The Ancient Regime Part 32

[Footnote 4335: Taine uses the French term "pa.s.se-droit", meaning both pa.s.sing over, slight, unjust promotion over the heads of others, a special favour, or privilege. (SR.)]

[Footnote 4336: Sainte-Beuve, "Causeries du Lundi," II. 24, in the article on Barnave.]

[Footnote 4337: Dr Tilly, "Memoires," I. 243.]

[Footnote 4338: The words of Fontanes, who knew her and admired her.

(Sainte-Beuve, "Nouveaux Lundis," VIII. 221).]

[Footnote 4339: "Memoires de Madame Roland," pa.s.sim. At fourteen years of age, on being introduced to Mme. de Boismorel, she is hurt at hearing her grandmother addressed "Mademoiselle."--Shortly after this, she says: "I could not concoal from myself that I was of more consequence than Mlle. d'Hannaches, whose sixty years and her genealogy did not enable her to write a common-sense letter or one that was legible."--About the same epoch she pa.s.ses a week at Versailles with a servant of the Dauphine, and tells her mother, "A few days more and I shall so detest these people that I shall not know how to suppress my hatred of them."--"What injury have they done you?" she inquired. "It is the feeling of injustice and the constant contemplation of absurdity!"--At the chateau of Fontenay where she is invited to dine, she and her mother are made to dine in the servants' room, etc.--In 1818, in a small town in the north, the Comte de--dining with a bourgeois sub-prefect and placed by the side of the mistress of the house, says to her, on accepting the soup, 'Thanks, sweetheart,' But the Revolution has given the lower cla.s.s bourgeoisie the courage to defend themselves tooth and nail so that, a moment later, she addresses him, with one of her sweetest smiles, 'Will you take some chicken, my love?' (The French expression 'mon coeur' means both sweetheart and my love. SR.)]

[Footnote 4340: De Vaublanc, I. 153.]

[Footnote 4341: Beugnot, "Memoires," I. 77.]

[Footnote 4342: Champfort, 16.--"Who would believe it! Not taxation, nor lettres-de-cachet, nor the abuses of power, nor the vexations of intendants, and the ruinous delays of justice have provoked the ire of the nation, but their prejudices against the n.o.bility towards which it has shown the greatest hatred. This evidently proves that the bourgeoisie, the men of letters, the financial cla.s.s, in short all who envy the n.o.bles have excited against these the inferior cla.s.s in the towns and among the rural peasantry." (Rivarol, "Memoires.")]

[Footnote 4343: Champfort, 335.]

[Footnote 4344: Sieyes, "Qu'est ce que le Tiers?" 17, 41, 139, 166.]

[Footnote 4345: Cartouche (Luis Dominique) (Paris, 1693--id. 1721).

Notorious French bandit, leader of a gang of thieves. He died broken alive on the wheel. (SR.)]

[Footnote 4346: "The n.o.bility, say the n.o.bles, is an intermediary between the king and the people. Yes, as the hound is an intermediary between the hunter and the hare." (Champfort).]

[Footnote 4347: Prud'homme, III. 2. ("The Third-Estate of Nivernais,"

pa.s.sim.) Cf, on the other hand, the registers of the n.o.bility of Bugey and of Alencon.]

[Footnote 4348: Prud'homme, ibid.., Cahiers of the Third-Estates of Dijon, Dax, Bayonne, Saint-Severe, Rennes, etc.]

[Footnote 4349: Marmontel, "Memoires," II. 247.]

[Footnote 4350: Arthur Young, I. 222.]

[Footnote 4351: Malouet, "Memoires," I. 279.]

[Footnote 4352: De Lavalette, I. 7.--"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.--. Cf. Brissot, Memoires, I.]

[Footnote 4353: Prudhomme, "Resume des cahiers," the "preface," by J. J.

Rousseau.]

[Footnote 4354: Marmontel, II. 245.]

BOOK FIFTH. THE PEOPLE

CHAPTER I. HARDSHIPS.

I. Privations.

Under Louis XIV.--Under Louis XV.--Under Louis XVI.

