Estimate of the Various Tenures in Use in France Before the Revolution.

We only know in France, says the author, three kinds of real estate:

1st. The franc-aleu, which is a freehold, exempt from all burdens, and subject to no seigniorial dues or rights, either beneficial or honorary.

Francs-aleux are either noble or common (roturiers). Noble francs-aleux carry with them a right of jurisdiction, or they have feuds or lands held by cens depending on them. They are divided according to feudal law. Common francs-aleux have no jurisdiction, or feuds, or lands held by cens. They are divided according to the ordinary rules (roturièrement). The author considers that the holders of francs-aleux are the only landholders who enjoy a complete right of property.

The franc-aleu was valued higher than any other kind of tenure. The customs of Auvergne and Burgundy valued it 21/2 per cent. The author thinks that 31/3 per cent. would be a better valuation.

It must be noticed that common francs-aleux, existing within the limits of a seigniorial jurisdiction, were dependent thereon. It was not a sign of subjection to the seignior, but an acknowledgment of the jurisdiction of courts which took the place of the royal tribunals.

2d. Lands held by feudal tenure (à fief).

3d. Lands paying cens, or, as they are here called in law, rotures.

The valuation of lands held by feudal tenure was the lower in proportion to the feudal burdens laid upon them. In some customs, and in that part of the country which was governed by written law, feuds paid nothing but “la bouche et les mains,” that is to say, feudal homage. In other customs, such as Burgundy, feuds not only owed homage, but were what was called de danger; that is to say, they were liable to commise, or feudal confiscation, when the owner took possession of them without having rendered “fealty and homage.” Other customs, such as that of Paris, for instance, and many more, declared feuds subject not only to fealty and homage, but likewise to re-emption, quint and requint. Others again, such as that of Poitou and some others, burdened them with a fine on the oath of fealty (chambellage), and service on horseback, etc.

The first class of feuds must be valued higher than the others. The custom of Paris set them down at five per cent., which the author thinks very reasonable.

To arrive at a valuation of lands held en roture and those subject to cens, they must be divided into three classes:

The first two classes of lands en roture were common enough in the eighteenth century. The third was rare. The first, says the author, must be valued higher than the second, the second than the third. Indeed, landholders of the third class can hardly be called owners, in the strict sense of the word, as they can not alienate their property without leave from the seignior.

Terriers.—The feudal lawyers I have quoted furnish the following rules for drawing up or renewing the seigniorial registers called terriers, which I have mentioned in the text. The terrier, as is known, was a great register, in which all the deeds establishing rights belonging to the seigniory, whether beneficial or honorary, real, personal, or mixed, were entered at length. It contained all the declarations of the copyholders, the customs of the seigniory, quit-rent leases, etc. In the custom of Paris, the authors say that seigniors may renew their terriers every thirty years at the expense of the copyholders. They add, however, that “one is fortunate to find a fresh one every century.” The terrier could not be renewed (it was a troublesome formality for all those who held under the seignior) without obtaining an authorization which was called lettres à terrier. When the seigniory was within the jurisdiction of several Parliaments, this was obtained from the high chancellor; in other cases it was procured from the Parliament. The court named the notary, before whom all vassals, noblemen and commoners, copyholders, emphyteutic lessees, and persons amenable to the seigniorial jurisdiction, were bound to appear. A plan of the seigniory was required to be attached to the terrier.

Besides the terriers, there were kept in each seigniory other registers called lièves, in which the seigniors or their stewards entered the sums they had received from their copyholders, with their names, and the dates of the payments.

I have made especial use of the archives of some of the greater intendants’ offices, such as those of Tours, which are very complete; they refer to a very large district (généralite), placed in the centre of France, and containing a million of souls. My thanks are due to the young and able keeper of the archives, M. Grandmaison. Other intendants’ offices, such as that of Ile de France, have satisfied me that business was conducted on the same plan throughout most of the kingdom.

See Appendix.

influence of the roman law in germany.—how it had replaced the germanic law.

At the close of the Middle Ages the Roman law became the chief and almost the only study of the German lawyers, most of whom, at this time, were educated abroad at the Italian universities. These lawyers exercised no political power, but it devolved on them to expound and apply the laws. They were unable to abolish the Germanic law, but they did their best to distort it so as to fit the Roman mould. To every German institution that seemed to bear the most distant analogy to Justinian’s legislation they applied Roman law. Hence a new spirit and new customs gradually invaded the national legislation, until its original shape was lost, and by the seventeenth century it was almost forgotten. Its place had been usurped by a medley that was Germanic in name, but Roman in fact.

