CHAPTER V

ROPERLY to understand the events that hâve

now to be described, the true character of the

L decrees passed between 4 and 11 August must st be grasped. The wording of their important clauses as follows :

(1) The National Assembly entirely destroys the idal System, and decrees that, of the feudal rights, ose which are derived from real or personal mainmorte d personal servitude, and those which represent them, e abolished without indemnity ; ail others are declared

be redeemable, and the price and method of their demption shall be fixed by the National Assembly. îose of the said rights which are not suppressed by this créé shall, nevertheless, continue to be levied till their mbursement.

(2) The exclusive right to pigeon-houses is abolished ; *eons shall be shut up at the periods fixed by the comunities ; during these times they shall be regarded as me, and any person has the right to kill them on his

(3) The monopoly of hunting-rights and open warrens similarly abolished ; every proprietor has the right to stroy and cause to be destroyed, on his own possessions, [ species of game. . . .

(4) Ail feudal juridictions are suppressed without iemnity ; nevertheless, their officers shall continue to Ifil their functions till the Natiopp.} Assembly shall

hâve provided for the establishment of a new judicia System

(5) Tithes of ail kinds and dues which take the place of them, under whatever name they may be known anc levied . . . are abolished. [The Assembly will conside] ways and means of providing for the different persons and services at présent maintained by the tithes.] How ever, until such provision shall hâve been made ... the National Assembly orders that the said tithes shall con tinue to be levied according to the laws and in the custom ary manner. As to other tithes, of whatever kind the} may be, they are redeemable in the manner which shal be decided by the Assembly, and until such decision the Assembly orders that their collection shall be continuée also.

(6) Ail perpétuai rents, whether in money or in kind whatever their character and origin, and to whatever persons they may be due . . . shall be redeemable the champarts of ail kinds, and under ail names, are equally redeemable at the rate to be fixed by the Assembly It is forbidden to create any irredeemable rent in the future.

The second and third of these clauses raised no doubt; or difhculties ; they were put into operation immediateb and very thoroughly . Every peasant who could lay hand: on a firearm of any description promptly fell upon the game, and there was a vast battue throughout the country in the course of which the pigeons of many a seigneu: suffered the same fate as the hares and rabbits. Arthu: Young, as he rode southward at the end of August, wa< mu ch “ pestered with ail the mob of the country shooting one would think that every rusty gun in Provence is a' work, killing ail sorts of birds ; the shot has fallen five or six times in my chaise and about my ears.” 1 The spectacle was shocking, indeed, to one brought up il British notions as to the sanctity of game ; but the in

* 30 August 1789,

mvenience, in the nature of the case, was only temporary, nd this massacre was an easy solution of a problem. 'ther difficulties raised by the decrees could not be isposed of so summarily.

Had the National Assembly sought to create instead : pacifying disturbance, it would not hâve worded its disions differently. There was a fatal ambiguity in the )ening words which declared the feudal System destroyed r ever, since in the next breath the greater part of it was aintained in existence. Certainly, that existence was be only temporary, and was to be brought to an end by scheme of purchase ; but, apart from the fact that the :tails of that scheme had still to be worked out (during lich operation there would inevitably be a period of .rassing suspense), men’s minds had moved fast and far ice the wild days of July. A proposai which would ve excited enthusiasm in May, or even June, was rtain now to be looked upon with other eyes. But en if this considération could be disregaided, and it was viously one of vital importance, there were others of equally troublesome character. For example, certain hts were suppressed without indemnity and others lintained till they were redeemed. The division between :se two categories was based on character and origin ; hts which implied, or could be shown to be derived m a servile status, were swept away ; ail others were hold good. Theoretically, this distinction appeared be reasonable ; practically, it raised more problems in it solved. How could it be proved, for instance, it a particular rent was, or was not, originally the >stitute for some servile charge ? Many of the dues ich were being paid in 1789 dated back to a dim and tant past ; even if documentary evidence as to their gins still existed, it was, for the most part, in the hands the seigneurs who were directly and vitally interested affirming that their rights belonged to one category 1 not to another. On this capitally important question

of proof, which affected the validity and amount of th dues as well as their origin, the Assembly had made n decision, though the point had been raised, as we hav seen, in certain of the cahiers of parishes. In shorl the more closely the decree is examined, the mor apparent becomes its weakness as a piece of practicî législation.

It was not long before this weakness was manifeste in a drastic fashion. From the middle of August onward there flowed into the Assembly a steadily increasing tid of questions, protests, and complaints from ail manner c bodies and individuals. These documents are of th greatest interest and importance for our inquiry, and sélection of typical cases will serve to show the nature c the problems raised by the August decrees. On 2 August, for example, there is a letter from the Comte d Germiny ; at the end of July his château of Sassy, nés Argentan, had been attacked by the local peasants, wh had carried off his title-deeds and burned them, i addition to massacring his pigeons. He disclaims an intention of proceeding against the guilty parties thoug he knows some of them, but demands justice from th Assembly, and that it should devise some means whereb his loss may be made good.1 The tenant of the seigneuri; mill at Lindre, in Lorraine, allégés that the vassals < the surrounding villages disregard their obligation 1 bring corn to his establishment and take it elsewhere 1 be ground. He has carried the case to the courts, whic hâve given decisions in his favour, but without resul He has set guards to watch the peasants, but they ha^ been chased and beaten, and hâve finally abandoned the task owing to the lack of support from the municip; authorities. He demands relief from the Assembly, as 1 is being pressed for his rent by the owner of the mil] Other documents show the lords of manors still oppressir their vassals and resisting the decrees. The commun 1 Sagnac and Caron, p. 157. * Ibid. p. 41.

ssembly of Loubedat, in Gascony, complains that a )cal seigneur has obtained a decision from the Parliament f Toulouse, calling upon the municipality to erect a iench for him in the parish church, “ with back, elbowests, and hassock ” ; this decision “ seems to be dictated y a spirit of aristocracy.” The inhabitants hâve unaninously agreed to refuse till the National Assembly has iven a ruling on the point at issue.1 The inhabitants nd municipality of Nerac (Lot and Garonne) write that hough “ the first article of the decree of 4 August 1789 bviously abolishes the right of p relation or retrait . . . idthout indemnity . . . this right is maintained by the eigneur,” the Duc de Bouillon.2 The peasants of Vacquerille (Meurthe) are compelled to inform the Assembly hat they fear its most just decisions will be eluded ;

' we suffer at this moment very harsh treatment on the >art of the agent of our seigneur, the Bishop of Metz.” rhe mayors of certain villages hâve been condemned to nake up “ the rolls containing the number of peasants .nd other inhabitants, as well as the number of their lraught beasts.” These rolls were formerly used as a >asis on which to levy certain dues that the complainants leclare to be of servile origin. They are willing, they ay, to redeem the charges and to acquit them till that îas been done ; but, “on his side, the Bishop of Metz ought îot to permit his agents, officers, and farmers to menace, errify, and vex his subjects as they do. Your decrees hould be as binding on great lords as on the meanest itizens.” 3 The inhabitants of Combret (Lozère) assert hat their ancestors formerly enjoyed the right to fish n the local stream, rendering an annual due in return ; ‘ the title has disappeared but we still pay, and this ishing-right is prohibited with so much vigour ” that :ertain of them hâve been brought to the verge of beggary jy the heavy fines inflicted.4 One François Pied de Cocq

