CHAPTER III

THE FIRST PEASANT REVOLT

HE peasants had assembled in their parish

meetings, discussed their many wrongs, formu-

lated their modest programmes, elected their eputies, and returned to their homes, there to await a appy deliverance at the hands of Necker, “ the virtuous îinister,” and Louis XVI, “ the best of kings.” Their îood was one in which gratitude mingled with a fearful ope. But spring gave way to summer ; April slid into [ay, May into June, and still nothing was done. The ision of a new earth began to be clouded by doubts nd suspicions. News travelled infinitely slowly in the Duntryside. Arthur Young, arriving at Château-Thierry a 4 July, found neither a coffee-house where he could ear news, nor a newspaper in which he could read . “ Here are two parishes and some thousands of

ihabitants, and not a newspaper to be seen by a traveller, yen in a moment when ail ought to be anxiety. What :upidity, poverty, and want of circulation ! ” Besançon, îe capital of Franche-Comté, and a town with 25,000 (habitants, received the post but three times each week, ad could only afford Young a newspaper that was a >rtnight old. At Dijon he found that nothing was nown of the insurrection at Strasburg which had taken lace nine days before. Marseilles, the third city of the :alm, heard of the ovents of 14 July at Paris four days :ter they had taken place.1

1 Viguier, p. 108.

Such news as actually circulated was mingled with sinister rumour. When the intrepid English traveller reached Thueyts in the middle of August, he found his agricultural investigations much hampered by the popular belief that he was an agent of “ the Queen, the count d’Artois, and the count d’Entragues,” these august persons being, as “ was known to a certainty ... in a conspiracy against the Vivarais.” 1 The large towns, even, were no better off, if we may accept Young’s account of Dijon as at ail typical. He found rumour there as full of tongues as at Thueyts — and as little enlightened ! It was firmly believed that the Queen had been found guilty of “ a plot to poison the King and Monsieur, and give the regency to the Count d’Artois ; to set tire to Paris and blow up the Palais Royale by a mine.” a

Indeed, the news that must hâve been circulating in June and early July of 1789 could hâve brought small comfort to the country-folk. They must hâve heard of the upright deputies of the T iers struggling against the selfish nobility and higher clergy — those new Pharaohs who refused to let the people go free ; of the good king misled by his scandalous brothers and his Austrian queen. Had not they or some other enemies of the commonweal inspired the royal déclaration of 23 June, the words of which must hâve sounded in the peasants’ ears like the death-knell of ail their hopes ? “ Ail properties

without exception must be absolutely respected, and His Majesty expressly includes in the word ‘ properties ’ tithes, rent-charges, feudal and seigneurial rights and duties ; in general, ail the rights and prérogatives attaching to lands and fiefs which belong to private persons.” Perhaps, even, the king had given orders for the peasants’ relief and the nobles had suppressed them. So, at any rate, men were whispering to one another in Dauphiné in mid-July.3

Thus, as the days grew hotter, men’s blood grew 1 Young, 19 August 1789. * Ibid. 31 July 1789. * Conard, p. 34.

THE FIRST PEASANT REVOLT

hotter too. We can easily picture the discussions in the evenings and at rest-hours in the fields, and hear the note of hope deepening to one of anger. The “ great folks ” who were to do something for the “ poor ones ” had failed or betrayed them ; what if the peasant sought his own remedy ? The memories of the électoral propaganda of the spring must hâve taken on a fresh significance. We know that in Brittany, for example, the spokesmen of the town bourgeoisie, striving to win over the peasant masses to their side, had preached a véritable social war against the nobles. They had spoken of “ the enormous fortunes which corrupt society ” ; of the “ enormous abuse ” by reason of which “ twelve or fifteen hundred citizens labour ail the year for a single man.” They had declared that “ in France we hâve only two social classes : the one made up of those who enjoy and do not work, the other of those who work and do not enjoy ” ; they had demanded of the ri ch that they should “ cease to starve the poor man ; cease to dispute its bread with the people.” 1 Similar propaganda had doubtless been carried on in other parts of the country (we know this was the case in Burgundy),2 a real sowing of dragon’s teeth that was to bring forth a redoubtable harvest.

