The French Revolution E-Book

Charles Edward Mallet

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Historians have not yet determined where The French Revolution properly begins. But even warring schools agree that the object of that great movement, apart from its accidents and disappointed dreams, was to destroy the ancient society of Europe, which feudalism had founded and which time had warped, and to replace it by a more simple social system, based, as far as possible, on equality of rights. And therefore time can hardly be misspent in endeavouring to retrace some of the chief features of the old monarchy of France, at the moment when the feudal edifice was crumbling, and when the storm was gathering which was to sweep it away.
It was the pride of the later Bourbon kings to have accomplished the design, which Louis XI bequeathed to Richelieu, and Richelieu interpreted for Louis' successors, the substitution of a closely centralised despotism, for feudal and aristocratic institutions on the one hand, and for local and national liberties upon the other. 

Leseprobe

The

French Revolution

BY

CHARLES EDWARD MALLET

Late of Balliol College, OxfordLecturer in History on the Staff of the Oxford University Extension

© 2023 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782385743628

CONTENTS

Introductory

CHAPTER I.

The Condition of France in the Eighteenth Century

The old Monarchy in France.—Survivals of free institutions.—Centralised despotism of the Crown.—The Intendant's position and powers.—Evils of the system.—The Government sensitive to criticism but all-pervading.—Class divisions.—The nobles and their privileges.—The ruined nobles of the provinces and the rich nobles of the Court.—The Church, and the great varieties of condition in it.—The Middle Class, its privileges and exemptions.—Usurpations and spirit of the guilds.—Position of the poorest class in town and country.—Peasant owners, farmers and métayers.—Feudal oppression from which the peasant suffered.—Exactions of the Government.—Abuses in the system of taxation.—The Custom-house system and its results.—Increase of vagrancy and disorder.—Isolation of the labourer.

CHAPTER II.

The Last Years of the Ancien Régime

The intellectual revolt of the eighteenth century.—Repudiation of authority and dogma.—Rise of the new political philosophy.—The literary leaders.—Montesquieu.—Voltaire.—Diderot and the Encyclopaedists.—Defects of their theory.—Helvetius and Holbach.—The Economists.—Morelly.—Rousseau.—Reasons for Rousseau's influence.—The Contrat Social, its doctrines and defects.—Universality of the philosophical and humanitarian spirit in Europe.—Its effects upon politics and society in France.—Its effects plainly visible in the Government, in Louis XVI, Turgot and Necker.—The Government begins to undertake large reforms.—Progress of Louis' reign.—Marie Antoinette and Calonne.—The Notables of 1787.—Loménie de Brienne and the struggle with the Parlements.—Resistance to the Government.—The Assembly of Vizille.—Recall of Necker, and summoning of the States-General.—Hesitating policy of the Government.—Rules for the General Election.—Questions as to the numbers of the Tiers-État, and as to the union or separation of the three Orders.—Irresolution of Necker.

CHAPTER III.

The Early Days of the Revolution

Meeting of the States-General.—The Commons insist on the separation of the three Orders.—Deadlock for six weeks.—The Commons constitute themselves the National Assembly on the 17th June.—The Tennis Court Oath.—The Royal Sitting of the 23rd June.—Ascendency of the Court party.—Dismissal of Necker.—Rising in Paris and capture of the Bastille.—Grave disorder in France, and the two main causes of it.—Various motives of the risings in the country.—Complete collapse of the regular authorities.—Spontaneous organisation of the electors.—Unfortunate policy of the Assembly.—Its inexperience and susceptibility.—Abstract discussions of July and August.—The 4th August.—Difficulties of Bailly and Lafayette in Paris.—Fresh causes of discontent there.—The outbreak of the 5th October, and its results.

CHAPTER IV.

The Labours of the Constituent Assembly

Inclination of the Assembly to follow out its theories blindly without regard to consequences.—Hopes of a strong Government frustrated by the decree of the 7th November.—Results of that decree.—Jealousy of the Executive.—New system of local government.—Its defects.—Power concentrated in the new municipalities.—Burdensome nature of the duties imposed on active citizens.—The two decrees imposing qualifications for the franchise and for office.—Judicial reforms.—Military and naval changes.—The Assembly's determination to make everything elective.—Church policy.—Confiscation of Church property.—Civil Constitution of the Clergy.—Criticism of it.—Consequences of the schism in the Church.—Financial policy of the Assembly.—Necker's measures.—Increasing embarrassments of the State.—Origin of the Assignats.—Their subsequent history and depreciation.—Inadequate attempts made by the Assembly to balance its income and expenditure.—Its cowardly finance.—Criticism of its action.

CHAPTER V.

