasty and illusory procedure,
and a sentence executed summarily and without
appeal. " The Provost of the Constables and
his lieutenant are to take cognisance of the dis
turbances and gatherings which may be occa
sioned by the scarcity of corn ; the prosecution
is to take place in due form, and judgment to be
passed by the Provost, and without appeal. His
Majesty inhibits the jurisdiction of all courts of
justice in these cases." We learn by the Reports
of the Constables, that on these occasions sus
pected villages were surrounded during the night,
that houses were entered before daybreak, and
peasants who had been denounced were arrested
without further warrant. A man thus arrested
frequently remained for a long time in prison
before he could speak to his judge, although the
edicts directed that every accused person should
be examined within four and twenty hours.
This regulation was as precise and as little re
spected then as it is now.

Chap. XVIII. OF THE PEASANTRY. 351
By these means a mild and stable government
daily taught the people the code of criminal pro
cedure most appropriate to a period of revolution,
and best adapted to arbitrary power. These les
sons were constantly before their eyes ; and to the
very last the old monarchy gave the lower classes
this dangerous education. Even Turgot himself,
in this respect, faithfully imitated his predeces
sors. When, in 1775, his change in the corn-
laws occasioned resistance in the parliament and
disturbances in the rural districts, he obtained
a royal ordonnance transferring the mutineers
from the jurisdiction of the tribunals to that of
the provost-marshal, " which is chiefly destined,"
so the phrase runs, " to repress popular tumults
when it is desirable that examples should be
quickly made." Nay, worse than this, every
peasant leaving his parish without being pro
vided with a certificate signed by the parish
priest and by the Syndic, was to be prosecuted,
arrested, and tried before the Provost-Marshal
as a vagabond. '
It is true that under this monarchy of the
eighteenth century, though the forms of proce
dure were terrific, the punishment was almost
always light. The object was to inspire fear

352 ARBITRARY PROCEDURE. Book II.
rather than to inflict pain ; or rather, perhaps,
those in power Were violent and arbitrary from
habit or from indifference, and mild by tempera
ment. But this only increased the taste for
this summary kind of justice. The lighter the
penalty the more readily was the manner for
gotten in which it had been pronounced. The
mildness of the sentence served to veil the
horror of the mode of procedure.
I may venture to affirm, from the facts I have
in my possession, that a great number of the
proceedings adopted by the Revolutionary Go
vernment had precedents and examples in the
measures taken with regard to the common
people during the last two centuries of the Mo
narchy. The Monarchy gave to the Revolution
many of its forms ; the latter only added to
them the atrocity of its own spirit.

Chap. XIX. THE GUILDS. 353

CHAPTER XIX.
SHOWING THAT A GREAT ADMINISTRATIVE REVOLUTION HAD
PRECEDED THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION, AND WHAT WERE
THE CONSEQUENCES IT PRODUCED.
Nothing had yet been changed in the form of
the French government, but already the greater
part of the secondary laws which regulated the
condition of persons and the administration of
affairs had been abolished or modified.
The destruction of the guilds followed by their
partial and incomplete restoration had totally
changed all the old relations between workmen
and their employers. These relations had become
not only different, but uncertain and difficult. The
police of the masters was at an end ; the authority
of the State over the trades was imperfectly esta
blished ; and the artisan, placed in a constrained
and undecided position between the Government
and his employer, did not know to whom he was
to look for protection, or from whom he was to
submit to restraint. This state of discontent and
anarchy, into which the whole lower class of the
2 A

354 REFORM OF THE ADMINISTRATION. Book II.
towns had been plunged at one blow, produced
very great consequences as soon as the people
began to reappear on the political stage.
One year before the Revolution a Royal edict
had disturbed the order of the administration of
justice in all its parts ; several new jurisdictions
had been created, a multitude of others abolished,
and all the rules of judicial competence changed.
Now in France, as I have already shown, the
number of persons engaged in administering
justice and in executing the sentences of the law
was enormous. In fact it may be said that the
whole of the middle class was more or less con
nected with the tribunals. The effect of this law,
therefore, was to unsettle the station and pro
perty of thousands of families, and to place them
in a new and precarious position. The edict was
little less inconvenient to litigants, who found it
difficult, in the midst of this judicial revolution, to
discover what laws were applicable to their cases,
and by what tribunals they were to be decided.
But it was the radical reform which the Ad
ministration, properly so called, underwent in
1787, which more than all the rest first threw
public affairs into disorder, and shook the private
existence of every individual citizen.

Chap. XIX. REFORM OF THE ADMINISTRATION. 355
I have already mentioned that in what were
termed the pays d'Mection, that is to say, in about
three quarters of France, the whole administra
tion of each district was abandoned to one man,
the Intendant, who acted not only without con
trol but without advice.
In 1787, in addition to the Intendant, a Pro
vincial Assembly was created which assumed the
real administration of the country. In each
village an elective municipal body likewise took
the place of the ancient parochial assemblies, and
in most cases of the Syndic.
A state of the law so opposed to that which
had preceded it, and which so completely changed
not only the whole course of affairs, but the rela
tive position of persons, was applied in all places
at the same moment and almost in the same
manner, without the slightest regard to previous
usages or to the peculiar situation of each pro
vince, so fully had the passion for unity which
characterized the Revolution taken possession of
the ancient Government, which the Revolution
was about to destroy.
These changes served to display the force of
habit in the action of pohtical institutions, and
to show how much easier it is to deal with
2 a 2

356 REFORM OF THE ADMINISTRATION. Book II.
obscure and complicated laws, which have long
been in use, than with a totally new system of
legislation, however simple.
Under the old French monarchy there existed
all sorts of authorities, which varied almost in
finitely, according to the provinces ; but as none
of these authorities had any fixed or definite
limits, the field of action of each of them was
always common to several others besides. Never
theless, affairs had come to be transacted with a
certain regularity and convenience ; whereas the
newly-established authorities, which were fewer
in number, carefully circumscribed, and exactly
alike, encountered each other at once and be
came entangled in hopeless confusion, frequently
reducing each other mutually to impotence.
Moreover the new law had one great vice
which in itself would have sufficed, especially at
first, to render it difficult of execution : all the
powers it created were collective.*
Under the old monarchy there had been only
two methods of administration. Where the ad
ministration was entrusted to one man, he acted
without the assistance of any assembly ; wherever
* See Note * B.

Chap. XIX. REFORM OF THE ADMINISTRATION. 357
assemblies existed, as in the pays d'etat or in the
towns, the executive power was not vested ' in
any particular person ; the Assembly not only
governed and superintended the administration,
but administered itself, or by means of temporary
commissions which it appointed.
As these were the only two modes of operation
which were then understood, when one was given
up the other was adopted. It is strange that in
the midst of a community so enlightened, and
where the administration of the Government had
long played so prominent a part, no one ever
thought of uniting the two systems and of draw
ing a distinction, without making a separation,
between the power which has to execute and that
which superintends and directs. This idea, which
appears so simple, never occurred to any one ;
it was not discovered until the present century,
and may be said to be the only great invention
in the field of public administration which we
can, claim. We shall see hereafter the results of
the contrary practice when these administrative
habits were transferred to political life, and
when, in obedience to the traditions of the old
institutions of the monarchy, hated as they were,
the system which had been followed by the pro-

358 THE PROVINCIAL ASSEMBLIES Book II.
vincial estates and the small municipalities of the
towns was applied in the National Convention ;
and the causes which had formerly occasioned
a certain embarrassment in the transaction of
business suddenly engendered the Reign of
Terror. The Provincial Assemblies of 1787 were in
vested with the right of governing themselves
in most of the cases in which, until then, the
Intendant had acted alone ; they were charged,
under the authority of the central government,
with the assessment of the taille and with the
superintendence of its collection' — with the poAver
of deciding what public works were to be un
dertaken, and with their execution. All those
employed in the public works, from the inspector
down to the driver of the road-gang, were under
their control. They were to order what they
thought proper, to render an account of the ser
vices performed to the Minister, and to suggest
to him the fitting remuneration. The parochial
trusts were almost entirely placed under the
direction of these assemblies ; they were to de
cide, in the first instance, most of the litigated
matters which had until then been tried before
the Intendant. Many of these functions were

Chap. XIX. OF 1787. 359
unsuitable for a collective and irresponsible body,
and moreover they were to be performed by men
who were now, for the first time, to take a part
in the administration.
The confusion was made complete by depriving
the Intendant of all power, though his office was
not suppressed. After taking from him the ab
solute right of doing everything, he was charged
with the task of assisting and superintending all
that was to be done by the Assembly ; as if it
were possible for a degraded public officer to
enter into the spirit of the law by which he has
been dispossessed and to assist its operation.
That which had been done to the Intendant
was now extended to his Subdelegate. By his
side, and in the place which he had formerly
occupied, was placed a District Assembly, which
was to act under the direction of the Provincial
Assembly, and upon analogous principles.
All that we know of the acts of the Provincial
Assemblies of 1787,* and even their own reports,
show that as soon as they were created they
engaged in covert hostilities and often in open
war with the Intendants, who made use of their
* See Note 4C, Contests in the Provincial Assemblies of 1787.

360 THE PROVINCIAL ASSEMBLIES Book II.
superior experience only to embarrass the move
ments of their successors. Here an Assembly
complained that it was only with difficulty that
it could extract the most necessary documents
from the hands of the Intendant. There an In
tendant accused the members of the Assembly of
endeavouring to usurp functions, which, as he
said, the edicts had still left to himself. He
appealed to the Minister, who often returned no
answer, or merely expressed doubts, for the sub
ject was as new and as obscure to him as to every
one else. Sometimes the Assembly resolved that
the Intendant had administered badly, that the
roads which he had caused to be made were ill
planned or ill kept up, and that the corporate
bodies under his trust have gone to ruin. Fre
quently these assemblies hesitated in the obscu
rity of laws so imperfectly known ; they sent
great distances to consult one another, and con
stantly sent each other advice. The Intendant
of Auch asserted that he had the right to oppose
the will of the Provincial Assembly which had
authorised a parish to tax itself; the Assembly
maintained that this was a subject on which the
Intendant could not longer give orders, but only
advice, and it asks the Assembly of the lie de
France for its- opinion.

Chap. XIX. OF 1787. 361
Amidst all these recriminations and consulta
tions the course of administration was impeded
and often altogether stopped ; the vital func
tions of the country seemed almost suspended.
" The stagnation of affairs is complete," says the
Provincial Assembly of Lorraine, which in this
was only the echo of several others, " and all
good citizens are grieved at it."
On other occasions these new governing
bodies erred on the side of over activity and
excessive self-confidence ; they were filled with
a restless and uneasy zeal, which led them to
seek to change all the old methods suddenly,
and hastily to reform all the most ancient
abuses. Under the pretext that henceforth they
were to be the guardians of the towns, they
assumed the control of the municipal affairs ; in
a word, they put the finishing stroke to the
general confusion by aiming at universal im
provement. Now, when we consider what an immense
space the administrative powers of the State
had so long filled in France, the numerous in
terests which were daily affected by them, and
all that depended upon them or stood in need of
their co-operation ; when we reflect that it was
to the Government rather than to themselves

362 ADMINISTRATION OF Book II.
that private persons looked for the success of
their own affairs, for the encouragement of their
manufactures, to ensure their means of subsist
ence, to lay out and keep up their roads, to
maintain their tranquillity, and to preserve their
wealth ; we shall have some idea of the infinite
number of people who were personally injured
by the evils from which the administration of
the kingdom was suffering.
But it was in the villages that the defects of
the new organization were most strongly felt ;
in them it not only disturbed the course of
authority, it likewise suddenly changed the re
lative position of society, and brought every
class into collision.
When, in 1775, Turgot proposed to the King
to reform the administration of the rural dis
tricts, the greatest difficulty he encountered, as
he himself informs us, arose from the unequal
incidence of taxation : for how was it possible to
make men who were not all liable to contribute
in the same manner, and some of whom were
altogether exempt from taxation, act and de
liberate together on parochial affairs relating
chiefly to the assessment and the collection of
those very taxes and the purposes to which they

Chap. XIX. THE RURAL DISTRICTS. 363
were to be applied ? Every parish contained
nobles and the clergy who did not pay the taille,
peasants who were partially or wholly exempt,
and others who paid it all. It was as three
distinct parishes, each of which would have de
manded a separate administration. The difficulty
was insoluble.
Nowhere, indeed, Avas the inequality of taxa
tion more apparent than in the rural districts ;
nowhere was the population more effectually
divided into different groups frequently hostile
to one another. In order to make it possible to
give to the villages a collective administration
and a free government on a small scale, it would
have been necessary to begin by subjecting
all the inhabitants to an equal taxation and
lessening the distance by which the classes were
divided. This was not, however, the course taken when
the reform was begun in 1787. Within each
parish the ancient distinction of classes was
maintained, together with the inequality of
taxation, which was its principal token, but,
nevertheless, the whole administration was
placed in the hands of elective bodies. This
instantly led to very singular results.

364 ADMINISTRATION OF Book II.
When the electoral assembly met in order to
choose municipal officers, the Cure and the
Seigneur were not to appear ; they belonged, it
was alleged, to the orders of the nobility and the
clergy, and this was an occasion on which the
commonalty had principally to choose its repre
sentatives. When, however, the municipal body was once
elected, the Cure' and the Seigneur were members
of it by right ; for it would not have been de
cent altogether to exclude two such consider
able inhabitants from the government of the
parish. The Seigneur even presided over the
parochial representatives in whose election he
had taken no part, but in most of their proceed
ings he had no voice. For instance, when the
assessment and division of the taille were dis
cussed, the Cure and the Seigneur were not
allowed to vote, for were they not both ex
empted from this tax ? On the other hand, the
municipal council had nothing to do with their
capitation-tax, which continued to be regulated
by the Intendant according to j)eculiar forms.
For fear that this President, isolated as he
was from the body which he was supposed to
direct, should still exert an indirect influence

Chap. XIX. THE RURAL DISTRICTS. 365
prejudicial to the interests of the Order to which
he did not belong, it was demanded that the
votes of his own tenants should not count ; and
the Provincial Assemblies, being consulted on
this point, gave it as their opinion that this
omission was proper, and entirely conformable
to principle. Other persons of noble birth, who
might be inhabitants of the parish, could not
sit in the same plebeian corporation unless they
were elected by the peasants and then, as the
bye-laws carefully pointed out, they were only
entitled to represent the lower classes.
The Seigneur, therefore, only figured in this
Assembly in a position of absolute subjection to
his former vassals, who were all at once become
his masters ; he was their prisoner rather than
their chief. In gathering men together by such
means as these, it seemed as if the object was
not so much to connect them more closely with
each other as to render more palpable the differ
ences of their condition and the incompatibility
of their interests.
Was or was not the village Syndic still that
discredited officer whose duties no one would
accept but upon compulsion, or was the condi
tion of the Syndic raised with that of the com-

366 THE SYNDICS. Book II.
munity to which he belonged as its chief agent ? *
Even this question was not easily answered. I
have found the letter of a village bailiff, written
in 1788, in which he expresses his indignation
at having been elected to the office of Syndic,
" which was," he said, " contrary to all the
privileges of his other post." To this the
Comptroller-General replies that this individual
must be set right : that he must be made to
understand that he ought to be proud of the
choice of his fellow-citizens ; and that moreover
the new Syndics were not to resemble the local
officers who had formerly borne the same appel
lation, and that they would be treated with
more consideration by the Government.
On the other hand some of the chief inhabit
ants of parishes, and even men of rank, began at
once to draw nearer to the peasantry, as soon as
the peasantry had become a power in the State.
A landed proprietor exercising a heritable juris
diction over a village near Paris complained
that the King's Edict debarred him from taking
part, even as a mere inhabitant, in the proceed
ings of the Parochial Assembly. Others con-
* See Note "D.

Chap. XIX. PAROCHIAL ASSEMBLIES. 367
sented, from mere public spirit, as they said, to
accept even the office of Syndic.
It was too late : but as the members of the
higher classes of society in France thus began to
approach the rural population and to endeavour
to combine with the people, the people drew
back into the isolation to which it had been
condemned and maintained that position. Some
parochial assemblies refused to allow the Seig
neur of the place to take his seat among them :
others practised every kind of trick to evade the
reception of persons as low-born as themselves,
but who were rich. " We are informed," said the
Provincial Assembly of Lower Normandy, " that
several municipal bodies have refused to receive
among their members landowners not being
noble and not domiciled in the parish, though
these persons have an undoubted right to sit in
such meetings. Some other bodies have even
refused to admit farmers not having any pro
perty in. land in the parish."
Thus then the whole reform of these second
ary enactments was already novel, obscure, and
conflicting, before the principal laws affecting
the government of the State had yet been
touched at all. But all that was still untouched

368 ADMINISTRATIVE CONSTITUTION Book II.
was already shaken, and it could barely be said
that any law Avas in existence which had not
already been threatened with abolition or a
speedy change by the central Government itself.
This sudden and comprehensive renovation of
all the laws and all the administrative habits of
France, which preceded the political Revolution
of 1789, is a thing scarcely thought of at the
present time, yet it was one of the severest
perturbations which ever occurred in the history
of a great people. This first Revolution exer- •
cised a prodigious influence on the Revolution
which was about to succeed it, and caused the
latter to be an event different from all the
events of the same kind which had ever till
then happened in the world and from those
which have happened since.*
The first English Revolution, which over
threw the whole political constitution of this
country and abolished the monarchy itself,
touched but superficially the secondary laws of
the land and changed scarcely any of the cus
toms and usages of the nation. The administra
tion of justice and the conduct of public busi-
* See Note *E, Definition of Feudal Rights.

Chap. XIX. UNCHANGED IN FRANCE. 369.
ness retained their old forms and followed even
their past aberrations. In the heat of the Civil
Wars the twelve judges of England are said to
have continued to go the circuit twice a year.
Everything was not, therefore, abandoned to
agitation at the same time. The Revolution
was circumscribed in its effects, and English
society, though shaken at its apex, remained
firm upon its hase.
France herself has since 1789 witnessed
several revolutions which have fundamentally
ehanged the whole structure of her government.
Most of them have been very sudden and
brought about by force, in open violation of the
existing laws. Yet the disorder they have
eaused has never been either long or general ;
scarcely have they been felt by the bulk bf the
nation, sometimes they have been unperceived.
The reason is that since 1789 the administra
tive constitution of France has ever remained
standing amidst the ruins of her political con
stitutions. The person of the sovereign or the
form of the government was changed, but the
daily course of affairs was neither interrupted
nor disturbed : every man still remained sub
missive, in the small concerns which interested 2 B

370 RECURRENCE OF THE Book II.
himself, to the rules and usages with which he
was already familiar ; he was dependent on the
secondary powers to which it had always been
his custom to defer ; and in most cases he had
still to do with the very same agents ; for, if at
each Revolution the administration was decapi
tated, its trunk still remained unmutilated and
alive ; the same public duties were discharged
by the same publie officers, who carried with
them through all the vicissitudes of political
legislation the same temper and the same prac
tice. They judged and they administered in
the name of the Kingr afterwards in the name
of the Republic, at last in the name of the Em
peror. And when Fortune had again given
the same turn to her wheel, ' they began once
more to judge and to administer for the King,
for the Republic, and for the Emperor, the same
persons doing the same thing, for what is there
in the name of a master ? Their business was not
so much to be good citizens as to be good ad
ministrators and good judicial officers. As soon
as the first shock was over, it seemed, therefore,
as if nothing had stirred in the country.
But when the Revolution of 1789 broke out,
that part of the government which, though

Chap. XIX. SAME CHANGES. 371
subordinate, makes itself daily felt by every
member of the commonwealth, and which affects
his well-being more constantly and decisively
than anything else, had just been totally sub
verted : the administrative departments of
France had just changed all their agents and
revised all their principles. The State had not
at first appeared to receive a violent shock from
this immense reform ; but there was not a man
in the country who had not felt it in his own
particular sphere. Every one had been shaken
in his condition, disturbed in his habits, or put
to inconvenience in his calling. A certain order
still prevailed in the more important and
general affairs of the nation ; but already no
one knew whom to obey, whom to apply to, nor
how to proceed in those lesser and private
affairs which form the staple of social life. The
nation having lost its balance in all these de
tails, one more blow sufficed to upset it altoge
ther, and to produce the widest catastrophe and
the most frightful confusion that the world had
ever beheld.