I have reason to believe that this innovation of the lawyers had a tendency to aggravate the condition of more than one class of Germans, the peasantry especially. Persons who had up to that time succeeded in preserving the whole or a part of their liberty or their property, were ingeniously assimilated to the slaves or emphyteutic tenants of the Roman law, and lost rights and possessions together.

This gradual transformation of the national law, and the efforts which were made to prevent its accomplishment, were plainly seen in the history of Wurtemberg.

From the rise of the county of this name in 1250 to the creation of the duchy in 1495, the whole legislation of Wurtemberg was indigenous in character. It consisted of customs, local city laws, ordinances of seigniorial courts, or statutes of the States. Ecclesiastical affairs alone were regulated by foreign, that is to say, by canon law.

But from the year 1495 a change took place. Roman law began to penetrate the legislation of the duchy. The doctors, as they were called—that is to say, the individuals who had studied at foreign schools—connected themselves with the government, and took the management of the high courts. From the commencement to the middle of the fifteenth century, a struggle between them and the politicians of the day was carried on, similar in character, though different in result from the struggle that took place in England at the very same time. At the Diet of Tubingen in 1514 and the following Diets, the lawyers were attacked violently by the representatives of feudal institutions and the city deputies; they were loudly charged with invading all the courts of justice, and altering the spirit or the letter of all the laws and customs. At first, victory seemed to rest with the assailants. They obtained of government a promise that honorable and enlightened persons, chosen from the nobility and the States of the duchy—not doctors—should be set over the higher courts, and that a commission, consisting of government agents and representatives of the States, should be appointed to draft a bill for a Code to have force throughout the country. Useless effort! The Roman law soon expelled the national law from a large section of the legislative sphere, and even planted its roots in the section where the latter was allowed to subsist.

German historians ascribe this triumph of foreign over domestic law to two causes: 1st. The attraction exercised over the public mind by ancient literature, which necessarily led to a contempt for the intellectual products of the national genius; and, 2dly. The idea—with which the Germans of the Middle Ages, and even their laws, were imbued—that the Holy Empire was a continuation of the Roman Empire, and hence that the legislation of the latter was an heirloom of the former.

These causes do not suffice to explain the simultaneous introduction of Roman law into every Continental country. I think that the singular availability of the Roman law—which was a slave-law—for the purposes of monarchs, who were just then establishing their absolute power upon the ruins of the old liberties of Europe, was the true cause of the phenomenon.

The Roman law carried civil society to perfection, but it invariably degraded political society, because it was the work of a highly civilized and thoroughly enslaved people. Kings naturally embraced it with enthusiasm, and established it wherever they could throughout Europe; its interpreters became their ministers or their chief agents. Lawyers furnished them at need with legal warrant for violating the law. They have often done so since. Monarchs who have trampled the laws have almost always found a lawyer ready to prove the lawfulness of their acts—to establish learnedly that violence was just, and that the oppressed were in the wrong.

transition from feudal to democratic monarchy.

As all European monarchies became absolute about the same time, it is not probable that the constitutional change was due to accidental circumstances which occurred simultaneously in every country. The natural supposition is that the general change was the fruit of a general cause operating on every country at the same moment.

That general cause was the transition from one social state to another, from feudal inequality to democratic equality. The nobility was prostrate; the people had not yet risen up; the one was too low, the other not high enough to embarrass the movements of the supreme power. For a period of a hundred and fifty years kings enjoyed a golden age. They were all-powerful, and their thrones were stable, advantages usually inconsistent with each other. They were as sacred as the hereditary chiefs of a feudal monarchy, and as absolute as the masters of a democracy.

decline of free german cities.—imperial cities (Reichstadten).

According to the German historians, these cities reached their highest point of prosperity during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They were then the refuge of the wealth, of the arts, of the learning of Europe, the mistress of commerce, and the centre of civilization. They ended, especially in northern and southern Germany, by forming, with the surrounding nobility, independent confederations, as the Swiss cities had done with the peasantry.

