IV. The Peasant Becomes Landowner.

     How the peasant becomes a proprietor.—He is no better off.
    —Increase of taxes.—He is the "mule" of the Ancient Regime.

Misery begets bitterness in a man; but ownership coupled with misery renders him still more bitter. He may have submitted to indigence but not to spoliation—which is the situation of the peasant in 1789, for, during the eighteenth century, he had become the possessor of land. But how could he maintain himself in such destitution? The fact is almost incredible, but it is nevertheless true. We can only explain it by the character of the French peasant, by his sobriety, his tenacity, his rigor with himself, his dissimulation, his hereditary passion for property and especially for that of the soil. He had lived on privations, and economized sou after sou. Every year a few pieces of silver are added to his little store of crowns buried in the most secret recess of his cellar; Rousseau's peasant, concealing his wine and bread in a pit, assuredly had a yet more secret hiding-place; a little money in a woollen stocking or in a jug escapes, more readily than elsewhere, the search of the clerks. Dressed in rags, going barefoot, eating nothing but coarse black bread, but cherishing the little treasure in his breast on which he builds so many hopes, he watches for the opportunity which never fails to come. "In spite of privileges," writes a gentleman in 1755,5146 "the nobles are daily being ruined and reduced, the Third-Estate making all the fortunes." A number of domains, through forced or voluntary sales, thus pass into the hands of financiers, of men of the quill, of merchants, and of the well-to-do bourgeois. Before undergoing this total dispossession, however, the seignior, involved in debt, is evidently resigned to partial alienation of his property. The peasant who has bribed the steward is at hand with his hoard. "It is poor property, my lord, and it costs you more than you get from it." This may refer to an isolated patch, one end of a field or meadow, sometimes a farm whose farmer pays nothing, and generally worked by a métayer whose wants and indolence make him an annual expense to his master. The latter may say to himself that the alienated parcel is not lost, since, some day or other, through his right of repurchase, he may take it back, while, in the meantime, he enjoys a cens, drawbacks, and the lord's dues. Moreover, there is on his domain and around him, extensive open spaces which the decline of cultivation and depopulation have left a desert. To restore the value of this he must surrender its proprietorship. There is no other way by which to attach man permanently to the soil. And the government helps him along in this matter. Obtaining no revenue from the abandoned soil, it assents to a provisional withdrawal of its too weighty hand. By the edict of 1766, a piece of cleared waste land remains free of the taille for fifteen years, and, thereupon, in twenty-eight provinces 400,000 arpents are cleared in three years5147.

This is the mode by which the seigniorial domain gradually crumbles away and decreases. Towards the last, in many places, with the exception of the chateau and the small adjoining farm which brings in 2 or 3000 francs a year, nothing is left to the seignior but his feudal dues;5148 the rest of the soil belongs to the peasantry. Forbonnais already remarks, towards 1750, that many of the nobles and of the ennobled "reduced to extreme poverty but with titles to immense possessions," have sold off portions to small cultivators at low prices, and often for the amount of the taille. Towards 1760, one-quarter of the soil is said to have already passed into the hands of farmers. In 1772, in relation to the vingtième, which is levied on the net revenue of real property, the intendant of Caen, having completed the statement of his quota, estimates that out of 150,000 "there are perhaps 50,000 whose liabilities did not exceed five sous, and perhaps still as many more not exceeding twenty sous."5149 Contemporary observers authenticate this passion of the peasant for land. "The savings of the lower classes, which elsewhere are invested with individuals and in the public funds, are wholly destined in France to the purchase of land." "Accordingly the number of small rural holdings is always on the increase. Necker says that there is an immensity of them." Arthur Young, in 1789, is astonished at their great number and "inclines to think that they form a third of the kingdom." This already would be our actual estimate, and we still find, approximately, the actual figures, on estimating the number of proprietors in comparison with the number of inhabitants.

The small cultivator, however, in becoming a possessor of the soil assumed its charges. Simply as day-laborer, and with his arms alone, he was only partially affected by the taxes; "where there is nothing the king loses his dues." But now, vainly is he poor and declaring himself still poorer; the fisc has a hold on him and on every portion of his new possessions. The collectors, peasants like himself, and jealous, by virtue of being his neighbors, know how much his property, exposed to view, brings in; hence they take all they can lay their hands on. Vainly has he labored with renewed energy; his hands remain as empty, and, at the end of the year, he discovers that his field has produced him nothing. The more he acquires and produces the more burdensome do the taxes become. In 1715, the taille and the poll-tax, which he alone pays, or nearly alone, amounts to sixty-six millions of livres; the amount is ninety-three millions in 1759 and one hundred and ten millions in 1789.5150 In 1757, the charges amount to 283,156,000 livres; in 1789 to 476,294,000 livres.