2 b 2

372 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS Book II,

CHAPTER XX.
SHOWING THAT THE REVOLUTION PROCEEDED NATURALLY
FROM THE EXISTING STATE OF FRANCE.
I propose ere I conclude to gather up some of
the characteristics which I have already sepa
rately described, and to trace the Revolution,
proceeding as it were of itself from the state of
society in France which I have already pour-
trayed. If it be remembered that in France the feudal
system, though it still kept unchanged all
that could irritate or could injure, had most
effectually lost all that could protect or could be
of use, it will appear less surprising that the
Revolution, which was about virtually to abolish
this ancient constitution of Europe, broke forth
in France rather than elsewhere.
If it be observed that the French nobility,
after having lost its ancient political rights, and
ceased more than in any other country of feudal
Europe to govern and guide the nation, had,
nevertheless, not only preserved, hut consider-

Chap. XX. ON THE STATE OF FRANCE. 373
ably enlarged its pecuniary immunities, and the
advantages which the members of this body per
sonally possessed ; that whilst it had become a
subordinate class it still remained a privileged
and close body, less and less an aristocracy, as I
have said elsewhere, but more and more a caste ;
it will be no cause of surprise that the privi
leges of such a nobility had become so inexpli
cable and so abhorrent to the French people, as
to inflame the envy of the democracy to so
fierce a pitch that it is still burning in their
hearts. If, lastly, it be borne in mind that the French
nobility, severed from the middle classes which
they had ahenated from its bosom, from the
people whose heart was estranged from it, was
thus alone in the midst of the nation — apparently
the head of an army, but in reality a body of
officers without soldiers — it will be understood
how that which had stood erect for a thousand
years came to perish in a night.
I have shown how the King's government,
having abolished the franchises of the provinces,
and having usurped all local powers in three
quarters of the territory of France,- had thus
drawn all public affairs into its own-Jiands, the

374 STATE OF FRANCE Book II.
least as well as the greatest. I have shown, on
the other hand, how, by a necessary conse
quence, Paris had made itself the master of the
kingdom of which till then it had been the
capital, or rather had itself become the entire
country, These two facts, which were peculiar
to France, would alone suffice, if necessary, to
explain why a riot could fundamentally destroy
a monarchy which had for ages endured so
many violent convulsions, and which, on the eve
of its dissolution, still seemed unassailable even
to those who were about to overthrow it.
France being one of the states of Europe in
which all political life had been for the longest
time and most effectually extinguished, in which
private persons had most lost the usage of busi
ness, the habit of reading the course of events,
the experience of popular movements and almost
the notion of the people, it may readily be ima
gined how all Frenchmen came at once to fall
into a frightful Revolution without foreseeing
it ; those who were most threatened by that catas
trophe leading the way, and undertaking to open
and widen the path which led to it.
As there were no longer any free institutions,
or consequently any political classes, no living

Chap. XX. BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 375
political bodies, no Organised or disciplined
parties, and as, in the absence of all these re
gular forces, the direction of public opinion, when
public opinion came again into being, devolved
exclusively on the French philosophers, it might
be expected that the Revolution would be directed
less with a view to a particular state of facts, than
with reference to abstract principles and very
general theories : it might be anticipated that
instead of endeavouring separately to amend the
laws which were bad, all laws would be attacked,
and that an attempt would be made to substitute
for the ancient constitution of France an entirely
novel system of government, conceived by these
writers. The Church being naturally connected with
all the old institutions which were doomed to
perish, it could not be doubted that the Revo
lution would shake the religion of the country
when it overthrew the civil government ; where
fore it was impossible to foretell to what pitch of
extravagance these innovators might rush, deli
vered at once from all the restraints which re
ligion, custom, and law impose on the imagina
tion of mankind.
He who should thus have studied the state

376 STATE OF FRANCE Book II.
of France would easily have foreseen that no
stretch of audacity was too extreme to be at
tempted there, and no act of violence too great
to be endured. " What," said Burke, in one of
his eloquent pamphlets, "is there not a man
who can answer for the smallest district — nay
more, not one man who can answer for another ?
Every one is arrested in his own home without
resistance, whether he be accused of royalism, of
moderantism, or of anything else." But Mr.
Burke knew but little of the condition in which
that Monarchy which he regretted had aban
doned France to her new masters. The adminis
tration which had preceded the Revolution had
deprived the French both of the means and of
the desire of mutual assistance. When the Re
volution arrived, it would have been vain to seek
•in the greater part of France for any ten men
accustomed to act systematically and in concert,
or to provide for their own defence ; the Central
Power had alone assumed that duty, so that
when this Central Power had passed from the
hands of the Crown into those of an irresponsible
and sovereign Assembly, and had become as
terrible as it had before been good-natured, no
thing stood before it to stop or even to check

Chap. XX. BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 377
it for a moment. ¦ The same cause which had
Caused -the Monarchy to fall so easily had ren
dered everything possible after its fall had oc
curred. Never had toleration in religion, never had
mildness in authority, never had humanity and
good- will to mankind been more professed, and,
it seemed, more generally admitted, than in the
eighteenth century. Even the rights of war,
which are the last refuge of violence, had
become circumscribed and softened. Yet from
this relaxed state of manners a Revolution of
unexampled inhumanity was about to spring,
though this softening of the manners of France
was not a mere pretence, for no sooner had the
Revolution spent its fury than the same gentle
ness immediately pervaded all the laws of the
country, and penetrated into the habits of poli
tical society.
This contrast hetween the benignity of its
theories and the violence of its actions, which
was one of the strangest characteristics of the
French Revolution, will surprise no one who
has remarked that this Revolution had been
prepared by the most civilised classes of the
nation, and that it was accomplished by the most

378 THE FRENCH PEOPLE :— Book II.
barbarous and the most rude. The members of
those civilised classes having no pre-existing
bond of union, no habit of acting in concert,
no hold upon the people, the people almost in
stantly became supreriie when the old authori
ties of the State were annihilated. Where the
people did not actually assume the government
it gave its spirit to those who governed ; and if,
on the other hand, it be recollected what the
manner of life of that people had been under
the old Monarchy, it may readily be surmised
what it would soon become.
Even the peculiarities of its condition had
imparted to the French people several virtues
of no common occurrence. Emancipated early,
and long possessed of a part of the soil, isolated
rather than dependent, the French showed
themselves at once temperate and proud; sons
of labour, indifferent to the delicacies of life,
resigned to its greatest evils, firm in danger — a
simple and manly race who were about to fill
those mighty armies before which Europe was
to bow. But the same cause made them dan
gerous masters. As they had borne almost
alone for centuries all the burden of public
wrongs— as they had lived apart, feeding in

Chap. XX. THEIR CHARACTER. 379
silence on their prejudices, their jealousies, and
their hatreds, they are become hardened by the
rigour of their destiny, and capable both of en
during and of inflicting every evil.
Such was the state of the French people
when, laying hands on the government, it
undertook to complete the work of the Revo
lution. Books had supplied the theory ; the
people undertook the practical application, and
adapted the conceptions of those writers to the
impulse of their own passions.
Those who have attentively considered, in
these pages, the state of France in the eighteenth
century, must have remembered the birth and
development of two leading passions, which,
however, were not contemporaneous, and which
did not always tend to the same end.
The first, more deeply seated and proceeding
from a more remote source, was the violent and
inextinguishable hatred of inequality. This
passion, born and nurtured in presence of the
inequality it abhorred, had long impelled the
French with a continuous and irresistible force
to raze to their foundations all that remained
of the institutions of the Middle Ages, and
upon the ground thus cleared to construct a

380 FRANCE IN 1789. Book II.
society in which men should be as much alike
and their conditions as equal as human nature
admits of.
The second, of a more recent date and a less
tenacious root, led them to desire to live, not
only equal, but free.
At the period immediately preceding the Re
volution of 1789, these two passions were equally
sincere and appeared to be equally intense.
At the outbreak of the Revolution they met and
combined; for a moment they were intimately
mingled, they inflamed each other by mutual
. contact, and kindled at once the whole heart of
France. Such was 1789, a time of inexperience
no doubt, but a time of generosity, of enthusiasm,
of virility, and of greatness — a time of immortal
memory, towards which the eyes of mankind
will turn with admiration and respect long after
those who witnessed it and we ourselves shall
have disappeared. Then, indeed, the French were
sufficiently proud of their cause and of themselves
to believe that they might be equal in freedom.
Amidst their democratic institutions they there
fore everywhere placed free institutions. Not
only did they crush to the dust all that effete
legislation which divided men into castes, cor-

Chap. XX. FREEDOM IN 1789. 381
porations, and classes, and which rendered their
rights even more unequal than their conditions,
but they shattered by a single blow those other
laws, more recently imposed by the authority of
the Crown, which, had deprived the French na
tion of the free enjoyment of its own powers,
and had placed by the side of every Frenchman
the Government, as his preceptor, his guardian,
and, if need be, his oppressor. Centralisation
fell with absolute government.
But when that vigorous generation, which
had commenced the Revolution, was destroyed
or enervated, as commonly happens to any ge
neration which engages in such enterprizes
— when, following the natural course of events
of this nature, the love of freedom had been
damped and discouraged by anarchy and popu
lar tyranny, and the bewildered nation be
gan to grope after a master — absolute govern
ment found prodigious facilities for recovering
and consolidating its authority, and these were
easily discovered by the genius of the man who
was to continue the Revolution and to destroy it.
France under the old Monarchy had, in fact,
contained a whole system of institutions of
modern date, which, not being adverse to social

382 RESTORATION OF ABSOLUTE POWER Book II.
equality, could easily have found a place in the
new state of society, but which offered remark
able opportunities to despotism. These were
sought for amidst the ruins of all other institu
tions, and they were found there. These insti
tutions had formerly given birth to habits, to
passions, and to opinions, which tended to retain
men in a state of division and obedience : and
such were the institutions which were restored
and set to work. Centralisation was disentangled
from the ruins and re-established ; and as, whilst
this system rose once more, everything by which
it had before been limited was destroyed, from the
bowels of that nation which had just overthrown
monarchy a power suddenly came forth more
extended, more comprehensive, more absolute
than that which had ever been exercised by any
of the French kings. This enterprize appeared
strangely audacious, and its success unparalleled,
because men were thinking of what they saw,
and had forgotten what they had seen. The
Dominator fell, but all that was most substantial
in his work remained standing ; his government
had perished, but the administration survived ;
and every time that an attempt has since been
made to strike down absolute power, all that has

Chap. XX. BY CENTRALISATION AND EQUALITY. 383
been done is to place a head of Liberty on a
servile body.
Several times, from the commencement of the
Revolution to the present day, the passion of
liberty has been seen in France to expire, to
revive — and then to expire again, again to revive.
Thus will it long be with a passion so inexperi
enced and ill-directed, so easily discouraged,
alarmed, and vanquished ; a passion so superficial
and so transient. During the whole of this
period, the passion for equality has never ceased
to occupy that deep-seated place in the hearts of
the French people which it was the first to seize :
it clings to the feelings they cherish most fondly.
Whilst the love of freedom frequently changes
its aspect, wanes and waxes, grows or declines
with the course of events, that other passion is
still the same, ever attracted to the same object
with the same obstinate and indiscriminating
ardour, ready to make any sacrifice to those
who allow it to sate its desires, and to furnish to
a government which will favour and will flatter
it, the habits, the opinions, and the laws which
Despotism requiresto enable it to reign.
The French Revolution will ever be wrapped
iri clouds and darkness to those who direct their

384 CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH NATION. Book II,
attention to itself alone. The only light that can
illuminate its course must be sought in the times
which preceded it. Without a clear percep
tion of the former society of France, of its laws,
of its defects, of its prejudices, of its littleness, of
its greatness, it is impossible to comprehend
what the French have been doing in the sixty
years which have followed its dissolution : but
even this perception will not suffice without pe
netrating to the very quick in the character of
this nation.
When I consider this nation in itself it
strikes me as more extraordinary than any
event in its own annals. Was there ever any
nation on the face of the earth so full of con
trasts and so extreme in all its actions ; more
swayed by sensations, less by principles ; led
therefore always to do either worse or better
than was expected of it, sometimes below the
common level of humanity, sometimes greatly
above it ; — a people so unalterable in its leading
instincts, that its likeness may still be recognised
in descriptions written two or three thousand
years ago, but at the same time so mutable in
its daily thoughts and in its tastes as to be
come a spectacle and an amazement to itself, and

Chap. XX. CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH NATION. 385
to be as much surprised as the rest of the world
at the sight of what it has done ; — a people be
yond all others the child of home and the slave
of habit, when left to itself, but when once torn
against its will from the. native hearth and from
its daily pursuits, ready to go to the end of the
world and to dare all things ; indocile by tempe
rament, yet accepting the arbitrary and even the
violent rule of a sovereign more readily than the
free and regular government of the chief citizen ;
to-day the declared enemy of all obedience, to
morrow serving with a sort of passion which
the nations best adapted for servitude cannot
attain : guided by a thread as long as no one
resists, ungovernable when the example of re
sistance has once been given : always deceiving
its masters, who fear it either too little or too
much : never so . free that it is hopeless to en
slave it, or so enslaved that it may not break
the yoke again ; apt for aU things, but excelling
only in war ; adoring chance, force, success,
splendour and noise, more than trae glory;
more capable of heroism than of virtue, of
genius than of good sense, ready to conceive
immense designs rather than to consummate
great undertakings ; the most brilliant and the
2 c

386 CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH NATION. Book II.
most dangerous of the nations of Europe and
that best fitted to become by turns an object of
admiration, of hatred, of pity, of terror, but
never of indifference !
Such a nation could alone give birth to a
Revolution so sudden, so radical, so impetuous
in its course, and yet so full of re-actions, of
contradictory incidents and of contrary examples.
Without the reasons I have related the French
would never have made the Revolution ; but
it must be confessed that all these reasons united
would not have sufficed to account for such a
Revolution anywhere else but in France.
I am arrived then at the threshold of this
great event. My intention is not to go beyond
it now, though perhaps I may do so soon. I
shall then proceed to consider it not only in its
causes but itself, and I shall venture finally to
pass a judgment on the state of society which it
has produced.

Sup. Chap. THE PAYS D'ETATS. 387

SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER.
ON THE PAYS D'ETATS, AND ESPECIALLY ON THE CONSTI
TUTIONS OF LANGUEDOC
It is not my intention minutely to investigate in
this place how public business was carried on in
each of the provinces called Pays d'Etats, which
were still in existence at the outbreak of the Re
volution. I wish only to indicate the number of
them ; to point out those in which local life was
still most active ; to show what were the rela
tions of these provinces with the administration
of the Crown ; how far they formed an exception
to the general rules I have previously estab
lished ; how far they fell within those rules ;
and lastly, to show by the example of one of
these provinces what they might all have easily
become. Estates had existed in most of the provinces of
France — that is, each of them had been adminis
tered under the King's government by the gens
des trois etats, as they were then called, which
2 c 2

388 PROVINCIAL CONSTITUTION OF EUROPE. Sup. Chap.
meant the representatives of the Clergy, the
Nobility, and the Commons. This provincial
constitution, like most of the other political in
stitutions of the Middle Ages, occurred, with the
same features, in almost all the civilized parts of
Europe — in all those parts, at least, into which
Germanic manners and ideas had penetrated. In
many of the provinces of Germany these States
subsisted down to the French Revolution ; in
those provinces in which they had been pre
viously destroyed they had only disappeared in
the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. Everywhere, for two hundred years,
the sovereigns had carried on a clandestine or
an open warfare against them. Nowhere had
they attempted to improve this institution with
the progress of time, but only to destroy and
deform it whenever an opportunity presented
itself and when they could not do worse.
In France, in 1789, these States only existed
in five provinces of a certain extent and in some
insignificant districts. Provincial liberty could,
in truth, only be said to exist in two provinces
— in Brittany and in Languedoc : everywhere
else the institution had entirely lost it's virility,
and was reduced to a mere shadqw.

Sup. Chap. THE STATES OF LANGUEDOC. 389
I shall take the case of Languedoc separately,
and devote to it in this place a closer exami
nation. Languedoc was the most extensive and the
most populous of all the pays d' etats. It con
tained more than two thousand parishes, or,
as they were then called, " communities," and
nearly two millions of inhabitants. It was, be
sides, the best ordered and the most prosperous
of all these provinces as well as the largest.
Languedoc is, therefore, the fairest specimen of
what provincial liberty might be under the old
French monarchy, and to what an extent, even
in the districts where it appeared strongest, it
had been subjected to the power of the Crown.
In Languedoc the Estates could only assemble
upon the express order of the King, and under a
writ of summons addressed by the King indivi
dually every year to the members of whom they
were composed, which caused one of the mal
contents of the time to say, " Of the three bodies
composing our estates, one — that of the clergy
— sits at the nomination of the King, since he
names to the bishoprics, and benefices ; and the
two others may be supposed to be so, since an
order of the Court may prevent any member

390 THE STATES OF LANGUEDOC. Sup. Chap.
it pleases from attending the Assembly, and this
without exiling or prosecuting him, by merely
not summoning him."
The Estates were not only to meet, but to be
prorogued on certain days appointed by the
King. The customary duration of their session
had been fixed at forty days by an Order in
Council. The King was represented in the
Assembly by commissioners, who had always
free access when they required it, and whose
business it was to explain the will of the Govern
ment. The Assembly was, moreover, strictly
held in restraint. They could take no resolution
of any importance, they could determine on no
financial measure at all, until their deliberations
had been approved by an Order in Council ; for
a tax, a loan, or a suit at law they required
the express permission of the King. All their
Standing Orders, down to that which related to
the order of their meetings, had to be authorized
before they became operative. The aggregate
of their receipts and expenditure, their budget,
as it would now be called, was subjected every
year to the same control.
The Central Power, moreover, exercised in
Languedoc the same political rights which were

Sup. Chap. ADMINISTRATION OF LANGUEDOC. 391
everywhere else acknowledged to belong to it.
The laws which the Crown was pleased to pro
mulgate, the general ordinances it was continu
ally passing, the general measures of its policy,
were applicable there as well as in the rest of
the kingdom. The Crown exercised there all
the natural functions of government; it had
there the same police and the same agents ;
there, as well as everywhere else, it created nu
merous new public officers, whose places the
province was compelled to buy up at a large
price. Languedoc was governed, like the other pro
vinces of France, by an Intendant. This In
tendant had, in 'each district, his Subdelegates,
who corresponded with the heads of the parishes
and directed them. The Intendant exercised the
tutelage of the administration as completely as
in the pays detection. The humblest village in
the gorges of the Cevennes was precluded from
making the smallest outlay until it had been
authorized by an Order of the King's Council
from Paris. That part of the judicial adminis
tration which is now denominated in France the
contentieux administratif, or the litigated ques
tions referred to the Council of State, was not

392 RIGHTS OF THE STATES Sup.Uhap.
only not less, but more comprehensive than in
the remainder of France. The Intendant de
cided, in the first instance, all questions relating
to the public ways ; he judged all suits relating
to roads ; and, in general, he pronounced on all
the matters in which the Government was, or
conceived itself to be, interested. The Govern
ment extended the same protection as else
where to all its agents against the rash prose
cutions of the citizens whom they might have
oppressed. What then did Languedoc possess which dis
tinguished it from the other provinces of the
kingdom, and which caused them to envy its
institutions ? Three things sufficed to render
it entirely different from the rest of France.
I. An Assembly, composed of men of station,
looked up to by the population, respected by the
Crown, to which no officer of the Central Power,
or, to use the phraseology then in use, "no
officer of the King," could belong, and in which,
every year, the special interests of the province
were freely and gravely discussed. The mere
fact that the royal administration was placed
near this source of light caused its privileges to
be very differently exercised; and though its

Sup. Chap. IN LANGUEDOC. 393
agents and its instincts were the same, its results
in no degree resembled what they were else
where. II. In Languedoc many public works were
executed at the expense of the King and his
agents. There were other public works, for
which the Central Government provided the
funds and partly directed the execution, but the
greater part of them were executed at the ex
pense of the province alone. When the King
had once approved the plan and authorized the
estimates for these last-mentioned works, they
were executed by officers chosen by the Estates,
and under the inspection of commissioners taken
from this Assembly.
III. Lastly, the province had the right of
levying itself, and in the manner it preferred, a
part of the royal taxes and all the rates which
were imposed by its own authority for its own
wants. Let us see the results which Languedoc con
tinued to extract from these privileges: they
deserve a minute attention.
Nothing is more striking in the other parts
of France— the pays d' election — than the almost
complete absence of local charges. The general

394 PUBLIC WORKS Sup. Chap.
imposts were frequently oppressive, but a pro
vince spent nothing on itself. In Languedoc,
on the contrary, the annual expenditure of the
province on public works was enormous: in
1780 it exceeded two millions of livres.
The Central Government was sometimes
alarmed at witnessing so vast an outlay. It
feared that the province, exhausted by such an
effort, would be unable to acquit the share of the
taxes due to the State ; it blamed the Estates for
not moderating this expenditure. I have read a
document, framed by the Assembly, in answer
to these animadversions : the passages I am about
to transcribe from it will depict, better than all
I could say, the spirit which animated this small
government. It is admitted in this statement that the pro
vince has commenced and is still carrying on
immense public works; but, far from offering
any apology for this proceeding, it is added that,
saving the opposition of the Crown, these works
will be still further extended and persevered in.
The province had already improved or rectified
the channel of the principal- rivers within its
territory, and it was then engaged in adding to
the Canal of Burgundy, dug under Louis XIV.,

Sup. Chap. IN LANGUEDOC. 395
but already insufficient, a prolongation which
passing through Lower Languedoc, should pro
ceed by Cette and Agen to the Rhone. The
port of Cette had been opened to trade, and was
maintained at great cost. All these expenses
had, as was observed, a national rather than a
provincial character ; yet the province, as the
party chiefly interested, had taken them on it
self. It was also engaged in draining and re
storing to agriculture the marshes of Aigues
Mortes. Roads had been the object of its
peculiar care : all those which connect the pro
vince with the rest of the kingdom had been
opened or put in good order; even the cross
roads between the towns and villages of Lan
guedoc had been repaired. All these different
roads were excellent even in winter, and formed
the greatest contrast with the hard, uneven, and
ill-constructed roads which were to be found in
most of the adjacent provinces, such as Dauphiny,
Quercy, and the government of Bordeaux, all
pays d 'election, it was remarked. On this point
the Report appeals to the opinion of travellers
and traders ; and this appeal was just, for Arthur
Young, when he visited the country ten years
afterwards, put on his notes, " Languedoc, pays