Even after the meeting of the States-General the scattering of such seed had continued. Radically-minded deputies of the Third Estate wrote incendiary letters to their constituents. These were read aloud in public, copied, and dispersed into the villages of the district.3

By the middle of July the tension had reached the breaking-point. The e vents that followed show how great was the nervous strain upon the population. On the I4th the Parisians stormed the Bastille ; in the

1 Dupont, pp. 19-21.

s Cochin and Charpentier, La campagne électorale de 178g en Bourgogne, a piece of royalist propaganda which contains interesting fact*.

8 Taine, La Révolution, vol. i. p. 95.

weeks that followed the townspeople everywhere carried out a “ municipal révolution,” sweeping away the old privileged governing bodies and substituting communal authorities more to the public taste. At the same time there swept across France, penetrating even to the remotest districts, that wave of panic terror known in history as the Great Fear. Everywhere it was said that “ brigands ” were marching, or that foreign enemies — Englishmen, Spaniards, Savoyards — had made invasion. Alongside this movement, and in part cause, part conséquence of it,1 there began the first épisode in the war of the peasants against the feudal System, a war which was not to cease till its last vestiges had been swept away in France and a véritable social révolution accomplished.

Some writers hâve seen in this movement a direct conséquence of the insurrection in Paris.2 But this version of events is at best, as Kropotkin has pointed out,3 only half true. It is clear, for instance, that the space of time between the events in Paris and the outbreak of peasant insurrections at certain places in the provinces, was much too short to permit of the news of the fall of the Bastille having reached the latter. Arthur Young’s evidence on this point seems conclusive. “ For what the country knows to the contrary, their deputies are in the Bastille, instead of the Bastille being razed ; so the mob plunder, burn and destroy, in complété ignorance.” 4 The theory that the disorders, as well as the great panic, were the work of conspirators who, in some miraculous and unexplained manner, had engineered the whole movement, is also much too simple and convenient to be convincing. It is, indeed, rejected by those who hâve most carefully studied the facts.6

1 Sagnac and Caron (p. x. of Introduction) say categorically that " these pillagings engendered the Great Fear in almost the whole of France.” This overlooks the fact that in some parts, e.g., Dauphiné, the panic engendered the pillage.

2 Cf. Bord, p. 76.

4 27 July 1789.

3 Kropotkin, p. 95.

6 Cf. préfacé to Conard’s work.

THE FIRST PEASANT REVOLT

Ve hâve to consider that disturbances had been multi- )lying throughout the country during the whole spring >f 1789 ; one competent authcrity déclarés that more han three hundred riots occurred in the four months vhich preceded the taking of the Bastille.1 In March, for :xample, ail Provence had been throw’n into a ferment )y hunger- riots. As early as February, the peasants in .everal districts of Dauphiné were refusing to pay the eudal dues, and in April a similar state of affairs was eported to exist. On the 23rd of this latter month, the >easants of Passage and Paladru declared that " for the uture they would pay no personal dues . . . and that he same shall be signified to Madame the Vicomtesse de Pons, lady of this place.” In May, the inhabitants of Drnacieux, who cherished a grudge of long standing igainst their seigneur, refused to pay a certain due unless îe produced “ the primitive and original titles ” which jave him the right to levy it. In the beginning of June ;he rumour ran at Cremieu that “ the manor-houses rnght to be burned and plundered.” A certain M. de Pusignan, returning home from the market at Burgoin, vas told by a fellow-traveller of conversations heard unong peasants “ which made my hair stand on end. Oiey talked of nothing but assassinations and burnings )f châteaux.” 2 Passing to the other extremity of the •ealm we find that it was noted in Brittany, towards the niddle of May, that certain parish priests were stirring îp trouble in the rural districts. One of these seditious ;cclesiastics had declared (on a Sunday) that his flock rnght not to acknowledge or pay the feudal dues.3 The :rust of habit, the bonds of social discipline, had clearly ong been weakening ; there is no need to resort to the îypothesis of a monstrous conspiracy to explain why :hey finally snapped. The fact that the first haiVest had }een gathered in ; 4 the state of nervous tension in