La Bruyere wrote, just a century before 1789,[5101]:

"Certain savage-looking animals, male and female, are seen in the country, black, livid and sunburned, and attached to the soil which they dig and grub with invincible stubbornness. They seem capable of speech, and, when they stand erect, they display a human face. They are, in fact, men. They retire at night into their dens where they live on black bread, water and roots. They spare other human beings the trouble of sowing, plowing and harvesting, and thus should not be in want of the bread they have planted."

They are, however, in want during the twenty-five years after this, and die in droves. I estimate that in 1715 more than one-third of the population,[5102] six millions, perish with hunger and of dest.i.tution.

This description is, in respect of the first quarter of the century preceding the Revolution, far from being too vivid, it is rather too weak; we shall see that it, during more than half a century, up to the death of Louis XV. is exact; so that instead of weakening any of its details, they should be strengthened.

"In 1725," says Saint-Simon, "with the profusion of Strasbourg and Chantilly, the people, in Normandy, live on the gra.s.s of the fields. The first king in Europe could not be a great king if it was not for all the beggars and the poor-houses full of dying from whom all had been taken even though it was peace-time.[5103]

In the most prosperous days of Fleury and in the finest region in France, the peasant hides "his wine on account of the excise and his bread on account of the taille," convinced "that he is a lost man if any doubt exists of his dying of starvation."[5104] In 1739 d'Argenson writes in his journal[5105]:

"The famine has just caused three insurrections in the provinces, at Ruffec, at Caen, and at Chinon. Women carrying their bread with them have been a.s.sa.s.sinated on the highways. . . M. le Duc d'Orleans brought to the Council the other day a piece of bread, and placed it on the table before the king 'Sire,' said he, 'there is the bread on which your subjects now feed themselves.'" "In my own canton of Touraine men have been eating herbage more than a year." Misery finds company on all sides. "It is talked about at Versailles more than ever. The king interrogated the bishop of Chartres on the condition of his people; he replied that 'the famine and the morality were such that men ate gra.s.s like sheep and died like so many flies.'"

In 1740,[5106] Ma.s.sillon, bishop of Clermont-Ferrand, writes to Fleury:

"The people of the rural districts are living in frightful dest.i.tution, without beds, without furniture; the majority, for half the year, even lack barley and oat bread which is their sole food, and which they are compelled to take out of their own and their children's mouths to pay the taxes. It pains me to see this sad spectacle every year on my visits. The Negroes of our colonies are, in this respect, infinitely better off; for, while working, they are fed and clothed along with their wives and children, while our peasantry, the most laborious in the kingdom, cannot, with the hardest and most devoted labor, earn bread for themselves and their families, and at the same time pay their charges."

In 1740[5107] at Lille, the people rebel against the export of grain.

"An intendant informs me that the misery increases from hour to hour, the slightest danger to the crops resulting in this for three years past. . . .Flanders, especially, is greatly embarra.s.sed; there is nothing to live on until the harvesting, which will not take place for two months. The provinces the best off are not able to help the others.

Each bourgeois in each town is obliged to feed one or two poor persons and provide them with fourteen pounds of bread per week. In the little town of Chatellerault, (of 4,000 inhabitants), 1800 poor, this winter, are in that situation. . . . The poor outnumber those able to live without begging. . . while prosecutions for unpaid dues are carried on with unexampled rigor. The clothes of the poor, their last measure of flour and the latches on their doors are seized, etc. .. . The abbess of Jouarre told me yesterday that, in her canton, in Brie, most of the land had not been planted." It is not surprising that the famine spreads even to Paris. "Fears are entertained of next Wednesday. There is no more bread in Paris, except that of the damaged flour which is brought in and which burns (when baking). The mills are working day and night at Belleville, regrinding old damaged flour. The people are ready to rebel; bread goes up a sol a day; no merchant dares, or is disposed, to bring in his wheat. The market on Wednesday was almost in a state of revolt, there being no bread in it after seven o'clock in the morning. . . .

The poor creatures at Bicetre prison were put on short rations, three quarterons (twelve ounces), being reduced to only half a pound. A rebellion broke out and they forced the guards. Numbers escaped and they have inundated Paris. The watch, with the police of the neighborhood, were called out, and an attack was made on these poor wretches with bayonet and sword. About fifty of them were left on the ground; the revolt was not suppressed yesterday morning."