396 LANGUEDOC— ROADS AND CANALS. Sup. Chap.
d' etats : good ' roads, made without compulsory
labour." "If the King would allow it," this Report con
tinued, " the States will do more : they will under
take the improvement of the cross-roads in the
villages, which are not less interesting than the
others. For if produce cannot be removed from
the barns of the grower to market, what use is
it that it can be sent to a distance ? " " The
doctrine of the States on questions of public
works has always been," they say, " that it is
not the grandeur of these undertakings but their
utility that must be looked to." Rivers, canals,
roads which give' value to all the produce of the
soil and of manufactures, by enabling them to
be conveyed at all times and at little cost wher
ever they are wanted, and by means of which
commerce can penetrate to every part of the
province — these are things which enrich a
country, whatever they may cost it. Besides,
works of this nature, undertaken in moderation
at the same time,- in various parts of the country,
and somewhat equally distributed, keep up the
rate of wages, and stand in lieu of relief to the
poor. " The King has not needed to establish
charitable workhouses at his cost in Languedoc,

Sup. Chap. DIVISION OF THE PROVINCE. 397
as has been done in other parts of France," said
the province, with honest pride ; " we do not
ask for that favour ; the useful works we our
selves carry on every year supersede such estab
lishments, and give to all our people productive
labour." The more I have studied the general regula
tions established by the States of Languedoc,
with the permission of the King (though
generally not originating with the Crown), iri
that portion of the public administration which
was left in their hands, the more I have been
struck with the wisdom, the equity, and the
moderation they display ; the more superior do
the proceedings of the local government appear
in comparison with all I have found in the
districts administered by the King alone.
The province was divided into " communities "
(towns or villages) ; into administrative districts,
called dioceses ; and, lastly, into three great de
partments called stewardries. Each of these
parts had a distinct representation, and a little
separate government of its own, which acted
under the guidance either of the Estates or of
the Crown. If it be a question of public works
which interest one of these small political bodies,

398 RATES FOR PUBLIC WORKS. Sup. Chap.
they are only to be undertaken at the request of
the interested parties. If the improvements of
a community are of advantage to the diocese,
the diocese contributed to the expense in a cer
tain proportion. If the stewardry was interested,
the stewardry contributed likewise. So again
these several divisions were all to assist the
townships, even for the completion of under
takings of local interest, if they were necessary
and above its strength, for, said the States fre
quently, " the fundamental principle of our con
stitution is that all parts of Languedoc are
reciprocally bound together, and ought success
ively to help each other."
The works executed by the province were to
be carefully prepared beforehand, and first sub
mitted to the examination of the lesser bodies
which were to contribute to them. They were
all paid for : forced labour was unknown. I
have observed that in the other parts of
France — the pays d' election — the land taken from
its owners for public works was always ill and
tardily paid for, and often not paid for at all.
This was one of the great grievances complained
of by the Provincial Assemblies when they were
convoked in 1787. In some cases the possibility

Sup. Chap. SYSTEM OF PUBLIC WORKS. 399
of liquidating debts of this nature had been
taken away, for the object taken had been
altered or destroyed before the valuation. In
Languedoc every inch of ground taken from its
owner was to be carefully valued before the
works were begun, and paid for in the first year
ofthe execution.
The regulations of these Estates relating to
different public works, from which these details
are copied, seemed so well conceived that even
the Central Government admired, though with
out imitating them. The King's Council, after
having sanctioned the application of them, caused
them to be printed at the royal press, and to be
transmitted to all the Intendants of France as a
document to be consulted.
What I have said of public works is a fortiori
applicable to that other not less important
portion of the provincial administration which
related to the levy of taxes. In this respect,
more . particularly, the contrast was so great
between the kingdom and the provinces that it
is difficult to believe they formed part of the
same empire.
I have had occasion to say elsewhere that the
methods of proceeding used in. Languedoc for

400 FINANCES OF LANGUEDOC. Sup. Chap.
the assessment and collection of the tattles were
in part the same as are now employed in France
in the levy of the public taxes. Nor shall I
here revert to this subject, merely adding that
the province was so attached to its own superior
methods of proceeding, that when new taxes
were imposed by the Crown, the States of Lan
guedoc never hesitated to purchase at a very
high price the right of levying them in their
own manner and by their own agents exclu
sively. In spite of all the expenses which I have
successively enumerated, the finances of Lan
guedoc were nevertheless in such good order,
and its credit so well established, that the Central
Government often had recourse to it, and bor
rowed, in the name of the province, sums of
money which would not have been lent on such
favourable terms to the Government itself.
Thus Languedoc borrowed, on its own security,
but for the King's service, in the later years of
the monarchy, 73,200,000 livres, or nearly three
millions sterling.
The Government and the Ministers of the
Crown looked, however, with an unfavourable
eye on these provincial liberties, Richelieu had

Sup. Chap. SALE OF MUNICIPAL OFFICES. 401
first mutilated and afterwards abolished them.
The spiritless and indolent Louis XIII., who
loved nothing, detested them ; the horror he
felt for all provincial privileges was such, said
Boulainvilliers, that his anger was excited by
the mere name of them. It is hard to sound the
hatred of feeble souls for whatever compels them
to exert themselves. All that they retain of
manhood is turned in that direction, and they
exhibit strength in their animosity, however
weak they may be in everything else. For
tunately the ancient constitution of Languedoc
was restored under the minority of Louis XIV.,
who consequently respected it as his own work.
Louis XV. suspended it for a couple of years,
but afterwards allowed it to go on.
The creation of municipal offices for sale
exposed the constitution of the province to
dangers less direct, but not less formidable.
That pernicious institution not only destroyed
the constitution ofthe towns ; it tended to vitiate
that of the provinces. I know not whether the
deputies of the commons in the Provincial As
semblies had ever been elected ad hoc, but at
any rate they had long ceased to be so : the
municipal officers of the towns were ex officio the
2 t>

402 • SALE OF MUNICIPAL OFFICES. Sup. Chap.
sole representatives of the burgesses and the
people in those bodies.
This absence bf a direct constituency acting
with reference to the affairs of the day, was but
little remarked as long as the towns freely
elected their own magistrates by universal suf
frage, and generally for a very limited period.
Thus the mayor, the council, or the syndic
represented the wishes of the population in the
Hall of the Estates as faithfully as if they had
been elected by their fellow-citizens for that
purpose. But very different was the case with
a civic officer who had purchased for money the
right of governing. Such an officer represented
no one but himself, or, at best, the petty interests
or the petty passions of his own coterie. Yet
this magistrate by contract retained the powers
which had been exercised by his elected prede1
cessors. The character of the institution was;
therefore, immediately changed. The nobles
and the clergy, instead of having the repre
sentatives of the people sitting with them or
opposite to them in the Provincial Assembly,
met there none but a few isolated, timid, and
powerless burgesses, and thus the Commons occu
pied a more subordinate place in the governi

Sup. Chap. TAILLE ON REAL ESTATE. 403
ment at 'the very time when they were every
day becoming richer and stronger in society.
This was not the case in Languedoc, the pro
vince having always taken care to buy up these
offices as fast as they were established by the
Crown. The loan contracted by the States for
this purpose, in the year 1773 only, amounted
to more than four millions of livres.
Other causes of still greater power had con
tributed to infuse a new spirit into these ancient
institutions, and to give to the States of Lan
guedoc an incontestable superiority over those of
all the other provinces.
In this province, as in a great portion of the
south of France, the taille was real and not per
sonal — that is to say, it was regulated by the
value of property, and not by the personal
condition of the proprietor. Some lands had, no
doubt, the privilege of not paying this tax : these
lands had, in former times, belonged to the no
bility, but, by the progress of time and of
capital, it had happened that a portion of this
property had fallen into the hands of non-noble
holders. On the other hand, the nobles had
becoirie the holders of many lands which were.
liable to the taille. The privilege of exemption,
2 d 2

404 CLERGY OF THE PROVINCE. Sup. Chap.
being thus removed from persons to things, was
doubtless more abused ; but it was less felt, be
cause, though still irksome, it was no longer
humiliating. Not being indissolubly connected
with the idea of a class, not investing any class
with interests altogether alien and opposed to
those of the other classes, such a privilege no
longer opposed a barrier to the co-operation of
all in public affairs. In Languedoc especially,
more than in any other part of France, all
classes did so co-operate, and this on a footing of
complete equality.
In Brittany the landed gentry of the province
had the right of all appearing in their own
persons at the States, which made these Assem
blies in some sort resemble the Polish Diets. In
Languedoc the nobles only figured at the States
of the province by their representatives : twenty-
three of them sat for the whole body. The
clergy also sat in the person of the twenty-three
bishops of the province, and it deserves especial
observation that the towns had as many votes as
the two upper orders.
As the Assembly sat in one house and the
orders did not vote separately, but conjointly,
the commons naturally acquired much import-

Sup. Chap. CLERGY OF THE PROVINCE. 405
ance, and their spirit gradually infused itself
into the whole body. Nay, more, the three
magistrates, who, under the name of Syndics-
General, were charged, in the name of the
States, with the ordinary management of the
business, were almost always lawyers, — rthat is
to say, commoners. The nobility was strong
enough to maintain its rank, but no longer strong
enough to reign alone. The clergy, though con
sisting to a great extent of men of gentle birth,
lived on excellent terms with the commons ;
they eagerly adopted most of the plans of that
Order, and laboured in conjunction with it to
increase the material prosperity of the whole
community, by encouraging trade and manufac
tures, thus placing, their own great knowledge
of mankind and their singular dexterity in the
conduct of affairs at the service of the people.
A priest was almost always chosen to proceed to
Versailles to discuss with the Ministers of the
Crown the questions which sometimes set at
variance the royal authority and that of the
States. It might be said that throughout the
last century Languedoc was administered by the
Commons, who were controlled by the Nobles
and assisted by the Bishops.

406 CONSTITUTION OF LANGUEDOC. Sup. Chap.
Thanks to this peculiar constitution of Lan
guedoc, the spirit of the age was enabled peace
fully to pervade this ancient institution, and to
modify it altogether without at all destroying it.
It might have been so everywhere else in
France. A small portion of the perseverance
and the exertions which the sovereigns of France
employed for the abolition or the dislocation of
the Provincial Estates would have sufficed to
perfect them in this manner, and to adapt them
to all the wants of modern civilization, if those
sovereigns had ever had any other aim than to
become and to remain the masters of France.

Note A. ( 407 )

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

Note ( A.) — Page 25, line 2.
THE POWER OP THE ROMAN LAW IN GERMANY.  THE MANNER
IN WHICH IT HAD SUPERSEDED THE GERMANIC LAW.
Towards the end of the Middle Ages the Eoman law be
came the principal and almost the sole study of the Ger
man 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 Eoman law. They applied the Eoman law to every
thing 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 recognizable, 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 Eoman in fact.
I find reason to believe that owing to these efforts of the
legists, the condition of ancient Germanic society deterio
rated 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 assi-

408 ROMAN LAW Note A.
milations of their condition to that of the Eoman bondsmen
or eniphyteotes.
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 Wurtemberg.
Prom 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 Eoman 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 Tubingen in 1514, and at those
which succeeded it, the representatives of feudalism and
the deputies of the towns made all kinds of representa
tions 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 ad
vantage 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 com
posed 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 Eoman 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 legis
lation to subsist.

Note A. SUPERSEDES GERMANIC LAW. 409
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 produc
tions 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
Eoman 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 intro
duced 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 Eoman law,
a law of servitude, was admirably fitted to second their
views. The Eoman law which everywhere perfected civil society
tended everywhere to degrade political society, inasmuch
as it was chiefly the production of a highly civilized 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.

410 FREE TOWNS OF GERMANY. Notes B, 0.
Note ( B.)— Page 27, line 24.
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 consti
tution 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 contem
porary events must have been produced by some general
cause, whieh 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. Eor a hundred and fifty
years kings and princes enjoyed a sort of golden age, dur
ing 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 (C.)— Page 29, line 16.
decay of the free towns of germany. — imperial towns
(reichstadte).
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 civilization. In
the north and in the south of Germany especially, they had
ended by forming independent confederations with the

NoteC. FREE TOWNS OF GERMANY. 41 1
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 sove
reignty within narrower and narrower limits. In the eigh
teenth 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 burthened with debts,
partly because they continued to be charged for the Impe
rial 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 constitu
tion; 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 : every
thing 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 civilization; the arts left

412 ABOLITION OF SERFDOM. Note D.
them, and went to shine in the new towns created by the
sovereigns, and representing modern society. Trade for
sook them— their ancient energy and patriotic vigour dis
appeared. Hamburg almost alone still remained a great
centre of wealth and intelligence, but this was owing to
causes quite peculiar to herself.

Note ( D.)— Page 38, line 14.
DATE OF THE ABOLITION OF SERFDOM IN GERMANY.
The following table will show that the abolition of serf
dom in most parts of Germany took 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, Frederic 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 in
tended 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 erbunterthdnigkeit.
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. Wurtemberg, from 1817.
14. In Mecklenberg, from 1820.

Notes E, F. CODE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT. 413
1 5. In Oldenburgh, 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 miti
gated form of erbunterthanigkeit, lasted till 1811.

Note ( E.)— Page 39, line 5.
A part of the countries which are now German, such
as Brandenburg, Prussia proper, and Silesia, were origi
nally 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 (F.) — Page 40, line 15.
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 influ
ence 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 rela
tions 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 gene
ral principles expressed in a very philosophical and abstract
form, and resembling in many respects those which abound

414 CODE OF Note F:
in the Declaration of the Eights of Man in the French Con
stitution of 1791.
It proclaims that the good of the State and of its inhabi
tants 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 indivi
duals 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 ofthe
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 natu
ral 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 legis
lator, instead of deducing from them, as in the code of 1791,"
the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people and the or
ganization 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 belong
ing 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 In
troduction, whose duty it is to bring forth the general
good, which is the sole object of society, is authorised td

NoteF. FREDERICK THE GREAT. 415
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 crimi
nal 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 obliga
tions, 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 func
tionaries 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 here
ditary 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 con
firmed afresh by the code ; it may even be said that they
were confirmed in opposition to the code, since it states

416 CODE OF Note F.
that where the local customs and the new legislation dif
fered, the former were to be followed. It formally declares
that the State cannot destroy any of these privileges except
by purchasing them and following the 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 (erbunterthdnigheif) was still a kind of ser
vitude, as may be seen by reading the text.
In the same code the burgher remained carefully sepa
rated from the peasant ; between the burghers and the no
bility 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 re
mained in a position of inferiority towards them. They
could not in general purchase noble estates (fitter giiter), or
fill the highest places in the civil service. Moreover they
were not hoffdhig, that is to say, they could not be pre
sented 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 en
lightened and more influential, and the burgher function
aries 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 Eevolution, prepared the way for
the approbation wit.'i which it was at first received in Ger
many. 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

Note F. FREDERICK THE GREAT. 417
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 Eeyolution 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 compe
tent to fill. They alone might possess noble estates, create
entails, enjoy the privileges of sporting and of the admi
nistration 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 authorized 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 Wil
liam 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 pro
duction, and accordingly delayed its publication until 1 794,
was only reassured, it is said, by the excellent penal "regu
lations by means of which this code corrected the bad prin
ciples which it contained. Never, indeed, has anything
been contrived, even since that time, more perfect in its
2 E

418 CODE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT. Note F.
kind ; not only were revolts and conspiracies to be punished
with the greatest severity, but even disrespectful criticisms
of the acts of 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. Eidottos, masquerades, and other amusements,
were declared to be public assemblages, and must be au
thorized by the police; the same thing held good with
respect to dinners in public places. The liberty of the
press and of speech were completely subjected to an ar
bitrary surveillance ; the carrying of fire-arms was also
prohibited. In the midst of this production, of which half was bor
rowed from the Middle Ages, there appear regulations,
which, by their extreme spirit of centralization, actually
border on socialism. Thus, it is laid down that it is incum
bent 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, accord
ing to their strength and capacity. The State was to form
establishments for the relief of the poverty of its citizens;
the State, moreover, was authorized 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 characterize this work of the Great Frede
rick, 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 suf
fered 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

Note G. ERBGUTER. 419
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 (G.)— Page 44, line 12.
LANDS OF THE PEASANTS IN GERMANY.
Amongst the peasantry there were many families who
were not only free men and owners of land, but whose
estates formed a perpetual entail. The estate they pos
sessed 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 cer
tain portion to his brothers and sisters.
These Erbgiiter of the peasantry were more or less com
mon 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 FJrbgilter.
But in the greater part of Germany this kind of posses
sion 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.

2 E 2

420 NOBILITY— LANDS— THE RHINE. Note H.

Note (H.)— Page 44, line 16.
1'OSlTlON 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 no
bility existed, its administrative powers were much re
stricted ; 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 ascer
tained from other sources that in the same electorate pro
perty 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 wliich
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.

Notes I, K. USURY LAWS— TITHES. 421
Note (I.) — Page 45, line 22.
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 ob
served 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 ordi
nary 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 contri
buted greatly on the one hand to the subdivision of the soil,
and on the other to burthening the small proprietors with
a multitude of perpetual services.

Note (K.)— Page 51, line 12.
EXAMPLE OF THE PASSIONS EXCITED BY THE TITHES TEN YEARS
BEFORE THE REVOLUTION.
In 1779 an obscure lawyer of Luce complained in very
bitter language, which already had a flavour of the revo
lution, that the cures 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.

422 CLERGY— FEUDAL RIGHTS. Notes L, M, N.

Note (L.)— Page 51, line 20.
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 tarif duties on articles of consumption, and on the
materials needed for the repairs of their buildings. They
pleaded that as the tarif duties represented the taille, and
as they were exempt from the tailh, 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 (M.) — Page 52, line 6.
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. Genevieve, the barony and the
seignorial mill of Bas-du-Eoule, 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 (N.)— Page 56, line 15.
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 Bevo-
lution by a farmer to the Intendant himself. It cannot be
quoted as an authority for the truth of the facts which it

Note N. FEUDAL RIGHTS. 423
alleges, but it is a perfect indication of the state of feel
ing among the class to which its writer belonged.
" Although we have few nobles in this part of the coun
try," says he, " you must not suppose that the land is any
the less burthened 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 Noirmou-
tiers, 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 manufac
tured 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,
proces-verbaux (contrdle), verification and registration (insinu
ation), hundredth denier, eight sous in the livre, &c. : and

424

FEUDAL RIGHTS. Note N.

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 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 authorized the redemp
tion of rent-charges on property in towns and not have in
cluded 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 re
demption 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 ex
ample of this. The- Intendant of our new archbishop on
his arrival gave notice to quit to all the farmers of his pre
decessor 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 intend
ant 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 cri
tical time of the year on account of the difficulty of pro
curing food for cattle, without knowing where to go for
shelter. The King of Prussia could have done no worse."

Note 0. FEUDALISM— ITS EFFECTS. 425
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 abovo them found
means to forward their own interests.

Note (0.)— Page 56, line 23.
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 in
heritance by the inequality of partition, a principle which
had even reached down to the middle classes in certain pro
vinces, 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 pro
perty 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 corvee ; on the tenant in a thousand dif
ferent ways, amongst others by the banalites (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

426 PUBLIC CHARITY— FAVOURITISM. Note P.
stroke to the feudal system the Eevolution made itself seen
and felt, so to speak, at all the most sensitive points of
private interest.

Note (P.)— Page 72, line 22.
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 eigh
teenth 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 generalite', 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 generalite, so that the
Archbishop and the Intendant might each distribute half.
Both were agreed that the distribution should be made by
the cures. There was no question of entrusting it to the
seigneurs or to the syndics. We see, from the correspon
dence 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 proteges, and especially to
cause the greater part of it to be distributed in the parishes
belonging to the Duchess of Eochechouart. On the other
hand, we find among these papers letters from great noble
men 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.

Notes Q, R, REGULATION OF TRADES. 427
Note (Q.)— Page 72, line 22.
EXAMPLE OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THIS LEGAL CHARITY WAS
ADMINISTERED.
We find in the report made to the provincial assembly
of Upper Guyenne in 1780 : " Out of the sum of 385,000
livres, the amount of the funds granted by his Majesty
to this generalite from 1773, when the travaux de cliaritd
were flrst established, until 1779 inclusively, the elective
district of Montauban, which is the chef-lieu and resi
dence of the Intendant, has received for its own share
above 240,000 livres, the greater part of which sum was
actually paid to the communaute of Montauban.

Note (E.)— Page 73, line 3.
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'etat, maitrises, &c, but it was
abandoned to all the caprices of the government, usually
represented by the King's council, as far as general regu
lations went, and by the Intendants in their special appli
cation. 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 centralization
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 dependance.
It must be remembered that these habits were engrafted

428 GOVERNMENT OF LOUIS XI. Note S.
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
Eevolution, 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 docu
ments, 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 manufacturers, 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 veiy 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 (S.)— - Page 76, line 25.

