300 FEUDAL PRIVILEGES. 3 [CHAP. LII. no longer obliged to make war at their own expense,' although they were now enregimented and received the King's pay, yet they still enjoyed that immunity from direct taxation which had been accorded to them for their military services. The profession of arms, however, was still considered as the proper destination of the nobility, and a sort of monopoly of their order. No man, except of noble birth, could become a military officer. On the very eve of the Revolution, a lieutenant in a marching regiment had to prove a nobility of at least four generations. The nobles also enjoyed a monopoly of the greater civil offices. These exclusive privileges tended to make the noblesse a sort of caste. A noble who engaged in trade or commerce forfeited his rights and privileges. As it is computed that there were in France, in 1789, 40,000 noble families, comprising some 200,000 persons, the invidiousness of these privileges must have been very extensively felt. Of the whole nobility, however, there were not 200 families really belonging to those ancient races which prided themselves, though mostly without foundation, on their Frankish origin, and on holding their estates and dignities by right of conquest. Their titles had been mostly purchased. The practice of selling patents of nobility had been adopted by the French kings at a very early period, though it was not carried to any great extent till the sixteenth century. It was resorted to partly as a means of depressing the order, partly as an expedient to raise money. Charles IX. issued a vast number of these patents, and his successor, Henry III., is said to have created no fewer than a thousand nobles. Roturiers were sometimes compelled to buy these patents, which were even issued with the name in blank. Louis XIV. granted 500 letters of nobility in a single year. The feudal privileges enjoyed by the nobles, or by those who had stepped into their places, were very grievously felt in the rural districts. Even where the land was no longer in the hands of a seigneur, the feudal rights attached to it, or what was called la servitude de la terre, still remained in force, though held perhaps, by neighbouring proprietors, almost as poor as the peasant who was subject to them. In some instances these rights had 3 The ban and arrière ban, a vast and undisciplined mob which the nobles had been accustomed to furnish, was called out for the last time in 1674. Michelet, Révol. Française, Introd. p. ci. 2 Glass-making alone seems to have been excepted. Granier de Cassagnac, t. i. p. 141. A noble degraded by com merce might, however, reinstate himself by purchasing lettres de réhabilitation. Ibid. p. 146. Some writers, however, estimate them considerably lower. M. Taine (Anc. Régime, App. note 1) computes them at 26,000 or 28,000 families, and 130.000 or 140,000 individuals. 4 Tocqueville, Anc. Régime, liv. ii. ch. i. CHAP. LII.] STATE OF THE PEASANTRY. 301 been acquired by the Crown, and the peasant was compelled to labour gratuitously, often at a distance from his home, in making roads, building barracks, and other works of a like description, experiencing, at the same time, the most brutal and unfeeling treatment. Besides this compulsory task-work, called the corvée, the peasant saw his fields exposed, without defence, to the ravages of game; he was obliged to pay heavy market-tolls, to make use of a certain ferry, to have his corn ground at a particular mill, his bread baked at a particular oven. Not the least among these feudal grievances were the justices seigneuriales, or private courts of justice attached to certain titles and possessions. The proprietors of these courts, of which there are said to have been more than 2,400, leagued themselves with the Parliaments against the reforms in the administration of justice proposed by the Royal Edict of May 8th, 1788; in the preamble of which it is stated that trifling civil causes had often to undergo six hearings. Noble proprietors were commonly absentees, and left their estates to be managed by agents, whose only object it was to extort as much as they could from the peasantry. The smaller landowners had not the means of properly cultivating their land, nor of laying anything by, so that a bad year brought actual famine and deaths by thousands. The misery of the agricultural districts at the close of the 17th century, and during the following one, exceeds all imagination. La Bruèyre, writing about 1689, describes the rural population as resembling wild animals in their appearance and way of life. Massillon, Bishop of ClermontFerrand, tells Cardinal Fleury, in 1740, that the misery of the rural population was frightful; they had neither beds nor furniture; for half the year, in spite of their industry, the greater part of them were without the barley or oaten bread which constituted their only food, of which they were obliged to deprive themselves and their children in order to pay the taxes; in short, the negroes in the French colonies were infinitely happier. We hear of their being forced to resort to the herbs of the field and the bark of trees to appease the cravings of hunger. Official memoirs of 1698 state that many districts had lost from the sixth to the half (!) of their population. Between that time and 1715 the population of France is said to have decreased by more than two millions, and from that period to the middle of the century it made no advance.1 1 Taine, Anc. Régime, liv. v. ch. i., where many more details will be found. Cf. Von Sybel, p. 25 sq. 302 CLASS HATREDS. [CHAP. LII. The nobles, having often little interest in the land except the title and the feudal privileges, without any consideration for those who were subject to them, it requires no very profound knowledge of human nature to foretell the consequences of such a relationship between the privileged and non-privileged classes. Where great pretensions are supported by little real power, pride becomes more sensitive and exacting; while in those subjected to its caprices, contempt mingles with hatred. Madame de Stäel, an acute observer of her own times, remarks that the different classes in France entertained a mutual antipathy for one another.1 In no other country were the gentry so estranged from the rest of the nation; their contact with those below them served only to wound. Hence even the elegant manners of the noblesse, the most estimable part, perhaps, of the ancient régime, which it was difficult to imitate,2 served only to increase the envy inspired by the exclusive prerogatives of that class: a circumstance which may account for much of the cynicism and sans-culotterie of the Revolution. The