The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1

H >> Hippolyte A. Taine >> The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1

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VI. SUMMARY

Thus does the philosophy of the eighteenth century descend
among the people and propagate itself. Ideas, on the first story of
the house, in handsome gilded rooms, serve only as an evening
illumination, as drawing room explosives and pleasing Bengal lights,
with which people amuse themselves, and then laughingly throw from the
windows into the street. Collected together in the story below and on
the ground floor, transported to shops, to warehouses and into
business cabinets, they find combustible material, piles of wood a
long time accumulated, and here do the flames enkindle. The
conflagration seems to have already begun, for the chimneys roar and a
ruddy light gleams through the windows; but "No," say the people
above, "those below would take care not to set the house on fire, for
they live in it as we do. It is only a straw bonfire and a burning
chimney, and a little water will extinguish it; and, besides, these
little accidents clear the chimney and burn out the soot."

Take care! Under the vast deep arches supporting it, in the
cellars of the house, there is a magazine of powder.

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Notes:

[1] I have verified these sentiments myself, in the narration of
aged people deceased twenty years ago. Cf. manuscript memoirs of
Hardy the bookseller (analyzed by Aubertin), and the "Travels of
Arthur Young."

[2] Aubertin, ibid., 180, 362.

[3] Voltaire, "Siècle de Louis XV," ch. XXXI; "Siècle de Louis
XIV," ch. XXX. "Industry increases every day. To see the private
display, the prodigious number of pleasant dwellings erected in Paris
and in the provinces, the numerous equipages, the conveniences, the
acquisitions comprehended in the term luxe, one might suppose that
opulence was twenty times greater than it formerly was. All this is
the result of ingenuity, much more than of wealth. . . The middle
class has become wealthy by industry. . . . Commercial gains have
augmented. The opulence of the great is less than it was formerly and
much larger among the middle class, the distance between men even
being lessened by it. Formerly the inferior class had no resource but
to serve their superiors; nowadays industry has opened up a thousand
roads unknown a hundred years ago."

[4] John Law (Edinbourgh 1672- dead in Venice 1729) Scotch
financier, who founded a bank in Paris issuing paper money whose value
depended upon confidence and credit. He had to flee France when his
system collapsed and died in misery. (SR.)

[5] Arthur Young, II. 360, 373.

[6] De Tocqueville, 255.

[7] Aubertin, 482.

[8] Roux and Buchez, "Histoire parlementaire." Extracted from the
accounts made up by the comptrollers-general, I. 175, 205. - The
report by Necker, I. 376. To the 206,000,000 must be added
15,800,000 for expenses and interest on advances.

[9] Compare this to the situation in year 1999 where irresponsible
democratic governments sell enormous fortunes in the form of bonds to
the popular pension funds, fortunes which they expect that the next
generation shall repay. (SR.)

[10] Roux and Buchez, I. 190. "Rapport," M. de Calonne.

[11] Champfort, p. 105.

[12] De Tocqueville, 261.

[13] D'Argenson, April 12, 1752, February 11, 1752, July 24, 1753,
December 7, 1753. - Archives nationales, O1, 738.

[14] Characters in Molière's comedies. - TR.

[15] De Ségur. I. 17.

[16] Lucas de Montigny, Letter of the Marquis de Mirabeau, March
23, 1783.

[17] Mme. Vigée-Lebrun, I. 269, 231. (The domestic establishment
of two farmers-general, M. de Verdun, at Colombes, and M. de St.
James, at Neuilly). - A superior type of the bourgeois and of the
merchant has already been put on the stage by Sedaine in "Le
Philosophe sans le Savoir."

[18] John Andrews, "A comparative view," etc. p. 58.

[19] De Tilly, "Mémoires," I. 31.

[20] Goffroy, "Gustave III," letter of Mme. Staël (August, 1786).

[21] Mme. de Genlis, "Adele et Théodore" (1782), I. 312. --
Already in 1762, Bachaumont mentions several pieces written by grand
seigniors, such as "Clytemnestre," by the Comte de Lauraguais;
"Alexandre," by the Chevalier de Fénélon; "Don Carlos," by the Marquis
de Ximènès.

[22] Champfort, 119.

[23] De Vaublanc, I. 117. - Beugnot, "Mémoires," (the first and
second passages relating to society at the domiciles of M. de Brienne,
and the Duc de Penthièvre.)

[24] Barbier, II, 16; III. 255 (May, 1751). "The king is robbed
by all the seigniors around him, especially on his journeys to his
different châteaux, which are frequent." -- And September, 1750. -
- Cf. Aubertin, 291, 415 ("Mémoires," manuscript by Hardy).

[25] Treaties of Paris and Hubersbourg, 1763. - The trial of La
Chalotais, 1765. - Bankruptcy of Terray, 1770. - Destruction of the
Parliament, 1771. - The first partition of Poland, 1772. - Rousseau,
"Discours sur l'inégalité," 1753. - "Héloise," 1759. - "Emile" and
"Contrat Social," 1762.