1 Duchemin, p. 10 note. J Conard, pp. 37 and 39.

8 Sée and Lésort, vol. i. p. lxiv note. 1 Cf. Kropotkin, p. 110.

which the population had been living for months, a tension clearly proved by the extravagant character and widespread range of the great panic ; the rage and hatred born of hope deferred ; these are causes quite sufïicient to explain the when and why of the first peasant risings.

The insurrections fell, geographically speaking, into two main groups, an eastern and a western. The provinces affected by the first were those frontier districts in which, as we hâve seen, the grossest forms of feudal oppression had survived : Alsace, Franche-Comté, Burgundy, the Maçonnais, Dauphiné. The provinces of the second group were western : Normandy, Maine, Poitou, and Brittany, but in these the movement was not so violent or widespread as in the east. Elsewhere, only isolated disturbances seem to hâve taken place.1

The first blow would seem to hâve been struck near Vesoul, in Franche-Comté, where the château of Sancy, belonging to the Princesse de Beaufremont, was sacked on 16 July.1 Clearly, the news from Paris could not hâve travelled this distance in so short a time. The same remark applies to the case of the mainmortables of Saponcourt, who rose against their ecclesiastical overlords of Cherlieu on the i8th, to be followed by those of Purgerot, Betancourt, and Venisey.3 The disturbances, which continued till the beginning of August and caused infinité damage (in one part of Franche-Comté three out of every five manor-houses were plundered),4 took much the same form in ail parts. The main object of the peasants was to destroy the hated manor-rolls which were the charters of their servitude, along with ail other documents which seemed capable of bearing witness against them. Their forerunners in the Jacquerie had acted in a precisely

1 Taine, as cited, vol. i. p. 97, includes Auvergne among the provinces affected; but his references are vague, and his statement is contradicted by M. Mège in the Bulletin historique et scientifique de l’Auvergne for 1900. I prefer th# authority of M. Mège.

* Taine, as cited, vol. i. p. 98. * Finot, 1881.

4 Young, 31 July 1789.

THE FIRST PEASANT REVOLT

milar manner four centuries before. But a few descripons of particular incidents will be more enlightening îan generalities.

On 23 July, the mainmortables of Montigny, a ependency of Cherlieu, rose and invaded the abbey oisters. On that day they contented themselves with îe plunder of the archives. On the morrow they reîrned and led the monks — their hands bound and with )pes about their necks — to an open space in the village, here they were forced to kneel, and, under the urgency f the threats that were heaped upon them, the brotherurveyor signed, on behalf of himself and the community, renunciation of the chief feudal rights of the abbey. his document had been drawn up by a notary aoughtfully provided by the peasants. Its preamble as a certain grim humour which makes it worthy f quotation. “ Messieurs the Prior and the monks, esirous to satisfy the inhabitants and community of lontigny, and having heard the instructions given them esterday at Cherlieu and reflected upon them, hâve onsented, accorded, approved, and ratified to the aforelid inhabitants, here présent and accepting the following, 0 wit : ” then follows a list of concessions which illusrates at once the grievances and the demands of the easants. Put summarily, it runs as follows : (1) The îainmorte with which the lands of Montigny are burdened ; abolished for ever ; (2) the dues on contracts of sale nd purchase ( lods et ventes ) are abolished, and the inabitants are to be free to sell, buy, or alienate as seems ood to them ; (3) tithes are abolished ; (4) the monoioly of the bakehouse is done away with ; (5) there is to •e no hunting when the crops are liable to damage ; (6) he abbey’s gamekeepers are to be excluded from the nhabitants’ woods and fields, and the latter alone are o enjoy the right to fish ; (7) the pigeon-cotes are to be ntirely destroyed ; (8) any inhabitant may keep a dog rithout muzzling it ; (9) the inhabitants are to be en-

tirely free of ail corvées ; (io) the tallage shall be levied equitably ; (n) ail earlier title-deeds are to be null and of no effect.1