1 Sagnac and Caron, p. 15. * Ibid. p. 131.

* Ibid. p. 10. 4 Ibid. p. 40,

allégés that he was hunting a hare when he was attacked by his seigneur, who knocked him down and kicked him ; he offers to prove this by the testimony of forty witnesses ! 1 On 3 January 1790, Bouron, one of the deputies for Poitou, wntes that “ if in some provinces the seigneurs complain that their vassals refuse to acquit the feudal dues, in others the vassals cry out against the rigour of the seigneurs because, in spite of the suppression of the feudal System, some of the latter continue to hold their assizes, that is, to demand . . . déclarations and aveux recognising ail the rights which hâve been levied up till this day. It is just to assure to the seigneurs the payment of the unsuppressed rights till these hâve been redeemed ; but it is no less essential to the maintenance of the decrees of the National Assembly and of public tranquillity to déclaré that the seigneurs hâve no longer the right to hold assizes, 'as this right is deiived directly from the feudal power which we destroyed by the first article of the decree of the 4th August.” 2

In certain cases the peasants raise the question as to the exhibition of titles. The municipal officers of Malaucourt and Haucourt (Meuse), for instance, pétition that their seigneur may be instructed to communicate his title-deeds to them, for “ we do not refuse to pay these rights if they are due, but we wish to know why we pay them and what we ought to pay.” 3 In other cases communities appeal to the Assembly for advice or rulings upon disputed points arising from the decrees. The municipal officers and inhabitants of Grimaucourt (Meuse) represent that the agents of the Comte de Sampigny hâve called upon them to pay two bushels of oats each for the use of the seigneurial bakehouse, and a live capon for the right of watering their animais at the village brook which has recently been cleansed by the community at its own expense.” The petitioners, fearing

1 Sagnac and Caron, p. 51. 3 Sagnac, p. 419.

3 Sagnac and Caron, p. 54.

o fail in a suit which might be costly to them, “ hâve the îonour to recur to your enlightenment and to entreat mu to point out to them the steps they ought to take.” 1 rhe inhabitants of Attigny, in the Ardennes, report that hey hâve corne to an agreement with the agents of their eigneur, the Archbishop of Rheims, to defer to the National Assembly the question as to whether or not ertain dues paid by them hâve a servile origin ; an ncient inhabitant holds that such is the case, but nly the production of the original titles can prove t.2

By no means ail the persons interested were willing o adopt this moderate course and carry their grievances >efore the National Assembly for judgment. We hâve loted that disturbances had begun again in the pro- 'inces on the morrow of the passing of the decree ; rom the documents received by the Assembly and from he works of modem régional historians we see that they ontinued and grew in number throughout the autumn nd winter. The peasants neither could nor would nderstand anything of the decree save its opening mrds : The National Assembly entirely destroys the rndal System. If it were destroyed, why should they ontinue to pay the rents and dues ? The country had uffered from two bad seasons in succession ; many of he peasants had fallen into arrears with their payments. Iverything invited them to résistance. What M. Conard 'rites of Dauphiné may be applied, more or less, to the rhole of France. “ The peasants did not resign themîlves to the delays which the National Assembly wished ) impose upon them for the rédemption of the tithes and mts ; they did not always accept the principle. . . . he total and immédiate abolition of ail feudal servitudes ould alone hâve re-established calm in the villages.” 3 •auphiné, indeed, in spite of its expériences in August,

1 Sagnac, p. 418. 2 Sagnac and Caron, p. 105.

8 Conard, p. 164.

showed itself irrépressible. At the end of September the inhabitants of Poët-Sigillat forced the lord of the manor to sell his rights at a very low price. In November, the peasants of Gua, called upon to pay the dues they owed without delay, appealed to the Assembly. “ You hâve annihilated the feudal System,” they wrote, “ and we are still on the point of being crushed by feudalism.” They determined not to pay a penny.1 At the beginning of January the procurators-general of the Estâtes of Dauphiné called the attention of the president of the National Assembly to the refusais, “ in almost every part of the province, to acquit the seigneurial dues and rents of whatever kind they may be. . . . The efforts that we hâve made to recall the communities to the true sense of the law, and to the principles of equity, hâve been unsuccessful. Some of them hâve even forcibly taken possession of mills and bakehouses which had monopolies. . . . The fear, unhappily too well founded, of being exposed to the violence which the people permits itself in these moments of fermentation, prevents the owners of feudal rights from appealing to the authority of the courts ; they are thus compelled to sacrifice a part of their fortunes to their personal security and to the conservation of the rest of their property. It consequently becomes impossible for the greater part of them to pay their taxes. The diminution, and, for some, the total loss of their revenues, does not permit them to make the required déclarations for the patriotic contribution.” The letter concludes with a request that the Assembly should hasten to fix the method and price of rédemption.2 In January 1790, the cathédral chapter of Riez complained bitterly to the authorities of the Department of the Basses-Alpes that its tithes were being withheld from it. Since 4 August, “ a wind of disorder has swept over Provence, a wind of disorder and mutiny which displays itself by refusai to pay the 1 Conard, pp. 164-5. * Sagnac and Caron, p. 75.

ithe.” “ At Oraison the tithe has only brought in 67 etiers of grain instead of 500 : déficit, 433.” Other dllages had acted in the same way, with the resuit that he chapter estimated its losses from the withholding of :orn and wine at 5200 and 3431 livres respectively.

‘ How,” the chapter demanded indignantly, “ do you :xpect fifteen titular beneficiaries and nine servants, wenty-four persons in ail, to live upon a revenue of 8800 ivres when they lack 8600 of them ?” 1 The answer if the Department is not, unfortunately, on record, ^.t Heiteren, in Upper Alsace, troubles broke out again u November. The peasants had for some time been lisputing their rights over certain woods with their lord ; hey now threatened to burn his château and buildings, .nd drive away his agent, if their demands were not mmediately conceded.2 In the same month, the inlabitants of Betancourt attacked and burnt the furnace drich the Abbot of Cherlieu had established on their ands. They had accused it in their cahier of destroying heir woods.3

In the rniddle of September, Brittany was in complété iisorder. Local authorities in well-provided districts yere forbidding the export of gxain beyond their limits ; dhers, threatened with famine, were preparing to break lown this monopoly by force. The peasants began to nove against the manor-houses. On the i8th of the nonth, the governor of the province wrote that he dared xot afford military protection to the Comte de Ker-Salun vho had fled from Quimper and taken refuge on his :state at Corquer. “ I should be afraid,” he said, “ to :xpose him, myself, and the province if I had his habitaion and person guarded by a detachment. This useless ict of protection would sound the tocsin, would cause t to be said that we wish to guard and arm the aristo- :rats, and would expose the châteaux, which would be