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 consti
tutions 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

Note T. CORPORATION OF ANGERS. 429
the same designs are manifest in them all. The figure of
Louis XL, 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 in
crease ; he profusely confers nobility on them, thus lowering
its value, and at the same time he destroys the whole popu
lar 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 (T.)— Page 78, line 15.
ADMINISTRATION OF A TOWN IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY,
I extract from the inquiry made in 1764 into the adminis
tration 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 Presidial, the corporation,
the Subdelegate, 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 Presidial pn the actual state of the Municipal
Corporation of Angers, and on the Reforms to be made in it."
" The corporation of Angers," says the Presidial, " never
consults the inhabitants generally, even on the most im
portant subjects, except in cases in which it is obliged by
special orders to do so. This system of administration is,

430

CORPORATION. OF ANGERS. Note T.

therefore, unknown to all those who do not belong to the
corporation, even to the echevitis 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 arret de
reglement of 29th March, 1681, of twenty-one officers: —
A mayor, who becomes noble, and whose functions con
tinue for four years.
Four echevins amovibles, who remain in office two years.
Twelve echevins 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 contribu
tions ; 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 Presidial, 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 echevin of Angers in those days. Always
and everywhere we find the system which makes the exemp
tion from taxation fall on the richest classes. In a subse
quent 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,

Note T. CORPORATION OF ANGERS. 431
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 burthen 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 distri
bution 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 Presidial ;
One deputy from the University ;
One Lieutenant-general of Police ;
Four Echevins ; >
Twelve Conseillers-echevins ;
One Procureur du Eoi au Presidial ;
One Procureur de Ville ;
Two deputies from the Eaux et ForSts ;
Two from the Election (elective district ?) ;
Two from the Grenier a 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,

432 CORPORATION OF ANGERS. Note T.
the general assembly selected three persons to fill each
vacancy. Most of the offices belonging to the Hotel 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 disap
proved by the members of the Presidial.
According to this Presidial, 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 con
sulted 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 Sene-
chaussee, the Procureur du Eoi, 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 confided 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 corpo
rations of the ancien regime, 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 func
tionaries were notables of the town previous to being invested
with public functions, or they had striven to obtain public

Note T. CORPORATION OF ANGERS. 433
functions in order to become notables ; they had no thought
of leaving their own town and no hope of any higher pro
motion, which alone is sufficient to distinguish them com
pletely from anything with which we are acquainted at the
present day.
Report of the Municipal Officers. — We see by this that the
corporation ofthe 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 creat
ing 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 suc
cessors of Louis XI. which acknowledge this new consti
tution, 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 par
liament 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 Eoyal Charter. From that time forward nothmg
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 22 June, 1708. It
appears, moreover, that in virtue of decisions of the coun
cil of 1733 and 1741, the merchants had the right of claim
ing one place of e'chevin, or conseiller (the perpetual echevins).
Lastly, we find that at that period the corporation of the
town was entrusted with the distribution of the sums
2 F

434 CORPORATION OF ANGERS. Note T.
levied for the capitation, the ustensile, the barracks, the sup
port 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 t " Their most
important avocations," they say, " consist in the examina
tion of financial affairs, which continually increased owing
to the constant extension of the droits d'aides, the gabelle, the
controle, the insinuation des actes, perception illicite des droits
d'enrigistrement et de franc' 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 par
liament or the conseil du roi, in order to resist the oppres
sion under which they suffered. The experience and prac
tice 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 ad
dressed to the Comptroller-General himself, in order to dis
pose 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

Note T. CORPORATION OF ANGERS. 435
for the above-named sum. By an order of 26th April,
1723, the municipal offices created bythe edict of 24th
May, 1722, were united to the corporation ofthe town, or,
in other words, the town was authorized to purchase them.
By another order of 24th May, 1723, the town was per
mitted 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 Hotel de ViUe. " 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 pre
rogatives belonging to their offices." A part ofthe muni
cipal 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 eche
vins, fixing the rate of redemption at 1 70,000 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 authorized to im
pose 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 cognizance of
all disputes between masters and workmen. The accounts
of the octrois is 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
2 f 2

436 CORPORATION OF ANGERS. Note T.
companies, corporations, or communautis, 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 authorized by
the Intendant and the Council ; and, it must be admitted,
that when the administration of a town is given over com
pletely 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 super
intendence may appear necessary.
The whole of the report, which is very ill drawn up,
betrays extraordinary dread, on the part ofthe 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 Subdelegate. — The Intendant having re
ceived these two reports pf opposite tendency, desires to
have the opinion of his Subdelegate, who gives it as fol
lows : —
" The report of the municipal councillors," says he,
" does not deserve a moment's attention; it is merely in
tended to defend the privileges of those officers. . That of
the presidial may be consulted with advantage ; but there
is no reason for granting all the prerogatives claimed by
those magistrates."
According to the Subdelegate, the constitution of the
Hotel de ViUe 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 tor f rais de poste, besides the jetons. The
procureur syndic was also lodged, and the greffier as well. In

Note T. CORPORATION OF ANGERS. 437
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 Subdelegate does not propose to deprive the muni
cipal 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 roles 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 communaute by
its own members, according to stated and general rules ;
the municipal officers would have to make out only the
roles 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 Subdelegate 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 of the Jntsndant to the Comptroller-General. — Supported
by all these documents, the Intendant writes to the Mi
nister: "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
burthensome 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

438 CORPORATION OF ANGERS. Note T.
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 burthen 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 con
sume 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 pro
cureur 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 else
where 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 con
sidered as notable (each corporation electing its own). He
enumerates the corps notables as follows : —

Note T. CORPORATION OF ANGERS. 439
The Presidial.
The University.
The Election.
The Officers of Woods and Forests.
The Grenier a 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 func
tionaries, 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 for
merly 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 extraor
dinary council, which would completely restrict the ad
ministration to a very small middle-class coterie, while the
only assembly in which the people still made their appear
ance 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 Asr
sembly, 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

440 CORPORATION OF ANGERS. Note T.
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 com
panies 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
artizans, who compose the communautes, 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 con
founded 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 e'jliedns, and given
to their head or syndic, in order that he may summon to
the deliberations at the Hotel de Ville none but those set
down in it. In this list none were to be inscribed who had

Notes U, V. TOWNS— VILLAGES. 441
been servants, porters, drivers, or who had filled any other
mean offices.

Note (U.)— Page 83, line 7.

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, dimi
nished, 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 destruc
tion of the past, which the Eevolution was about to effect.

Note (V.)— Page 86, line 7.
ADMINISTRATION OF A VILLAGE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
FROM THE PAPERS OF THE INTENDANCY OF THE ILE-DE-
FRANCE.I have selected the transaction which I am about to de
scribe 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
Ile-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 ?

442 ADMINISTRATION OF A VILLAGE Note V,
1. Memorial from the Cure 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 con
dition, and, if they chose, to claim the money from the
heirs of the last Cure.
2. Ordonnance of the Intendant (29 August, 1747), di
recting that the Syndic shall make it his business to con
voke an Assembly 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 Cure, who is the great titheowner, is liable for
the repairs of the choir. [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 con
sequence 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. Proces verbal of all these operations, by which it ap
pears 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 Cure.
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 inha
bitants of the parish at a fresh General Assembly to be con
voked by the Syndic.

Note V. IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 443
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 Subdelegate
at Corbeil, in the dwelling of the latter ; and that the said
adjudication shall be made in the presence of the Cure, 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 ap
pear at the house of the Subdelegate at Corbeil, where the
proclamations and adjudication are to be made.
11. Memorial from the Cur£ and several of the inhabi
tants, requesting that the expenses of the administrative
proceedings should not be charged, as was usually the case,
to the adjudicator, seeing that the said expenses were
very heavy, 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 Subdelegate, 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. Proces-verbal ofthe adjudication- — liv. s. d.
Estimate of repairs . . . . 487 0 0
Expenses of adjudication .. 237 18 6
724 18 6

444 ADMINISTRATION OF A VILLAGE. Note V.
16. Lastly, an order in council (23 July, 1748) autho
rizing 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 process-verbal of the meeting of one of these
assemblies will show the reader how business was con
ducted on such occasions : —
Acte notarie. — " 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 under
signed 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 Cure ; there also
appeared [here follow the names of some other persons,
who, on the other hand, were willing to admit the claim of
the Cure]. . . . 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 Eaimbaud, vine-grower, who said that
he is ready to agree to whatever Monseigneur the Intend
ant may decide. There also appeared the Sieur X., doctor
of the Sorbonne, the Cure, who persists in the declarations
and purposes of the memorial. Those who appeared de
manded 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 admi
nistrative 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 ofthe parish; that it con-

Note X. MUNICIPAL LIBERTIES. 445
tained 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. 10 s., imposed by the decree ofthe 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. 10 s. 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 Subdelegate of the Intendant.

Note (X.)-Page 97, line 23.
The pretext taken by Louis XIV. to destroy the muni
cipal 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

446 ADMINISTRATIVE CENTRALIZATION Notes Y, Z.
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 (Y.)— Page 98, line 15.
THE STATE WAS THE GUARDIAN OF THE CONVENTS AS WELL AS
OF THE COMMUNES, — EXAMPLE OF THIS GUARDIANSHIP.
The Comptroller-General, on authorizing 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 con
stantly recurring.

Note (Z.)— Page 106, line 8.
SHOWING THAT THE ADMINISTRATIVE CENTRALIZATION 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 circum
stances 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 institu
tions and manners. There was nothing to hinder the

Note Z. OF THE OLD MONARCHY. 447
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 authorized 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 centralization and in Algeria. Indeed Canada pre
sents an exact counterpart of all we have seen in Algeria.
In both we find ourselves face to face with an administra
tion 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 decentraliza
tion of the English is exaggerated; the communes 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 Administration, properly so
called, does but little in England, and private persons do a

448 ORDERS IN COUNCIL. Note 2 A.
great deal ; in America the Administration 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
was 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 (SA.)— Page 109, line 17.
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.

Notes SB, 2 0. RURAL POLICE— LICENSES. 449
Note (2B.)— Page 127, line 13.
RURAL POLICE.
The provincial assembly of Upper Guienne urgently de
manded the creation of fresh brigades of the marechaussee,
just as now-a-days the general council of Aveyron or Lot
doubtless requests the formation of fresh brigades of gen
darmerie. The same idea always prevails — the gendarmerie
is the symbol of order, and order can only be sent by Govern
ment through the gendarme. The report continues : "Com
plaints are made every day that there is no police in the
rural districts," (how should there ? the nobles took no
part in affairs, the burghers were all in the towns, and the
communaute, 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 cha
racter, there nowhere exists any means of restraining these
ignorant, rude, and violent men."
Such were the terms in which the nobles of the Provin
cial Assembly allowed themselves to be spoken of, and in
which the members of the tiers-e'tat, who made up half the
assembly, spoke of the people in public documents !

Note (2C.)— Page 129, line 2.
Licenses 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.

2 G

450 ROADS— RENT-CHARGES. Notes 2 D, 2 E.

Note (2D.)— Page 131, line 4.
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 generalite of Touraine, which it tra
versed ? 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 giniraliti, 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 (2E.)— Page 145, line 19.
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 ex
tremely divided, are charged with heavy grain-rents, for
payment of which all the co-tenants are jointly and severally
liable. These rents, in many instances, absorb the bulk of

Notes 2 F, 2 G. SELF-GOVERNMENT. 451
the produce, and the lord's income is almost entirely de
rived from them.

Note (2F.)— Page 157, line 6.
INFLUENCE OF SELF-GOVERNMENT UNFAVOURABLE TO CASTE.
The unimportant labours of the agricultural societies
of the eighteenth century show the adverse influence
wliich the common discussion of general interests exercised
on caste. Though the meetings of these societies date from
thirty years before the Eevolution, when the ancien
regime was still in full force, and though they deal 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 con
versations 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 Eevolution, but one which, like the
government of the old Monarchy, aimed at finding all its
strength in its own ranks, continually recruited by re
markable men. The slightest contact with self-government
would have materially modified such inequality, and soon
transformed or destroyed it.

Note (2G.)— Page 157, line 22.
Provincial liberties may exist for a while without national
liberty, when they are ancient, entwined with habits, man
ners, 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. 2 G 2

452 TAXATION— PRIVILEGES. Notes 2 II, 2 1.
Note (2H.)— Page 158, line 20.
Turgot, in a report to the King, sums up in the follow
ing 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 ex
emption from all taxation in money to the extent of a four-
plough farm, equivalent in the neighbourhood of Paris to
an assessment of 2000 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, what
ever 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 ad
vantage for the privileged."

Note (2I.)— Page 160, line 10.
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 distri
buted 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 pay
ment, 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."

Notes 2 K— a M. TAXATION— PRIVILEGES. 45 J

Note (2K.)— Page 160, line 19.
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 authorizing the levy of
such rates, " shall be levied on all liable, exempt or non-
exempt, privileged or non-privileged, without any excep
tion, 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 ac
cording 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 (2L.)— Page 160, line 19.
ON THE SAME SUBJECT.
I find in a draft edict of 1764, the aim of which is to
equalize 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 (2M.)— Page 161, line 14.
ADMISSION BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ADVANTAGES EN
JOYED 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

454 TAXATION IN ENGLAND. Note 2 N.
the tax-collectors feel themselves bound to show such per
sons ; 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 com
mon with the rest of the community).

Note (2N.)— Page 180, line 8.
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 can
not resist the temptation of citing it.
Young, travelling through France during the first excite
ment 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 : —
"It has been announced, gentlemen, that the taxes are
to be paid as they have been hitherto. Certainly, the
taxes ought to be paid, but not as they have been hitherto.
They ought to be paid as they are in England. We have
many taxes there which you are free from ; but the tiers-
e'tai — the people — does not pay them : they fall entirely
on the rich. Thus, in England, every window is taxed ;
but the man with only six .windows to his house does not
pay anything for them. A nobleman pays his twentieths *
and his King's-taxes, but the poor proprietor pays nothing
on his little garden. The rich man pays for his horses,
carriages and servants — he pays even for a license to shoot
his own partridges ; the poor man is free from all these
burdens. Nay more, in England we have a tax paid by
the rich to help the poor ! So that, I say, if taxes are still
to be paid, they should be paid differently. The English
plan is far the better one." * See last Note.

Notes 2 0, 2 P. TAXATION— VESTED RIGHTS. 455
" As my bad French," adds Young, " was much on a par
with their patois, they understood me perfectly."

Note (20.)— Page 183, line 13.
The church at X., in the electoral district of Chollet,
was going to ruin : it was to be repaired in the manner
provided by the order of 1684 (16th December), viz., by a
rate levied on all the inhabitants. When the collectors
came to levy this rate, the Marquis de X., seigneur of
the parish, refused to pay his proportion of the rate, as he
meant to take on himself the entire repair of the choir ;
the other inhabitants reply, very reasonably, that, as lord
of the manor and holder of the great tithes, he is bound to
repair the choir, and cannot, on the plea of this obligation,
claim to escape his proportion of the common rate. This
produces an order of the Intendant declaring the Mar
quis's liability, and authorizing the collector's proceedings.
Among the papers on the subject are more than ten letters
from the Marquis, one more urgent than the other, begging
hard that the rest of the paiish may pay instead of himself,
and, to obtain his prayer, stooping to address the In
tendant as " Monseigneur," and even " le supplier."

Note (2P.j— Page 186, line 6.
AN INSTANCE OF THE WAY IN WHICH THE GOVERNMENT OF
THE OLD MONARCHY RESPECTED VESTED RIGHTS, FORMAL
CONTRACTS, AND THE FRANCHISES OF' TOWNS OR CORPORA
TIONS.A royal declaration " suspending in time of war repay
ment of all loans contracted by towns, villages, colleges,
communities, hospitals, charitable houses, trade-corpora
tions,* and others, repayable out of town dues by us con-
* i. e. Not corporations for trading purposes, but bodies like our
livery companies.

456 PERPETUAL RENTS. Note 2 Q.
ceded, though the instrument securing the said loans
stipulates for the payment of interest in the case of non
payment at the stipulated terms."
Thus not only is the obligation to repayment at the sti
pulated term suspended, but the security itself is impaired.
Such proceedings, which abounded under the old Monarchy,
would have been impracticable under a government acting
under the check of publicity or representative assemblies.
Compare the above with the respect always shown for such
rights in England, and even in America. The contempt
of right in this instance is as flagrant as that of local
franchises.

ISTote (2Q.)— Page 190, line 7.
The case cited in the text is far from a solitary instance
of an admission by the privileged class that the feudal
burdens which weighed down the peasant reached even to
themselves. The following is the language of an agricul
tural society, exclusively composed of this class, thirty
years before the Eevolution : —
" Perpetual rents on land, whether due to the State or to
the Lord, if at all considerable in amount, become so bur
densome to the tenant that they cause first his ruin, and
then that of the land liable to them ; the tenant is forced
to neglect it, being neither able to borrow on the security
of an estate already too heavily burdened, nor to find pur
chasers if he wish to sell. If then payments were com-
mutable, the tenant would readily be able to raise the
means of commuting them by borrowing, or to find pur
chasers at a price that would cover the value both of the
land and the payments with which it might be charged.
A man always feels pleasure in keeping up and im
proving a property of which he4)elieves himself to be in
peaceable possession. It would be rendering a great ser
vice to agriculture to discover means of commutation for this
class of payments. Many lords of manors, convinced of this,

Notes2R_2T. EXEMPTION FROM TAXATION. 457
would readily give their aid to such arrangements. It
would, therefore, be very interesting to discover and point
out practicable means for thus ridding land from perma
nent burdens."

Note (2E.)— Page 193, line 7.
All public functionaries, even the agents of farmers of
the revenue, were paid by exemptions from taxes — a pri
vilege granted by the order of 1681. A letter from an
Intendant to the minister in 1782, states, "Among the
privileged orders the most numerous class is that of clerks
in the Excise of salt, the public domain, the post-office,
and other royal monopolies of all kinds. There are few
parishes which do not include one ; in many, two or three
may be found."
The object of this letter is to dissuade the minister
from proposing an extension of exemption from taxation to
the clerks and servants of these privileged agents ; which
extension, says the Intendant, is unceasingly backed by the
farmers-general, that they may thus get rid of the necessity
of paying salaries.

Note (2S.)— Page 193, line 14.
The sale of public employments, which were called offices,
was not quite unknown elsewhere. In Germany some of
the petty princes had introduced the practice to a small
extent and in insignificant departments of administration.
Nowhere but in France was the system followed out on
a grand scale. Note (2T.)— Page 201, line 16.
We must not be surprised, strange as it may appear and
is, to find, under the old Monarchy, public functionaries-
many of them belonging to the public service, properly so

458 INSTRUCTIONS OF THE Note *U.
called — pleading before the Parliaments to ascertain the
limits of their own powers. The explanation of this is to
be found in the fact that all these questions were questions
of private property as well as of public administration.
What is here viewed as an encroachment of the judicial
power was a mere consequence of the error which the
government had committed in attaching public functions to
certain offices. These offices being bought a*nd sold, and
their holders' income being regulated by the work done
and paid for, it was impossible to change the functions of
an office without impairing some right for which money
had been paid to a predecessor in the office.
To quote an instance out of a thousand : — At Mans
the Lieutenant-General of Police carries on a prolonged
suit with the Bureau de Finance of the town, to prove,
that being charged with the duty of street- watching, he
has a right to execute all legal instruments relative to the
paving of the streets, and to the fees for such instru
ments. The Bureau replies, that the paving is a duty thrown
upon him by the nature of his office.
The question in this case is not decided by the king in
council ; the parliament gives judgment, as the principal
matter in dispute is the interest of the capital devoted to
the purchase of the office. Thus the administrative ques
tion becomes a civil action.