Parties and Politicians under the Constituent Assembly

No real party-government in the Assembly.—Gradual formation of parties.—The Conservative Right and its various groups.—Maury and Cazalés.—Mounier, Malouet and their friends.—The party of Reform.—Bailly, Sieyès, Talleyrand, Lafayette, Mirabeau, and others.—Duport, Barnave and Lameth.—Robespierre and the extreme Left.—Predominance of the democratic party outside the Assembly.—The Cordeliers, the Jacobins and other clubs.—The birth of modern journalism.—Prominent journalists and newspapers.—Mirabeau and Barère.—Brissot, Loustallot and Camille Desmoulins.—Marat and the Ami du Peuple.—Royalist journals.—Mallet du Pan and the Mercure.—Important politicians of this period.—Philippe of Orleans.—Necker.—The Comte de Provence.—Lafayette.—Mirabeau.—Mirabeau's exceptional insight and ability.—His aims and attitude from the first.—His desire to establish a strong, popular Government.—His vain attempts to win Lafayette.—His ascendency in the Assembly.—His notes for the Court and plans for reconciling the Crown with the Revolution.—Summary of his character.

CHAPTER VI.

The Rise of the Jacobin Party

The Revolution consists of two separate movements, one mainly political, the other mainly social.—Pause in the Revolution in 1791.—Apathy of the majority of voters.—Classes which had not gained what they expected from the Revolution.—Distress among the artisans and labourers.—Illogical position of the Constitutional party.—Causes of its unpopularity with the poor.—The Jacobin theory.—Its results in practice.—Its triumph secured by violence.—Various causes of disorder.—Increase of the influence of force in politics.—Numbers of the Jacobin party.—Its complete organisation.—Growth of Jacobin clubs.—Organisation of the Commune of Paris.—Influence of the active Sections.—Rise of Robespierre.—His character and policy.—Results of the King's flight to Varennes.—Attitude of the Jacobin Club.—The 'Massacre of the Champ de Mars.'—Rally of the Constitutional party.—Barren results of their success.—Reviving influence of the Jacobins.—Visible in the Elections.—Critical state of the Revolution at the end of 1791.

CHAPTER VII.

The Influence of the War upon the Revolution

Attitude of the European Powers towards the Revolution.—Catherine of Russia.—Gustavus of Sweden.—Joseph of Austria.—Frederick William of Prussia.—Spain and England.—Trouble in Poland and the East.—Accession of Leopold.—His policy.—The French Emigrants.—Their activity in Europe.—Condé's Army.—Leopold's views on French affairs.—The 'august comedy' of Pillnitz.—Meeting of the Legislative Assembly in Paris.—Appearance of the Girondist party.—Objects of the Republican minority in the legislature.—War policy of the Girondists.—Their leaders.—Decrees of the autumn against emigrants and priests.—Ministry of Narbonne.—Policy of the Jacobins with regard to the war.—The Girondists in office.—Declaration of war.—Its momentous results.—Course of events down to the 20th June, 1792.—Lafayette's last attempt to save the Court.—Brunswick's Manifesto.—The 10th August.—Danton in power.—Advance of the Allies.—The prison massacres of September.—Responsibility for them.—Battle of Valmy.—Retreat of the Allies.—General results of the Revolutionary war.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Fall of the Gironde

The Elections of 1792.—Parties in the Convention.—The Girondists and their advisers.—Madame Roland.—The part played by women in the French Revolution.—Difference between the Girondists and the Jacobins.—Rather one of conduct than of principle.—No place in the Revolution for the Girondists as a separate party.—Their only distinctive characteristics an idealised republicanism and a policy of war.—Beginning of the struggle between the two parties.—Trial and death of the King.—Demoralisation of politics.—The Girondists lose ground, especially in Paris.—The war after Valmy.—Dumouriez' defeat at Neerwinden.—His desertion.—Important decrees of the Convention in the spring of 1793, preparing the instruments of the Terror.—Economic measures.—Growth of the influence of the Jacobins.—Rising in La Vendée.—Organisation of the Jacobin forces.—The Girondists, unprepared but alarmed, attack the Jacobins in April and May.—Warnings of Dutard.—State of feeling in Paris.—Arrest of Hébert and Jacobin rising.—The 31st May and 2nd June.—Dangers of the Jacobin Government.—Its success on all sides.—Fate of the Girondists and others.

CHAPTER IX.