1 Viguier, p. 290. 1 Hoffman, vol. v. p. 53.

* Finot, 1881.

defenceless.” 1 At the end of January and the beginning of February, there was a whole sériés of attacks on the manor-houses. On 17 January, at Campel, after vespers, certain persons “ made a list in the cemetery of ail those who were to go to carry off the titles and papers from the châteaux of Coëtbo, Boisdenas, La Roche-Cotterelle, and La Chapelle du Bouëxic ; one named Jean Bebiu, of the parish of Comblessac, who was présent, said that if the lords of these châteaux refused to renounce their feudal rents, their papers and titles must be burned and fiie put to the châteaux themselves.” Whether the whole of tliis programme was carried out is not clear ; at La Chapelle-Bouëxie a crowd of peasants, 600 strong, broke the furniture, doors, and Windows, and cairied off silver and other objects. The feudal documents were carried out into the court and entirely destroyed. On the 23rd, 300 people who had previously pillaged the manor-house of Bois-au- Voyes, fell upon that of Lohéac and sacked it ; at the same time they attacked the house of the seigneur’ s bailiff and burned his papers. On the 25th some peasants presented themselves at La Driennaye and demanded a renunciation of the feudal rights ; two days later the place was pillaged and the archives destroyed. On the same day a renunciation was forced from the lord of La Molière, and on the 28th the proprietor of La Gaudelinaye was compelled to promise to re-erect a bridge which had recently been condemned. In ail these exploits a peasant of La Melattière, one François Vallais, took the lead, and subsequently suffered imprisonment for his activities. It is only just to this village Hampden to note that he prevented the sacking of La Molière. At the end of January or beginning of February the château of Bassardaine, in Saint-Maugan, was pillaged, and that of La Chasse at Iffendic was treated in the same way on the 7th. In this last instance the rioters showed particular

1 Sagnac, p. 127.

nimus against the pigeon-house ; the complaints on this opic had filled a long article of their cahier } On the oth the governor wrote to the Minister for War, “ What îquiets me at the moment is the insurrection of the easants who are pillaging and burning the châteaux. . . . here is question of forming a considérable detachment f troops in some central point of the province which can tart immediately for any place where it may be required.” hree days later he said in another letter, “ I learn that âe detachments sent into the country districts to diserse the brigands who pillage and bum the châteaux ave returned to Rennes. However, the disorders connue. The peasants and vassals of Beuvres, three :agues from Bain, after having buined the title-deeds, ave established themselves in the manor-house and ireaten to bum it if other papers that they déclaré hâve een hidden are not given up to them. The proprietor emands assistance so that his procurator, who has taken ;fuge at Rennes, can save the few effects which remain.”

. further letter of the iyth shows Ploërmel and Redon rrrounded by “ brigands ” and bands of revolted easants ; the governor permits the municipalities to rm the citizens.1 2

The eastern and western provinces had been the two :orm-centres of the upheaval in July ; the ominous fact hich emerged in the autumn and winter of 178g was îe spread of the insurrectionary movement to areas naffected in the summer. In the provinces of the f assif Central — Quercy, Périgord, the Limousin, Rouerie, and Auvergne — the revoit was even more serious id widespread than that in Brittany. “ In Auvergne,” rote the Comtesse d’Ambrugeac on 31 October, we suffer a thousand horrors at the hands of our

1 This account has been pieced together from the notes appended t MM. Sée and Lésort to pp. 303, 307, 399, 485, 488, and 493 of vol.

. of their work.

2 Sagnac, pp. 415 and 128.

peasants. A whole village refuses to pay unless we produce our title-deeds ; others wait the event and do not pay. If we do not show them, they will not pay ; if we do, they may burn them.” 1 The dilemma was indeed a sharp one ! In the same province, in February 1790, the Marquis de Saluces was seized when leaving church after mass, compelled to deliver up his titledeeds, remit arrears of rent, and make other concessions to his vassals. The châteaux at Riom-es-Montagne and Laroquebron were devastated in the last months of 1789. 2 The situation in Périgord, Quercy, and Rouergue was described by one of the deputies of the first-named province towards the end of 1789. “ Ail the peasants

refuse to pay the rents,” he wrote. “ They flock together, organise coalitions, and pass resolutions declaring that no one shall pay rent ; if anyone wishes to do so, he shall be hanged. They go into the houses of seigneurs, ecclesiastics, and other well-to-do persons ; they commit déprédations and compel the return of portions of rents which hâve former ly been received.” 3 M. Georges Bussière has devoted a large part of his admirable study of Périgord during the revolutionary epoch to what he calls “ the rural révolution” ; it is perhaps the most detailed study of a peasant insurrection that we possess. It was towards the end of 1789, at the period when the rents fell due, that the movement took on serious proportions. Local circumstances and the State of men’s minds made an outbreak inévitable. The région, says M. Bussière, “ was, par excellence, the land of feudalism, a land of huts and châteaux.” 4 The ideas of liberty and equality had reached the rural masses, whose forefathers had again and again, from the Middle Ages to the end of the seventeenth century, risen against royal and feudal tyranny. They interpreted the Rights of Man in an

1 Vaissière, P. de, Lettres d’ Aristocrates.

2 Serres, vol. iii. p. 75. 8 Sagnac and Caron, p. 160.

4 Bussière, p. 234.

riginal fashion, as an incident reported of the inhabiants of La Douze, in " Black Périgord,” proves. These impie people compelled their curé to leave open the door f the tabernacle which contained the sacred éléments, 1 order, they said, that “ the good God might be free,” nd adorned it with a national cockade ! 1 At this ame place, on 30 November, the crier who announced îe collection of the feudal dues was threatened and îenaced. At La Cropte, a week later, after hearing rhat the crier had to say, the people compelled him to îake a very different announcement, to wit, that the rst man who paid his rent should be hanged. From îerely refusing to pay, the peasants speedily passed to 101e vigorous action. Since September, M. de Bar, ligueur of Paulin, had been quarrelling with his vassals ; n 29 November they attacked his château, burst ito the outbuildings and burnt some of the objects îey found there ; then, by threats, compelled De Bar ) assent to their various demands. Some asked for the istitution of sums paid for lods et ventes ; another of a ood which he declared had been illegally taken from im ; another of half a meadow, lost through the operaon of the right of retrait. Others, again, demanded the bandonment of the feudal rents or the return of conscated arms.2 The movement spread to the surrounding istrict, but the authorities soon took steps to suppress . Three of the leaders were arrested and imprisoned t Sarlat, only to be released shortly after by an armed and, 2000 strong. The peasants thrust De Bar’s nephew ito gaol as a substitute ! 3 In the latter half of January, îe movement swept across the whole province. The

1 Bussière, p. 236. For an admirable description of “ Black Périgord ” îd its peasants, see Le Roy’s well-known novel, Jacquou le Croquant.

2 It is interesting to compare this account, based on a contemporary idicial report, with Taine’s version. “ In Périgord, the château of !. de Bar is burnt ; M. de Bar is overwhelmed with blows." La Révoluon, vol. i. p. 374.