Note (sU.)— Page 204, line 4.
ANALYSIS OF THE INSTRUCTIONS OF THE ORDER OF NOBILITY
IN 1789.
The French Eevolution is, I believe, the only one, at the
beginning of which the different classes were able sepa
rately to bear authentic witness to the ideas they had con
ceived, and to display the sentiments by which they were
moved before the Eevolution had altered and defaced these
ideas and feelings. This authentic testimony was recorded,

Note 2 U. NOBILITY IN 1789. 459
as we all know, in the cahiers drawn up by the three Orders
in 1 789. These cahiers, or Instructions, were drawn up under
circumstances df complete freedom and publicity, by each
of the orders concerned ; they underwent a long discussion
from those interested, and were carefully considered by
their authors , for the government of that period did not,
whenever it addressed the nation, undertake both to put
the question and to give the answer. At the time when the
Instructions were drawn up, the most important parts of them
were colleoted in three printed volumes, which are to be
found in every library. The originals are deposited in the
national archives, and with them the proces-verbaux of the
assemblies by which they were drawn up, together with a
part of the correspondence which passed between M. Necker
and his agents on the subject of these assemblies. This
collection forms a long series of folio volumes. It is the
most precious document that remains to us from ancient
France, and one which should be constantly consulted by
those who wish to know the state of feeling amongst our
forefathers at the time when the Eevolution broke out.
I at first imagined that the abridgment printed in three
volumes, which I mentioned above, might perhaps be the
work of one party, and not a true representation of the
character of this immense inquiry ; but, on comparing one
with the other, I found the strongest resemblance between
the large original picture and the reduced copy.
The extract from the cahiers of the nobility, which I am
about to give, contains a true picture of the sentiments of
the great majority of that Order. It clearly shows how
many of their ancient privileges they were obstinately
determined to maintain, how many they were not disin
clined to give up, and how many they offered to renounce
of their own accord. Above all, we see in full the spirit
which animated them with regard to political liberty. The
picture is a strange and sad one !
Individual Rights. — The nobles demand, first of all, that an
explicit declaration should be made of the rights which

460 INSTRUCTIONS OF THE Note 2U.
belong to all men, and that this declaration should confirm
their liberties and secure their safety.
Liberty of the Person.^Th&j desire that the servitude to
the glebe should be abolished wherever it still exists, and
that means should be formed to destroy the slave trade and
to emancipate the negroes ; that every man should be free
to travel or to reside wherever he may please, whether
within or without the limits of the kingdom, without being
liable to arbitrary arrest ; that the abuses of police regu
lations shall be reformed, and that henceforth the police
shall be under the control of the judges, even in cases of
revolt ; that no one shall be liable to be arrested or tried
except by his natural judges ; that, consequently, the state
prisons and other illegal places of detention, shall be sup
pressed. Some of them require the demolition of the Bas
tille. The nobility of Paris is especially urgent upon this
point. Are " Lettres Closes," or " Lettres de Cachet," to beprohibited? —
If any danger of the State renders the arrest of a citizen ne
cessary, without his being immediately brought before the
ordinary courts of justice, measures should be taken to
prevent any abuses, either by giving notice of the im
prisonment to the Conseil d'Etat, or by some other pro
ceeding. The nobility demands the abolition of all special com
missions, all courts of attribution or exemption, all privi
leges of committimus, all dilatory judgments, &c. &c, and
requires that the severest punishment should be awarded
to all those who should issue or execute an arbitrary order ;
that in common jurisdiction (the only one that ought to be
maintained) the necessary measures should be taken for se
curing individual liberty, especially as regards the criminal;
that justice should be dispensed gratuitously ; and that use
less jurisdictions should be suppressed. " The magistrates
are instituted for the people, and not the people for the ma
gistrates," says one ofthe memorials. A demand is even
-made that a council and gratuitous advocates for the poor

Note 2 U. NOBILITY IN 1789. 46I
should be established in each bailiwick ; that the proceed
ings should be public, and permission granted to the liti
gants to plead for themselves ; that in criminal matters the
prisoner should be provided with counsel, and that in all
stages of the proceedings the judge should have adjoined to
him a certain number of citizens of the same position in
life as the person accused, who are to give their opinion
relative to the fact of the crime or offence with which he is
charged (referring on this point to the English constitution) ;
that all punishments should be proportionate to the offence,
and alike for all ; that the punishment of death should be
made more uncommon, and all corporal pains and tortures,
&c, should be suppressed ; that, in fine, the condition of
the prisoner, and more especially of the simply accused,
should be ameliorated.
According to these memorials, measures should be taken
to protect individual liberty in the enlistment of troops for
land or sea service ; permission should be given to convert
the obligation of military service into pecuniary contribu
tions. The drawing of lots should only take place in the
presence of a deputation of the three orders together ; in
fact that the duties of military discipline and subordination
should be made to tally with the rights of the citizen and
freemen, blows with the back of the sabre being altogether
done away with.
Freedom and inviolability of Property. — It is required that
property should be inviolable, and placed beyond all attack,
except for some reason of indispensable public utility ; in
which case the Government ought to give a considerable
and immediate indemnity ; that confiscation should be
abolished. Freedom of Trade, Handicraft and Industrial Occupation. —
The freedom of trade and industry ought to be secured ;
and, in consequence, freedoms and other privileges of cer
tain companies should be suppressed, and the custom-house
lines all put back to the frontiers of the country.
Freedom of Religion. —The Catholic religion is to be the

462 INSTRUCTIONS OF THE Note 2 U.
only dominant religion in France ; but.liberty of conscience
is to be left to every body ; and the non-Catholics are to be
restored to their civil rights and their property.
Freedom of the Press. — Inviolability of the Secrecy of the Post.
— The freedom of the press is to be secured, and a law is
to establish beforehand all the restrictions which may be
considered necessary in the general interest. Ecclesiastical
censorship to exist only for books relative to the dogmas of
the Church ; and in all other cases it is considered sufficient
to take the necessary precautions of knowing the authors
and printers. Many of the memorials demand that offences
of the press should only be tried by juries.
The memorials unanimously demand above all that the
secrecy of letters entrusted to the post should be inviolably
respected , so that (as they say) letters may never be made
to serve as means of accusation or testimony against a man.
They denounce the opening of letters, crudely enough, as
the most odious espionage, inasmuch as it institutes a vio
lation of public faith.
Instruction, Education. — The memorials of the nobility on
this point require no more than that active measures should
be taken to foster education, that it should be diffused
throughout the country, and that it should be directed
upon principles conformable to the presumed destination
of the children ; and, above all, that a national education
should be given to the children, by teaching them their
duties and their rights of citizenship. They urge the com
pilation of a political catechism, in which the principal
points of the constitution should be made clear to them.
They do not, however, point out the means to be employed
for the diffusion of instruction : they do no more than de
mand educational establishments for the children of the
indigent nobility.
Care to be taken qf the People. — A great number of the me
morials lay much stress upon greater regard being shown
to the people. Several denounce, as a violation of the
natural liberty of man, the excesses committed in the name

Note 2 u. NOBILITY IN 1789. 463
of the police, by which, as they say, quantities of artisans
and useful citizens are arbitrarily, and without any regular
examination, dragged to prison, to houses of detention, &c,
frequently for slight offences, or even upon simple suspi
cion. All the memorials demand the definitive abolition
of statute labour. The greater portion of the bailiwicks
desire the permission to buy off the vassalage and toll-dues ;
and several require that the receipt of many of the feudal
dues should be rendered less onerous, and that those paid
upon franc-fief should be abolished. " It is to the advantage
of the Government," says one of the memorials, " to facili
tate the purchase and sale of estates." This reason was
precisely the one given afterwards for the abolition at one
blow of all the seignorial rights, and for the sale of pro
perty in the condition of muin-morte. Many of the memo
rials desire that the droit de colombier (exclusive right of pos
sessing pigeons) should be rendered less prejudicial to
agriculture. Demands are made for the immediate abolition
of the establishments used as royal game-preserves, and
known by the name of " Capitaineries," as a violation of the
rights of property. The substitution of taxes less onerous
to the people in the mode of levying for those then existing
is also desired.
The nobility demands that efforts should be made to in
crease the prosperity and comfort of the country districts ;
that establishments for spinning and weaving coarse stuffs
should be provided for the occupation of the country people
during the dead season of the year ; that public granaries
should be established in each bailiwick, under the inspec
tion of the provincial authorities, in order to provide against
times of famine, and to maintain the price of corn at a
certain rate ; that means should be studied to improve the
agriculture of the country, and ameliorate the condition of
the country people ; that an augmentation should be given
to the public works ; and that particular attention should be
paid to the draining of marsh lands, the prevention of inun
dations, &c. ; and finally, that prizes of encouragement to

464 INSTRUCTIONS OF THE Note »U.
commerce and agriculture should be distributed in all the
provinces. The memorials express the desire that the hospitals should
be broken up into smaller establishments, erected in each
district; that the asylums for beggars (depots de mendicite)
should be suppressed, and replaced by charitable workhouses
(ateliers de charite) ; that funds for the aid of the sick and
needy should be established under the management of the
Provincial States, and that surgeons, physicians, and mid-
wives should be distributed among the arrondissements at the
expense of the provinces, to give their gratuitous services
to the poor ; that the courts of justice should likewise be
gratuitous to the people ; finally, that care should be taken
for the establishment of institutions for the blind, the deaf
and dumb, foundling children, &c.
Generally speaking, in all these matters the order of
nobles does no more than express its desire for reform,
without entering into any minor details of execution. It
may be easily seen that it mixed much less with the inferior
classes than the lower order of clergy ; and thus, having '
come less in contact with their wretchedness, had thought
less of the means for mitigating it.
Admissibility to Public Functions ; Hierarchy of Ranks ; Hono
rary Privileges of the Nobility.— -It is more especially, or rather
it is solely, upon points that concern the hierarchy of ranks
and the difference of social classes, that the nobility separates
itself from the general spirit of the reforms required, and
that, though willing to concede some few important points,
it still clings to the principles of the old system. It evi
dently is aware that it is now struggling for its very exist
ence. Its memorials, consequently, urgently demand the
maintenance of the clergy and the nobility as distinct
orders.. They even require that efforts should be made to
maintain the order of nobility in all its purity, and that to
this intent it should be rendered impossible to acquire the
title of noble by payment of money; that it should no
longer be attached to certain places about Court, and that

Note «U. NOBILITY IN 1789. 465
it should only be obtained by merit, after long and useful
services rendered to the State. They express the desire
that men assuming false titles of nobility should be found
out and prosecuted. All these memorials, in fact, make
urgent protestations in favour of the maintenance of the
noble in all his honours. Some even desire that a distinc
tive mark should be given to the nobles to ensure their
exterior recognition. It is impossible to imagine anything
more characteristic than this demand, or more indicative
of the perfect similitude that must have already existed
between the noble and the plebeian in spite of the differ
ence of their social conditions. In general, in its memo
rials, the nobility, although it appears easily disposed
enough to concede many of its more profitable rights,
clings energetically to its honorary privileges. So greatly
does it feel itself already hurried on by the torrent of demo
cracy, and fear to sink in the stream, that it not only wants to
preserve all the privileges it already enjoys, but is desirous
of inventing others it never possessed. It is singular to
remark how it has a presentiment of the impending danger
without the actual perception of it.
With regard to public employments, the nobles re
quire that the venality of offices should be done away with
in all places connected with the magistracy, and that, in
appointments of this kind, the citizens in general should
be presented by the nation to the king, and nominated by
him without any distinction, except as regards conditions
of age and capacity. The majority also opines that the
tiers-itat should not be excluded from military rank, and that
every military man, who had deserved well of his country,
should have the right to rise to the very highest grade.
" The order of nobility does not approve of any law that
closes the portals of military rank to the order of the tiers-
e'tat," is the expression used by some of the memorials. But
the nobles desire that the right of coming into a regiment
as officer, without having first gone through the inferior
grades, should be reserved to themselves alone. Almost all
2 H

466 INSTRUCTIONS OF THE Note 2 U.
the Instructions, however, require the establishment of fixed
regulations, applicable alike to all, for the bestowal of
rank in the army, and demand that they should not be
entirely left to favour, but be conferred, with the exception
of those of superior officers, by right of seniority.
As regards the clerical functions, they require the re-
establishment of the elective system in the bestowal of
benefices, or at least the appointment by the King of a
committee that may enlighten him in the distribution of
these benefices.
Lastly, they express the opinion that, fgr the future,
pensions ought to be given away with more discernment ;
that they ought no longer to be exclusively lavished upon
certain families ; that no citizen ought to have more than
one pension, or receive the salary of more than one place
at a time, and that all reversions of such emoluments should
be abolished.
Tlie Church and the Clergy. — In matters which do not
affect its own interests and especial constitution, the nobility
is far less scrupulous. In all that regards the privileges and
organization of the Church, its eyes are opened wide enough
to existing abuses.
It desires that the clergy should have no privileges in
matters of taxation, and that it should pay its debts without
putting the burden of them on the nation ; moreover, that
the monastic orders should undergo a complete reformation.
The greater part of the Instructions declare that these mo
nastic establishments have wholly departed from the ori
ginal spirit of their institution.
The majority of the bailiwicks express the desire that the
tithes should be made less prejudicial to agriculture ; many
demand their abolition altogether. " The greater part of
the tithes," says one of the memorials, " is collected by
those incumbents who do the least toward giving spiritual
succour to the people." It is easy to perceive that the
latter order has not much forbearance for the former in its
remarks. No greater respect was shown in its treatment of

Note 2 U. NOBILITY IN 1789. 467
the Church itself. Several bailiwicks formally admit the
right of the States-General to suppress certain religious
orders, and apply their revenues to some other use. Seven
teen bailiwicks declare the competence of the States-General
to regulate their discipline. Several complain that the holi
days (jours defete) are too frequent, are prejudicial to agri
culture, and are favourable to drunkenness, and suggest that,
in consequence, a great number of them ought to be sup
pressed and kept only on the Sundays.
Political Rights. — As regards political rights, the Instruc
tions establish the right of every Frenchman to take his part
in the Government, either directly or indirectly ; that is to
say, the right to elect or be elected, but without disturbing
the gradation of social ranks ; so that no one may nominate
or be nominated otherwise than in his own Order. This
principle once established, it is considered that the repre
sentative system ought to be established in such wise, that
the power of taking a serious part in the direction of affairs
may be guaranteed to each Order of the nation.
With regard to the manner of voting in the Assembly of
the States- General the opinions differ. Most desire a sepa
rate vote for each Order ; others think that an exception
ought to be made to this rule in the votes upon taxation ;
whilst others again consider that it should always be so.
" The votes ought to be counted by individuals and not by
Orders," say the latter. " Such a manner of proceeding
being the only sensible one, and the only one tending to
remove and destroy that egotism of caste, which is the source
of all our evils — to bring men together and lead them to
that result, which the nation has a right to expect from an
Assembly, whose patriotism and great moral qualities should
be strengthened by its united intelligence." As an imme
diate adoption of this innovation, however, might prove
dangerous in the existing state of general feeling, many of
the Instructions provide that it should be only decided
upon with caution, and that the Assembly had better decide
whether it were not more prudent to put off the system of
2 H 2

468 INSTRUCTIONS OF THE Note »U.
individual voting to the following States- General. The
nobility demands that, in any case, each Order should be
allowed to preserve that dignity which is due to every
Frenchman, and consequently that the humiliating cere
monies, to which the tiers-etat was subjected under the old
system, should be abolished, as, for instance, that of being
obliged to kneel — " inasmuch," says one of these docu
ments, " as the spectacle of one man kneeling before an
other is offensive to the dignity of man, and emblematic of
an inferiority between creatures equal by nature, incom
patible with their essential rights."
The System to be established in the Form of Government, and the
Principles of the Constitution. — With regard to the form of"
Government, the nobility desired the maintenance of the
monarchical constitution, the preservation of the legislative,
judicial, and executive powers in the person of the King,
but, at the same time, the establishment of fundamental laws
for the purpose of guaranteeing the rights of the nation
in the exercise of these powers.
All the Instructions, consequently, declare that the nation
has the right to assemble in States-General, composed of a
sufficient number of members to ensure the independence
of the Assembly ; and they express the desire that, for the
future, these States should assemble at fixed periodical
seasons, as well as upon every fresh succession to the throne,
without the issue of any writs of convocation. Many of the
bailiwicks even advise the permanence of this Assembly.
If the convocation of the States-General were not to take
place within the period prescribed by the law, they should
have the right of refusing the payment of taxes. Some few
of the Instructions desire that, during the intervals be
tween the sittings of the States, an intermediary commission
should be appointed to watch over the administration of
the kingdom; but most of them formally oppose the ap
pointment of any such commission, as being unconstitu
tional. The reason given for this objection is curious
enough. They feared lest so small an Assembly, left to

Note 2 U. NOBILITY IN 1789. 469
itself in the presence ofthe Government, might be seduced
by it.
The nobility desires that the Ministers should not possess
the right of dissolving the Assembly, and should be punished
by law for disturbing it by their cabals; that no public
functionary, no one dependant in any way upon the Govern
ment, should be a deputy ; that the person of the deputies
should be inviolable, and that they should not be able
(according to the terms of the memorials) to be prosecuted
for any opinions they may emit ; finally, that the sittings
of the Assembly should be public, and that, in order that
the nation might more generally take part in them, they
should be made known by printed reports.
The nobility unanimously demands that the principles
destined to regulate the Government of the State should be
applied to the administration of the different parts of the
kingdom, and that, consequently, Assemblies made up of
members freely elected, and for a limited period of time,
should be formed in each district and each parish.
Many ofthe Instructions recommend that the functions of
Intendants and Receveurs-Generaux ought to be done away
with ; all are of opinion that, in future, the Provincial As
semblies should alone take in hand the assessment of the
taxes, and see to the special interests of the province. The
same ought to be the case, they consider, with the Assem
blies of each arrondissement and of each parish, which ought
only to be accountable for the future to the Provincial States.
Distribution of the Powers of State. — Legislative Power. — As
regards the distribution of the powers of the State between
the assembled nation and the King, the nobility requires
that no law should be considered effective until it has been
consented to by the States-General and the King, and
entered upon the registers of the courts empowered to
maintain the execution of the laws ; that the States-General
should have the exclusive attribute of determining and fixing
the amount of the taxes; that all subsidies agreed upon
should be only for the period that may elapse between one

470 INSTRUCTIONS OF THE Note 2 U.
sitting of the States and the next .; that all which may be
levied or ordained, without the consent of the States, should
be declared illegal, and that all ministers and receivers of
such subsidies, who may have ordered or levied them, should
be prosecuted as public defaulters ; that, in the same way,
no loan should be contracted without the consent of the
States-General, but that a credit alone should be opened,
fixed by the States, of which the Government might make
use in case of war or any great calamity, taking care,
however, that measures should be taken to convoke the
States-General in the shortest possible time ; that all the
national treasuries should be placed under the superin
tendence of the States ; that the expenses of each depart
ment should be fixed by them, and that the surest measures
should be taken to see that the funds voted were not ex
ceeded. The greater part of the Instructions recommend the
suppression of those vexatious taxes, known under the
names of insinuation, enterinement, and centieme denier, coming
under the denomination of "Administration (Regi/>) of
the Eoyal domains," upon the subject of which one of
the memorials says : " The denomination of Regie is alone
sufficient to wound the feelings of the nation, inasmuch
as it puts forward, as belonging to the King, matters
which are in reality a part of the property of the citi
zens ;" that all the domains, not alienated, should be
placed under the administration of the Provincial States,
and no ordinance, no edict upon financial matters, should
be given without the consent of the three Orders of the
nation. It is evidently the intention of the nobility to confer upon
the nation the whole of the financial administration, as well
in the regulation of loans and taxes, as in the receipt of
the same by the means of the General and Provincial
Assemblies. Judicial Power. — In the same way, in the judicial organiza
tion, it has a tendency towards rendering the power of the

Note 2 Q. NOBILITY IN 1789. 471
judges, at least" in a great measure, dependent upon the
nation assembled. And thus many of the memorials declare
" that the magistrates should be responsible for the fact of
their appointments to the nation assembled ;" that they
should not be dismissed from their functions without the
consent of the States-General ; that no court of justice, under
any pretext whatever, should be disturbed in the exercise of
its functions without the consent of these States ; that the
disputed matters in the Appeal Court, as well as those
¦ before the Parliament, should be decided upon by the States-
General. The majority of the Instructions add that the
judges ought only to be nominated by the King, upon pre
sentation to him by the people.
Executive Power. — The executive power is exclusively
reserved to the King ; but necessary limits are proposed, in
order to prevent its abuse.
For instance, in the administration, the Instructions re
quire that the state of the accounts of the different depart-
jnents'should be rendered public by being printed ; likewise,
that before employing the troops in the defence ofthe coun
try from without, the King should make known his precise
intentions to the States-General; that, in the country itself, -
the troops should never be employed against the citizens,
except upon the requisition of the States-General ; that the
number of the troops should be limited, and that two-thirds
of them alone should remain, in common times, upon the
second effective list; and that the Government ought to
keep away all the foreign troops it may have in its pay
from the centre of the kingdom, and send them to the
frontiers.i In perusing the Instructions of the nobility, the reader
cannot fail to be struck, more than all, with the conviction
that the nobles are so essentially of their own time. They
have all the feelings of the day, and employ its language
with perfect fluency; they talk ofthe inalienable rights
of man" and "the principles inherent to the social com
pact." In matters appertaining to the individual, they

472 INSTRUCTIONS OF THE NOBILITY. Note «U.
generally look to his rights — in those appertaining to so
ciety, to its duties. The principles of their political opinions
appear to them as absolute as those of morality, both one and the
other being based upon reason. In expressing their desire to
abolish the last remnants of serfdom, they talk of effacing the
last traces ofthe degradation of the human race. They sometimes
denominate Louis XVI. the "Citizen-King," and frequently
speak of that crime of Use-nation (treason to the nation),
which afterwards was so frequently imputed to themselves.
In their opinion, as in that of every one else, everything
was to be expected from the results of public education,
which the State was to direct. " The States- General," says
one of the Cahiers, " must take care to inspire a national
character by alterations in the education of children." Like the
rest of their contemporaries, they show a lively and constant
desire for uniformity in the legislation, excepting, however,
in all that affected the existence of ranks. They are as
desirous as the tiers-etat of administrative uniformity — uni
formity of measures, &c. They point out all kinds of
reforms, and expect that these reforms should be radical. Ac
cording to their suggestions, all the taxes, without exception,
should be abolished or transferred, and the whole judicial
system changed, except in the case of the Seignorial courts
of justice, which they considered only to need improvement.
They, as well as all the other French, looked upon France as
a field for experiment — a sort of political model-farm, in
which every portion was to be turned up and every experi
ment tried, except in one special little comer, where their
own privileges blossomed. It must be said to their honour,
however, that even this was but little spared by them. In
short, as may be seen by reading their memorials, all the
nobles wanted in order to make the Eevolution was that
they should be plebeians.