They were still prosperous in the sixteenth century; but their decline had begun. The Thirty Years’ War hastened their downfall; they were nearly all destroyed or ruined during that period.

The Treaty of Westphalia, however, made special mention of them, and maintained their condition as “immediate states,” that is to say, communities independent of all control but the emperor. But neighboring monarchs on one side, and on the other the emperor himself, whose power, after the Thirty Years’ War, was nearly confined in its exercise to these small vassals of the empire, constantly encroached on their sovereignty. They still numbered fifty-one in the eighteenth century. They occupied two benches at the Diet, and had a separate vote. But, practically, their influence over the direction of public affairs was gone.

At home they were overloaded with debts, chiefly arising from the fact that they were still taxed in proportion to their past splendor, and also, in some degree, from their defective administration. It is not a little remarkable that this maladministration appeared to flow from some secret disease that was common to all of them, whatever their constitution happened to be. Aristocratic and democratic forms of government provoked equal discontent. Aristocracies were said to be mere family coteries, in which favor and private interest controlled the government. Democracies were said to be under the sway of intrigue and corruption. Both forms of government were accused of dishonesty and profligacy. The Emperor was constantly obliged to interfere in their affairs to restore order. Their population was falling off, their wealth vanishing. They were no longer the centres of German civilization; the arts had fled from them to take refuge in new cities created by kings, and representing the modern era. Trade had deserted them. Their former energy, their patriotic vigor, had disappeared. Hamburg alone continued to be a great centre of wealth and learning; but this flowed from causes peculiar to itself.

date of the abolition of serfdom in germany.

It will be seen from the following table that serfdom has only been very recently abolished in the greater part of Germany. Serfdom was abolished,

A portion of Germany, such as Brandenburg, old Prussia, and Silesia, was originally peopled by the Slavic race, and was conquered and partly occupied by Germans. In those countries serfdom was always much harsher than in the rest of Germany, and left much plainer traces at the close of the eighteenth century.

code of frederick the great.

Of all the works of Frederick the Great, the least known, even in his own country, and the least striking, is the Code drawn up by his orders, and promulgated by his successor. Yet I doubt whether any of his other works throws as much light on the mind of the man or on the times in which he lived, or shows as plainly the influence which they exercised one upon the other.

This Code was a real constitution in the ordinary sense of the word. It regulated not only the mutual relations of citizens, but also their relations to the state. It was a civil code, a criminal code, and a charter all in one.

It rests, or appears to rest, on a certain number of general principles, expressed in a highly philosophical and abstract form, and which bear a strong resemblance in many respects to those which are embodied in the Declaration of the Rights of Man in the Constitution of 1791.

It proclaims that the welfare of the commonwealth and of its inhabitants is the aim of society and the limit of law; that laws can not restrain the freedom and the rights of the citizen save for public utility; that every member of the commonwealth ought to labor for the public good in proportion to his position and his means; that the rights of individuals ought to give way to those of the public.

It makes no allusion to any hereditary rights of the sovereign, nor to his family, nor even to any particular right as distinguished from that of the state. The royal power was already designated by no other name than that of the state.

On the other hand, it alludes to the rights of man, which are founded on the natural right of every one to pursue his own happiness without treading on the rights of others. All acts not forbidden by natural law, or a positive state law, are allowable. Every citizen is entitled to claim the protection of the state for himself and his property, and may defend himself by using force if the state does not come to his defense.

These great principles established, the legislator, instead of evolving from them, as the constitution of 1791 did, the doctrine of popular sovereignty, and the organization of a democratic government in a free society, turns sharp round and arrives at another conclusion, democratic enough, but not liberal. He considers the sovereign the sole representative of the state, and invests him with all the rights which he has stated belong to society. The sovereign does not figure in the Code as the representative of God; he is the representative, the agent, the servant of society, as Frederick stated at full length in his works; but he is its sole representative, he wields its whole authority alone. The head of the state, on whom the duty of securing the public welfare—which is the sole object of society—devolves, is authorized to direct and regulate all the actions of individuals in this view.

Among the chief duties of this all-powerful agent of society, I find such as these mentioned: maintaining order and public safety at home, so that every citizen shall be guaranteed against violence; making peace and war; establishing all laws and police regulations; granting pardons; annulling criminal prosecutions.