* Bussière, pp. 243-51.

procedure was everywhere very similar ; the peasants began by the planting of a maypole as a symbol of liberty, then demanded the surrender of the weathercocks which surmounted the châteaux and were the sign that the owners had rights of feudal jurisdiction. “ The maypole turned revolutionary,” says M. Bussière, “ manifested in its attributes the significant symbolism of the promised deliverance . . . it remonstrated with the seigneurs in an original fashion. It recalled to them their abusive methods of measuring and shifting the rents in corn ; there were hung upon it sieves, brooms, cornmeasures, the feathers of fowls, and, suprême ornament, weather-cocks, with which to abate the pride of the castellan.” 1 After this ritual came sterner work, the manor-houses were invaded, and the usual demands for renunciations and repayments put forward. The lords’ benches in the churches, those material symbols of inequality, suffered severely. Everywhere they were dragged out and destroyed by fire. At Cendrieux, to take one instance out of many, a local innkeeper, Louis Chantal, leader of the popular party in the National Guard of the district, appeared outside the church on Sunday, 31 January, with a dozen of his men. To the Sound of a drum, the offensive benches and the balustrade of a chapel were removed, and an immense bonfire preceded the planting of the maypole. One of the local aristocrats, who protested, was told that this was done by the king’s orders.2

A correspondence of the time, published by M. Caron,3 throws valuable light on this anti-feudal movement in Quercy and Périgord. The letters were addressed to the Marquis of Lostanges, the grand seneschal and governor of the former province, by his agent at Saint-Alvère, near Bergerac, and other eye-witnesses of the rural revoit in these two régions. The correspondence opens with a

1 Bussière, p. 260. 2 Ibid. pp. 280-1.

8 In Bulletin d'histoire économique de la Révolution, 1912,

tter dated 25 January, from the agent, Pellissier de Batut ; “ the people,” it says, “ refuse to recognise îy authority. It is impossible to convert them in the atter of the rents ; the wise hâve paid them, but their imber is very small ; the others demand the production the original titles. . . . The fermentation is extreme >out Vigan and in ail that part of Quercy. Your farmers 11 me that they cannot pay the Christmas term because ey hâve received no rents.” Then folio ws an account the prison-breaking at Sarlat mentioned above. The tter proceeds, “ the château of Repaire has been sacked îd pillaged by the inhabitants of the estate, with whom ,e Comte de Beaumont was at law. The weather-cocks sre torn down, the walls demolished, the furniture rown out of the Windows, and the wine in the cellar asted. From there they went to sack the château of . de Péchembert, because he is the friend of the Comte, îd, in general, no weather-cocks hâve been left in ail iat part of Quercy. The seigneurs who hâve not been tacked hâve fled to escape these incursions. I hope iis hatred of weather-cocks will not seize our people Périgord.” By 1 February the danger had drawn :arer ; the common people were insulting the burgesses îd honest peasants with impunity. They had destroyed ie church benches “ on the pretext that those who own lem are no better than those who burn them.” The riter could mention twenty houses and châteaux in the ùghbourhood from which the weather-cocks hâve been >rn down, and the people are casting envious eyes on tose of Saint-Alvère. A postscript of the 2nd announced îe breaking of the storm ; after the first mass, ail the rnches and chairs had been dragged from the church id destroyed. A “ pathetic ” sermon by the curé had iled to save them. The hated weather-cocks had only îen preserved by a promise to send to Libourne for orkmen to remove them.

A letter of the same date from Villefranche-de-

Rouergue gives a lamentable picture of the state ol Quercy. The writer had been commissioned to révise the manor-rolls at Montpezat and La Bouffie ; he hastens now to be the first to inform the Marquis of the events oi 30 January at the former place. At midday a band o: peasants had invaded the town and sounded the alarm bell to gather adhérents. When reinforced, they rushec to the château, burst into the barns and ravaged them then broke down the doors of the main building. “ Un heard-of crime ! These scoundrels, without any respec for your property, consummated their offence ; the^ destroyed, tore, spoiled, annihilated everything : feuda acts, foundations, family titles, charters and diplomas the works of several centuries, nothing was spared. Thei rage and fury was so extreme that they destroyed, broke and threw from the Windows the coffers and presses o your archives.” From the château the rioters passed t< the writer ’s house : a pistol shot, fired by one of hi clerks, only added fuel to the flame, and he was glad t< escape by a back door and fly from the town. Anothe letter, written by an inhabitant of Montpezat, adds ; few details to this account. From it we learn that th château of the Marquis at La Bouffie had been pillage* on the 29th, that the house of his commissioner had beei sacked and most of the papers destroyed, as well as thos of another of his agents.

A fresh letter from Saint-Alvère, of the 3rd, tells c disturbance there. It appears to hâve been compara tively mild in character ; the château was not invaded and the rioters were satisfied with the surrender of th weather-cocks. “ Yesterday they planted a great tre that they call a maypole and attached to the top of it : sieve and the measures for the rents, as well as a fowl an< a she-cat to typify the acapte. . . . They tore dow] the pillory and burnt it. They wished to remove y ou coat-of-arms from the façade of the church, and som of the more violent wanted to do away with those at th

hâteau.” Two days later the agent was able to report le restoration of peace, and the subséquent letters are îostly taken up with the transquilisation of the country.

Rural France was clearly drifting towards anarchy, a îovement which, it was manifest, could only be arrested y a straightforward and definite solution of the problems lised, but not settled, in the decree of August. Early in ebruary the matter was discussed in the Assembly, and Robespierre appeared as the defender of the peasants. he incident was typical of the man ; he spoke of “ the eople who had burnt the châteaux,” and was interrupted y a cry of “ Not the people, but brigands ! ” “ If you

rish,” answered the Incorruptible, “ I will say the citizens ccused of having burned the châteaux.” “ Say rigands ! ” roared the Marquis Foucauld de Lardimalie. I will use nothing but the word ‘ men,’ ” replied Robespierre, and continued his discourse.1

Foucauld, however, was not to be disposed of so easily. L great seigneur, he felt that his 600,000 livres of income fere in danger ; a few days later he was at the tribune, emanding repressions and punishments. The time had one by, he declared, for decrees and proclamations ; the means that could formerly be employed with so îuch success will be insufficient if we do not at the same ime prove to the people that a public force exists which i capable of repressing the wicked, the disturbers of order Eo prefer anarchy to peace.” The task of restoring rder had, in fact, already been begun ; troops were :ouring the disturbed provinces, dispersing the bands nd arresting their leaders. On 10 February a correpondent of the Marquis de Lostanges wrote from Montezat that the prisons of that town were gorged with rigands ; in most of the villages the insurrectionary laypoles were being pulled down. Severe punishments )llowed ; of one band of peasants in the Limousin who ad resisted dispersion, two were hanged, four imprisoned, 1 Bussière, p. 293.

four others pilloried and flogged.1 But the disorders were spread over too wide an area to be adequately dealt with by measures of police. Législation was needed, and to this task the National Assembly turned.