Notes 2 V, «X. ECCLESIASTICAL PROVINCE. 473
Note (2V.(— Page 205, line _6.
SPECIMEN OF THE RELIGIOUS GOVERNMENT OF AN ECCLESIA S-
TICAL PROVINCE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY.
1. The Archbishop.
2. Seven Vicars-General.
3. Two Ecclesiastical Courts, denominated Officialites.
One, called the Metropolitan Officiality, took cognizance of
the judgments of the suffragans. The other, called the Offi
ciality of the Diocess, took cognizance (1) of personal affairs
between clerical men ; (2) of the validity of marriages, as
regarded the performance of the ceremony.
This latter court was composed of three judges, to whom
were adjoined notaries and attorneys.
4. Two Fiscal Courts. The one, called the Office of the
Diocess (Bureau Diocfaain), took cognizance, in the first
instance, of all matters having reference to the dues levied
on the clergy of the diocess. (As is well known, they were
fixed by the clergy themselves.) This court was presided
over by the Archbishop, and made up of six other priests.
The other court gave judgment in appeals on causes, which
had been brought before the other Bureaux Diockains of the
ecclesiastical province.
All these courts admitted counsel and heard pleadings.

Note (2X.)— Page 205, line 14.
GENERAL FEELING OF THE CLERGY IN THE STATES AND PROVIN
CIAL ASSEMBLIES.
What has been said in the text respecting the States of
Languedoc, is applicable just as well to the Provincial As
semblies that met in 1779 and 1787, for instance, in Haute-
Guienne. The members of the clergy, in this Provincial
Assembly, were among the most enlightened, the most active,
and the most liberal. It was the Bishop of Ehodez who
proposed to publish the minutes of the Assembly.

474 LIBERALITY OF THE CLERGY. Notes 2 Y— , A.
Note (2Y.)— Page 208, line 21.
This liberal disposition on the part of the priests in po
litical matters, which displayed itself in 1789, was not only
produced by the excitement of the moment, evidence of it
had already appeared at a much earlier period. It exhibited
itself, for instance, in the province of Berri as early as 1779,
when the clergy offered to make voluntary donations to the
amount of 68,000 livres, upon the sole condition that the
provincial administration should be preserved.

Note (2Z.)— Page 212, line 14.
It must be carefully remarked that, if the political con
ditions of society were without any ties, the civil state of
society still had many. Within the circle of the different
classes men were bound to each other ; something even still
remained of that close tie which had once existed between
the class of the Seigneurs and the people ; and although all
this only existed in civil society, its consequence was indi
rectly felt in political society. The men, bound by these
ties, formed masses that were irregular and unorganized,
but refractory beneath the hand of authority. The Eevolu
tion, by breaking all social ties, without establishing any
political ties in their place, prepared the way at the same
time for equality and servitude.

Note (8 A.)— Page 214, line 12.
EXAMPLE OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE COURTS EXPRESSED
THEMSELVES UPON THE OCCASION OF CERTAIN ARBITRARY
ACTS.
It appears, from a memorial laid before the Contrdleur-
Giniral in 1781, by the Intendant of the Giniraliti of Paris,
that it was one of the customs of that Giniraliti that the
parishes should have two syndics — the one elected by the

NotbsB. THE WEALTHY MIDDLE CLASS. 475
inhabitants in an Assembly presided over by the SubdMgui,
the other chosen by the Intendant, and considered the over
seer of the former. A quarrel took place between the two
syndics in the parish of Eueil, the elected syndic not choos
ing to obey the chosen syndic. The Intendant, by means of
M, de Breteuil, had the elected syndic put into the prison
of La Force for a fortnight ; he was arrested, then dismissed
from his post, and another was put in his place. There
upon the Parliament, upon the requisition of the imprisoned
syndic, commenced proceedings at law, the issue of which
I have not been able to find, but during which it declared
that the imprisonment of the plaintiff and the nullification
of his election could only be considered as arbitrary and
despotic acts. The judicial authorities, it seems, were then
sometimes rather hard in the mouth.

Note (3B.)— Page 220, line 9.
So far from being the case that the enlightened and
wealthy classes were oppressed and enslaved under the
ancien rigime, it may be said, on the contrary, that all, in
cluding the bourgeoisie, were frequently far too free to do all
they liked ; since the Eoyal authority did not dare to pre
vent members of these classes from constantly creating
themselves an exceptional position, to the detriment of the
people ; and almost always considered it necessary to sacrifice
the latter to them, in order to obtain their good will, or put
a stop to their ill humour. It may be said that, in the
eighteenth century, a Frenchman belonging to these classes
could more easily resist the Government, and force it to
use conciliatory measures with him, than an Englishman of
the same position in life could have done at that time.
The authorities often considered themselves obliged to use
towards such a mana far more temporising and timid policj'
than the English Government would ever have thought
itself bound to employ towards an English subject in the

476 THE FERMIERS-GENERAUX. Notes 3C, 3D.
same category — so wrong is it to confound independence
with liberty. Nothing is less independent than a free
citizen.

Note (3C.)— Page 220, line 18.
REASON THAT FREQUENTLY OBLIGED THE ABSOLUTE GOVERN
MENT IN THE ANCIENT STATE OF SOCIETY TO RESTRAIN
ITSELF.In ordinary times the augmentation of old taxes, and more
especially the imposition of new taxes, are the only subjects
likely to cause trouble to a Government, or excite a people.
Under the old financial constitution of Europe, when any
Prince had expensive desires, or plunged into an adven
turous line of policy, or allowed his finances to become dis
ordered, or (to take another instance) needed money for the
purpose of sustaining himself by winning partisans by means
of enormous gains or heavy salaries that they had never
earned, or by keeping up numerous armies, by undertaking
great public works, &c. &c, he was obliged at once to have
recourse to taxation ; a proceeding that immediately roused
and excited every class, especially that class which creates
revolutions — the people. Now-a-days, in similar positions,
loans are contracted, the immediate effect of which passes
almost unperceived, and the final result of which is only
felt by the succeeding generation.

Note (3D.)— Page 223, line 14.
As one example, among many others, the fact may be
cited, that the principal domains in the jurisdiction of
Mayenne were farmed out to Fermiers-Ge'ne'raux, who took
as Sous-Fermiers little miserable tillers of land, who had
nothing of their own, and for whom they were obliged to
furnish the most necessary farming utensils. It may be
well conceived that Fermiers-Gintraux of this kind had no

Notes 3E—3G. CLAIMS OF THE CLERGY. 477
great consideration for the farmers <9t due-paying tenants of
the old feudal Seigneur, who had put them in his place, and
that the exercise of feudalism in such hands as these was
often more hard to bear than in the Middle Ages.

Note (SE.)— Page 222, line 14.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE.
The inhabitants of Montbazon had put upon the faille the
Stewards of the Duchy, which was in the possession of the
Prince de Eohan, although these Stewards only farmed in
his name. This Prince (who must (have been extremely
wealthy) not only caused this "abuse," as he termed it, to
be put a stop to, but obtained the reimbursement of
5344 livres 15 sous, which he had been improperly made to
pay, and which was charged upon the inhabitants.

Note (3F.)— Page 228, line 16.
EXAMPLE OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE PECUNIARY CLAIMS
OF THE CLERGY ALIENATED FROM THEM THE HEARTS OF
THOSE, WHOSE ISOLATED POSITION OUGHT TO HAVE CONCI
LIATED THEM.
The Cur6 of Noisai asserted that the inhabitants were
obliged to undertake the repairs of his barn and wine-press,
and asked for the imposition of a local tax for that purpose.
The Intendant gave answer that the inhabitants were only
obliged to repair the parsonage-house, and that the barn and
wine-press were to be at the expense of this pastor, who was
evidently more busied about the affairs of his farm than his
spiritual flock (1767).

Note (3G.)— Page 232, line 23.
In one of the memorials sent up in 1788 by the peasants
— a memorial written with much clearness and in a mode-

478 THE PAYS D'ETAT. Note 3H.
rate tone, in answer to an inquiry instituted by a Provincial
Assembly — the following passages occur: — " In addition to
the abuses occasioned by the mode of levying the taille, there
exists that of the Garnisaires. These men generally arrive
five times during the collection of the taille. They are com
monly Invalides, or Swiss soldiers. They remain every
time four or five days in the parish, and are taxed at
36 sous a day by the tax-receipt-office. As to the assessment
of the taille, we will forbear to point out the too well-known
abuses occasioned by the arbitrary measures employed and
the bad effects produced by the officious parts played by
officers, who are frequently incapable, and almost always
partial and vindictive. They have been the cause, how
ever, of many disturbances and quarrels, and have occa
sioned proceedings at law, extremely expensive for the
parties pleading, and very advantageous to the courts."

Note (3H.)— Page 234, line 22.
THE SUPERIORITY OF THE METHODS ADOPTED IN THE PROVINCES
POSSESSING ASSEMBLIES (PAYS D'ETAT) RECOGNIZED BY THE
GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONARIES THEMSELVES.
A confidential letter, written by the Director of the Taxes
to the Intendant, on the 3rd June, 1772, has the following : —
" In the Pays d'Etats, the tax being a fixed tantieme (per
centage), every taxpayer is subject to it, and really pays it.
An augmentation upon this tantieme is made in the assess
ment, in proportion to the augmentation required by the
King upon the total supplied — for instance, a million instead
of 900,000 livres. This is a simple operation ; whilst in the
Giniraliti the assessment is personal, and, so to say, arbi-
brary : some pay their due, others only the half, others the
third, the quarter, or nothing at all. How, in this case,
subject the amount of taxation to the augmentation of One-
ninth ?"

Notes3!— 3 L. FORCED L ABO UE. 479

Note (3I.)— Page 239, line 9,
THE MANNER IN WHICH THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES UNDERSTOOD
AT FIRST THE PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION IN ROAD-MAKING.
Count X., in a letter to the Intendant, complains of the
very little zeal shown in the establishment of a road in his
neighbourhood. He says it is the fault of the Subdete'gue,
who does not use sufficient energy in the exercise of his
functions, and will not compel the peasants to do their
forced labour (corvees).

Note (8K.)— Page 239, line 16.
ARBITRARY IMPRISONMENT FOR THE CORVEE.
An example is given in a letter of a Grand Pre'vot, in
1768 : — " I ordered yesterday," it says, " the imprisonment
of three men (at the demand of M. C, Sub-Engineer), for
not having done their corvee. Upon which there was a con
siderable agitation among the women of the village, who
exclaimed, ' The poor people are thought of quite enough
when the corvh is to be done ; but nobody takes care to
see they have enough to live upon.' "

Note (3L.)— Page 240, line 20.
The resources for the making of roads were of two kinds.
The greater was the corvee, for all the great works that re
quired only labour; the smaller was derived from the
general taxation, the amount of which was placed at the
disposition of the Ponts et Chaussees for the expenses of works
requiring science. The privileged classes — that is to say,
the principal landowners — though more interested than all
in the construction of roads, contributed nothing to the
corvie, and moreover were still exempt otherwise, inasmuch
as the taxation for the Ponts et Chaussies was annexed to the
and levied in the same manner.

480 'FORCED LABOUR. Notes 3M,3N.
Note (8M.)— Page 241, line 8.
EXAMPLE OF FORCED LABOUR IN THE TRANSPORT OF CONVICTS.
It may be seen by a letter, addressed by a Commissary
at the head of the police department of convict-gangs, to
the Intendant, in 1761, that the peasants were compelled
to cart the galley-slaves on their way ; that they executed
this task with very ill will ; and that they were frequently
maltreated by the convict-guards, " inasmuch," says the
Commissary, " as the guards are coarse and brutal fellows,
and the peasants, who undertake this work by compulsion,
are often insolent."

Note (3N.)— Page 241, line 13.
Turgot fhas given descriptions of the inconvenience
and hardship of forced labour for the transport of military
baggage, which, after a perusal of the office papers, appear
not to have been exaggerated. Among other things, he
says that its chief hardship consisted in the unequal distri
bution of a very heavy burden, inasmuch as it fell entirely
upon a small number of parishes, which had the misfor
tune of being placed on the high road. The distance to
be done was often one of five, six, or sometimes ten and
fifteen leagues. In which case three days were necessary
for the journey out and home again. The compensation
given to the landowners only amounted to one fifth of the
expense that fell upon them. The period when forced
labour was required was generally the summer, the time
of harvest. The oxen were almost always over-driven, and
frequently fell ill after having been employed at the work
— so much so that a great number of landowners preferred
giving a sum of 1 5 to 20 livres rather than supply a waggon
and four oxen. The consequent confusion which took
place was unavoidable. The peasants were constantly ex
posed to violence of treatment from the military. The

Note30. FORCED LABOUR. 431
officers almost always demanded more than was their due ;
and sometimes they obliged the drivers, by force, to harness
saddle- horses to the vehicles at the risk of doing them a
serious injury. Sometimes the soldiers insisted upon riding
upon carts already overloaded ; at other times, impatient
at the slow progress of the oxen, they goaded them with
their swords, and when the peasants remonstrated they
were maltreated.

Note (80.)— Page 241, line 21.
EXAMPLE OF THE MANNER IN WHICH FORCED LABOUR WAS APPLIED
TO EVERYTHING.
A correspondence arising, upon a complaint made by
the Intendant of the Naval department at Eochefort, con
cerning the difficulties made by the peasants who were
obliged by the Corvee to cart the wood purchased by the
navy contractors in the different provinces for the purposes
of ship-building, shows that the peasants were in truth still
(1775) obliged to do this forced labour, the price of which
the Intendant himself fixed. The Minister of the Navy
transferred the complaint to the Intendant of Tours, with
the order that he must see to the supply of the carriages
required. The Intendant, M. Ducluzel, refused to authorise
this species of forced labour, whereupon the Minister wrote
him a threatening letter, telling him that he would have
to answer for his refusal to the King. The Intendant, to
this, replied at once (11th December, 1775) with firmness,
that, during the ten years he had been Intendant at Tours,
he never had chosen to authorise these corve'es, on account
of the inevitable abuses resulting from them, for which the
price fixed for the use of the vehicles was no compensation.
" For frequently," says his letter, " the animals are crippled
by the weight of the enormous masses they are obliged to
drag through roads as bad as the time of year when they
are ordered out." What encouraged the Intendant in his
resistance seems to have been a letter of M. Turgot, which
2 I

4§2 FORCED LABOUR. Note 3 0.
is annexed to the papers on this matter. It is dated on
the 30th July, 1774, shortly after his becoming Minister;
and it says that he himself never authorised these corve'es at
Limoges, and approves of M. Ducluzel for not authorising
them at Tours.
It is proved by some portions of this correspondence that
the timber contractors frequently exacted this forced labour
even when they were not authorised to do so by the con
tracts made between themselves and the State, inasmuch
as they thus profited at least one-third in the economy of
their transport expenses. An example of the profit thus
obtained is given by a Subdelegue in the following compu
tation : " Distance of the transport of the wood from the spot
where it is cut, to the river, by almost impracticable cross
roads, six leagues; time employed in going and coming
back, two days ; reckoning (as an indemnity to the corvi-
ables) the square foot at the rate of six liards a league, the
whole amounts to Vi francs 10 sous for the journey — a sum
scarcely sufficient to pay the actual expenses of the small
landowner, of his assistant, and of the oxen or horses har
nessed to his cart. His own time and trouble, and the
work of .his beasts, are dead losses to him." On the 17th
May, 1776, the Intendant was served by the Minister with
a positive order from the King to have this cm-vie executed.
M. Ducluzel being then dead, his successor, M. l'Escalopier,
very readily obeyed, and published an ordinance declaring
that the Subdilegue had to make the assessment of the
amount of labour to be levied upon each parish, in- conse
quence of which the different persons obliged to statute
labour in the said parishes were constrained to go, accord
ing to the time and place set forth by the Syndics, to the
spot where the wood might happen to be, and cart it at the
price regulated by the SubdeUgud.

Note 3 P. TREATMENT OF THE PEASANTRY. 483

Note (3P.)— Page 245, line 9.
EXAMPLE OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE PEASANTS WERE
OFTEN TREATED.
In 1768 the King allowed a remittance of 2000 francs to
be made upon the taille in the parish of Chapelle-Blanche,
near Saumur. The Curd wanted to appropriate a part of
this sum to the construction of a belfry, in order to get rid
of the sound of the bells that annoyed him, as he said, in
his parsonage-house. The inhabitants complained and re
sisted. The SubdiUgue took part with the Cure, and had
three of the principal inhabitants arrested during the night
and put into prison.
Further examples may be found in a Eoyal order to im
prison for a fortnight a woman who had insulted two of
the mounted rural police ; and another order for the im
prisonment for a fortnight of a stocking-weaver who had
spoken ill of the same police. In this latter case the
Intendant replied to the Minister, that he had already
put the man in prison— a proceeding that met with the
approval of the Minister. This abuse of the markhaussee
had arisen from the fact of the violent arrest of several
beggars, that seems to have greatly shocked the population.
The SubdiUgue, it appears, in arresting the weaver, made
publicly known that all who should continue to insult the
Marechaussie should be even still more severely punished.
It appears by the correspondence between the Subde-
tegues and their Intendant (1760-1770) that orders were
given by him to them to have all ill-doing persons arrested
Inot to be tried, but to be punished forthwith by im
prisonment. In one instance the SuhdtUgud asks leave of
the Intendant to condemn to perpetual imprisonment two
dangerous beggars whom he had arrested; in another we
find the protest of a father against the arrest of his son as
a vagabond, because he was travelling without his pass
port Again, a householder of X- demands the arrest
of a man, one of his neighbours, who had come to establish
2 1 ^

484 TREATMENT OF THE PEASANTRY. Note3Q.
himself in the parish, to whom he had been of service, but
who had behaved ill, and was disagreeable to him ; and
the Intendant of Paris writes to request the Intendant of
Eouen to be kind enough to render this service to the
householder, who is one of his friends.
In another case an Intendant replies to a person who
wants to have some beggars set at liberty, saying that the
Depot des Mendiants was not to be considered as a prison,
but only as a house intended for the detention of beggars
and vagabonds, as an "administrative correction." This
idea has come down to the French Penal Code, so much
have the traditions of the old Monarchy, in these matters,
maintained themselves.

Note (3Q.)— Page 257, line 16.
It has been said that the character of the philosophy of
the eighteenth centuiy was a sort of adoration of human
reason — a boundless confidence in its almighty power to
transform at its will laws, institutions, and morals. But,
upon examination, we shall see that, in truth, it was more
their own reason that some of these philosophers adored
than human reason. None ever showed less confidence
in the wisdom of mankind than these men. .1 could name
many who had almost as much contempt for the masses as
for the Divinity. The latter they treated with the arro
gance of rivals, the former with the arrogance of upstarts.
A real and respectful submission to the will of the majority
was as far from their minds as submission to the Divine
will. Almost all the revolutionists of after days have dis
played this double character. There is a wide distance
between their disposition and the respect shown by the
English and Americans to the opinion of the majority of
their fellow citizens. Individual reason in those countries
has its own pride and confidence in itself, but is never
insolent : it has thus led the way to freedom, whilst in

Notes 3R,sS. INFIDELITY IN ENGLAND. 485
France it has done nothing but invent new forms of servi
tude.

Note (3E.)— Page 281, line 14.
Frederick the Great, in his Memoirs, has said : " Your
great men, such as Fontenelle, Voltaire, Hobbes, Collins,
Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, have struck a mortal blow at
religion. Men began to look into that which they had
blindly adored ; reason overthrew superstition ; disgust for
all the fables they had believed succeeded. Deism acquired
many followers. As Epicureanism became fatal to the
idolatrous worship of the Heathens, so did Deism in our
days to the Judaical visions adopted by our forefathers.
The freedom of opinion prevalent in England contributed
greatly to the progress of philosophy."
It may be seen by the above passage that Frederick the
Great, at the time he wrote those lines, that is to say, in
the middle of the eighteenth century, still at that time
looked upon England as the seat of irreligious doctrines.
But a still more striking fact may be gathered from it,
namely, that one of the Sovereigns the most experienced in
the knowledge of man, and of affairs in general, does not
appear to have the slightest idea of the political utility of
religion. The errors of judgment in the mind of his in
structors had evidently disordered the natural qualities of
his own.

Note (3S.)— Page 318, line 15.
The spirit of progress which showed itself in France at
the end ofthe eighteenth century, appeared at the same time
throughout all Germany, and was everywhere accompanied
by the same desire to change the institutions of the time.
A German historian gives the following picture of what was
then going on in his own country : —

486 ABSOLUTISM IN GERMANY. Note 3T,
" In the second half of the eighteenth century the new
spirit of the age gradually introduced itself even into the
ecclesiastical territories. Eeforms were begun in them ;
industry and tolerance made their way in them on every
side ; and that enlightened absolutism, which had already
taken possession of the large states, penetrated even there.
It must be said at the same time, that at no period of the
eighteenth century had these ecclesiastical territories pos
sessed such remarkable and estimable Princes as during the
last ten years preceding the French Eevolution."
The resemblance of this picture to that which France
then offered is remarkable. In France, the movement in
favour of amelioration and progress began at the same
epoch ; and the men the most able to govern appeared on
the stage just at the time when the Eevolution was about
to swallow up everything.
It must be observed also how much all that portion of
Germany was visibly hurried on by the movement of civi
lization and political progress in France.