Luxeuil, which, as we hâve seen, was another notable centre of feudal survivais, witnessed scenes very similar. In the morning of the 2ist the alarm-bell was rung in the neighbouring villages, and the men of Maillerancourt, Landres, Vironcourt, Baudoncourt, La Chapelle, Brotte, and Froide-Couche marched upon the Bénédictine abbey, with the village ofificers at their head. They were armed with every variety of rural weapons. The Prior, Dom Vautherot, received the leaders in the lower court and parleyed with them. They demanded that ail title-deeds should be handed over for destruction ; the Prior did not refuse, but asked that a list of the documents should be given him in exchange. The waiting peasants, however, grew impatient, battered in the door of the court and invaded the abbey buildings. “ The rioters,” says the historian of these e vents, “ swami up the staircase in the corner of the court, empty some shelves in the library, throw down titles, registers, printed books taken at random, steal the purveyor’s cash-box containing twenty or thirty louis, then descend to the kitchen, break the plates and fling themselves into the cellar, whence they carry off several barrels of wine.” Meanwhile, a similar scene was being enacted at the Abbot’s palace. M. de Clermont-Tonnerre was compelled to sign an abandonment of his feudal rights ; wliilst the rioters sacked the palace he escaped with his life to Plombières, only to be requested to départ, lest his presence should create disturbances there also.2

Of the insurrections in Dauphiné we hâve a very full and clear account.3 The movement seems to hâve been

1 Finot, 1881.

2 For events at Luxeuil, see Godefroy, p. 82.

3 Thanks to the labours of M. Pierre Conard. See his admirable monograph for ail that follows.

THE FIRST PEASANT REVOLT

he direct product of the Great Fear. We hâve already oticed the disturbed state of the province in the spring nd early summer ; when, on 25 July, the rumour egan to spread that “ brigands ” were ravaging Franchebmté and marching south (a clear proof that in this rstance the peasant revolts were the cause of the panic), : fell like oil upon a smouldering fire. On the 27th, a ay of storm and rain, the story of the “ brigands ” — ow transformed into a Sardinian army, 40,000 strong -ran like wildfire through the country. The alarmells rang in every steeple, scattering terror as far as leir clamour reached ; every where men hastily armed lemselves with such weapons as came to hand, and >rmed themselves into rough-and-ready militias ; ’omen fled with their children to the woods. Large umbers of armed peasants poured into the towns rrxious to strike a blow in self-defence By nine o’clock l the evening, for example, two thousand of them had rtered Bourgoin, and thousands more arrived du ring re night. When they learned, as speedily happened, rat they had been deceived by a false alarm, their anger nd suspicion turned immediately against the nobles, /ho, but these ancient enemies of the people, would ave thus spread terior through the countryside ? Since they had found no enemy,” the peasants deared, “ they would visit the nobles, and the priests who îpported them.”

The threat was not an idle one ; early in the morning f the 28th they marched out of Bourgoin to put their rogramme into action. They marched first to the râteau of Donrarin, which they sacked ; then to that E Vaulx, which they fired and destroyed. When Verillière and Layet had also been ravaged, many were itisfied and returned to their homes ; but others, more eternrined, continued their march till the 30th, raising il northern Viennois against the nobles and destroying re manor-houses as they went. We cannot describe their

activities in detail, or stay to describe events in other parts of the province. Suffice it to say that in three days some fifty-seven châteaux or religious houses were attacked with varying degrees of violence. No lives, however, were taken.