The decrees of August had created a Committee on Feudal Rights which was to draft the laws needed to supplément those decrees ; the Committee had not been effectively constituted till g October, a dangerous delay of nearly two months. Its members were drawn from ail three orders, but from the first it was dominated by the jurists Tronchet and Merlin de Douai. It was the last-named who reported to the Assembly on 8 February and took the lead in the subséquent discussions.2 From 24 February to 15 March, the Assembly was engaged in passing a sériés of decrees which were combined into one comprehensive law on the latter date, and received the royal assent on 28 March. It was supplemented by a further decree, signed on 9 May, and the whole thus formed a complété code of feudal législation, which, in spite of the inévitable tedium of the task, demands a careful analysis if subséquent e vents are to be understood.

The Committee, followed by the Assembly, took the decrees of August as the basis of the new law ; its preamble even repeated the ambiguous phrase as to the complété destruction of the feudal System. But even less than its predecessor did the new decree actually accomplish such destruction, since it also went on to divide the feudal rights into two classes, one of which was to be abolished without indemnity, and the other redeemed by a money payment equal to the capitalised value of the dues. The conception on which this distinction was based was the

1 Bussière, p. 297.

2 Kropotkin, p. 200, says that Grégoire made the report. His name, however, does not appear in the list of members of the Committee given by MM. Sagnac and Caron (see their note to p. 11), who distinctly State that Merlin discharged this office.

d one ; in the first class were included personal rights, obliging persons directly, legitimate in the troubled mes of the Middle Ages when the seigneur provided curity and work for his vassals, useless and unjust ever nce the lordship became nothing but an inert and inrious organism ” ; in the second class were the real ^hts, “ obliging persons only through the intermediary the land, due from the soil itself for the concession of hich they had been established, usually overlaid with a igneurial form, but, in reality, charges on the land.” 1 his division into categories was the foundation of the hole édifice of the law, and affected every part of it ; / its rationality the structure itself must be judged.

The distinction between the two classes of rights was ised on a theory of their origin. “ The Committee,” ys M. Sagnac, “ wished to distinguish legitimate rights om those which had been usurped, to suppress the latter id maintain the former. . . . The personal rights are •esumed to be derived from exactions ; the real from mcessions of land.” 2 According to this theory, some en had been enslaved in the dark âges of feudalism and / violence compelled to submit to iniquitous restrictions Don their personal freedom. The Déclaration of the ights of Man called for the abolition of these restrictions, îd they must disappear for ever. To others, or perhaps i the same men at a different period, their lords had inceded a portion of land, and had charged it with :rtain payments or servitudes in return. These charges ere property, and since the same Déclaration regarded •operty as one of “ the natural and imprescriptible ghts of man,” “ a sacred and inviolable right,” of which ) one could be deprived save by due process of law îd after the payment of an équitable indemnity, it iturally followed that they must be preserved. Once ie premises were accepted, the rest of the argument was îshakable, and the distinction made by the law entirely 1 Sagnac, p. 98, » Ibid. pp. 97 and 99.

legitimate. “ But,” as M. Sagnac remarks, " this dis tinction, though it proceeded from very praiseworth; intentions, was impossible in practice. It was ai attempt to bring a factitious regularity out of the irregu larity of ancient institutions, slowly elaborated and trans formed, of which the juridical rules had been sufficientl; well fixed, but the origins of which were unknown o contested. The Committee began by a chimerical enter prise. How was order to be brought out of what seeme< to defy order, harmony out of what had been formed on n< settled plan, according to the whim of circumstances ? ” Considered as an historical statement of the origins o feudalism, the theory of the National Assembly will no bear a moment’s investigation. The feudal rights date* from an âge when the peasant had neither persona liberty nor any true right of property. The lods et vente were as clearly survivais of this servile condition a mainmorte itself. No divergence of opinion as to th origins of serfdom can alter this view, for whether w hold that the serf was the direct descendant of the slav of Roman times or regard him as a once free man brought low by économie pressure or actual violence the facts as to his status in the Middle Ages are not il dispute. Could a mediæval lawyer hâve been trans ported into the France of 1790 and told that Jacque Bonhomme, a peasant, was bound to carry his corn b the lord’s mill, to perform so many corvées during th year, to pay rachat or acapte at each mutation of property and that his land was subject to champart and lods e ventes, he would hâve unhesitatingly proclaimed him ; serf, and would hâve been filled with amazement to hea that he was nothing of the sort, but a free man. I would be unjust to reproach the legislators of thi Assembly with lack of the sound historical knowledge which modem scholarship has won for us, though then were contemporaries who did grasp the truth as to thesi

1 Sagnac, p. 98.

itters ; 1 the real charge against them is that, blinded realities by a purely legal theory, they attempted to :oncile irreconcilable things, and by endeavouring to pose unity where none was possible, caused infinité ffering and danger to their country. The peasant’s itinct was of more avail in this instance than the rning of the jurists ; he had grasped the fact that the ferent parts of the feudal System were intimately mected, and that to attack one was to attack the iole. But the lawyers, nobles, and ecclesiastics who ide up the bulk of the members of the Assembly could t and did not take this view. Their task, as they derstood it, was to satisfy the demands of the newly franchised rural masses with as little damage as possible the interests of those who lived upon their labour, med with their theory of the two categories of feudal hts, they set valiantly to work to divide them, and :pare for the suppression of some and the rédemption others.

They were confronted from the first with the insur- >untable difficulty of distinguishing in practice between : real and the personal charges. It was easy, for tance, to decree that “ ail honorary distinctions, jeriority and power resulting from the feudal System : abolished. As for those profitable rights which will itinue to exist till they are redeemed, they are comtely assimilated to simple rents and charges upon d.” But it was not so easy to décidé whether a •ticular right fell within one division or another. Let take as an example the case of mainmorte. As we ve seen, there were two varieties of this servitude ; in ;, it was clearly personal and hereditary, and thus ;red no difficulty. In the other, it arose from the lure of a particular holding ; the mainmortable acquired status by reason of the occupation of land. Here, “ personal ” disability had a “ real ” foundation.

1 Cf. the document printed by Sagnac and Caron, p. 272.

According to strict logic this right should hâve beer classified as redeemable, but the Assembly, doubtless feeling itself bound by its previous decrees, décidée otherwise. Ail descriptions of mainmorte were definitelj suppressed, without indemnity, and the same fate befeï the tenures of the Bourbonnais, Nivernais, and Brittany that is, bordelage and quevaise. In one very importanl point, however, the new decree was less generous thar the old. The law of August had abolished, along with mainmorte, ail rights derived from, or representing it, In cases, therefore, where lords of manors had enfranchised their serfs in return for payments in money 01 kind, whether annual or casual, these payments werf suppressed along with the servitudes in which they hac originated. Such a course was at least logical. Bul the Committee and the Assembly now took a differenl line. They argued that the act of enfranchisement hac abolished the original contract on which the mainmorU had been based, and the payment substituted for it was the resuit of a fresh contract which had nothing ir common with the old. It must be regarded as the pries of a concession of land, was consequently real in it< character, and not to be abolished save after paymenof the legal indemnity.1 This was a serious rétro gression from the spirit of the original decrees whicl were thus robbed of much of their value. As M. Sagnas remarks, the Assembly “ only suppresses rights whicl hâve almost everywhere disappeared ; it maintain: those which hâve replaced them and are very wideb spread.” 2

The lack of logic and disregard of realities that dis tinguished the famous classification of rights on whicl the Assembly based ail its work, was particularly appa rent in its decisions as to the position of the former main mortables. Along with their peculiar servitude thesi people had been subjected to the usual feudal charges 1 Sagnac, p. 99 note, ? Ibid. p, 100,

t is perfectly clear that ail these rights had a common rigin, and that mainmorte was not different in kind ■om them. But the acceptance of this view would hâve uined the whole legal édifice which the Assembly was ainfully building up ; it was necessary, therefore, to îake the fundamental distinction, and the ex-serf found imself still charged with ail the dues with which he had )rmerly been burdened. In one particular only, though ssuredly an important one, had his économie position een improved.