The Jacobins in Power

The Constitution of '93.—Conflict between Jacobin theory and Jacobin practice.—The Constitution suspended.—Intimidation of the Convention.—Services of its Committees to the cause of reform.—The Revolutionary Government in Paris and in the provinces.—The Committee of Public Safety.—Its members, its divisions and its heroic work.—The Representatives on Mission.—Varied character of their rule.—Their violence and excesses.—Principles of the Terrorists.—Influence of the Parisian Commune.—Supremacy of the State enforced in every relation of life.—The State, in return for implicit obedience, undertakes to provide for all its subjects.—Its methods of doing this.—Attempts to fix prices.—The Maximum ruthlessly enforced.—Ruin resulting from these arbitrary measures in industry and trade.—General scarcity of food.—The State regulates private conduct and family life.—Abolition of the Christian faith and of the Christian era.—Moral results.—The idealists of the Terror.—Its practical agents.—Hébert and his party.—License and cruelty of many leading Terrorists.—General worthlessness of their subordinates.—Blindness and self-delusion of the best among them.—Entire failure of the Terrorist ideal.

CHAPTER X.

The Struggle of Parties and the Ascendency of Robespierre

Ascendency of the party of the Commune.—A second party, that of the Dantonists, arises.—Danton's attitude.—His great services to the Revolution.—His weariness of faction and intrigue.—The third party, represented by the Government of the day.—Revolt against the Hébertists at the Jacobin Club.-Headed by Robespierre and Desmoulins.—The Vieux Cordelier.—Collot d'Herbois' return to Paris in December, 1793, strengthens the Hébertists.—End of the struggle.—Triumph of the Government and fall of the two other parties in March, 1794.—Execution of Danton.—Conspicuous position of Robespierre.—Grounds of his popularity.—His intense belief in himself.—His genuine sentiment.—His lack of initiative and disingenuous reserve.—His incompetence as a practical politician.—His morbid suspiciousness.—His strength.—His belief in the Terror and attempts to regulate but not to check it.—The Worship of the Supreme Being.—The Law of the 22nd Prairial.—Robespierre's struggle with his colleagues.—Triumph of the Convention on the 9th Thermidor over Robespierre and the Commune.

CHAPTER XI.

The Reaction

Results of the fall of Robespierre.—Progress of the reaction against the Terror.—The Mountain, the Right, and the Thermidorians.—Fréron and the Jeunes Gens.—Closing of the Jacobin Club.—Arrest of Carrier.—Recall of the proscribed deputies of the Right.—Measures with regard to religion.—Arrest of Billaud, Collot and others.—Distress in Paris.—Breakdown of the economic system of the Terror.—Survey of Terrorist finance.—Embarrassments and expenses of the Terrorist Government.—Cambon's remedial measures.—Republicanisation of the National Debt.—Decline of the Assignats.—Impending bankruptcy at the end of 1794.—Amount of Assignats in circulation.—Fresh issues.—Their rapid decline.—Ruin and distress resulting.—High prices of food.—General dearth.—The insurrection of the 12th Germinal.—Measures of the reaction.—The insurrection of the 1st Prairial.—Suppression of the Jacobin party and disarming of Paris.—Progress of the War.—Spirit of the French army.—Representatives on Mission with it.—Great soldiers in its ranks.—Its reorganisation by Dubois-Crancé.—Campaign of 1793.—Victories on the Belgian frontier, on the Rhine and in La Vendée.—The ten armies of the Republic.—European politics.—Selfish views of Thugut, the Austrian minister.—Jealousy between Austria and Prussia.—Outbreak of the Polish revolt.—Victories of the French in Belgium and Holland.— Peace of Bâle.—Prospects of a general peace and of a Royalist restoration.—The reaction checked.—Death of the Dauphin.—The Quiberon Expedition.—The White Terror.—The Constitution of the Year III.—The decrees of Fructidor.—The insurrection of the 13th Vendémiaire.—Establishment of the Directory.—Conclusion.

Table of Dates

Appendix of Books

Index

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

INTRODUCTORY

I have not attempted in this small volume to write a history of the French Revolution. The events of that dramatic narrative have been sketched by many hands and are to be found in a hundred histories. They hardly need retelling now. I have rather endeavoured, while taking for granted some knowledge of the story, to supply what handbooks generally have not space to give, and to collect in a convenient form some of the information, the suggestions and ideas which are to be found in larger books of comment and enquiry. Works like those of M. de Tocqueville, M. Taine, M. Michelet, M. Louis Blanc, and Professor Von Sybel are not always easily obtained. Their cost and their length alike render them inaccessible to those whom time and necessity compel to be superficial students. I have therefore tried to summarise to a certain extent what these and other writers tell us; to dwell on some economic and political aspects of French society before the Revolution; to explain the more obvious reasons why the Revolution came; to show why the men who made it, failed, in spite of all their fine enthusiasm, to attain the liberty which they so ardently desired, or to found the new order which they hoped to see in France; to describe how, by what arts and accidents, and owing to what deeper causes, an inconspicuous minority gradually grew into a victorious party, and assumed the direction of events; to point out in what way external circumstances kept the revolutionary fever up, and forced the Revolution forward, when the necessity for its advance seemed to many to be over, and its own authors wished it to pause; and to make clearer, if I could, to others, what has always been to me the mystery of the time, the real character and aims of the men who grasped the supreme power in 1793-4, who held it with such a combination of energy and folly, of heroism and crime, and who proceeded, through anarchy and terror, to experiment how social misery could be extinguished and universal felicity attained, by drastic philosophic remedies, applied by despots and enforced by death. History offers no problem of more surpassing interest, and none more perplexing or obscure.

