The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

What was the real object of the revolution? What was its peculiar character? For what precise reason was it 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 institutions it did not tend to perpetuate and give stability to disorder, or--as one of its chief adversaries has said--to methodise anarchy.

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--for it is not at an end--every part of the ancient state of society that owed its origin to aristocratic and feudal institutions.

But why, we may ask, did this revolution, which was imminent throughout Europe, break out in France rather than elsewhere? And why did it display certain characteristics which have appeared nowhere else, or, at least, have appeared only in part?

One circumstance excites at first sight surprise. The revolution, whose peculiar object it was, as we have seen, everywhere to abolish the remnant of the institutions of the Middle Ages, did not break out in the countries in which these institutions, 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, for instance, at the close of the eighteenth century, was serfdom as yet completely abolished. 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 serfdom could only be detected in one or two of the eastern provinces annexed to France by conquest; everywhere else the institution had disappeared. The French peasant had not only ceased to be a serf; he had become an owner of land.

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 all the evidence.

The number of landed proprietors at that time amounted to one-half, frequently to two-thirds, of their present number. Now, 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.

Although what is termed in France the old régime is still very near to us, few persons can now give an accurate answer to the question--How were the rural districts of France administered before 1789?

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 its name. Not only the lord of the domain no longer conducted the administration of the small local affairs, but he did not even superintend it. All the parish officers were under the government or control of the central power, as we shall show in a subsequent 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 subjects.

If we quit the parish, and examine the constitution 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.

Of all the peculiar rights of the French nobility, the political element had disappeared; the pecuniary element alone remained, in some instances largely increased.

II.---A Shadow of Democracy

Picture to yourself a French peasant of the eighteenth century. Take him as he is described in the documents--so passionately enamoured of the soil that he will spend all his savings to purchase it, and to purchase it at any price. To complete his purchase he must first pay a tax, not to the government, but to other landowners of the neighbourhood, as unconnected 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 seeds 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 prevent 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 return home, he wants to use the remainder of his wheat for his own sustenance--of that wheat which was planted by his own hands, and has grown under his eyes--he cannot touch it till he has ground it at the mill and baked it at the bakehouse of these same men. A portion of his little property is paid away in quit-rents to them also, and these dues can neither be extinguished nor redeemed.