Note (3T.)— Page 320, line 19.
THE LAWS OF ENGLAND PROVE THAT IT IS POSSIBLE FOR INSTI
TUTIONS TO BE FULL OF DEFECTS AND YET NOT PREVENT
: THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PRINCIPAL END AND AIM FOR
WHICH THEY WERE ESTABLISHED.
The power, which nations possess, of prospering in spite
of the imperfections to be met with in secondary portions
of their institutions, as long as the general principles and
the actual spirit which animate those institutions are full of
life and vigour, is a phenomenon which manifests itself
with peculiar distinctness when the judicial constitution of
England in the last century, as described by Blackstone, is
looked into.
The attention is immediately arrested by two great di
versities, that are very striking : —
First. The diversity of the laws.

Note 3T. LAWS OF ENGLAND. 487
Secondly. The diversity of the Courts that administer
them. I. — Diversity ofthe Laws. — (1.) The laws are different for
England (properly so called), for Scotland, for Ireland, for
the different European dependencies of Great Britain, such
as the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, &c, and finally, for
the British Colonies.
(2.) In England itself may be found four kinds of laws —
the common law, statute law, Eoman law, and equity.
The common law is itself divided into general customs
adopted throughout the whole kingdom, and customs spe
cially belonging to certain manors or certain towns, or
sometimes only to certain classes, such as the trades.
These customs sometimes differ greatly from each other ;
as those, for instance, which, in opposition to the general
tendency of the English laws, require an equal distribu
tion of property among all the children (gavelkind), and,
what is still more singular, give a right of primogeniture
to the youngest child (borough-English).
II. — Diversity of the Courts. — Blackstone informs us that
the law has instituted a prodigious variety of different
courts. Some idea of this may be obtained from the fol
lowing extremely summary analysis :
(1.) In the first place there were the Courts established
without the limits of England, properly so called ; such
as the Scotch and Irish courts, which never were depen
dencies of the superior courts in England, although an
appeal lies from these several jurisdictions to the House of
Lords. (2.) In England itself, if I am correct in my memory,
among the classifications of Blackstone are to be found the
following :
1. Eleven kinds of Courts of Common Law, four of
whioh, it is true, seem tp have already fallen into disuse.
2. Three kinds of courts, the jurisdiction of which ex
tends to the whole country, but which take cognizance only
of certain matters.

488 JUDICIAL CONSTITUTION Note 3T.
3. Ten kinds of courts, having a special character of '
their own. One of these kinds consists of Local Courts,
established by different Acts of Parliament, and existing by
tradition, either in London itself or in towns and boroughs
in the counties. These Courts were so numerous, and were
so extremely various in their constitution and in their re
gulations, that it would be out of the question to attempt
to give a detailed account of them.
Thus, in England (properly so called) alone, if Black
stone is to be believed, there existed, at the period when he
wrote, that is to say, in the second half of the eighteenth
century, twenty-four kinds of Courts, several of which were
subdivided into a great number of individual courts, each
of which had its special peculiarities. If we set aside
those kinds, which appear at that time to have almost fallen
into disuse, we shall then find eighteen or twenty.
If now the judicial system in itself be examined it will
be found to contain all sorts of imperfections.
In spite of the multiplicity' of the courts there was fre
quently a want of smaller courts, of primary instance,
placed within the reach of those concerned, and em
powered to judge on the spot, and at little expense, all
minor matters. This want rendered such legal proceedings
perplexing and expensive. The same matters came under
the jurisdiction of several courts ; and thus an embar
rassing uncertainty hung over the commencements of legal
proceedings. Some of the Appeal Courts were also Courts
of original jurisdiction — sometimes the Courts of Common
Law, at other times the Courts of Equity. There was a
great diversity of Appeal Courts. The only central point
was that of the House of Lords. The administrative liti
gant was not separated from the ordinary litigant — a fact
which, in the eyes of most French legal men, would appear
a monstrous anomaly. All these courts, moreover, looked
for the motives of their judgment in four different kinds of
legislation ; that of the Courts of Equity was established
upon statutory provisions, since its very object was most

Note 3T. OF ENGLAND. 489
frequently to go against custom and statute, and to correct,
by the rules of the system framed by the Judges in Equity,
all that was antiquated or too harsh in statute and
custom. These blemishes were very great ; and if the enormous
old machine of the English judicial system be compared
with the modern construction of that of France, and the
simplicity, consistence, and natural connexity to be ob
served in the latter, with the remarkable complication and
incoherence of the former, the errors of the English juris
prudence will appear greater still. Yet there was not a
country in the world in which, in the days of Blackstone,
the great ends of justice were more completely attained
than in England ; that is to say, no country in which every
man, whatever his condition of life — whether he appeared
in court as a common individual or a Prince — was more
sure of being heard, or found in the tribunals of his country
better guarantees for the defence of his property, his li
berty, and his life.
It is not meant by this that the defects of the English
judicial system were of any service to what I have here
called the great ends of justice : it proves only that in every
judicial organization there are secondary defects that are
only partially injurious to these ends of justice ; and other
principal ones, that not only prove injurious to them but
destroy them altogether, although joined to many se
condary perfections. The first-mentioned are the most
easily perceived ; they are the defects that generally first
strike common minds : they stare one in the face, as the
saying goes. The others are often more concealed ; and
it is not always the men the most learned in the law, and
other men in the profession, who discover them and point
them out.
It must be observed, moreover, that the same qualities
may be either secondary or principal, according to the
period of history or the political organization of a country.
In periods of aristocratic predominance and inequality

490 ENGLISH JUDICIAL SYSTEM. Note 3T.
everything that tends to lessen any privilege of any indivi
dual before the face of justice, to afford guarantees to the
weak against the strong, and to give a predominance to the
action of the state — which is naturally impartial in differ
ences only occurring between subjects — becomes a princi
pal quality ; whereas it diminishes in importance in pro
portion to the inclination of the social state and political
constitution towards Democracy.
In studying the English judicial system upon these prin
ciples it will be found that, although it permitted the ex
istence of every defect that could contribute to render jus
tice in that country obscure, hampered, slow, expensive,
and inconvenient, it had taken infinite precautions to
prevent the strong from ever being favoured at the expense
of the weak, or the State at the expense of the private indi
vidual. The more the observer penetrates into the details
of the English legislation the more he will see that every
citizen was provided with all sorts of weapons for his
defence, and that matters were so arranged as to afford
every one the greatest number of guarantees possible
against partiality, actual venality, and that sort of venality
which is more common, and especially more dangerous in
democratic times — the venality consisting of the servility
of the courts towards the government.
In this point of view the English judicial system, in spite
of the numerous secondary errors that may still be found in
it, appears to me superior to the French, which, although
almost entirely untainted, it is true, by any one of these
defects, does not at the same time offer in like degree the
principal qualities that are to be found in it, which, al
though excellent in the guarantees it affords to every
citizen in all disputes between individuals!, fails precisely
in that point that ought always to be strengthened in a
democratic state of society like the French, namely, in the
guarantees afforded to individuals against the State.

Notes 3U, 3V. G^N^RALITi: OF PARIS. 491
Note (8U.)— Page 321, line 19.
ADVANTAGES ENJOYED BY THE GEn£rALIt£ OF PARIS.
This Generalite' was as much favoured in charities be
stowed by the government as it was in the levying of taxes.
An example may be found in a letter of the Controleur-
General to the Intendant of the Generalite of Ile-de-France
(dated 22 May, 1787), in which he informs the latter that
the King had fixed the sum, which was to be employed
upon works of charity during the year, in the Gendralite
of Paris, at 172,800 livres ; and 100,000 livres, moreover,
were destined for the purchase of cows, to be given to dif
ferent husbandmen. It may be seen by this letter that the
sum of 172,000 livres was to be distributed by the Intendant
alone, with the proviso that he was to conform himself to
the general rules already made known to him by the go
vernment, and that he was to lay the account of the distri
bution before the Controleur-General for approval.

Note (3V.)— Page 324, line 10.
The administration of the old Monarchy was made up of
a multitude of different powers, which had been established
at different times, but generally for the purposes of the
Treasury, and not ofthe Administration, properly so called,
and which frequently had the same field of action. It was
thus impossible to avoid confusion and contention otherwise
than by each party acting but little, or even doing nothing
at all. As soon as they made any efforts to rise above this
sort of languor, they hampered and entangled each other's
movements; and thus it happened that the complaints
made against the complication of the administrative ma
chinery, and the confusion as to its different attributions,
were very much more grievous during the years that imme
diately preceded the Eevolution than thirty or forty years
before. The political institutions of the country had not

492 ARBITRARY TAXATION. Note 3X.
become worse — on the contrary, they had been greatly
ameliorated ; but the general political movement had be
come much more active.

Note (3X.)— Page 334, line 24.
ARBITRARY AUGMENTATION OF THE TAXES.
What was here said by the King respecting the taille,
might have been said by him, with as much reason, con
cerning the vingtiemes, as may be seen by the following cor
respondence: — In 1772 the Controleur- General Terray had
decided upon a considerable augmentation (as much as
100,000 livres) upon the vingtiemes of the Giniralitd of Tours.
It is evident that this measure caused M. Ducluzel, an able
administrator and an honourable man, both sorrow and em
barrassment; for, in a confidential letter, he says: "It is
probably the facility with which the 200,000 livres" (a pre
vious augmentation) " have been given, that has encouraged
the cruel interpretation and the letter of the month of
June." In a private and confidential letter, which the Director of
Contributions wrote thereupon to the Intendant, he says :
" If the augmentations which have been demanded appear
to you, on account of the general distress, to be as aggra
vating and as revolting as you give me to understand, it
would be better for the province, which can have no other
defence or protection than in your generous good-feeling,
that you should spare it, at least, the rdles de supplement, a
retroactive tax, that is always odious."
It may be seen by this correspondence what a complete
absence there was of any solid basis, and what arbitrary mea
sures were exercised, each with honest intentions. Both
Minister and Intendant laid the weight of the increased
taxation sometimes upon the agricultural rather than the
manufacturing interests, sometimes upon one kind of agri
culture more than another (as the growth of vines, for

Notes 3Y— "B. REVOLUTIONARY SCHEMES. 493
instance), according as they fancied that the manufacturing
or any one branch of the agricultural interest ought to be
more tenderly handled.

Note (3Y.)— Page 338, line 15.
EXPRESSIONS USED BY TURGOT RESPECTING THE COUNTRY PEOPLE
IN THE PREAMBLE OF A ROYAL DECLARATION.
" The communities of the country districts consist,
throughout the greater part of the kingdom, of poor pea
sants, who are ignorant and brutal, and incapable of self-
administration."

Note (3Z.)— Page 347, line 7.
HOW IT WAS THAT REVOLUTIONARY IDEAS NATURALLY SPRANG
UP IN MEN'S MINDS, EVEN UNDER THE OLD MONARCHY.
In 1779 an avocat addressed a petition to the Council for
a decree to establish a maximum of the price of straw
throughout the whole kingdom.

Note (* A.)— Page 347, line 19.
The Head Engineer, in a letter written to the Intendant,
in 1781, relative to a demand for an increase of indemnifi
cation, thus expresses himself: "The claimant does not
pay heed to the fact that the indemnifications granted are
an especial favour to the GeniraliU of Tours, and that people
ought to consider themselves very fortunate in recovering
only a part of their loss. If such compensations as the
claimant requires were to be given, four millions would not
suffice."

Note (4B.)— Page 356, line 20.
The Eevolution did not break out on account of this pros
perity, but that active, uneasy, intelligent, innovating, am-

494 , LTLE-DE-FRANCE. Notes <C, 4D.
bitious spirit, that was destined to produce the Eevolution —
the democratic spirit of new states of society — began to stir
up everything, and, before it overthrew for a period the
social state of France, was already strong enough to agitate
and develop it.

Note (4C.)— Page 359, line 21.
collision of the ddjferent administrative powers
in 1787.
The following may be taken as an example : — The inter
mediate commission of the Provincial Assembly of L'lle-de-
France claimed the administration of the Dipot de Mendicitd.
The Intendant insisted upon its remaining in his own hands,
" inasmuch," said he, " as this establishment is not kept up
by the funds of the province." During the discussion, the
intermediate commission communicated with the interme
diate commissions of other provinces, in order to learn their
opinions. Among other answers given to its questions,
exists one from the intermediate commission of Champagne,
informing that of L'lle-de-France that it had met with the
very same difficulties, and had offered the same resistance.

Note (4D.)— Page 366, line 1.
In the minutes of the first Provincial Assembly of L'lle-
de-France, the following declaration may be found, pro
ceeding from the mouth of the reporter of the committee : —
" Up to the present time the functions of Syndic, which are
far more onerous than honourable, are such as to indispose
from accepting them all those who unite a sufficient compe
tency to the intelligence to be expected from their position
in life."

Note 4 E. FEUDAL RIGHTS. 495

Note (4E.)— Page 368, line 17.
FEUDAL RIGHTS, WHICH STILL EXISTED AT THE PERIOD OF THE
REVOLUTION, ACCORDING TO THE FEUDAL LAWYERS.
It is not the intention of the author here to write a
treatise upon feudal rights, and, least of all, to attempt
any research into their possible origin. It is simply his
desire to point out those which were still exercised in the
eighteenth century. These rights played so important a
part at that time, and have since retained so large a space
in the imagination of the very persons who have no longer
anything to suffer from them, that it was a most interesting
task to find out precisely what they Were when the Eevolu
tion destroyed them all. For this purpose a great number
of terriers, or rolls of feudal manors, were studied, — those
of the most recent date being selected. But this manner of
proceeding led to nothing ; for the feudal rights, although
regulated by a legal code, which was the same throughout
the whole of feudal Europe, were infinitely various in their
kinds, according to the province, or even the districts, where
they existed. The only system, then, which appeared
likely to lead, in an approximate manner, to the required
result, was the following : — These feudal rights were con
tinually giving rise to all sorts of disputes and litigation.
In these cases it was necessary to know how these rights
were acquired, how they were lost, in what they consisted
exactly, which were the dues that could only be collected
by virtue of a Eoyal patent, which those that could only be
established by private title, which those, on the contrary,
that had no need of formal titles, and might be collected
upon the strength of local custom, or even in virtue of long
usage. Again, when they were for sale, it was necessary to
know in what manner they were to be valued, and what
capital each of them represented, according to its import
ance. All these points, so immediately affecting a thousand
pecuniary interests, were subject to litigation ; and thus was

496 FEUDAL RIGHTS AT THE Note *E.
•constituted a distinct class of legal men, whose only occu
pation it was to elucidate them. Many of these men
wrote during the second half of the eighteenth century ;
some even just upon the threshold of the Revolution. They
were not lawyers, properly speaking, but practitioners,
whose only task it was to point out to professional men the
rules to be followed in this special and little attractive
portion of legal science. By an attentive study of these
feudistes, a tolerably minute and distinct idea of a subject,
the size and confusion of which is at first bewildering, may
be at last come at. The author gives below the most suc
cinct summary he was able to make of his work. These
notes are principally derived from the work of Edme de
Freminville, who wrote about the year 1750, and from that
of Eenauldon, written in 1765, and entitled, " Traitd his
torique et pratique des Droits Seigneuriaux."
The Cens (that is to say, the perpetual quit-rent, in
kind and in money, which, by the" feudal laws, was affixed
to the possession of certain lands) still, in the eighteenth
century, affected most deeply the position of a great number
of landed proprietors. This cens continued to be indivisible,
that is to say, the entire cens might be claimed of any one
of the possessors of the property, subject to the cens at will.
It was always irredeemable. No proprietor of any lands,
subject to the cens, could sell them without being exposed
to the retrait censuel, that is to say, without being obliged
to let the property be taken back at the price of the sale ;
but this only took place in certain coutumes. The coutume of
Paris, which was the most general, did not recognise this
right! Lods and Ventes. — It was a general rule that, in every part
of the country where the coutume prevailed, the sale of every
estate subject to the cens should produce what were called
lods and ventes ; in other words, the fines paid to the lords of
the manor, upon the alienation of this kind of property.
These dues were more or less considerable, according to the
customs of the manor, but were everywhere considerable

Note «E. PERIOD OF THE REVOLUTION. 497
enough ; they existed just as well in parts where the droit
dcrit (written law) was established. They generally con
sisted of one-sixth of the price, and were then named lods.
But in these parts the lord of the manor had to establish his
rights. In what was called pays dcrit, as well as in pays
coutumkr, the cens gave the lord of the manor a privilege
which took precedence of all other debts on the estate.
Terrage, or Champart. Agrier. Tasque. — These dues con
sisted of a certain portion of the produce, which the lord of
the manor levied upon- lands subject to the cens. The amount
varied according to the contracts or the customs of the place.
This right is frequently to be met with in the eighteenth
century. I believe that the terrage, even in pays coutumier,
could only be claimed by title-deed. The terrage was either
seigneurial arfoncier. It is not necessary to explain here the
distinctions which existed between these two different
kinds. Suffice it to say that the terrage fonder was fixed for
thirty years, like the rentes foncieres, whilst the terrage
seigneurial was irredeemable. Lands subject to terrage
could not be mortgaged without the consent of the lord of
the manor.
Bordelage. — A right which only existed in the Nivernais
and Bourbonnais countries, and which consisted in an annual
quit-rent, paid in money, corn, and fowls, upon lands sub
ject to the cens. This right entailed very rigorous conse
quences : non-payment of the dues during three years
gave cause for the exercise of the commise or entry to
the advantage of the lord of the manor. A tenant owing
the bordelage was more open than any other to a variety of.
annoyances on his property. Sometimes the lord of the
manor possessed the right of claiming his inheritance, even
when he died having heirs who had legal rights to the suc
cession. This was the most rigorous of any of the feudal
rights ; and the law had finally restricted it only to rural
inheritances. " For," as our author says, "the peasant is
always the mule ready to receive every burden."
Marciage was the name of peculiar dues levied upon the
2 K

498 • FEUDAL RIGHTS AT THE Note « E.
possessors of land, subject to the cens, in very few places,
and consisting in certain payments due only upon the
natural death of the lord of the manor.
Dimes Infeodees. — There still existed in the eighteenth
century a great number of tithes in fief. They were gene
rally established by separate contract, and did not result
from the mere fact of the Lordship of the Manor.
Parciere. — The parcieres were dues levied upon the crops of
fruit gathered on the manor-lands. They bore resemblance
to the champart and the dime infeodee, and were principally
in usage in the Bourbonnais and Auvergne countries.
Carpot. — This was observed in the Bourbonnais country,
and was a due levied upon the vineyards, as the champart
was upon arable lands, that is to say, it was levied upon
a portion of the crops. It amounted to a quarter of the
vintage. Servage. — The customs that still possessed traces of serf
dom were called coutumes serves; they were very few in
number. In the provinces, where they were still observed,
there were no estates, or at least very few, where some
traces of ancient serfdom were not visible. [This remark
is derived from a work written in 1765.] The Servage (or,
as the author terms it, the Servitude) was either personal or
real. The personal servitude was attached to the person, and
followed him everywhere. Wherever the serf might go,
to whatever place he might transport his substance, he
might be reclaimed by the Lord by right of suite. Our
authors cite several legal verdicts that establish this
right — among others, a verdict given on the 17th June,
1760, in which the court decides against a Seigneur of the
Nivernais in respect to his right of claiming the succession
of Pierre Truchet, who was the son of a serf subject to
poursuite, according to the custom of the Nivernais, who had
married a Parisian woman, and who had died in Paris, as
well as his son. But this verdict seems to have been
founded on the fact that Paris was a " place of refuge "

Note «E. PERIOD OF THE REVOLUTION. 499
(lieu d'asile) in which the suite could not take place. If the
right of asile alone prevented the Seigneur from seizing upon
property possessed by his serfs in the lieu d'asile, it formed
no opposition against his claiming to succeed to property
left in his own manor.
The "real" servitude resulted from the occupation of
land, and might cease upon the land being given up, or
residence in a certain place changed.
Corvdes. — The right possessed by the lord of the manor
over his subjects, by means of which he could employ for
his own profit a certain number of their days of labour, or
of their oxen and horses. The corvee a volonte, that is to
say, at the arbitrary will of the Seigneur, had been com
pletely abolished : forced labour had been for some time
past confined to a certain number of days a-year.
The Corvee might be either personal or real. The per
sonal corve'es were paid by labourers and workmen, whose
residence was established upon the manor, each according
to his occupation. The real corvdes were attached to the
possession of certain lands. Nobles, ecclesiastics, clerical
personages, officers of justice, advocates, physicians, notaries,
and bankers, and men in that position of life, were exempt
from the corvde. A verdict, given on the 13th August,
1735, is cited by one of our authors, exempting a notary
whom his Seigneur wanted to force to come for nothing,
during three days, and draw up certain law papers con
cerning the Seigneurie on which the notary resided. . An
other verdict, of the date of 1750, decides that, when the
corvde is personal, it may be paid either in person or by
money, the choice to be left to the person by whom it is
due. Every corvde had to be established by written title-
deeds." The Corvde Seigneuriale had become extremely rare
in the eighteenth century.
Banalitds. — (Eights possessed by the Lords of certain
manors to oblige those residing on them to make use of his
baking-office, mill, &c, upon payment.)— The provinces of
Flanders, Artois, and Hainault, were alone exempt from
2 K 2

