GENERAL WORKS

Aulard (A.). — La Révolution française et le régime féodal.

Boiteau (P.). — L’Etat de la France en 178g (Second Edition)

Boncerf (P. F.). — Les inconvénients des droits féodaux, yllk

Bord (G.). — La prise de la Bastille.

Bûchez and Roux. — Histoire parlementaire de la Révolution française.

Champion (E.). — La France d’après les cahiers de 178g.

Chassin (C. L.). — L’Eglise et les derniers serfs.

Chérest (A.). — La chute de l’ancien régime.

Doniol (H.). — La Révolution française et la féodalité.

Jaurès (J.). — Histoire Socialiste.

Karéiew (N.). — Les Paysans et la question paysanne en France

Kovalewsky (M.). — La France économique et sociale à le veille de la Révolution.

Kropotkin (P.). — The Great French Révolution.

Loutchisky (J.). — L’Etat des classes agricoles en France t la veille de la Révolution. (Cited as Loutchisky, Classet agricoles.)

Loutchisky (J.). — La petite propriété en France avant le Révolution. (Cited as Loutchisky, Petite propriété.)

RINCIPAL WORKS CONSULTED OR CITED xiii

jutchisky (J.). — La propriété paysanne en France à la veille de la Révolution. (Cited as Loutchisky, Propriété paysanne.)

^rion (H.). — La dîme ecclésiastique en France au xviii" siècle. (Cited as Marion, Dîme ecclésiastique.)

GNAC (Ph.). — La législation civile de la Révolution française.

e(H.) . — Les classes rurales en France au Moyen-Age. (Cited as Sée, Moyen-Age.)

ANE (H.). — L’ancien régime.

JNE (H.). — La Révolution.

iCQUEVILLE (A. de). — L’ ancien régime et la Révolution. (Ed. G. W. Headlam.)

>ung (Arthur). — Travels in France. (Cited under dates.)

REGIONAL STUDIES

inault (M.). — La Révolution dans les Deux-Sèvres.

;rnier (P. D.). — Essai sur le Tiers-Etat rural de Normandie.

ivin-Champeaux (L.). — Notices historiques sur la Révolution dans le département de l'Eure.

'UVIER (F.). — Les Vosges pendant la Révolution.

uneau (M.). — Les débuts de la Révolution dans le Cher et l'Indre.

ssière (G.). — La Révolution en Périgord. (Part III.)

atellier (A. du). — La Révolution dans les départements de l’ancienne Bretagne.

mbes (A.). — Histoire de la ville de Castres.

mbier (E. A.). — Les justices seigneuriales du bailliage de Vermandois.

nard (P.). — La Peur en Dauphiné.

chemin (V.). — Les premiers troubles de la Révolution dans la Mayenne.

pont (E.). — La condition des paysans dans la sénéchaussée de Rennes.

xiv THE FALL OF FEUDALISM IN FRANCE

Duval (L.). — Archives révolutionnaires de la Creuse.

Finot (J.). — Articles in Nouvelle Révue historique de dro français for 1880 and 1881. (Cited as Finot, 1880 c 1881.)

Giffard (A.). — Les justices seigneuriales en Bretagne (1661 1791).

Guillemaut. — La Révolution dans le Louhannais.

Hoffman (C. E. A.)- — La Haute- Alsace à la veille de la Révi lution.

Marion (M.). — “Etat des classes rurales dans la généralil de Bordeaux,’’ in Revue des Etudes historiques, 190: (Cited as Marion, Bordeaux.)

Mathieu (Cardinal). — L’ancien régime en Lorraine et Barro (Edit. 1907).

Mège (F.). — Charges et contributions des habitants de l’Ai vergne â la fin de l’ancien régime.

Rameau (B.). — La Révolution dans V ancien diocèse de Mâcoî

Rouvière (F.). — Histoire de la Révolution dans le départeme 1 du Gard.

Sée (H.). — Les classes rurales en Bretagne du xvï siècle à t Révolution. (Cited as Sée, Classes rurales.)

Serres (J. B.). — Histoire de la Révolution en Auvergne.

Vermale (F.). — La répartition des biens ecclésiastiques.

Vidal {B.).-— Histoire de la Révolution dans les Pyrénée Orientales.

Vidal de la Blache. — La France de l’Est.

Viguier (J.). — Les débuts de la Révolution en Provence.

INTRODUCTION

""^USTEL DE COULANGES in his classical workon H the Origins of the Feudal System describes the

most characteristic feature of feudal society as dws : “ The soil is parcelled out into great domains ed seigneuries. A lord reigns over each of them, and the folk of the domain obey him. These men are ged by him instead of by the king or some other public hority. They pay taxes and owe military service to t instead of to the king. In fact, each domain, taken tself, resembles a petty state.” 1 If to this description add the statements that the lord may be, and often an ecclesiastical corporation, and that the cultivators :he soil hold the land by tenures more or less servile :haracter, we hâve a brief but sufficient account of the acipal features of the feudal System. To what extent this System survive in the France of 1789 ?