Along with the destruction of ail the servile tenures, he Assembly decreed the abolition without indemnity of srtain other feudal rights. Here it is not necessary d follow its example and draw up a complété catalogue f ail the duties which were suppressed ; we need only ote the more important. Ail the feudal monopolies, îcluding those of mill, bakehouse, and winepress ; the ghts o ver ferries, fairs, and markets, on the transporta- .on or sale of commodities, on cattle using the roads of tie lordship, those which gave the seigneur an advantage 1 the sale of his wine or produce, were swept away. ^ith them went retrait and prélation, tallage at will, illage in the four customary cases, payments on houses r for the right of résidence, the charges for watch and rard and for military protection ; the corvées, the renderîg of faith and homage, and, finally, “ ail subjections diich, by reason of their nature, can be of no real utility o the persons to whom they are due.” This last proision presumably covered the humiliating rights exacted :om newly-married persons in Brittany. The assimilaion of the dues which were to remain to ordinary rents f land had the abolition of aveux as a necessary conseuence, and the owners of fiefs were forbidden to coninue the compilation of any manor-roll which had been ommenced before the publication of the new law. ,astly, “ ail privilèges, feudality, and nobility of properies being destoyed, the rights of primogeniture and of

masculinity in regard to fiefs, domains, and noble lands, and unequal partitions by reason of the quality of persons, are abolished.” This provision necessarily swept away franc-fief and the obstacles which it erected against the acquisition of noble lands by non-noble persons. Henceforward, there was to be only one class of landed property in France, and the common law in regard to inheritance was to apply to it without exception.

At first sight it would appear that the new decree had made a very considérable breach in the fabric of agrarian feudalism. Some of the most offensive and vexatious of the rights which had afïlicted the peasants were declared abolished, and the Wholesale destruction of the monopolies apparently realised one of their most ardent desires. But doser inspection shows that this had not really happened. We hâve seen that the Assembly, under the influence of its theory of classification according to origins, had departed from its previous decrees in the matter of rights representing mainmorte ; under the same influence it hedged its abolitions about with exceptions. The corvées, the rights of watch and ward, of military protection, the taxes on résidence, were only suppressed without indemnity if it could be shown that they did not originate in a concession of land. So far as the seigneurial mills and similar monopolies were concerned, important exceptions to their abolition were laid down. They were to be maintained if they could be proved to hâve been established (i) “ by a contracl entered into by a community of inhabitants with a person who is not a seigneur ” ; (2) “by a contracl entered into by a community of inhabitants with its seigneur, by which the latter shall hâve granted to the community some advantage in addition to obliging himself perpetually to maintain the mills, bakehouses anc other objects of monopoly in a good state ” ; (3) “ b 3 a concession made by the seigneur to the community o: inhabitants of rights of usage in his woods or meadows.'

rhe path was made smooth for those lords who wished o prove that their rights were included in one of these :xceptions to the rule of abolition. In the absence of he primitive and original title, two récognitions in due orm of the existence of the right, and proof of its unnterrupted possession for forty years, were to be sufficient.

Ail the other feudal rights not included in the above ist were declared (unless proof of the contrary were orthcoming) to be “ the price of a primitive concession >f land,” and as such were to be purchased by those vho owed them. They were to be levied till such relemption had taken place. Within this category were ncluded the most profitable rights, such as the cens, hampart, lods et ventes, terrage, rachat, acapte, and the nfeudated tithes. Now, as we hâve seen, many of these ights were vigorously contested, either as to their validity >r amount, by the peasants ; they wished to know why hey paid them and what was their true value ; hence the epeated demands for the production of the original titles. fhe Assembly had made it easy for the seigneurs to prove hat the rights they owned did not belong to the sup- >ressed category ; it made the task of the debtor who vished to show that the dues he owed were illégal or xcessive correspondingly hard. The onus of proving isurpation was thrown upon him, though the title-deeds, vhich alone could be décisive, were almost always in he hands of the seigneurs, if they existed at ail. The .ppeal, in case of dispute, was to be to the existing laws .nd customs, that is, to a jurisprudence framed by, and n the interest of the feudal class ! In the régions where he rule “ no land without a lord ” was in force, “ the eigneur,” says M. Karéiew,” had no need of titles to upport his pretensions to the cens on ail the land included n his lordship,” 1 and these régions included the greater >art of France. The provinces where the “ written law " teld sway had been, in theory, better off, since there the 1 Karéiew, p. 42.

rule “ no seigneur without a title ” was in force, but the effect of the new decree was to nullify any advantage which the peasants might hâve drawn from this principle. The provisions of the law amounted, for ail practical purposes, to the prohibition of the challenging of contested rights. As M. Sagnac writes, in an illuminating passage, “ Will the debtor ever be able to prove that he does not owe ? The non-existence of an obligation cannot be demonstrated ; that is irrational and impossible. Shall he attempt to prove violence and usurpation ? But of violence it is scarcely possible to bring anything but moral and unwritten proofs. . . . The creditor alone has a title ; it is for him to produce it ; proof should be at the charge of the party who demands payment. In vain the deputy Gualtier de Biauzet . . . demanded that it should be for the proprietor of the lordship to prove that the dues had a real origin ; Tronchet opposed this motion, and the Assembly supported him. Instead of attaching themselves to a principle which was as simple as it was well founded, the members of the Constituent, always starting from the distinction between Personal and real rights, applied to the former a different rule from that which regulated the latter, and, through clinging to an entirely juridical principle, ended in an impossibility of fact. They had promised, in 1789, to reform the whole agrarian System founded on the customary laws, and it is these customs that they take as a foundation ; it is the customary rules, always respectful of possession and usurpation of fact, and not of right, that they scrupulously maintain. The old law still weighs heavily upon the new. The debtor, not being able to bring contrary proof, must respect the possession of his lord, must continue to pay the cens, to carry a part of his harvest into the seigneurial barns that are often leagues from his own home, must quit his field for several days in the year to work upon his master’s land.” 1 1 Sagnac, pp. 104-5.