I am not conscious of approaching the subject with a bias in favour of any party. I have no cause to plead for or against any individual or group of men. I have tried to read all sides, and to allow for those deep-rooted prejudices which seem to make most Frenchmen incapable of judging the event. But when, on the information before me, the facts seem clear, I have not hesitated to praise, or censure, or condemn. I will only add that I have considered very carefully the judgments which I have expressed, though I cannot hope that they will recommend themselves to all alike.

Books of this kind cannot well lay claim to much originality, and I do not pretend to have kept pace with the constantly accumulating literature, which the French press produces on this question every year. I have used freely the works of such modern writers as M. de Tocqueville, Mr. John Morley, Mr. Morse Stephens, and others, and my obligations to them are plain. On M. Taine's great work, too, I have drawn largely, and while allowing for bias in the author, and while fully admitting that M. Taine's method tends to destroy one's sense of proportion, and in some degree to give a blurred and exaggerated impression of the facts, still I cannot question the weight and value of the mass of information which he has collected, and no one can fairly overlook the lessons which it tells. Besides these books, I think I may say that I have read and consulted most of the materials in histories, memoirs, biographies, and elsewhere, which the many well-known French writers on the subject have supplied, and I have paid particular attention to the voluminous histories of M. Louis Blanc and of M. Mortimer-Ternaux, to the correspondence of Mirabeau and La Marck, to the memoirs and writings of Bailly, Ferrières, Mallet du Pan, Madame Roland, and M. de Pontécoulant, to the biographies of the great Jacobin leaders, especially those by M. Hamel and M. Robinet, and to the valuable and important works of M. Sorel, of Professor Schmidt, and of Professor Von Sybel. This list is not complete or comprehensive; but I hope it is enough to justify the opinions which I have formed.

At the end, I have given, in a short appendix, a list of well-known books upon the period, which may perhaps be of use to students, who wish to go more fully into the subject for themselves.

CHAPTER I.

The Condition of France in the Eighteenth Century.

Historians have not yet determined where the French Revolution properly begins. But even warring schools agree that the object of that great movement, apart from its accidents and disappointed dreams, was to destroy the ancient society of Europe, which feudalism had founded and which time had warped, and to replace it by a more simple social system, based, as far as possible, on equality of rights. And therefore time can hardly be misspent in endeavouring to retrace some of the chief features of the old monarchy of France, at the moment when the feudal edifice was crumbling, and when the storm was gathering which was to sweep it away.

It was the pride of the later Bourbon kings to have accomplished the design, which Louis XI bequeathed to Richelieu, and Richelieu interpreted for Louis' successors, the substitution of a closely centralised despotism, for feudal and aristocratic institutions on the one hand, and for local and national liberties upon the other. By the middle of the eighteenth century the triumph of this policy was complete. The relics of the older system, indeed, remained. A multitude of officials and authorities, with various and conflicting claims, still covered the country, recalling in their origin sometimes the customs of the Middle Ages, sometimes the necessities of the Crown, sometimes the earlier traditions of freedom. Many of the feudal seigneurs still claimed rights of jurisdiction and police. Cities and towns still boasted and obeyed their own municipal constitutions. The peasants of the country side were still summoned to the church-porch by the village-bell, to take part in the election of parish officials. A few noblemen still bore the name of governors of provinces. Independent authorities with ancient titles still pretended to deal with roads and with finance. The local Parlements, with their hereditary and independent judges, maintained their dignity as sovereign courts of justice, preserved the right of debating the edicts of the King, adopted an attitude of jealous watchfulness towards the Government and the Church, and exercised considerable administrative powers. In a few outlying provinces, termed the Pays d'État, and comprising, with some smaller districts, the ancient fiefs of Languedoc, Burgundy, Brittany, Artois and Béarn, annual assemblies, representing the nobles, clergy, and commons of the province, still displayed the theory of self-government and retained large taxative and administrative rights. The Church, with its vast resources and strong, corporate feeling, still, in many matters, asserted its independence of the State, administered its own affairs, fixed its own taxes, and claimed to monopolise public education and to guard public morals and their expression in the Press.