Ten years later the evil is greater.[5108]

"In the country around me, ten leagues from Paris, I find increased privation and constant complaints. What must it be in our wretched provinces in the interior of the kingdom?. . . My curate tells me that eight families, supporting themselves on their labor when I left, are now begging their bread. There is no work to be had. The wealthy are economizing like the poor. And with all this the taille is exacted with military severity. The collectors, with their officers, accompanied by locksmiths, force open the doors and carry off and sell furniture for one-quarter of its value, the expenses exceeding the amount of the tax. . . "--"I am at this moment on my estates in Touraine. I encounter nothing but frightful privations; the melancholy sentiment of suffering no longer prevails with the poor inhabitants, but rather one of utter despair; they desire death only, and avoid increase. . . . It is estimated that one-quarter of the working-days of the year go to the corvees, the laborers feeding themselves, and with what?. . . I see poor people dying of dest.i.tution. They are paid fifteen sous a day, equal to a crown, for their load. Whole villages are either ruined or broken up, and none of the households recover. . . . Judging by what my neighbors tell me the inhabitants have diminished one-third. . . . The daily laborers are all leaving and taking refuge in the small towns. In many villages everybody leaves. I have several parishes in which the taille for three years is due, the proceedings for its collection always going on. . . . The receivers of the taille and of the taxes add one-half each year in expenses above the tax. . . . An a.s.sessor, on coming to the village where I have my country-house, states that the taille this year will be much increased; he noticed that the peasants here were fatter than elsewhere; that they had chicken feathers before their doors, and that the living here must be good, everybody doing well, etc.--This is the cause of the peasant's discouragement, and likewise the cause of misfortune throughout the kingdom."--"In the country where I am staying I hear that marriage is declining and that the population is decreasing on all sides. In my parish, with a few fire-sides, there are more than thirty single persons, male and female, old enough to marry and none of them considering it. On being urged to marry they all reply alike that it is not worth while to bring unfortunate beings like themselves into the world. I have myself tried to induce some of the women to marry by offering them a.s.sistance, but they all reason in this way as if they had consulted together."[5109]--"One of my curates sends me word that, although he is the oldest in the province of Touraine, and has seen many things, including excessively high prices for wheat, he remembers no misery so great as that of this year, even in 1709. . . . Some of the seigniors of Touraine inform me that, being desirous of setting the inhabitants to work by the day, they found very few of them, and these so weak that they were unable to use their hands."

Those who are able to leave, go.

"A person from Languedoc tells me of vast numbers of peasants deserting that province and taking refuge in Piedmont, Savoy, and Spain, tormented and frightened by the measures resorted to in collecting t.i.thes. . . .

The extortioners sell everything and imprison everybody as if prisoners of war, and even with more avidity and malice, in order to gain something themselves."--"I met an intendant of one of the finest provinces in the kingdom, who told me that no more farmers could be found there; that parents preferred to send their children to the towns; that living in the surrounding country was daily becoming more horrible to the inhabitants. . . . A man, well-informed in financial matters, told me that over two hundred families in Normandy had left this year, fearing the collections in their villages."--At Paris, "the streets swarm with beggars. One cannot stop before a door without a dozen mendicants besetting him with their importunities. They are said to be people from the country who, unable to endure the persecutions they have to undergo, take refuge in the cities. . . preferring begging to labor."--And yet the people of the cities are not much better off. "An officer of a company in garrison at Mezieres tells me that the poverty of that place is so great that, after the officers had dined in the inns, the people rush in and pillage the remnants."--"There are more than 12,000 begging workmen in Rouen, quite as many in Tours, etc. More than 20,000 of these workmen are estimated as having left the kingdom in three months for Spain, Germany, etc. At Lyons 20,000 workers in silk are watched and kept in sight for fear of their going abroad."