Theoretically, through humanity and through good sense, there is, doubtless, a desire to relieve the peasant, and pity is felt for him. But, in practice, through necessity and routine, he is treated according to Cardinal Richelieu's precept, as a beast of burden to which oats is sparingly rationed out for fear that he may become too strong and kick, "a mule which, accustomed to his load, is spoiled more by long repose than by work."....

5102 (return)
[ Oppression and misery begin about 1672.—At the end of the seventeenth century (1698), the reports made up by the intendants for the Duc de Bourgogne, state that many of the districts and provinces have lost one-sixth, one-fifth, one-quarter, the third and even the half of their population. (See details in the "correspondance des contrôleurs-généraux from 1683 to 1698," published by M. de Boislisle). According to the reports of intendants, (Vauban, "Dime Royale," ch. VII. § 2.), the population of France in 1698 amounted to 19,994,146 inhabitants. From 1698 to 1715 it decreases. According to Forbonnais, there were but 16 or 17 millions under the Regency. After this epoch the population no longer diminishes but, for forty years, it hardly increases. In 1753 (Voltaire, "Dict Phil.," article Population), there are 3,550,499 hearths, besides 700,000 souls in Paris, which makes from 16 to 17 millions of inhabitants if we count four and one-half persons to each fireside, and from 18 to 19 millions if we count five persons.]

5103 (return)
[ Floquet, "Histoire du Parlement de Normandie," VII. 402.]

5104 (return)
[ Rousseau, "Confessions," 1st part, ch. IV. (1732).]

5105 (return)
[ D'Argenson, 19th and 24th May, July 4, and Aug. 1, 1739]

5106 (return)
[ "Résumé d'histoire d'Auvergne par un Auvergnat" (M. Tallandier), p. 313.]

5107 (return)
[ D'Argenson, 1740, Aug. 7 and 21, September 19 and 24, May 28 and November 7.]

5108 (return)
[ D'Argenson, October 4, 1749; May 20, Sept. 12, Oct. 28, Dec. 28, 1750.]

5109 (return)
[ D'Argenson, June 21, 1749; May 22, 1750; March 19, 1751; February 14, April 15, 1752, etc.]

5110 (return)
[ Floquet, ibid.. VII. 410 (April, 1752, an address to the Parliament of Normandy)]

5111 (return)
[ D'Argenson, November 26, 1751: March 15, 1753.]

5112 (return)
[ D'Argenson, IV. 124; VI. 165: VII. 194, etc.]

5113 (return)
[ Floquet, ibid. VI. 400-430]

5114 (return)
[ "Correspondance," by Métra, I. 338, 341.—Hippeau, "Le Gouvernement de Normandie," IV. 62, 199, 358.]

5115 (return)
[ "Procès-verbaux de l'assemblée provinciale de Basse Normandie" (1787), p.151.]

5116 (return)
[ Archives nationales, G, 319. Condition of the directory of Issoudun, and H, 1149, 612, 1418.]

5117 (return)
[ Ibid.. The letters of M. de Crosne, intendant of Rouen (February 17, 1784); of M. de Blossac, intendant of Poitiers (May 9, 1784); of M. de Villeneuve, intendant of Bourges (March 28, 1784); of M. de Cypierre, intendant of Orleans (May 28, 1784); of M. de Maziron, intendant of Moulins (June 28, 1786); of M. Dupont, intendant of Moulins (Nov. 16, 1779), etc.]

5118 (return)
[ Archives nationales, H, 200 (A memorandum by M. Amelot, intendant at Dijon, 1786).]

5119 (return)
[ Gautier de Bianzat, "Doléances sur les surcharges que portent les gens du Tiers-Etat," etc. (1789), p. 188.—"Procès-verbaux de I'assemblée provinciale d'Auvergne" (1787), p. 175.]

5120 (return)
[ Théron de Montaugé, "L'Agriculture et les chores rurales dans le Toulousain," 112.]

5121 (return)
[ "Procès-verbaux de assemblée provinciale de la Haute-Guyenne," I. 47, 79.]

5122 (return)
[ "Procès-verbaux de l'assemblée provinciale du Soissonais" (1787), p. 457; "de l'assemblée provinciale d'Auch," p. 24.]

5123 (return)
[ "Résumé des cahiers," by Prudhomme, III. 271.]

5124 (return)
[ Hippeau, ibid. VI. 74, 243 (grievances drawn up by the Chevalier de Bertin).]

5125 (return)
[ See the article "Fermiers et Grains," in the Encyclopedia, by Quesnay, 1756.]