But amid the ruins of older institutions and the confusion of innumerable conflicting rights, a new system of administration had gradually grown up and had usurped all real authority in France. At its head stood the King's Council, with its centre at Versailles. The Council represented in all departments the monopoly of the State. It was a supreme court of justice, for it had power to over-rule the judgments of all ordinary courts. It was a supreme legislature, for the States-General, the ancient representative Parliament of France, had not been summoned since the early years of the seventeenth century, and the local judicial Parlements, though they could discuss the edicts of the Council, could not in the last resort resist them. It was supreme in all matters of administration and finance. It governed the country. It raised and assessed the taxes. In it one over-burdened minister, the Comptroller-General, assumed responsibility for all home affairs.

Under the Council, and responsible to it alone, there was stationed in each of the thirty-two provinces or 'generalities' of the kingdom one all-powerful agent called the Intendant. The Intendant was drawn, not from the nobility, but from the professional class. He superintended the collection and apportionment of all taxes which were not farmed out by the Council to financial companies. He decided in individual cases what remissions of taxes should be allowed. He was responsible under the Council for constructing highways and for all great public works[1]. He enforced the hated duty of the militia service. He maintained order with the help of the Maréchaussée or mounted police. He carried out the police regulations of the local authorities and the more imperious and comprehensive regulations issued from time to time by the Council. He possessed in exceptional cases large judicial powers. As the ordinary judges were independent of the Crown, the Council multiplied extraordinary tribunals and reserved for their consideration all suits in which the rights of the Crown were even remotely concerned. In such cases the Intendant acted as judge both in civil and in criminal matters, and from his judgment an appeal lay to the Council alone. This practice, once established, was of course extended and often abused in the interests of power, for the principles of the ordinary courts, the Intendants confessed, could 'never be reconciled with those of the Government.'

Besides this, the Intendant was a benefactor too. He repressed mendicity and arrested vagabonds. He distributed the funds, which, in the absence of any legal provision for the poor, and in the abandonment by the seigneurs of the old feudal duty of providing for their destitute dependents, the Council annually apportioned for the purpose. He controlled the charitable workshops which the Council annually set up. In times of scarcity it was he who must find food for the people, or, if food were not forthcoming, suppress the riots which the want of it provoked. In the country districts the Intendant dispensed his lofty patronage to farmers and encouraged agricultural improvements. In the villages, though the force of ancient custom still drew the inhabitants to village-meetings, these meetings could not be held without the Intendants leave; they retained only the academic privilege of debate; and when they elected their syndic and collector, they often elected merely the Intendant's nominees. Even in the towns which possessed municipal freedom, the Intendant constantly interfered in all matters of importance and in many little matters of detail, and the burghers protested their eager submission to 'all the commands of his Greatness.' In each of the provinces of France the Intendant represented the omnipotence and wielded the authority of Government; the commands which he received from the Comptroller-General he dictated in turn to a staff of agents termed Sub-Delegates, and dependent on him; and these Sub-Delegates, distributed through the different cantons of the province, carried out their Intendant's orders, assisted his designs, and were responsible only to their superior, as he was responsible to the Council at Versailles.

It is not difficult to see the evils of such a system. The excessive centralisation of the Government and the vast scope of its powers threw upon the Comptroller-General and his agents a heavy burden of detail. Reports and documents multiplied. The waste of time and effort was profuse. 'The administrative formalities,' declared the Council in one of its minutes, 'lead to infinite delays.' Any little local matter—the building of a shelter for the poor, the repairing of a corner of the village church—must be considered by the Minister at Versailles. No action could be taken until the Sub-Delegate had reported to the Intendant, the Intendant had reported to the Comptroller-General, and that harassed official—combining in his single person all the duties and perplexities which in England are distributed between the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Home Secretary, the Minister of Agriculture, the President of the Board of Trade, the President of the Local Government Board and the Chief Commissioner of Works—had personally attended to the matter, and had transmitted his decision through the Intendant to the Sub-Delegate again. Moreover, apart from its vexatious delays, the system was very liable to abuse. The power of the Government's agents was as extended as the power of the Government itself. Arrest and imprisonment were counted among their ordinary weapons. Armed with all the authority of the State, it was no wonder if they sometimes imitated its arbitrary ways, and failed to separate their private inclinations and their private grudges from the public needs.

Yet the action of the central Government in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries seems to have been often hesitating and rarely deliberately harsh. The letter of the law was often barbarous and rigid, where its administration was easy and lax. To criticism the Government was not indisposed to listen. Its intentions were amiable and were recognised as such. Any man above the rank of the lowest class could protest, if treated unjustly, and he could generally make his protest heard. The shadow of an older liberty had not quite departed from the face of France. It was only the lowest and most miserable class, which needed the means of resistance most, which had no means of resisting except by force. But beneficent as were the aims of the all-pervading State, its influence was blighting. Leaning always upon their Government, and taught to look to it for initiative, encouragement, protection in every department of life, the people of France forgot both the practices of public freedom and the value of private independence; and as the Bourbon despotism directly paved the way for revolution by levelling many of those inequalities which save a State, so it left the vast majority of Frenchmen devoid both of the political understanding and of the sense of personal responsibility, which the habit of self-government alone creates.