burgesses, like the peasantry, were oppressed by peculiar burdens originating in the middle ages. The trade of France was monopolized by guilds and corporations, which fettered independent industry by a system of maîtrises and jurandes (masterships and wardenships), and thus even the bourgeoisie had its aristocracy. A stranger, or non-freeman, could not become an apprentice even to the meanest trade, without paying a considerable premium. On the expiration of his apprenticeship, a young man became a compagnon and was entitled to wages; but a long interval must still elapse before he could set up for himself as a maître juré, or master in his trade; and this again entailed heavy expenses. Even a Paris flower-girl had to pay 200 livres. to become a maîtresse. On the other hand, the son of a maître could avoid these expenses by being apprenticed to his father. Hence trades came to be perpetuated in certain families, and an exclusive system was formed which gave occasion to perpetual disputes. The publishers were continually disputing with the booksellers as to the difference between an old book and a new one; and many thousand lawsuits are said to have taken place between the tailors and second-hand clothiers without settling the distinction between a new coat and an old one. The very beggars had their privileges, and it was only those belonging to Considérations, &c. partie iii. ch. xv. ingly described in the second book of 2 The manners of the period are amusM. Taine's Anc. Régime. CHAP. LII.] STATE OF THE CHURCH. 303 a certain order, called trôniers, who were entitled to ask alms at the door of a church.1 Among other relics of the feudal times, the ecclesiastical system of France was diametrically opposed to the growing spirit of the age. We now speak of the French Church only as a corporation. The clergy were a landed aristocracy, and like the nobles, were exempt from direct taxation; or rather, they claimed the privilege of taxing themselves by what were called dons gratuits, or voluntary offerings. The collection of tithes brought them into direct collision with that numerous body of small landed proprietors which, as we have already said, had now sprung up in France; and thus the notice of an inquiring age was all the more strongly attracted to the flagrant abuses which prevailed in the Church. The higher ecclesiastical dignities were mostly filled by the younger sons of noble families, and were no longer, according to the spirit of their institution, the rewards of virtue, piety, and a zealous discharge of holy functions. While some of the hierarchy were rolling in untold wealth, and displaying anything but those Christian virtues which should characterize their profession, the ecclesiastics who really performed the duties of the Church had in many cases scarcely wherewithal to support a decent existence. The abuses of the property belonging to the regular clergy, or monastic orders, were especially notorious. The revenues of many abbeys, so far from being applied to ecclesiastical purposes, were often enjoyed by laymen. The arbitrary power of the Crown shared the hatred felt by the people for the privileges of the aristocracy, both lay and clerical. The French Government was, indeed, both in theory and practice, a perfect despotism. The King was the only legislative and supreme executive power. As he claimed to be the sole proprietor and absolute lord of all France, he could dispose of the property of his subjects by imposts and confiscations, and of their persons by lettres de cachet. Thus France had no Constitution; which is equivalent to saying that the social structure had no secure foundation. Had the States-General or National Assembly continued to subsist, and been regularly convened, the long-standing abuses which we have described would probably have been gradually abolished, instead of remaining to be swept away by the convulsions of a revolution; but having been suffered to accumulate for ages, they at length exploded, to the destruction 'See L. Blanc, Hist. de la Révol. Franç., t. i. liv. iii. ch. 3. 304 STATE OF THE PROVINCES. [CHAP. LII. of the system which contained them, like steam pent up without a safety-valve. The only constitutional principle which could be perceived was, as Madame de Stäel observes, that the Crown was hereditary. Public opinion, and the passive and unavailing resistance of the Parliaments, were the sole checks upon the exercise of the Royal prerogative. A dangerous result of the all-disposing power of the Crown was that the people looked up to it for everything, even for aid in their private affairs, and attributed to it the most inevitable calamities. If agriculture was in a bad state, it was ascribed to want of succour from the Government; in times of scarcity, which frequently occurred in the eighteenth century, the different districts looked to their Intendant for food. Every misery, even the badness of the seasons, was imputed to the Government. It is easy to see how such a feeling might become, in times of commotion, a dangerous element of discontent; nor will proofs of such effects be wanting in the following narrative. The caprices and injustice of the Government added to the general indignation. Royal domains which had been sold were reseized; privileges granted in perpetuity were constantly revoked. Towns, communities, even hospitals and charitable institutions, were compelled to fail in their engagements in order to lend money to the Crown. Besides the invidious and oppressive privileges of the nobles, the monopolies of guilds and corporations, the abuses in the hierarchy, and the arbitrary power of the Sovereign, the anomalous condition of the French provinces was another source of discontent. Although Richelieu had consolidated the authority of the Crown throughout France, he had not amalgamated its various provinces; which differed so widely in their systems of law, religion, and finance, that they could hardly be said to form one kingdom. There were Gascons, Normans, Bretons, Provençals, &c., but a French nation could hardly be said to exist. There was France of the Langue d'oc, subject to the Roman law, and France of the Langue d'oil, obeying the common law; France of the Concordat, and France of the Pays d'obédience more immediately subject to the Papal power; France of the Pays d'élection and France of the Pays d'états. These anomalies chiefly arose from the gradual manner in which the Monarchy had been developed. Down to the twelfth century the patrimony of the French Crown continued to be only the province of the Isle of France, with Paris for its capital, together with the Orleanais 1 1 Tocqueville, Anc. Régime, p. 106 sq. |