5126 (return)
[ Théron de Montaugé, p.25.—"Ephémérides du citoyen," III. 190 (1766); IX. 15 (an article by M. de Butré, 1767).]

5127 (return)
[ "Procés-verbaux de l'assemblée provinciale de l'Orléanais" (1787), in a memoir by M. d'Autroche.]

5128 (return)
[ One is surprised to see such a numerous people fed even though one-half, or one-quarter of the arable land is sterile wastes. (Arthur Young, II, 137.)]

5129 (return)
[ Archives nationales, H, 1149. A letter of the Comtesse de Saint-Georges (1772) on the effects of frost. "The ground this year will remain uncultivated, there being already much land in this condition, and especially in our parish." Théron de Montaugé, ibid.. 45, 80.]

5130 (return)
[ Arthur Young, II. 112, 115.—Théron de Montaugé, 52, 61.]

5131 (return)
[ The Marquis de Mirabeau, "Traité de la population," p.29.]

5132 (return)
[ Cf Galiani, "Dialogues sur le commerce des blés." (1770), p. 193. Wheat bread at this time cost four sous per pound.]

5133 (return)
[ Arthur Young, II. 200, 201, 260-265.—Théron de Montaugé, 59, 68, 75, 79, 81, 84.]

5134 (return)
[ "The poor people who cultivate the soil here are métayers, that is men who hire the land without ability to stock it; the proprietor is forced to provide cattle and seed and he and his tenants divide the produce."—ARTHUR YOUNG.(TR.)]

5135 (return)
[ "Ephémérides du citoyen," VI. 81-94 (1767), and IX. 99 (1767).]

5136 (return)
[ Turgot, "Collections des économistes," I. 544, 549.]

5137 (return)
[ Marquis de Mirabeau, "Traité de la population," 83..]

5138 (return)
[ Hippeau, VI, 91.]

5139 (return)
[ Dulaure, "Description de l'Auvergne," 1789.]

5140 (return)
[ Arthur Young, I. 235.]

5141 (return)
[ "Ephémérides du citoyen," XX. 146, a letter of the Marquis de—August 17, 1767.]

5142 (return)
[ Lucas de Montigny, "Memoires de Mirabeau," I, 394.]

5143 (return)
[ Arthur Young, I. 280, 289, 294.]

5144 (return)
[ Lafayette "Mémoires," V. 533.]

5145 (return)
[ Lucas de Montigny, ibid. (a letter of August 18, 1777).]

5146 (return)
[ De Tocqueville, 117.]

5147 (return)
[ "Procès-verbaux de l'assemblée provinciale de Basse Normandie" (1787), p.205.]

5148 (return)
[ Léonce de Lavergne, p. 26 (according to the tables of indemnity granted to the émigrés in 1825). In the estate of Blet (see note 2 at the end of the volume), twenty-two parcels are alienated in 1760.—Arthur Young, I. 308 (the domain of Tour-d'Aigues, in Provence), and II. 198, 214.—Doniol, "Histoire des classes rurales," p.450.—De Tocqueville, p.36.]

5149 (return)
[ Archives nationales, H, 1463 (a letter by M. de Fontette, November 16, 1772).—Cf. Cochut, "Revue des Deux Mondes," September, 1848. The sale of the national property seems not to have sensibly increased small properties nor sensibly diminished the number of the large ones. The Revolution developed moderate sized properties. In 1848, the large estates numbered 183,000 (23,000 families paying 300 francs taxes, and more, and possessing on the average 260 hectares of land, and 160,000 families paying from 230 to 500 francs taxes and possessing on the average 75 hectares.) These 183,000 families possessed 18,000,000 hectares.—There are besides 700,000 medium sized estates (paying from 50 to 250 francs tax), and comprising 15,000,000 hectares.—And finally 3,900,000 small properties comprising 15,000,000 hectares (900,000 paying from 25 to 50 francs tax, averaging five and one-half hectares each, and 3,000,000 paying less than 25 francs, averaging three and one ninth hectares each).—According to the partial statement of de Tocqueville the number of holders of real property had increased, on the average, to five-twelfths; the population, at the same time, having increased five-thirteenths (from 26 to 36 millions).]

5150 (return)
[ "Compte-général des revenus et dépenses fixes au 1er Mai, 1789 (Imprimerie Royale, 1789).—De Luynes, XVI. 49.—Roux and Buchez, I. 206, 374. (This relates only to the countries of election; in the provinces, with assemblies, the increase is no less great). Archives nationales, H2, 1610 (the parish of Bourget, in Anjou). Extracts from the taille rolls of three métayer—farms belonging to M. de Ruillé. The taxes in 1762 are 334 livres, 3 sous; in 1783, 372 livres, 15 sous.]