More fatal, however, to national prosperity, were the deep divisions which separated classes—divisions maintained and emphasized by privileges obviously unjust. The nobility, the clergy, the middle class, each formed a distinct order in the State, with its own defined rank and prerogatives. The nobles, who have been roughly estimated at about one hundred and forty thousand persons, formed a separate caste. All born noble remained noble, and not even younger sons descended into the ranks of the commons. The nobles owned perhaps a fifth part of the soil, and they retained the ancient rights attached to it, which had once been the reward of their feudal obligations, but which survived when those obligations had long ceased to be obeyed. Fines and dues, tolls and charges, the sole right of hunting, of shooting, of fishing, of keeping pigeons and doves, the privilege of maintaining the seigneurial mill and wine-press, the seigneurial slaughter-house and oven—helped to support the noble's dignity and to swell his income. The more his actual power departed, the more he clung to his hereditary rights. When the Government usurped his place as local ruler, he only entrenched himself more jealously in his feudal position. He never met his neighbours, for there were no public concerns to unite them, and all business was in the Government's hands. He lost all interest in local affairs. If he were rich, he went to live in Paris or Versailles. If he were poor, he shut himself up in his country-house, and consoled himself with the contemplation of his pride. But in return for the powers of which it stripped him, the Government conferred on the nobleman privileges which completed his isolation from those around him. He and he alone could be the companion of his Sovereign. He and he alone could rise to high place in the Army or the Church. He and his dependents were exempted from oppressive duties like serving in the militia or working on the roads. He knew nothing of the terrible burden of taxation which crippled and oppressed the poor. He was generally exempted from paying the Taille, the most grievous of all the taxes; and even those imposts—the Poll-tax and the Vingtièmes—to which he was subject, were collected from him in a specially indulgent manner. The greater a man's wealth or station, the better was his chance of securing easy terms. The Government's agents felt bound to act 'with marked consideration' in collecting the taxes of people of rank. 'I settle matters with the Intendants,' said the Duke of Orleans, the richest man in France, 'and pay just what I please.'

Yet within this privileged order the differences of life were marked. Before the end of the eighteenth century many of the old families were ruined, and lived in the narrowest circumstances, upon incomes of a hundred, of fifty, even of twenty-five pounds a year, rigidly clinging to the titles and immunities which alone distinguished them from the poor, driven by necessity to exact from the peasants all that custom allowed them, and subsisting chiefly on the sinister pomp of caste. In striking contrast to the ruined nobles of the provinces was the much smaller and more brilliant body which composed the Court. No nobleman lived in the country, who could afford to live at Paris or Versailles. Not to be seen at Court was equivalent to obscurity or disgrace. The nobles of La Vendée incurred the Government's displeasure by their obstinate adherence to their country homes and their lamentable unwillingness to perform their duties about the person of the King. Yet the nobles of La Vendée were the only part of the French aristocracy, which in the days of the Revolution died fighting for the Crown.

At Court the leaders of society set the wild example of extravagance. It is difficult to exaggerate the pomp and profusion of Versailles. Every prince and princess had a separate establishment with its dependents multiplied in proportion to its owner's rank. The Queen's household numbered all but five hundred persons, the Comte d'Artois' almost seven hundred, the King's a thousand in the civil department alone[2]. It was the distinction of the Grand Seigneurs in those days—common minds imagine that it distinguishes their imitators now—to ignore the value of money. In this respect the King outshone all the Grand Seigneurs of his Court. Louis XIV spent thirty millions sterling on a single palace. His successor squandered three millions on a single mistress. Pensions, sinecures, allowances, were scattered with a lavish hand. When Necker first took office, the charges on the pension-list exceeded two millions and a quarter. The Duke of Orleans, with an income of a quarter of a million, received a large pension from the Crown, and died nearly six millions in debt. The art of spending money was one secret of the art of pleasing, and nowhere was the art of pleasing studied with more finish or success. In the charmed circle of that dazzling, polished Court, pleasure marched with a stately and unflagging step. Courtesy ordained that everyone should be agreeable, witty, light-hearted and well-bred. But the unceasing chase of pleasure, though attended by excellent graces, banishes all thought of others while it veils egotism with delight, and the fortunate who entered there naturally forgot the misery which reigned among the unfortunate outside[3].