The Assembly, in its zeal for property rights, behought itself that the title-deeds of many seigneurs had )een destroyed in the insurrections ; others had been lompelled to sign renunciations of their rights. To meet hese cases, it inserted clauses in the law which permitted he former to claim their rights by proof of thirty years’ >ossession ; the latter could nullify the extorted acts by ipplication to the courts within three years of the laws :oming into force. Further, there had been, as we hâve îoted, a tendency on the part of the communal authorities o take the lead in the war on feudalism ; they were now :xpressly forbidden to issue any prohibition of the colection of dues. If these were contested, the debtor must >rove his case unaided.

One other matter of considérable importance was lealt with in the new law — the question of the common ands — and here the Assembly for once showed itself nore generous than its Committee. The latter simply >roposed the abolition of the right of triage for the future. 3ut the problem of the commons was particularly urgent n Artois, and Robespierre, who was one of the deputies or that province, intervened with effect. “ We must :hoose,” he said, “ between the ordinance of 1669 and iternal justice. . . . The law, by ordering the restitution >f legitimate property, will not hâve a rétrospective, but m immédiate effect. I demand that this restitution hall co ver the last forty-six years.” 1 The Assembly reected the proposai of the Committee and partly accepted hat of Robespierre. Not only was the right of triage as :stablished by the ordinance of 1669 abolished, but “ ail :dicts, déclarations, decisions of the Council, and letters >atent issued during the last thirty years, both in regard o Flanders and Artois and to ail the other provinces >f the realm, which hâve authorised triage in cases other han those permitted by the ordinance of 1669, shall be )f no effect, and ail judgments rendered and acts done in 1 Sagnac, p. 102.

conséquence of them are revoked.” The communities were given five years in which to obtain the restitution of their lost property. A further article dealt with the spécial case of Lorraine, Barrois, and the Clermontois, where the seigneurs had been in the habit of levying a tax called " third penny ” on the woods and common lands held by the communities ; this charge was now abolished, save in cases where there were only rights of usage and not of property. At the same time, ail the decisions of the Council and letters patent which had, during the last thirty years, deprived the inhabitants of forests and lands in which they had a right of property or usage were revoked, and the provision as to obtaining restitution within five years was applied in this case also. These clauses were the Assembly’s most radical achievement.

It was necessary to préparé a scheme for the purchase of the dues declared to be redeemable, and this was accomplished by a supplementary decree which was passed on 3 May, and received the royal assent on the 9th. Disregarding minor details and considering only its main effect, we may note that the Assembly, following once more the lead of its feudal Committee, rejected any idea of enfranchisement en masse ; it rejected, too, the proposai that collective enfranchisements should be carried out by the village communities ; the rédemption of the dues was to be left to the unaided resources of the persons who owed them. For the purposes of such rédemption, the value of the annual dues was fixed at twenty times the yearly amount if they were paid in money, twenty-five times that amount if they were paid in corn or other produce. Two important qualifications were attached to the right of enfranchisement. In the first place, a peasant whose land was burdened with both regular and casual obligations could not rid himself of the first without at the same time purchasing the second. If his holding were charged, for example, with champ art, rachat, and

ods et ventes, he was bound to redeem them ail in a lingle transaction. In the second place, where, as was io often the case, several persons were collectively esponsible for the payment of a due or rent-charge, olidarity was enforced in the matter of rédemption dso. No individual could procure his enfranchisement ipart from that of the whole group.

It is not too much to say that, having regard to he économie and social circumstances of the time, the onditions which the Assembly laid down rendered its cheme of rédemption by purchase a practical nullity. -et us, in order that we may clearly understand the onsequences which followed on its enaetment, consi der he matter rather more closely. There is no need to re- >eat what has already been said as to the initial injustice >y which the peasant was condemned to pay for rights vhich he believed to be the illégal fruit of violence and isurpation ; that considération was enough to vitiate he whole scheme from the beginning. But the pracical details of its operation were even worse. On the ace of it, twenty years’ purchase does not appear an xcessive price to pay for relief from charges which were .s burdensome in their incidence as they were vexaious in their collection. Yet the justice of a price is lependent on the circumstances of the man who pays it. ^nce represent a greater sacrifice to a labourer than do >ounds to a millionaire. Now, as has been demontrated at length in an earlier chapter, the économie ystem under which the peasant lived had worked to [eprive him of any reserve of capital. Taxes, tithes .nd dues reduced him, most frequently, to the bare evel of subsistence, so that an unfavourable season was ufficient to bring him to starvation and bankruptcy. Yhen, by incredible économies, he had obtained some :apital, it had usually been sunk, as we hâve seen, in the mrchase of more land. His efforts towards improving iis économie position were now rewarded by his being

loaded with a heavier burden if he desired to emancipate his land and himself from the yoke of agrarian feudalism. To tell such a man that, if he could accumulate twenty times the value of his annual charges he should be free, was little better than a mockery. The case, indeed, was really worse than that. Actual money payments were usually the smallest parts of the peasant’s annual rent-charges, and by a most unreasonable provision, the price of the larger portion was fixed at twenty-five times its yearly value. This value, too, had been tending to increase for years along with the general rise in food prices.

The other restrictions with which the Assembly hedged about its scheme of purchase operated to produce a similar effect. The peasant could not enfranchise himself from his yearly dues, the payment of which was certain, without at the same time redeeming such casual dues as the lods et ventes, which it was possible he would never need to pay at ail ! The proposition has merely to be stated to show that it originated in a profound misunderstanding of the peasant’s habits of mind. The psychological barrier to enfranchisement erected by this article was almost as powerful as the économie, Nor did the matter end there. The legislators had supposed another and very probable case. The peasanl might be in arrears with his dues, either because he was suffering from the poverty induced by the two bad harvests of 1788 and 1789, or because he had joined the current of revoit in the previous winter and had withheld them of set purpose. The zeal of the deputies foi the préservation of property rights was greater than theii enthusiasm for the émancipation of the masses ; the3 added a clause to the law which made the acquittai o: arrears of rent a necessary part of any açt of enfranchisement. It was to place one more obstacle in the peasant’î path to freedom. They went even farther ; the peasanl who had liberated his holding from both annual ane;

asual dues must, if he desired to sell or otherwise dispose f his land, wait for two years or pay the lods et ventes as if de indemnity had not been rendered. Tronchet, as the îouthpiece of the feudal Committee, had demanded dat the period should be ten or at least five years ; ut here, again, the deputies were more moderate than deir leaders.1 The conséquences of the enforcing of ollective purchase in the cases where solidarity between de debtors of feudal dues existed are so obvious as to eed but little explanation. Just as the poverty or bad dth of any member of the debtor group had led under ae old System to the overburdening of his fellows, so ow if one man were unable or unwilling to release imself, he compelled the rest to remain economically nslaved. The peasants in their cahiers had called de practice of solidarity " a barbarous custom ” ; the [ational Assembly, in its wisdom, decreed that the bararity should remain.