Every association in the country, and every public establishment, is subject to his inspection and superintendence in the interest of the general peace and security. In order that the head of the state may be able to perform his duties, he must have certain revenues and lucrative rights; hence he is allowed to tax private fortunes, persons, professions, commerce, industry, articles of consumption. Public functionaries acting in his name must be obeyed as he is in all matters within the scope of their duties.

Under this very modern head we shall now see a thoroughly Gothic body placed. Frederick has taken away nothing but what might impede the action of his own power, and the whole will form a monstrous being, which looks like a compromise between two creations. In this strange production Frederick evinces as much contempt for logic as care for his own power, and anxiety not to create useless difficulties in attacking what was still capable of defense.

With the exception of a few districts and certain localities, the inhabitants of the rural districts are placed in a state of hereditary serfdom; not only is the land clogged with corvées and inherent services, but, as has been seen already, similar burdens attach to the persons of the peasants.

Most of the privileges of landholders are recognized anew by the Code—or, it might be said, in contradiction to the Code; for it is expressly stated that, wherever the new legislation clashes with local customs, the latter must prevail. It is formally declared that the state can not abolish any of these privileges except by purchase, according to the legal forms.

True, the Code states that serfdom, properly so called (leibeigenschaft), is abolished in so far as it interferes with personal liberty; but the hereditary subjection which takes its place (erbuntertahnigkeit) is, after all, a species of serfdom, as the text shows.

According to the Code, the burgher remains wholly distinct from the peasant. Between the noble and the burgher, an intermediate class, consisting of high functionaries who are not noble, ecclesiastics, professors of learned schools, gymnasia, and universities, is placed.

Superior to the burghers, these personages were not to be confounded with the nobility, to whom they were clearly understood to be inferior. They could not purchase equestrian estates, or fill the highest posts in the civil service. Nor were they hoffähig; that is to say, they could but rarely appear at court, and never with their families. As was the case in France, these distinctions became more insulting in proportion to the increasing knowledge and influence of this class, which, though excluded from the most brilliant posts, filled all those where business of importance was transacted. The privileges of the nobility necessarily gave birth to irritation, which mainly contributed to cause the revolution here, and make it popular in Germany. The principal author of the Code was a burgher, but no doubt he merely obeyed the instructions of his master.

The old constitution of Europe is not in such ruin in this part of Germany that Frederick thinks it safe to allow his contempt for it to lead him to destroy its relics. Generally speaking, he deprives the nobility of the right of assemblage and corporate action; leaving to each nobleman his privileges, he limits and regulates their use. Hence it happens that this Code, drawn up by the orders of a disciple of one of our philosophers, and put in force after the outbreak of the French Revolution, is the most authentic and latest legislative document which gives a legal warrant for the feudal inequalities which the Revolution was about to abolish throughout Europe.

The nobility is declared to be the first body in the state. Men of rank, it states, are to be preferred to all others for posts of honor, if they are capable of filling them. None but they are to possess noble estates, create substitutions, enjoy rights of chase, justiciary rights inherent to noble estates, and rights of presentation to clerical livings; none but they can assume the name of their estates. Burghers, specially authorized to acquire noble estates, can only enjoy the rights and honors attached to such possessions within these limits. A burgher owning a noble estate can not leave it to an heir burgher unless he be heir in the first degree. When there are no such heirs and no heirs noble, the property must be sold at auction.

One of the most characteristic portions of the Code of Frederick the Great is its criminal provision for political offenses.

Frederick’s successor, Frederick William II., who, notwithstanding the feudal and absolutist provisions above noted, fancied he detected revolutionary tendencies in this work of his uncle’s, and refrained from promulgating it till 1794, was only reconciled to it by the excellent penal provisions which served to counteract its bad principles. Nor has there ever been any thing since devised more complete of the kind. Not only are revolts and conspiracies punished with the greatest rigor, but disrespectful criticisms of government are repressed with equal severity. It is forbidden to purchase or to distribute dangerous writings; printer, publisher, and vender are all responsible for the act of the author. Public balls and masquerades are declared to be public meetings, which can not take place without the authority of the police. Similar rules govern dinners in public places. Liberty of the press and of speech are under close and arbitrary supervision. It is forbidden to carry fire-arms.