Beside the privileged order of nobility stood the privileged corporation of the Church. Like the nobles, the Church owned vast landed estates, which covered about a fifth part of France, and which in many cases were managed well. Like the nobles, the dignitaries of the Church retained the ancient feudal rights which had survived from the days when they governed the country, besides a variety of dues and charges, and their special prerogative—the tithe. Like the nobles, they evaded the weight of taxation. The assembly of the clergy, meeting every five years, negotiated with the Crown its own contributions to the Exchequer, and obtained numberless concessions from the local authorities, wherever its interests were touched. Moreover, the Church still enjoyed political power. No one in France had a legal right to live outside its pale. It controlled the schools; it kept the parish registers, on which a man's title to his property and his name depended; for the sake of Catholic truth it burned its adversaries; and, through its censorship of the Press, it silenced all assailing tongues.

Then too, like the nobility, the Church offered many contrasts of condition. The great prelates who lived at Court maintained with all the lavishness of laymen the well-bred profusion of the place. Their wealth rivalled that of princes. The Archbishop of Cambrai was the feudal suzerain of seventy-five thousand people, lord of the town of Cambrai, patron of two great abbeys, and a Duke and Count to boot. The ecclesiastical income enjoyed by M. de Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, besides his ministerial salary and pension, is stated to have exceeded, according to a modern standard, fifty-four thousand pounds. The Archbishop of Rouen, apart from his episcopal revenues, drew from his abbeys twenty thousand pounds a year. The Bishop of Troyes received penitents in confessionals lined with white satin. M. de Rohan, hereditary Bishop of Strasbourg, held a splendid Court in his great palace at Saverne, and exalted the dignity of a prince of the Church by having all his saucepans made of silver. When one contrasts with this delicate existence the condition of the vast majority of parish priests, whose plebeian birth shut on them the door to preferment, who lived, often in ruined and neglected parsonages, in the abandoned country districts, with no educated friends about them, dispensing the meagre charities of the august superiors who could not leave the Court to visit them, and supporting the lofty pretensions of the Catholic Church on incomes of forty, of twenty, and of sixteen pounds a year, one ceases to wonder that the priests abhorred a lot, which 'made even the stones and beams of their miserable dwellings cry aloud,' and that, when the day of retribution came, they welcomed the destroyer, and refused to lift a finger to defend the existing system in the Church of France.

Apart, however, from the advantages of rank, the middle class had its privileges and exemptions too. Some enjoyed immunities as servants of the Government; others, as members of powerful corporations; others, again, of a lower grade, driven from the country districts by the exactions of the Government and by the demands of the seigneurs, who insisted on their tribute while they disdained their company, took refuge in the towns, and there formed a caste of their own. In early times, most of the important towns in France had possessed two governing assemblies, one composed of magistrates and officials, who owed their offices originally to popular election and afterwards to purchase from the Crown, the other composed originally of all the towns-people and afterwards of local 'notables' representing the different companies and guilds. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, the popular spirit, which had once given life to all these institutions, had long died out. The municipal officers bought their places from the Government, and handed them down from father to son. The representative assembly had ceased to represent any but the substantial burghers of the town. What had once been public honours conferred by the voices of free citizens had everywhere crystallised into private rights, the prerogative of one class or of a few important families.

Accordingly, the possessors of these rights were bribed to uphold the existing order by a thousand little dignities and exemptions, in which relief from taxation played a large part, and they maintained the pride of their position by drawing a jealous line between themselves and the unrepresented artisans below. The guilds, originally created to foster, still survived to fetter the commerce of the towns. But in process of time these guilds had been multiplied for every branch of trade; the privilege of managing them had been in most cases usurped or bought by a narrow group of members; and the fees and rules which they imposed tended readily to further class-interests and class-divisions. All artisans who were not the sons of masters, went by the name of 'strangers,' and found innumerable barriers placed in the way of their advancement. The passion for place, which to some observers seems inherent in the French middle class, was sedulously encouraged by Ministers, who, by multiplying small posts and dignities, filled the Exchequer, appeased complaints, and won supporters. Each of these little places carried its special perquisites and distinctions; and thus, in the minds of thousands, the aspiration to possess some petty advantage over their neighbours tended to oust the larger aspirations which might have led to public freedom. In one small town the notables were divided into thirty-six distinct bodies, with different rights and degrees. Every tradesman delighted in a special mark of rank. The owner of a shop sat on a higher seat than his assistants. The tailor could wear only one buckle to his wig, while the proud apothecary might boast of three. On one occasion the periwig-makers of La Flèche ceased working in a body, in order to show their 'well-founded grief occasioned by the precedence granted to the bakers.' The evils begotten of caste and privilege could hardly be carried to more ludicrous extremes.