Passing from the East to the West, we notice that the insurrections bore much the same character in both areas. The description of one characteristic épisode will suffice for our purposes. On 27 July, the tocsin was rang in the church of Sauvagère (Maine), and several hundred armed peasants assembled. They were careful to bring with them their parish priests and a notary, thus showing a very characteristic desire to “ keep o’ the windy side of the law.” Fortified in this fashion by the countenance of law and of religion, they marched on the château of Vaugeois, their avowed intention being to carve a certain obnoxious gamekeeper into cockades such as every patriot was then wearing ! Fortunately for himself, however, the man was not to be found, and the crowd turned its attention to his master, M. de Montreuil. He was first forcibly compelled to sign a formai act of renunciation of ail his rights and privilèges over the lands of Coulonche and Sauvagère. Then his archives were seized and destroyed ; his stock of provisions was plundered, and he himself was obliged to disgorge eighteen hundred livres in cash. (The greater part of this sum, it is fair to add, was returned to him later.) The peasants, it would seem, were not so much inspired by personal ill-will against their seigneur as by a détermination to hâve done for ever with the économie System he represented. Having dealt thus faithfully with Vaugeois, a portion of the band departed for Couterne, where the programme was repeated. There, also, the archives were burned and an abandonment of rights extracted from the proprietor.1

Returning from particular incidents to the revoit as 1 Puçtiemin, p, 19 et seq,

THE FIRST PEASANT REVOLT

whole, we may note that it exhibited a feature common ) most peasant insurrections, that is, the circulation of >rged letters, or edicts, alleged to emanate from the Dvernment, giving orders for the work of destruction, a Alsace, the authors of these documents (whoever they îay hâve been) thoughtfully caused them to be written l both French and German.1 “ On the 29th [of July],” rites M. Conard of Dauphiné, “ the peasants everywhere elieved that the pillage was ordered by the king. They elieved this the more readily because they were already Lclined to imitate the example set them. In their :edulity, they very easily admitted that the roughly rinted placards, shown them by some obscure leaders, :ally contained the expression of the king’s will ; that ouis XVI . . . had taken the side of the peasants ^ainst their feudal oppressors.” 2 At Hurigny, in the [âconnais, a copperplate for printing these forgeries as found in the possession of one of the peasants who ad taken part in the disturbances in that district.3 Ve hear, also, of a man in Dauphiné “ who had a copper [phabet with which he made printed placards.” 4 It has een assumed that these incidents prove the existence f a widespread and carefully organised conspiracy ; but rey can, in fact, be paralleled in the history of peasant ;volts at other times and in other countries. As Topotkin observes, it was an obvious method by which re more determined spirits among the peasants could in over the timid and the waverers.6 It was one, îoreover, for which the illiteracy of the rural masses ave ample scope.

The forces of law and order, much shaken by recent vents, were everywhere taken by surprise by the revolts, nd failed at first to make head against them. They peedily rallied, however, and a work of vigorous repres- .on was taken in hand. The violence of the peasants

1 Bord, pt. ii. p. 3. 2 Conard, p. 82. * Rameau, pp. 8-9.

* Conard, p. 82 note, 8 Kropotkin, p, lia.

was met by even greater violence, and, it must be said, with very much more bloodshed. The newly-formed militia of Mâcon, for example, fell upon one band of incendiaries at Hurigny ; killed twenty of them and took fifty prisoners, fifteen of whom were ultimately dispatched on the scaffold.1 At Cluny, the loss of life was much heavier, a hundred persons being killed.2 The bourgeois volunteers of Lyons, and the militias of other towns, were active in Dauphiné, where, indeed, we are told that “ the conflict between the party of order and the canaille ” resembled “ a short social war.” 3 Large numbers of arrests were made after the bands had been suppressed, and these in turn were followed up by several executions. (A friend of Arthur Young’s saw a peasant hanging from a tree close by the ruins of the château at Verpillière.) 4 One excited agent of social order went so far as seriously to propose the illégal revival of torture to extract information as to those who had “ formed the plot of these horrible brigandages !” 5

But even while this work of repression and vengeance was in progress, the effects of these upheavals in the depths of far-off provinces were being felt in the capital. They precipitated a crisis, and compelled the National Assembly to action which was destined to hâve farreaching and revolutionary results.

1 Rameau, pp. 8-9.

* Conard, p. ni.

6 Conard, chaps. iv. and v. passim.

8 Kropotkin, p. 127.

4 Young, 26 December 1789.