By the side of this work, which was more than half borrowed from the Middle Ages, are provisions whose spirit borders on socialism. Thus it is declared that it devolves on the state to provide food, work, and wages for all who can not support themselves, and have no claim for support on the seignior or the commune; they must be provided with work suited to their strength and capacity. The state is bound to provide establishments for relieving the poor. It is authorized to abolish establishments which tend to encourage idleness, and to distribute personally to the poor the money by which these establishments were supported.

Boldness and novelty in point of theory, and timidity in practice characterize every portion of this work of Frederick the Great. On the one side, that great principle of modern society—that all are equally subject to taxes—is loudly proclaimed; on another, provincial laws containing exemptions to this rule are allowed to subsist. It is affirmed that all lawsuits between the sovereign and the state must be tried in the same forms and according to the same rules as all other cases; but, in fact, this rule was never carried into effect when the interests or passions of the king were opposed to it. The mill of Saint Souci was ostentatiously shown to the people, and justice was quietly made subject to royal convenience in other cases.

What proves that this Code, which assumed to be such a novelty, really made but few changes, and is therefore a curious study of German society in this section of country at the close of the eighteenth century, is that the Prussian nation hardly noticed its publication. Lawyers were the only persons who studied it; and even in our time there are many enlightened men who have never read it.

property of the german peasants.

Many families among the peasantry were not only free and land-holders, their property constituted a species of perpetual majorat. Their estate was indivisible, and passed by descent to one of the sons—usually the youngest—as was the case in some English customs. He was expected to endow his brothers and sisters.

The erbgütter of the peasantry were spread more or less over the whole of Germany, for the land was nowhere absorbed by the feudal tenures. Even in Silesia, where the nobility owned immense estates comprising most of the villages, other villages were possessed by the inhabitants, and were wholly free. In certain parts of Germany, such as the Tyrol and Frise, the rule was that the peasantry owned the land by erbgütter.

But in the greater part of the German countries this kind of property was an exception sometimes rarely met with. In the villages where it occurred, landholders of this kind constituted a sort of aristocracy among the peasantry.

position of the nobility and division of land along the rhine.

From information obtained on the spot, and from persons who lived under the old regime, it appears that in the Electorate of Cologne, for instance, there were a great number of villages without seigniors, and governed by agents of the king; that in the places where the nobility lived, their administrative powers were very limited; that their position (individually at all events) was rather brilliant than powerful; that they possessed honors and offices, but no direct control over the people. I also ascertained that in the same electorate property was much divided, and that many of the peasants owned the land they occupied. The fact was ascribed to the poverty that had long oppressed many of the noble families, and obliged them to sell their estates to the peasants for an annual rent or a sum of money. I have had in my hands a schedule of the population and estates within the Bishopric of Cologne at the beginning of the eighteenth century: it indicated that, at that time, one third of the soil belonged to the peasantry. From this fact arose sentiments and ideas which predisposed these people to a far greater extent than the inhabitants of other parts of Germany to welcome a revolution.

how the usury laws favored subdivision of land.

At the close of the eighteenth century it was still illegal to lend money on interest, whatever was the rate charged. Turgot says that this law was observed in many places as late as 1769. These laws are still in force, says he, but they are often violated. Consular judges allow interest on loans, while the ordinary courts condemn the practice. Dishonest debtors still prosecute their creditors criminally for having lent money without alienating the capital.

Independently of the effects which such laws as these must have had on commerce, industry, and the morals of business men, they affected the division and tenure of lands to a very great extent. They caused an immense increase of perpetual rents, as well ground-rents (foncières) as others. They compelled the old land-owners, instead of borrowing in times of need, to sell small portions of their domains, partly for a given sum, partly for a rent; hence leading, first, to the infinite subdivision of estates, and, secondly, to the creation of a multitude of perpetual rents on their little properties.

example of the irritation caused by tithes ten years before the revolution.

In 1779, a petty lawyer of Lucé complains in a bitter and revolutionary tone that curates and other large titheholders are selling at exorbitant prices to farmers the straw which has been paid them by way of tithes, and which the farmers absolutely need for manure.

example of the manner in which the privileges of the clergy alienated the affection of the people from them.

In 1780, the prior and canons of the Priory of Laval complain of being made to pay duty on articles of consumption, and on the materials required for the repair of their buildings. They argue that the duty is an accessory of the taille, and that, being exempt from the one, they ought not to be liable for the other. The minister tells them to apply to the election, with recourse to the Court of Aides.

feudal rights exercised by priests.—one example out of a thousand.