500 FEUDAL RIGHTS AT THE Note *E.
banalites. The Custom of Paris rigorously requires that
this should not be exercised without written title. Every
person domiciled within the circuit of the banalitd was
subject to it, and, most generally, even the nobles and
priests also.
Besides the banalitd of the wine-press and baking-office
there existed several others : —
(1.) Banalitds of industrial establishments, such as for
cloth, tanning, or hemp. This banalitd is established by
many coutumes, as, for instance, by those of Anjou, the
Maine, and Brittany.
(2.) Banalitds of the wine-press. Few coutumes mention
this. But that of Lorraine, as well as that of the Maine,
establish it.
(3.) Banalite of the manor bull. No coutumes mention
this ; but there were title-deeds that established the right.
The same may be said of the right of banalite for butchers'
shambles. In general these latter banalites of which we have just
spoken were more uncommon, and looked upon with a still
less favourable eye than the others. They could only be
exercised by the clearest declaration of the coutumes, or,
where that was wanting, by the most precise title.
Ban des Vendanges.- — This was still practised throughout
the whole of the kingdom in the eighteenth century. It
was a simple right of police attached to the right of haute
justice. In order to exercise it, the Seigneur, who was Haut
Justicier, did not need to possess any other title. The ban
des vendanges was obligatory upon everybody. The coutumes
of Burgundy give the Seigneur the right of gathering in his
vintage a day before any other vine proprietor.
Droit de Banvin. — This was a right still possessed by a
quantity of Seigneurs (as our authors have it), either by
custom or special title, to sell the wine grown upon their
manors for a certain period of time, in general a month or
forty days, before any one else. Among the Grandes Cou
tumes those of Tours, Anjou, the Maine, and La Marche

Note «E. PERIOD OF THE REVOLUTION. 501
alone established it, and had regulations for it. A verdict
of the Cour des Aides, dated 28th August, 1751, authorises
publicans (as an exception to the common rule) to sell wine
during the banvin; but this must have referred only to
the wine of the Seigneur, made from that year's growth.
The coutumes that establish and regulate the right of banvin
generally require that it should be founded upon legal
title. Droit de Blairie was a right belonging to the Seigneur, who
was Haut Justicier, to grant permission to the inhabitants to
have their cattle graze upon lands situated throughout his
jurisdiction, or upon waste lands. This right did not exist
in any parts regulated by droit dcrit; but it was common
enough in those where the droit coutumier was in force. It was
to be found under different denominations, more particularly
in the Bourbonnais, the Nivernais, Auvergne, and Burgundy.
This right rested upon the supposition that the whole ter
ritory originally belonged to the Seigneur, in such wise that,
after the distribution of the greater part into fiefs; cencites,
and other concessions of lands upon quit-rents, there still
remained portions which could only be used for waste
pasture-ground, and of which he might grant the temporary
use to others. The blairie was established in several cou
tumes ; but it could only be claimed by a Seigneur who was
Haut Justicier, and was maintained only by some special
title, or at least by old claims supported by long pos
session. Pdages. — According to our authors, there originally existed
a prodigious number of manorial tolls upon bridges, rivers,
and roads. Louis XIV. did away with a great number of
them. In 1724 a commission, nominated fo examine into
the titles by which the tolls were claimed, suppressed
twelve hundred of them ; and, in 1765, they were still being
constantly suppressed. " The principle observed in this
respect," says Eenaulden, " was that, inasmuch as the toll
was a tax, it was necessary to be founded not only upon
legal title, but upon one emanating from the sovereign."

;502 FEUDAL RIGHTS AT THE Note 4E.
The toll was levied "Depar le Roi." One of the conditions
of the toll was that it should be established by tarif regu
lating the dues, which each kind of merchandise had to pay.
It was necessary that this tarif should be approved by a
decree ofthe Council. " The title of concession," says one
author, " had to be followed by uninterrupted possession."
In spite of these precautions legally taken, it appears that
the value of the tolls had greatly increased in latter times.
" I know one toll," says the same author, " that was farmed
out, a century ago, at 100 livres, and now brings in 1400 ;
and another, farmed at 39,000 livres, that brings in 90,000."
The principal ordinances or principal decrees that regu
lated the right of toll, were paragraph 29 of the Ordinance
of 1669, and the Decrees of 1683, 1693, 1724, 1775.
The authors I have quoted, although in general favour
able enough to feudal rights, acknowledge that great abuses
were committed in the levying of the tolls.
Bacs, — The right of ferries differed materially from the
right of toll. The latter was only levied upon merchandise ;
the former upon individuals, animals, and carriages. It
was necessary that this right, in order to be exercised, should
likewise be authorised by the King ; and the dues, to be
levied, had to be fixed by the same decree of Council that
established and authorised it.
Droit de Leyde (to which many other names have been
given in different places) was a tax levied upon merchandise
brought to fairs or markets. Many lords of the manor (as
appears by our feudistes) considered this right as one attached
to the right of Haute Justice, and wholly manorial, but quite
mistakenly, inasmuch as it could only be authorised by the
King. At all events, this right only belonged to the
Seigneur, who was Haut Justicier : he levied the police fines.
to which the exercise of the right gave occasion. It appears,
however, that, although by theory the droit de leyde could
only emanate from the King, it was frequently set up solely
upon the basis of feudal title, or long possession.

Note « E. PERIOD OF THE REVOLUTION. 503
It is veiy certain that fairs could not be established other
wise than by Eoyal authorization.
The lords of the manor, however, had no need of any
precise title, or any concession on the part of the King, for
the exercise of the right of regulating the weights and mea
sures to be used by their vassals in all fairs and markets
held upon the manor. It was enough for the right to be
founded upon custom and constant possession. Our authors
say that all the Kings, who, one after the other, were de
sirous of re-establishing uniformity in the weights and
measures, failed in the attempt. Matters had been allowed
to remain at the same point where they were when the
old coutumes were drawn up.
Chemins. (Eights exercised by the Lords ofthe Manor upon
Eoads.) — The high roads, called " Chemins du Roi" (King's
highway), belonged, in fact, to the sovereigns alone ; their
formation, their reparation, and the offences committed upon
them, were beyond the cognizance of the Seigneurs, or their
judges. The bye-roads, to be met with on any portion of a
Seigneurie, doubtless belonged to such Seigneurs as were Hauts
Justiciers. They had all the rights of voirie and police upon
them, and their judges took cognizance of all the offences
committed upon them, except in Eoyal cases. At an earlier
period the Seigneurs had been obliged to keep up the high
roads passing through their Seigneurie, and, as a compensa
tion for the expenses incurred in these repairs, they were
allowed the dues arising from tolls, settlement of boundaries,
and barriers ; but, at this epoch, the King had resumed the
general direction of the high roads.
Eaux. — All the rivers, both navigables and flottables (ad
mitting the passage of rafts), belonged to the King, although
they flowed through the property of lords of the manor,
and in spite of any title to the contrary. (See Ordinance of
1669.) If the lords of the manor levied any dues upon
these rivers, it was those arising from the rights of fishing,
the mills, ferry-boats, and bridge-tolls, &c, in virtue of con
cessions emanating only from the King. There were some

504 FEUDAL RIGHTS AT THE Note 4E.
lords of the manor who still arrogated to themselves the
rights of jurisdiction and police upon these rivers ; but this
manifestly only arose from usurpation, or from concessions
improperly acquired.
The smaller rivers unquestionably belonged to the Seig
neurs through whose property they flowed. They possessed
in them the same rights of property, of jurisdiction, and
police, which the King possessed upon the navigable rivers.
All Seigneurs, Hauts Justiciers, were universally the Lords of
the non-navigable rivers running through their territory.
They wanted no other legal title for the exercise of their
claims than that which conferred the right of Haute Justice.
There were some customs, such as the Coutume du Berri, that
authorised private individuals to erect a mill upon the Seig
norial river passing through the lands they occupied,
without the permission of the Seigneur. The Coutume de
Bretagne only granted this right to private personages who
were noble. As a matter of general right, it is very certain
that the Seigneur Haut Justicier had alone the right of erecting
mills throughout every part of his jurisdiction. No one was
entitled to erect barriers for the protection of his property
without the permission of the judges of the Seigneur.
Fontaines. — Puits. — Routoirs. — Etangs. — The rain-water
that fell upon the high roads belonged exclusively to the
Seigneurs Hauts Justiciers ; they alone were enabled to dispose
of it. The Seigneur Haut Justicier possessed the right of con
structing ponds in any part throughout his jurisdiction, and
even upon lands in the possession of those who resided under
it, upon the condition of paying them the price of the ground
put under water. Private individuals were only able to
make ponds upon their own soil ; and, even for this, many
coutumes require that permission should be obtained of the
Seigneur. The. coutumes, however, thus requiring the acqui
escence of the Seigneur, establish, that it is to be given gra
tuitously. La Peche. — The right of fishing on navigable or floatable
rivers belonged only to the King, and he alone could make

Note 4 E. PERIOD OF THE REVOLUTION. 505
grants of this right. The Eoyal Judges alone had the right
of judging offences against the right of fishery. There were
many Seigneurs, however, who exercised the right of fishing
in these streams ; but they either possessed by concession,
made by the King, or had usurped it. No person could
fish, even with the rod, in non-navigable rivers, without
permission from the Seigneur, Haut Justicier, within whose
limits they flowed. A judgment (dated 30th April, 1749)
condemns a fisherman in a similar case. Even the Seigneurs
themselves, however, were obliged, in fishing, to observe
the general regulations respecting fisheries. The Seigneur,
Haut Justicier, was enabled to give the right of fishing in his
river to tenants in fief, or a cens.
La Chasse. — The right of the chase was not allowed to be
farmed out like that of fishing. It was a personal right,
arising from the consideration that it belonged to the King,
and that the nobles themselves could not exercise it, in the
interior of their own jurisdiction, without the permission of
the King. This doctrine was established in an Ordinance
of 1669 (par. 30). The judges of the Seigneur had the
power of taking cognizance of all offences against the rights
of the chase, except in cases appertaining to betes uresses
(signifying, it would appear, what were generally called
"grosses bdtes" — stags, does, &c), wliich were considered
Eoyal. The right of shooting and hunting was more interdicted
to the non-noble than any other. The free fief of the non-
noble did not even bestow it. The King never granted it
in his own hunt. So closely observed was this principle,
and so rigorous was the right considered, that the Seigneur
was not allowed to give any permission to hunt. But still
it did constantly occur that Seigneurs granted such permis
sions not only to nobles but to non-nobles. The Seigneur,
Haut Justicier, possessed the faculty of hunting and shooting
on any part of his own jurisdiction, but alone. He was
allowed to make regulations and establish prohibitions upon
matters appertaining to the chase throughout its extent.

506 FEUDAL RIGHTS AT THE Note *E.
Every Seigneur de Fief, although not having the feudal power
of judicial courts, was allowed to hunt and shoot in any
part of his fief. Nobles, who possessed neither fief or
jurisdiction, were allowed to do so upon the lands belonging
to them in the immediate neighbourhood of their dwelling-
houses. It was decided that a non-noble, possessing a park
upon the territory of a Seigneur Haut Justicier, was obliged to
leave it open for the diversion ofthe Lord. But this judg
ment was given as long ago as 1668.
Garennes. — Eabbit-warrens could not be established with
out title-right. Non-nobles, as well as nobles, were allowed
to have rabbit-warrens ; but the nobles alone were allowed
to keep ferrets.
Colombiers. — Certain coutumes only give the right of colom-
biers a pied (dovecots standing apart from a building) to the
Seigneurs, Haut Justiciers ; others grant it to all holders of fiefs.
In Dauphiny, Brittany, and Normandy, no non-noble was
allowed to possess dovecot, pigeon-house, or aviary ; the
nobles alone were allowed to keep pigeons. The penalties
pronounced against those who killed the pigeons were ex
tremely severe : the most afflicting punishments were some
times bestowed.
Such, according to the authors above cited, were the prin
cipal feudal rights still exercised and dues still levied in the
second half of the eighteenth century. " The rights here
mentioned," they add, " are those generally established at
the present time. But there are still very many others, less
known and less widely practised, which only occur in certain
coutumes, or only in certain seigneuries, in virtue of peculiar
titles." These rarer and more restricted feudal rights, of
which our authors thus make mention, and which they
enumerate, amount to the number of ninety-nine ; and the
greater part of them are directly prejudicial to agriculture,
inasmuch as they give the Seigneurs certain rights over the
harvests, or tolls upon the sale or transport of grain, fruit,
provisions, &c. Our authors say that most of these feudal
rights were out of use in their day ; I have reason to believe,

Note <E. PERIOD OF THE REVOLUTION. 507
however, that a great number of these dues were still levied,
in some places, in 1789.
After having studied, among the writers on feudal rights
in the eighteenth century, the principal feudal rights still
exercised, I was desirous of finding out what was their im
portance in the eyes of their contemporaries, at least as
regarded the fortunes of those who levied them and those
who had to pay them.
Eenauldon, one of the authors I have mentioned, gives us
an insight into this matter, by laying before us the rules
that legal men had to follow in their valuation of the dif
ferent feudal rights which still existed in 1765, that is to
say, twenty-four years before the Eevolution. According
to this law writer, the rules to be observed on these matters
were as follow : —
Droits de Justice. — " Some of our consumes," he says, " esti
mate the value of Justice Haute, Basse, or Moyenne, at a tenth
of the revenues of the land. At that time the seignorial
jurisdiction was considered of great importance. Edme de
Freminville opines that, at the present day, the right of
jurisdiction ought not to be valued at more than a twentieth
of the revenues of the land ; and I consider this valuation
still too large."
Droits Honorifiques. — •" However inestimable these rights
may be considered," declares our author, a man of a practi
cal turn of mind and not easily led away by appearances,
" it would be prudent on the part of those who make valua
tions, to fix them at a very moderate price."
Corvees Seigneuriales. — Our author, in giving the rules for
the estimation of the value of forced labour, proves that the
right of enforcing it was still to be met with sometimes.
He values the day's work of an ox at 20 sous, and that ofthe
labourer at 5 sous, with his food ; a tolerably good indica
tion of the price of wages paid in 1765 may be gathered
from this.
PSdges.— Eespecting the valuation of the tolls our author
" There is not one of the Seignorial rights that ought

508 FEUDAL RIGHTS. Note<E.
to be estimated lower than the tolls. They are very preca
rious. The repairs of the roads and bridges — the most
useful to the commerce of the country — being now main
tained by the King and the provinces, many of the tolls
become useless nowadays, and they are suppressed more
and more every day.
Droit de Peche et de Chasse. — The right of fishing may be
farmed out, and may thus give occasion for valuation. The
right of the chase is purely personal, and cannot be farmed
out ; it may consequently be reckoned among the honorary
rights but not among the profitable rights, and cannot,
therefore, be comprehended in any valuation.
Our author then mentions more particularly the rights of
banalite', banvin, leyde, and blairie, and thus proves that these
rights were those most frequently exercised at that time,
and that they maintained the greatest importance. He
adds, " There are a quantity of other seignorial rights,
which may still be met with from time to time, but
which it would be too long, and indeed impossible, to
make mention of here. But intelligent appraisers will
find sufficient rules, in the examples we have already
given, for the estimation of those rights of which we do
not speak."
Estimation du Cens. — The greater number of the coutumes
place the estimation of the cens, au denier 30 (3-i. per cent.).
The high valuation of the cens arises from the fact that it
represents at the same time all such remunerative casualties
as the lods et ventes, for instance.
Dimes infe'ode'es — Terrage. — The tithes in fief cannot be esti
mated at less than 4 per cent. ; this sort of property calling
neither for care, culture, or expense. When the terrage or
champart includes lods et ventes, that is to say, when the land
subject to these dues cannot be sold without paying for the
right of exchange to the Seigneur, who has the right of
tenure in capite, the valuation must be raised to 3^. per cent. ;
if not it must be estimated like the tithes.
Les Rentes foncikres, which produce no lods et ventes or droit

Note «E. HEREDITARY ESTATES.

509

de retenu (that is to say, which are not seignorial revenue),
ought to be estimated at 5 per cent.

ESTIMATE OF THE DIFFERENT HEREDITARY ESTATES EXISTING IN
FRANCE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION.
We recognise in France, says this writer, only three kinds
of estates : —
(1.) The Franc Alleu.— This was a freehold estate, exempt
from every kind of burden, and subject neither to seignorial
duties or dues, either profitable or honorary.
There were both noble and non-noble francs alleux. The
noble franc alleu had its right of jurisdiction or fiefs depen
dent on it, or lands paying quit-rents : it followed all the
observances of feudal law in sub-division. The non-noble
franc alleu had neither jurisdiction, or fief, or censive, and
was heritable, according to the laws affecting non-nobles.
The author looks upon the holders of francs alleux as alone
possessing complete property in the land.
Valuation of Estates in Franc Alleu. — They were valued the
highest of all. The coutumes of Auvergne and Burgundy put
the valuation of them as high as 40 years' purchase. Our
author opines that their valuation at 30 years' purchase
would be exact. It must be observed that all non-noble
francs alleux placed within the limits of a seignorial juris
diction were subject to this jurisdiction. They were not
in any dependence of vassalage to the Seigneur, but owed
submission to a jurisdiction which had the position of that
of the Courts of the State.
(2.) The second kind was that of estates held in fief.
(3.) The third was that of estates held on quit-rents, or,
in the law language of the time, " Rotures."
Valuation of an Estate held in Fief. — The valuation was less,
according as the feudal burdens on it were greater.
(1.) In the parts of the country where written law was
observed, and in many of the coutumes, the fiefs lay only

510 TENURE OF LANDS Note 4 E.
under the obligation of what was called " ta bouche et les
mains," that is to say, that of doing homage.
(2.) In other coutumes the fiefs, besides the obligation of
" la bouche et les mains," were what was called " de danger," as
in Burgundy, and were subject to the Commisse, or feudal
resumption, in case the holder of the property should take
possession without having rendered submission or homage.
(3.) Other coutumes, again, as in that of Paris and many
others, subject the fiefs not only to. the obligation of doing
homage, but to the r achat, the quint, and the requint.
(4.) By other coutumes, also, such as that of Poitou and a
few others, they were subjected to chambellage dues, the
cheval de service, &c.
Of these four all estates of the first category were valued
more highly than the others.
The coutume of Paris laid their valuation at 20 years'
purchase, which is looked upon by our author as tolerably
correct. Valuation of Estates " en roture " and " en censive." — In order
to come to a proper valuation, these lands have to be divided
into three classes : — •
(1.) Estates held simply on quit-rents.
(2.) Those which, besides the quit-rent, are subject to
other kinds of feudal servitude.
(3.) Those held in mortmain, d taille re'elle, en bordelage.
Only the first and second of these three forms of non-noble
property were common in the eighteenth century ; the third
was extremely rare. The valuations to be made of them,
according to our author, were less on coming down to the
second class, and still less on coming down to the third.
Men in possession of estates of the third class were not
even, strictly speaking, their owners, inasmuch as they were
not able to alienate them without permission from the
Seigneur. Le Terrier. — The feudistes, whom we have cited above,
point out the following rules observed in the compilation or
renewal of the Seignorial registers, called " Terriers," men-

Note 4 E. BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 511
tion of which has been made in many parts of the work.
The Terrier was a single register, in which were recorded
all the titles proving the rights appertaining to the Seigneurie,
whether in property or in honorary, real, personal, or mixed
rights. All the declarations of the payers of the cens, the
usages of the Seigneurie, the leases a cens, &c, were inserted
in it. We learn by our authors that, in the coutume of
Paris, the Seigneurs were permitted to renew their registers
every thirty years at the expense of their censitaires : they
add, however, " It may be considered a veiy fortunate cir
cumstance, nevertheless, when a new one may be found
once a century." The Terrier could not be renewed (it was
a vexatious business for all the persons dependent on the
Seigneurie) without obtaining, either from the Grande Chan-
cellerie (if in cases of Seigneuries situated within the jurisdic
tion of different Parliaments), or of the Parliaments (in the
contrary case), an authorization which was denominated
" Lettres a Terrier." The notary who drew them up was
nominated by the judicial authorities. All the vassals,
noble or non-noble, the payers of the cens, holders of long
leases (emphyteotes), and personages subject to the jurisdic
tion of the Seigneurie, were bound to appear before this
notary. A plan of the Seigneurie had to be annexed to the
Terrier. Besides the Terrier, the Seigneurie was provided with other
registers, called " lidves," in which the Seigneurs or their
farmers inscribed the sums received in payment of the cens,
with the names of those who paid and the dates of the
receipts.

THE END.

LONDON : PRINTKD BT W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET,
AND CHARING CROSS.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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