What would hâve occurred if the Assembly’s scheme ad been tried under the normal circumstances which it resupposed is fairly clear. That section of the peasantry diich, by reason of its easy access to markets, its posîssion of superior land, or of some source of income dditional to agriculture, had more chance of collecting reserve of capital, would hâve enfranchised itself. The reat mass would hâve remained under the feudal yoke, r, driven on by land-hunger, hâve tried to borrow he price of its freedom, and would thus hâve fallen into he clutches of the village money-lender. That scourge f ail peasant communities was active in eighteenthentury France, despite ail anti-usury laws, and the esult of his ministrations would hâve been the descent if an ever-increasing proportion of the cultivator class nto the abyss of debt-slavery. Then would hâve ollowed the sale or the abandonment of the land, the ;rowth of a rural prolétariat at one end of the social scale, 1 Saçnac, p. u8,

and of a peasant bourgeoisie at the other. The germs of sucb classes already existed, and in two générations the peasant democracy which is the kernel of modem France would hâve become an impossibility. That this is not merely an hypothesis is shown by what actually happened during the Révolution in regard to the sale of the lands of the Church and the emigrated nobles. It was in such districts as the Beaujolais, where the peasants added to their incomes by manufacture, that they were able to make the most complété conquest of the soil thus put at their disposai.1

Neither the ecclesiastical tithes nor the feudal juridictions were dealt with in the laws of March and May 1790. In order to complété this account of the National Assembly’s législation, its action in regard to these two questions must be briefly described, even at some sacrifice of strict chronological order.

A discussion in the National Assembly as to the fate of the tithe was opened in September 1789. When, on the 24th, Necker gave an alarming report on the State of the national finances, Dupont de Nemours seized the opportunity to demand that, for the policy of abolition laid down in the August decree, should be substituted one of rédemption. This would avoid a new and heavy charge on the revenues and would be less injurious to the interests of the clergy. Dupont’s speech was an able one, but it is hardly strange that he failed to convince his audience . The Assembly was natur ally loath to return upon its previous decision ; it was already committed to a scheme of rédemption of the feudal dues, and to organise two such schemes side by side was to invite failure. In any case, its attention was speedily drawn to more urgent matters ; the days of 5 and 6 October intervened, and on the ioth Talleyrand made his historié motion for the sale of Church property to meet the needs of the nation. The Bishop of Autun 1 Vermale, p. 134 et seq.

oposed that the tithe should either be collected by the ate till it could be completely abolished, or that threearters of it should be suppressed at once and the naining quarter redeemed. Neither of these expédients ls adopted, since the Assembly was too much occupied th the main question of the Church lands, and it was t till after the decree on the feudal dues had been ;posed of that the question of the tithes was raised ain. On 27 Mardi it was proposed that a committee ould be set up to préparé a scheme of législation ; this ls accepted, and twelve days later a report was presented. lasset, the spokesman of the Committee, a deputy the Beaujolais, had supported the suppression of the he during the discussions of August, and the proposais was charged to put forward were, on the whole, in line th previous decisions of the Assembly. He urged that e tithe should continue to be levied until 1 January 91 ; that it should then be suppressed without inmnity, since a scheme of purchase would présent too any practical difhculties, and that the salaries of the îrgy, together with the cost of erecting and maintaining e churches, should became public charges.

The discussion on this project went on from 11 20 April, when the decree was finally passed. îasset’s scheme roused violent opposition, especially nong the higher clergy, and was carried with difficulty. evertheless, the Committee finally triumphed, and the :cree received the royal assent on 22 April. Many of 5 clauses were concerned with matters of detail which :ed not detain us ; for our purposes, the essential article the third, which reads as follows :

“ The tithes of ail descriptions, abolished by Article V the decree of 4 August last, together with the rights id dues which take the place of them, mentioned in Le said decree, as also the infeudated tithes belonging 1 lay persons for which an indemnity shall be accorded 1 the proprietors by the public Treasury, shall ail cease

to be levied as from i January 1791 ; those who owe them, however, shall be required to pay them for the first year to whomsoever has the right to receive them.”

The tithes were thus definitely to disappear from French soil.

One point in this article demands doser attention, that, namely, which relates to the infeudated tithes. It will be remembered that in March they had been included among the feudal dues which were to be redeemed b} those who owed them ; the new law declared that thej were to be purchased by the State. The legislators, ir fact, had involved themselves in considérable confusior in regard to these dues. Merlin and the feudal Committe* had considered them as représentative of the price of £ concession of land, a view which was, of course, quite un reasonable. They were, for the most part, ecclesiastica in origin, and had usually found their way into secula: hands by dubious means. As M. Marion remarks, “ the] owed their existence to abuses or violations of the law,” and had been the subject of numerous protests by th< Church in the Middle Ages. On the other hand, certaii of these tithes were simply champarts or terrages to whicl an ecclesiastical title had been given, possibly, M. Marioi suggests, to make their collection easier by giving then a religious appearance and thus impressing the peasants. The confusion was only removed in October 1790, whei Chasset proposed a decree (finally passed on the 23rd which dealt incidentally with this variety of tithes This law made a proper distinction between the twi types of infeudated tithes ; those which had an ecclesi astical origin were to be redeemed by the State, whil those which were, in reality, only disguised feudal dues were to be redeemed by those who owed them, on th lines of the decree of May.

The feudal jurisdictions had been abolished i: principle by the decree of August, but their officers wer

1 Marion. Dîme ecclésiastique, p. 295), a Ibid. p. 302,

:aintained in their functions “ till the Na+ional A‘ mbly shall hâve provided for the establishment îw judicial System.” This new System was not set a till 16 August 1790, when the decree of that date 'ovided for judges elected by the people and paid by te State. A further decree of 6 September 1790 îally suppressed ail the old tribunals.1

To do justice to the feudal législation of the National ssembly is not easy. We can réalisé its errors and their nsequences much better than its difïiculties. It was riving, against very heavy odds, to bring order and stem into the legalised anarchy of the old régime. It d to count with the secret hostility of the Court and the •en opposition of most members of the privileged orders. îe deputies, in the nature of the case, lacked legislative perience. But when ail allowances hâve been made, must be said that the Assembly erred grievously and the worst possible way. It was dominated by a spirit System, and that System drew too much of its inspira- •n from the social and political order it was intended replace. When the Assembly should hâve been most utious and conservative, it was violent and radical ; len everything called for vigorous, clear-cut decisions, was compromising and even reactionary. It might dly hâve won the great mass of the rural clergy over the Révolution ; it antagonised them by the monstrous d illiberal Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Instead utilising the strong and deep-rooted provincial patriotn of the people to put vitality into a démocratie System local government, it organised the entirely artificial îeme of Departments, which led inevitably to apathy d bureaucratie centralisation, and has hung like a ad weight about the neck of France ever since. It mulated a philosophy and a programme for liberal mocracy in the Déclaration of the Rights of Man and î Citizen ; it contradicted that philosophy and betrayed * Cahen and Guyot, pp. 178-84.

that programme by the constitutional law which set up a privileged class of “ active citizens,” who alone enjoyed political rights. It was indulgent when the propert^ of nobles was at stake, harsh and uncompromising wher that of poor peasants was in question. It proclaimed the abolition of feudalism, and then reconstructed th« édifice it had pretended to overthrow. The conséquences of that fatal compromise must form the subject-mattei of our next chapter.