At Rouen,[5110] and in Normandy, "those in easy circ.u.mstances find it difficult to get bread, the bulk of the people being entirely without it, and, to ward off starvation, providing themselves with food otherwise repulsive to human beings."--"Even at Paris," writes d'Argenson,[5111] "I learn that on the day M. le Dauphin and Mme. la Dauphine went to Notre Dame, on pa.s.sing the bridge of the Tournelle, more than 2,000 women a.s.sembled in that quarter crying out, 'Give us bread, or we shall die of hunger.'. . . A vicar of the parish of Saint-Marguerite affirms that over eight hundred persons died in the Faubourg St. Antoine between January 20th and February 20th; that the poor expire with cold and hunger in their garrets, and that the priests, arriving too late, see them expire without any possible relief."

Were I to enumerate the riots, the sedition of the famished, and the pillaging of storehouses, I should never end; these are the convulsive twitching of exhaustion; the people have fasted as long as possible, and instinct, at last, rebels. In 1747,[5112] "extensive bread-riots occur in Toulouse, and in Guyenne they take place on every market-day." In 1750, from 6 to 7,000 men gather in Bearn behind a river to resist the clerks; two companies of the Artois regiment fire on the rebels and kill a dozen of them. In 1752, a sedition at Rouen and in its neighborhood lasts three days; in Dauphiny and in Auvergne riotous villagers force open the grain warehouses and take away wheat at their own price; the same year, at Arles, 2,000 armed peasants demand bread at the town-hall and are dispersed by the soldiers. In one province alone, that of Normandy, I find insurrections in 1725, in 1737, in 1739, in 1752, in 1764, 1765, 1766, 1767 and 1768,[5113] and always on account of bread.

"Entire hamlets," writes the Parliament, "being without the necessities of life, hunger compels them to resort to the food of brutes. . . . Two days more and Rouen will be without provisions, without grain, without bread."

Accordingly, the last riot is terrible; on this occasion, the populace, again masters of the town for three days, pillage the public granaries and the stores of all the communities.--Up to the last and even later, in 1770 at Rheims, in 1775 at Dijon, at Versailles, at St. Germain, at Pontoise and at Paris, in 1772 at Poitiers, in 1785 at Aix in Provence, in 1788 and 1789 in Paris and throughout France, similar eruptions are visible.[5114]--Undoubtedly the government under Louis XVI is milder; the intendants are more humane, the administration is less rigid, the taille becomes less unequal, and the corvee is less onerous through its transformation, in short, misery has diminished, and yet this is greater than human nature can bear.

Examine administrative correspondence for the last thirty years preceding the Revolution. Countless statements reveal excessive suffering, even when not terminating in fury. Life to a man of the lower cla.s.s, to an artisan, or workman, subsisting on the labor of his own hands, is evidently precarious; he obtains simply enough to keep him from starvation and he does not always get that[5115]. Here, in four districts, "the inhabitants live only on buckwheat," and for five years, the apple crop having failed, they drink only water. There, in a country of vine-yards,[5116] "the wine-growers each year are reduced, for the most part, to begging their bread during the dull season." Elsewhere, several of the day-laborers and mechanics, obliged to sell their effects and household goods, die of the cold; insufficient and unhealthy food generates sickness, while, in two districts, 35,000 persons are stated to be living on alms[5117]. In a remote canton the peasants cut the grain still green and dry it in the oven, because they are too hungry to wait. The intendant of Poitiers writes that "as soon as the workhouses open, a prodigious number of the poor rush to them, in spite of the reduction of wages and of the restrictions imposed on them in behalf of the most needy." The intendant of Bourges notices that a great many tenant farmers have sold off their furniture, and that "entire families pa.s.s two days without eating," and that in many parishes the famished stay in bed most of the day because they suffer less. The intendant of Orleans reports that "in Sologne, poor widows have burned up their wooden bedsteads and others have consumed their fruit trees," to preserve themselves from the cold, and he adds, "nothing is exaggerated in this statement; the cries of want cannot be expressed; the misery of the rural districts must be seen with one's own eyes to obtain an idea of it." From Rioni, from La Roch.e.l.le, from Limoges, from Lyons, from Montauban, from Caen, from Alencon, from Flanders, from Moulins come similar statements by other intendants. One might call it the interruptions and repet.i.tions of a funeral knell; even in years not disastrous it is heard on all sides. In Burgundy, near Chatillon-sur-Seine,