The Abbey of Cherbourg, in 1753, possessed seigniorial rents, payable in money or produce, in almost all the villages in the neighborhood of Cherbourg: one village alone paid 306 bushels of wheat. It owned the barony of Sainte Geneviève, the barony and seigniorial mill of Bas du Roule, and the barony of Neuville au Plein, at least ten leagues distant. It received, moreover, tithes from twelve parishes on the peninsula, some of which were at a great distance from the abbey.

irritation among the peasantry proceeding from the feudal rights, especially those of the church.

Letter written shortly before the Revolution by a peasant to the intendant. It is no authority for the facts it states, but it indicates admirably the state of feeling in the class to which the writer belonged:

“Though we have but few nobles in this part of the country,” it says, “it must not be supposed that real estate is free from rents; on the contrary, nearly all the fiefs belong to the Cathedral, or the archbishopric, or the collegiate church of Saint Martin, or the Benedictines of Noirmontiers, of Saint Julien, or some other ecclesiastics, against whom no prescription runs, and who are constantly bringing to light old musty parchments whose date God only knows!

“The whole country is infected with rents. Most of the farmlands pay every year a seventh of a bushel of wheat per acre, others wine; one pays the seignior a fourth of all fruits, another a fifth, another a twelfth, another a thirteenth—the tithes being always paid on the gross. These rights are so singular that they vary from a fourth part of the produce to a fortieth.

“What must be thought of these rents in kind—in vegetables, money, poultry, labor, wood, fruit, candles? I am acquainted with rents which are paid in bread, in wax, in eggs, in headless pigs, in rose shoulder-knots, in bouquets of violets, in golden spurs, &c.; and there are a host of seigniorial dues besides these. Why has France not been freed from all these extravagant rents? Men’s eyes are at last being opened; one may hope every thing from the wisdom of the present government. It will stretch a kindly hand to the poor victims of the exactions of the old fiscal system, called seigniorial rights, which could not be alienated or sold.

“What must be thought of this tyranny of mutation fines? A purchaser exhausts his means in acquiring a property, and is obliged to pay besides in expenses to secure his title, contracts, actual entry, procès-verbaux, stamp, registry, centième denier, eight sous per livre; after which he must exhibit his title to his seignior, who will exact the mutation fine on the gross price of his purchase, now a twelfth, and now a tenth. Some claim a fifth, others a fifth and a twenty-fifth besides. All rates are demanded; I know some who charge a third of the price paid. No, the most ferocious and the most barbarous nations of the known world have never invented such or so many exactions as our tyrants heaped on the heads of our forefathers.” (This literary and philosophical tirade is sadly defective in orthography.)

“What! the late king permitted the commutation of ground-rents on city property, but excluded those on farms! He should have begun with the latter. Why not permit poor farmers to break their chains, to pay off and get rid of the hosts of seigniorial dues and ground-rents, which are such an injury to the vassal and so small a gain to the seignior? No distinction should have been made between city and country, seigniors and private individuals.

“The stewards of the owners of ecclesiastical estates rob and plunder the farmers at every mutation. We have seen a recent example of the practice. The steward of our new archbishop gave notice to quit to all the farmers holding under leases from M. de Fleury, his predecessor, declared all, their leases null and void, and turned out every man who refused to submit to his rent being doubled, and to pay a large bonus besides, though they had already paid a bonus to M. de Fleury’s steward. They have thus been deprived of seven or eight years’ holding, though their leases were executed in due form, and have been driven out upon the world on Christmas eve, the most critical period of the year, owing to the difficulty of feeding cattle. The King of Prussia could have done nothing worse.”

It appears, in fact, that, with regard to Church property, leases granted by one titulary did not bind his successor. The writer of the letter states what is true when he says that feudal rents were redeemable in cities, but not in the country; a new proof of the neglect in which the peasantry lived, and of the manner in which all who were placed above them contrived to provide for their own interest.

