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From The Quarterly Review. THE FALL OF THE ANCIEN RÉGIME.1

on different conditions (although these conditions had often been set aside), anomalies occurred.

many

curious

THOUGH 80 much has been written The local legislatures (les états_provinabout the French Revolution, its history has, every now and then, to be Comté, Provence, and Languedoc had ciaux) of Hainault, Dauphiny, Franche carefully re-studied from a novel point been suppressed by Richelieu or Louis of view; either on account of newly XIV., and numbers of municipal frandiscovered facts, or owing to the publi-chises had been abolished. Yet in cation of fresh and luminous views, by Provence a democratic assembly still some distinguished writer. Such was survived, and Béarn showed administhe case when De Tocqueville showed trative relics of the kingdom of Nahow much of what had been deemed novel in that movement was but the carrying still further of the principles and practices of the despotic monarchy. The works of M. Taine have also necessitated the careful reviewing of that complex social transformation, in the light furnished us by his elaborate

labors.

varre.

The most striking difference between France and England at the accession of Louis XVI. in 1774 was in the tenure of landed property, and in the position held by men of the most distinguished class. Instead of large estates let out for definite periods to farmers and others on rents agreed upon, an imThe first of the three works menmense number of the nobility possessed tioned above will, we are persuaded, no freehold property (beyond a château have a permanent effect on the world's with its mill, wine-press, or public judgment. It describes many facts oven), but they had vexatious rights hitherto unknown; and it demonstrates with respect to dovecots and sporting, an important factor in the movement various claims on labor, and some rewhich has hitherto been little noticed.ceipts and privileges in respect of the Unhappily, M. Aimé Cherest did not just mentioned ovens, mills, and winelive to finish his valuable work, and its presses. The rise of a class of nonlast chapter breaks off abruptly where his hand was arrested by death.

The Revolution of France still remains very incompletely understood in England, owing to an insufficient appreciation of the vast administrative differences between the two countries which existed towards the close of the eighteenth century.

In spite (perhaps somewhat in consequence) of the despotic character and excessive centralization of the French king's government, divergences existed between the political organization and administration of the various French provinces such as had not existed in England since the Heptarchy. Different provinces having been successively annexed at different epochs and

11. La chute de l'Ancien Régime. Par Aimé Cherest. 3 vols. Paris, 1886.

2 Histoire de Marie-Antoinette. Par Maxime de la Rocheterie. Second Edition. 2 vols. Paris, 3. L'Esprit révolutionnaire avant la Révolution. Par Félix Rocquain. Paris, 1878.

1882

noble land-owners was, except in the case of the very rich, effectually barred by the mode of levelling the land-tax. The nobles who possessed estates paid no such charge; but if they sold any of their landed property to purchasers who were not noble, then the land became immediately subject to heavy taxation.

Notwithstanding the writings of De Tocqueville, it is still widely believed that peasant proprietorship and the great sub-division of landed property in France are a consequence of the Revolution. Such a belief is quite erroneous. The peasantry somewhat resembled our copyholders, but the claims of French lords of manor's (seigneurs) were oppressive, though the proprietorship of the soil by such copyholders was distinctly recognized. They regarded themselves as the owners of the soil, subject to certain oppressive customs, claims, and dues; and the seigneurs, though generally exacting

the latter (often their only source of | feudal burthens developed into a hatred revenue), never claimed the absolute of the whole system of which those proprietorship of the soil. burthens formed a part. This feeling made the peasantry bad laborers even when paid for their labor, though they were never tired of cultivating their own parcels of land; for they were continually called upon to labor for nothing by their seigneur for reasons which, however just originally, had long lapsed from the memory of their generation.

But the great subdivision of the land existed even in the Middle Ages. The land so famous for the production of Chablis was, as early as the year 1328, divided among no less than four hundred and fifty small proprietors of both sexes; all inhabitants of a single parish. It is doubtful whether that land is as much subdivided in the present day. There were only two large pro- In the eighteenth century, while prietors. One was the Chapter of St. many of the nobility had little land, Martin of Tours, and the other was all of them had lost their ancient functhe Abbey of Pontigny. M. Cherest tions. Royalty had deprived the seignhimself has carefully studied the rent-eurs of powers which might interfere roll of the Abbey of Vezelay as it with and inconvenience the direct local existed towards the end of the fifteenth action of the central government; and century. In a volume of nearly eight it had perverted such powers as it had hundred pages, bearing date 1464, he permitted to survive. found that the abbey possessed the freehold of but a small part of the arable land, all the rest being divided among small, or very small, proprietors. Even the humblest inhabitant held something. On the list are to be seen the plots belonging to the shoemaker, the barber, etc.; and of the part which formed the vineyards there were almost as many proprietors as inhabitants.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the multitude of peasant proprietors increased, as a larger quantity of land was brought under cultivation. The attachment to the soil which the peasantry seem to have felt for ages, no doubt constantly increased, and during the eighteenth century, owing to the increasing luxury and expense of life, many nobles were glad to sell their lands and even their manors; and they could, for the most part, sell them only to the peasantry, the middle class being restrained from doing so by the before-mentioned system of taxation.