To answer this question satisfactorily we must envis- : the matter from two points of view, the political and économie. Feudalism had both these aspects, and ce the degree of survival was very different in the two es, we must consider them separately. Let us begin h the political.

The history of France from the time when Hugues pet assumed the crown till the reign of Louis XIV can

1 Fustel de Coulanges, Les origines du système féodal, p. xii.

xvi THE FALL OF FEUDALISM IN FRANCE

be sumniarised in few words. It is a record of the di struction of political feudalism by the monarchy. “ Tl twelve centuries of the old régime,” savs Gabriel Ham taux, “ laboured to constitute a modem nation by tl restoration of the idea of the State.” 1 When Louis Gros rode out from his capital to suppress the plunderir feudatories who haunted its environs, we may be su: that he was unconscious of the greatness of the task 1 which he had set his hand ; nevertheless, the work w< begun, and under his successors it never entirely ceas« till the day when, emerging from his minority, the your Louis XIV might, with perfect truth, hâve used tl words that tradition has put into his mouth, “ L’éta c’est moi ! ” This great secular labour had been one < enormous difficulty. The feudal opposition to the moi archy had taken many forms and made many stran§ alliances. Sometimes Protestant with the Huguenot sometimes Catholic with the League ; sometimes allie with England, sometimes with Spain, but always and i essence the same, and always pursuing the same endthe restoration of that happy day when the seigneur ha reigned like a king over his domain. To break dow this opposition the monarchy had had resort to ever weapon in its armoury — diplomacy, money, and tl sword. But broken down it wasatlast. The royal armh overthrew the feudal fortresses ; the royal law-couri filched jurisdiction from the feudal judges ; the roy; tax-gatherers thrust themselves between the noble an his vassals. The tide had fairly turned when Louis X died ; neither Coligny nor the Guises could stem it, an when the great cardinals had broken, first, the Protestant: and then the Fronde, the issue was decided once for al 1 Hanotaux (G.), La France en 1614, p. 105.

INTRODUCTION

xvi 1

ider the inspiration of Saint-Simon, that tierce hâter the upstart and usurping monarchy, a last attempt reaction was made under the Regency. It failed, d from then till the day when the Révolution trod th Crown and nobility into the dust, the noblesse ;epted, without a struggle, the order of things which :reed that the seigneur should be no more than “ the ;t inhabitant of the parish.” 1 The last vestige of his :ient political power was his rights of jurisdiction, d in the exercise of those he was so carefully limited i controlled that, as De Tocqueville said, they were îss a power than a source of revenue.” 2 But this résignation had only been purchased at a :at price. The nobles and their dependents were :mpt from the most burdensome of the direct taxes ich weighed so heavily upon the Third Estate. They nopolised the well-paid offices of the administration which no active labour was required. They figured gely upon the pension-list. A royal decree, which s issued so late as 1781, reserved the commissioned iks in the army to those who could show a certain mber of quarterings of nobility. In the same way, higher offices of the Church had become the close serve of men of rank. After 1783, not one holder of 135 French bishoprics and archbishoprics was of beian origin.3 Not ail the members of the noble class, course, profited by this golden manna. There was a at gulf fixed between the noblesse de cour and the üesse de campagne ; between the Rohans, the Lianîrts, the Polignacs, and those impoverished nobles om Arthur Young found subsisting on fifty and even

1 Tocqueville, p. 36. 2 Ibid. p. 37.

3 Lavisse, Histoire de France, vol. ix. (1) p. 148.

xviii THE FALL OF FEUDALISM IN FRANCE

twenty-five louis a year, in the Rouergue.1 Some c this latter class, indeed, lived the lives of peasants. Whe the nobles of Poitou met in March 1789 to elect thei représentatives to the States-General, “ seven gentleme were présent at the assembly dressed like peasants. Non of them had a sword at his side. The commissionei appointed by the order of the nobility procured arir for them and paid their bills at the hôtel. When ques tioned, these gentlemen said that their daughters worke in the farmyard, made the bread, and kept sheep in th fields.” 2 Nevertheless, the généralisation holds goo that the monarchy had, in part, purchased the resigm tion of the nobles to their loss of political power by hanc ing over to them financial privilèges and a monopol of the higher offices in Church and State. In part, h it said, for that was not the whole of the bargain. I it we must include the fact that, while their politic; power had been broken, the économie power of the noble had been maintained and even strengthened, since t! obligations of which it had been the price were no longe fulfilled. In 1789, the ban and arrière-ban had not bee called out for a century. As Boiteau picturesquely say the nobility “ for a hundred years had had only a woode sword at its side.3 Political feudalism, then, was dead économie feudalism was living and vigorous, and it with a detailed description of this last that we mu: commence our inquiry.

1 Young, 29 July and 19 August 1787. For the poor noblesse Brittany, see Sée, Classes rurales, pp. 27-30.

2 Procès-verbal of the Assembly, in Kovalewsky, vol. i. p. 9.

3 Boiteau, p. 34.