Every institution that has long been dominant, after establishing itself in its natural sphere, extends itself, and ends by exercising a large influence over those branches of legislation which it does not govern. The feudal system, though essentially political, had transformed the civil law, and greatly modified the condition of persons and property in all the relations of private life. It had operated upon successions by creating unequal divisions of property—a principle carried out in certain provinces even among the middle classes (as witness Normandy). It had affected all real estate, for there were but few tracts of land that were wholly freed from its effects, or whose possessors felt none of the consequences of its laws. It affected the property of communes as well as that of individuals. It affected labor by the impositions it laid upon it. It affected incomes by the inequality of taxation, and, in general, the pecuniary interest of every man in every business: landowners, by dues, rents, corvées; farmers in a thousand ways, among others by rights of banality, ground-rents, mutation-fines, &c.; traders, by market-dues; merchants, by tolls, &c. In striking it down, the Revolution made itself perceived and felt at the same time at all points by every private interest.

public charities granted by the state.—favoritism.

In 1748—a year of great famine and misery, such as often occurred in the eighteenth century—the king granted 20,000 pounds of rice. The Archbishop of Tours claimed that he alone had obtained the gift, and that it ought to be distributed by him alone, and in his diocese. The intendant argued that the gift was made to the whole province, and should be distributed by him to all the parishes. After a long contest, the king, to settle the quarrel, doubled the quantity of rice given to the province, so that the archbishop and the intendant might each distribute half. Both agreed that it ought to be distributed by the curates. No one thought of the seigniors or the syndics. It appears from the correspondence between the intendant and the comptroller-general that the former accused the archbishop of wishing to give the rice to his favorites, and especially to the parishes which belonged to the Duchess of Rochechouart. The collection also contains letters from noblemen which demand aid for their parishes in particular, and letters from the comptroller-general which make reference to the parishes of certain individuals.

Public charities are always liable to abuses under every system; but when distributed from a distance, without publicity, by the central government, they are actually futile.

example of the manner in which these public charities were distributed.

A report, made in 1780 to the Provincial Assembly of Upper Guienne, states, “Out of the sum of 385,000 livres which his majesty has granted to this province from the year 1773, when workhouses were established, to the year 1779 inclusive, the election of Montauban, capital and place of residence of the intendant, has alone had more than 240,000 livres, most of which has been spent in the commune of Montauban.”

powers of the intendant for the regulation of manufactures.

The archives of the intendants’ offices are full of papers which refer to the regulation of industrial enterprises by the intendants.

Not only is labor subject to the inconvenience of trade-companies, guilds, &c., it is liable to be affected by every whim of government, that is to say, of the Council in great matters, of the intendants in small ones. The latter are constantly giving directions about the length of woofs, the kind of thread to use, the pattern to prefer, errors to avoid. Independently of the sub-delegates, they have local inspectors of manufactures under their orders. In this particular centralization had gone farther than it now does; it was more capricious, more arbitrary; it created a swarm of public functionaries, and gave rise to general habits of submission and dependence.

Note also that these habits were imparted to the middle classes, merchants, and traders, which were about to triumph, to a far greater extent than to the classes that were on the point of defeat. Hence, instead of destroying, the Revolution tended to confirm and spread them.

The preceding remarks have been suggested by the perusal of a quantity of correspondence and documents taken from the intendant’s office of the Ile de France, and indorsed, “Manufactures and Fabrics,” “Drapery,” “Drugs.” I have found in the same place reports from the inspectors to the intendant giving full and detailed accounts of their visits of inspection to factories; moreover, various Orders in Council, passed on reports of the intendant, prohibiting or permitting manufactures of certain stuffs, or in certain places, or in certain methods.

The dominant idea in the intercourse of these inspectors with the manufacturer—who, by the way, is treated very cavalierly—seems to be that their duty and the rights of the state compel them to see that the manufacturer not only acts fairly toward the public, but looks after his own interest. They consequently feel bound to make him adopt the best methods, and admonish him on the most trifling details of his business, larding the whole with a profusion of penalties and heavy fines.

spirit of the government of louis xi.

Nothing indicates more clearly the spirit of the government of Louis XI. than the constitutions he gave to cities. I have had occasion to study very closely those which he gave to most of the cities of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine.