[26] De Barante, "Tableau de la littérature française au dix-
huitième siècle," 312.

[27] "Mercure britannique," vol. II, 360.

[28] Lacretelle, "Dix ans d'épreuves," p. 21.

[29] "Memoires," by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de
France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.

[30] "Le Compère Mathieu," by Dulaurens (1766). "Our sufferings
are due to the way in which we are brought up, namely, the state of
society in which we are born. Now that state being the source of all
our ills its dissolution must become that of all our good."

[31] The "Tableau de Paris," by Mercier (12 vols.), is the
completest and most exact portrayal of the ideas and aspirations of
the middle class from 1781 to 1788.

[32] "Correspondence," by Métra, XVII, 87 (August 20, 1784).

[33] "Belisarious," is from 1780, and the "Oath of the Horatii,"
from 1783.

[34] Geffroy, "Gustave II et la cour de France." "Paris, with its
republican spirit, generally applauds whatever fails at
Fontainebleau." (A letter by Madame de Staël, Sept. 17, 1786).

[35] Taine uses the French term "passe-droit", meaning both passing
over, slight, unjust promotion over the heads of others, a special
favour, or privilege. (SR.)

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

[37] Dr Tilly, "Mémoires," I. 243.

[38] The words of Fontanes, who knew her and admired her. (Sainte-
Beuve, "Nouveaux Lundis," VIII. 221).

[39] "Mémoires de Madame Roland," passim. 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 passes 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 château 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 class
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.)

[40] De Vaublanc, I. 153.

[41] Beugnot, "Mémoires," I. 77.

[42] 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 nobility towards which it
has shown the greatest hatred. This evidently proves that the
bourgeoisie, the men of letters, the financial class, in short all
who envy the nobles have excited against these the inferior class in
the towns and among the rural peasantry." (Rivarol, "Mémoires.")

[43] Champfort, 335.

[44] Sieyès, "Qu'est ce que le Tiers?" 17, 41, 139, 166.

[45] Cartouche (Luis Dominique) (Paris, 1693 - id. 1721).
Notorious French bandit, leader of a gang of thieves. He died broken
alive on the wheel. (SR.)

[46] "The nobility, say the nobles, is an intermediary between the
king and the people. Yes, as the hound is an intermediary between the
hunter and the hare." (Champfort).

[47] Prud'homme, III. 2. ("The Third-Estate of Nivernais,"
passim.) Cf, on the other hand, the registers of the nobility of Bugey
and of Alençon.

[48] Prud'homme, ibid.., Cahiers of the Third-Estates of Dijon,
Dax, Bayonne, Saint-Sévère, Rennes, etc.

[49] Marmontel, "Mémoires," II. 247.

[50] Arthur Young, I. 222.

[51] Malouet, "Mémoires," I. 279.

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

[53] Prudhomme, "Résumé des cahiers," the "preface," by J. J.
Rousseau.

[54] Marmontel, II. 245.

BOOK FIFTH. THE PEOPLE

CHAPTER I. HARDSHIPS.

I. Privations.

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

La Bruyère wrote, just a century before 1789,[1]:

"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,[2] six millions, perish with hunger and of destitution.
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 grass 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.[3]

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."[4] In 1739 d'Argenson
writes in his journal[5]:

"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 assassinated on the highways. . . M. le Duc d'Orléans
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 grass like sheep and died like so many flies.'"

In 1740,[6] Massillon, bishop of Clermont-Ferrand, writes to
Fleury:

"The people of the rural districts are living in frightful
destitution, 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[7] 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 embarrassed; 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 Bicêtre 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.[8]

"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 corvées, the laborers feeding themselves, and
with what? . . . I see poor people dying of destitution. 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 assessor, 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 assistance, but they all reason in
this way as if they had consulted together."[9] - "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 tithes. . . . 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,[10] and in Normandy, "those in easy circumstances 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,[11] "I learn that on the day M. le Dauphin and Mme. la
Dauphine went to Notre Dame, on passing the bridge of the Tournelle,
more than 2,000 women assembled 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,[12] "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 I768,[13] 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.[14] - 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
corvée 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 class, 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[15]. 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,[16] "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[17]. 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 pass 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 Rochelle, from Limoges, from Lyons, from Montauban, from Caen,
from Alençon, from Flanders, from Moulins come similar statements by
other intendants. One might call it the interruptions and repetitions
of a funeral knell; even in years not disastrous it is heard on all
sides. In Burgundy, near Chatillon-sur-Seine,

"taxes, seigniorial dues, the tithes, and the expenses of
cultivation, split up the productions of the soil into thirds, leaving
nothing for the unfortunate cultivators, who would have abandoned
their fields, had not two Swiss manufacturers of calicoes settled
there and distributed about the country 40,000 francs a year in
cash."[18]