But while each of the educated classes thus possessed its distinguishing marks to arm revolution and to point hatred, one class, the lowest, had nothing but the privileges of its superiors to mark its position in the State. In the towns the great majority of the labouring community were excluded by the guild monopolies from any prospect except that of perpetual subjection. Their wages, both in town and country, were but little more than half of what they earn to-day, while the purchasing power which those wages represented was very much less. And if the outlook in the towns was gloomy, their situation in the country was infinitely worse. It was there that the people felt most nearly the relentless assiduity of life. Everyone knows La Bruyère's picture of the wild-looking peasantry of France, their faces blackened by want and toil and sun, the slaves of the soil, at which they laboured with such unconquerable patience, who 'seemed just capable of speech, and when they stood erect displayed the lineaments of men.' Their dwellings were often windowless cabins, their clothing a rough woollen covering, their food buckwheat and chestnuts and the coarsest bread. And yet these unfortunate beings were in many cases the owners of the soil they tilled. The passionate love of the land, which distinguishes the French peasant of our own day, was not taught him by the Revolution. For generations before it his one object of ambition, the only aim which made it worth his while to live, had been the hope of acquiring a portion of the land he worked upon. Living wretchedly, he yet kept that object steadily in view. For that end he hoarded and toiled and starved. The impoverished gentry came easily to terms; and thus an immense number of small holdings sprang up almost imperceptibly in France, estimated by the genial, observant eyes of Arthur Young to cover as much as 'one-third of the kingdom.'

By the side of these small properties, which tended to grow smaller under a process of incessant sub-division, lay the large estates of the nobles, the clergy, the magistrates and financiers. In some cases these estates were farmed on a large scale by tenants holding leases at a money-rent, and in the North these farms were numerous and answered well. But the backwardness and the want of capital, which blighted all French agriculture in the eighteenth century, helped to render farm-leases unpopular, and most large proprietors fell back on the system of Métayage, or farming at half profits, under which the landlord supplied and stocked the land, while the labourer gave his labour, and the profits were shared between the two. In Anjou, where the landlords resided on their estates, knew their Métayers personally, and supervised their labours, this system prospered. But in much the greater part of France the Métayers were left to themselves by the landlords, and struggled on in the greatest distress, without enterprise, without capital, often deeply in debt, hardly making enough to yield them the bare means of subsistence, and loath to exert themselves to swell the profits, which they had to divide with a master, who neither knew nor cared for them. 'The Métayer,' says a compassionate seigneur, 'is kept in an abject state by men who are not at all inhuman, but whose prejudices ... lead them to regard him as a different species of being.' Before the outbreak of the Revolution, serfdom, except in some outlying districts, had been extinguished in France; but the condition of the Métayer materially was little above the serf's. In some cases, it is true, he had managed to purchase, independently of his Métairie, a little plot of land of his own, which he cultivated with minute and arduous attention; and in certain districts these plots of ground repaid the toil spent on them, and taught their owners the self-respect of ownership and the dignity which independence gives. But, generally speaking, even these small allotments, numerous as they were, were wretchedly unproductive, and the Métayers and day-labourers who owned them shared the common depression of their class.

Apart, however, from his bad farming and the poverty of his land, the French peasant had worse troubles to encounter. The shadow of feudalism still lay heavily across his path. Even where he was the owner of the soil, he held it subject to innumerable dues and charges, from which he could not escape and which he could not redeem. Whenever the peasant's property changed hands, the seigneur stepped in to claim his fine. On the roads and at the bridges the seigneur claimed his tolls. At markets and fairs the seigneur claimed his dues, and sold to the peasant the right to sell to others the produce of his farm. Occasionally the seigneur still claimed the peasant's time and labour for nothing. Everywhere the rights of the seigneur compelled him to grind his wheat only at the feudal mill and to crush his grapes only in the feudal wine-press. And even worse than these claims was the scourge of the game-laws. The seigneur alone could fish in the stream which flowed through the peasant's farm. The seigneur alone could shoot the game which ruined the peasant's crops. The seigneur alone could hunt over the peasant's land. In the vast Capitaineries, which covered some four hundred square leagues of territory in France, the deer and big game, preserved for the sport of princes, wandered unchecked, devouring the fields and vineyards of the inhabitants, and woe be to the peasant who dared to interfere with their freedom! Every summer the villagers in the neighbourhood of Fontainebleau, where the Capitaineries stretched far, were compelled to organise watch companies and to watch all night for six months in the year, in order to save their vines and harvests from destruction. If the peasant dared to dispute any of these rights, there were the seigneur's courts to overawe him, to weary him out with incessant litigation, and to teach him that, though he had ceased to be a serf, the seigneur was his master still. Sometimes all these claims were sold by an impoverished seigneur to a group of speculators, and the pity of speculators is necessarily limited by considerations of gain. When the seigneur had done with the peasant, the emissaries of the Church stepped in, to take their tithe for spiritual purposes, and to remind him how much he owed to them for the development of his intellect and the guardianship of his soul.