Thus on the eve of 1789 multitudes of the French peasantry had become proprietors, and the desire for the possession of land became a passion. At the same time their natural dislike to

1 Vol. ii., p. 536.

Originally the seigneur was a little king in his seigneurie, which he governed with the help of his court of justice. In the eighteenth century he no longer governed anything; and though his local "court" continued to exist, it was but a vexatious survival, superfluous beside the royal courts of justice. The seigneur had become merely a troublesome creditor, possessing certain vexatious claims, made doubly offensive by a proud superiority of caste. The nobility were no longer a political power, but to the enormous majority of Frenchmen merely a source of social vexation.

The term l'ancien régime is used by M. Cherest in a special sense; namely, to denote the period which elapsed between the death of Louis XIV. and the Revolution.

In fact the social and political state which existed from 1715 to 1789 was in many respects different from that which prevailed during the long reign of the Grand Monarque; and, of course, from that of medieval France, when a multitude of local franchises existed, when nobles and ecclesiastical dignities fulfilled many important political as well as social functions, and when the States-General, however inefficient and irregularly convoked, were a recognized and still living institution. That period

a period of relative freedom may be times. They came to the throne at ȧ distinguished as the medieval régime; moment which gave them wonderful and this led, through the Valois and opportunities. Henri IV., to the period of despotism, On the 24th of January, 1771, three or the especially regal régime, made years before his death, Louis XV. had up of the reigns of Louis XIII. and prepared the way for his successor by Louis XIV. During the remaining the memorable coup d'état of his Chanperiod of the old monarchy the royal cellor Maupeon, by which the Great omnipotence continued to be asserted, Council was created, in the place of and was, till towards its close, theo- that ancient court, alternately the ally retically admitted. Privileges and ex- and the opponent of royal despotism emptions were maintained, and even the often factious Parlement1 of Paris; became exaggerated. It was a period and by the end of the year the various during which a prolonged struggle took Provincial Parlements were also supplace between a more or less insurgent pressed. In spite of the excitement nobility, a feeble regal absolutism vainly which ensued, France, from a habit of striving to maintain itself, and the obedience during two centuries, was gradual awakening of the modern spirit still so docile that her discontent for of "equality before the law," and of the most part only showed itself in political and social freedom. This state witty sayings in the salons, and in some of things is, as we have said, what M. pamphlets; so that till the death of his Cherest means by l'ancien régime. Its | master the chancellor was confident end may be considered as having taken place in November, 1789, when the ancient division of the French people into the three estates of clergy, nobility, and the tiers état was formally ended. Its spirit, however, survived during the Emigration, and was still vigorous under the Restoration, nor can it be said to have entirely vanished till the death of the Count de Chambord.

M. Cherest assures us that he began his researches full of prejudice in favor of the system, the fall of which he depicts. As a strong Conservative, he would have been glad to vindicate it from the blame so generally heaped upon it. Nevertheless, at the end of his studies he felt bound to declare himself in the words of Mirabeau : "A Conservative indeed, but a Conservative of that which the Revolution has created, not of that which it justly destroyed." Though the sufferings of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette must induce a reluctance to judge them severely, even pity should not blind us to the fact that they were guilty of grave faults and of actions impossible to justify. Yet it is no less certain that, had their faults been far greater and their morality and weakness much less, they might have become the most powerful and despotic sovereigns of modern

and triumphant.

The condition of France was then in many respects admirable; and if only that which was good could have been retained, while crying abuses were reformed, a solid advance in civilization might have been secured, and might possibly have been imitated by the whole of Europe. The refinement of Versailles and of the salons of Paris was such as the world had never seen, and probably will never see again. Tal leyrand said that he who had not known society before 1789 had not known the sweetness of life. In spite of the disorders of the court, of the regent and Louis XV., and of the worldliness, corruption, and infidelity of fashionable abbés and some other ecclesiastical dig nitaries, the great mass of the clergy and laity were essentially sound in faith and morals. De Tocqueville has shown the general excellence of the clergy, both as parish priests and citizens; and the troubles of the Revolution served afterwards abundantly to demonstrate their sincerity and devotion. As to the laity, a singular proof of the moral sentiments of the middle and artisan classes has been curiously

1 It is better to use the French name for French

judicial bodies. Parliament, with all its English associations, seems a singularly unsuitable term.