All these constitutions are framed on the same plan, and all reveal the same designs. Louis XI. appears in a new light in these charters. He is generally regarded as the enemy of the nobility, but the sincere though somewhat brutal friend of the people. They reveal him as a hater alike of the political rights of the people and of those of the nobility. He uses the middle classes to lower the nobility and keep down the people: he is both anti-aristocratic and anti-democratic—the model of the burgher king. He loads city notables with privileges in the view of increasing their importance, grants them titles of nobility in order to cheapen rank, and thus destroys the popular and democratic city governments, and places the whole authority in the hands of a few families, attached to his policy, and pledged to his support by every tie of gratitude.

a city government in the eighteenth century.

I select from the Inquiry into City Governments, made in 1764, the papers which relate to Angers; they contain an analysis, attacks upon, and defenses of the constitution of this city, emanating from the presidial, the city corporation, the sub-delegate, and the intendant. As the same facts occurred in many other places, the picture must not be regarded as a solitary example.

memorial of the presidial on the present state of the municipal constitution of angers, and on the reforms that it needs.

“The Corporation of Angers never consults the people at large even on the most important occasions, unless it is compelled to do so; hence its policy is unknown to every one but its own members. Even the movable aldermen have only a superficial acquaintance with its mode of proceeding.”

(The tendency of all these little burgher oligarchies was, in truth, to consult the people at large as little as possible.)

The corporation is composed of twenty-one officers, in virtue of a decree of 29th March, 1681, to wit:

A mayor, who becomes noble ex officio, and whose term is four years;

Four movable aldermen, who hold office for two years;

Twelve consulting aldermen, who are elected and hold office for life;

Two city counsel;

One counsel holding the reversion of the office;

A clerk.

They enjoy many privileges: among others, their capitation-tax is fixed at a moderate sum; they are exempt from lodging soldiers, arms, or baggage; they are exempt from dues de cloison double et triple, from the old and new excise, from the accessory dues on articles of consumption, even from benevolences, “from which latter they have asserted their own freedom,” says the presidial. They enjoy, moreover, allowances in the shape of lights, and in some cases salaries and lodgings.

We see from this that a post of perpetual alderman at Angers was not to be despised in those days. Note here, as every where else, the contrivances to secure exemptions from taxes for the rich. The memorial goes on to say that “these offices are eagerly sought by the richest citizens, who desire them in order to reduce their capitation-tax, and increase that of their fellow-citizens in proportion. There are at this moment several municipal officers who pay 30 livres of capitation, and ought to pay 250 to 300 livres; one, among others, ought, in proportion to his fortune, to pay 1000 livres at least.” In another part of the memorial it is said that among the richest inhabitants of the place are more than forty officers, or widows of officers (office-holders), whose rank exempts them from the heavy capitation-tax paid by the city. The tax consequently falls upon an infinite number of poor mechanics, who, believing themselves overtaxed, constantly complain of the amount of their tax—unjustly so, for there are no inequalities in the division of the burden laid upon the city.

These latter are understood to be the special representatives of the people; they are, in fact, the representatives of industrial corporations, and the council is so arranged, as the reader has seen, that they are sure to be in a minority.

When posts in the corporation become vacant, the General Assembly chooses three candidates for each vacancy.

Most of the posts in the city government are free to persons of all professions; the Assembly is not—as others which I have noticed—obliged to choose a magistrate or a lawyer to fill a vacancy. To this the presidial objects strongly.

According to the same presidial, which seems terribly jealous of the city corporation, and whose main objection to the constitution was, I suspect, that it did not confer privileges enough on the presidial, “the General Assembly is too numerous, and composed of persons too devoid of intelligence to be consulted on any matters but sales of the city property, the negotiation of loans, the establishment of town dues, and the election of municipal officers. All other business should be transacted by a smaller body, wholly composed of notables. No one should be a member of this assembly but the lieutenant-general of the sénéchaussée, the king’s attorney, and twelve other notables chosen out of the six bodies, the clergy, the magistracy, the nobility, the university, the merchants, and the burghers, and others who do not belong to any of these six classes. The first choice of notables should be made by the Assembly, and future elections by the assembly of notables or the body from which each notable is chosen.”

A resemblance existed between these public functionaries, who thus become members of municipal bodies as office-holders or notables, and the functionaries of the same title and character in our day. But their position was very different from that of modern office-holders—a fact which can not be safely overlooked; for nearly all these old functionaries were city notables before they obtained office, or only sought office in order to become notables. They had no notion of either resigning their rank or being promoted; this alone creates a vast difference between them and their successors in office.

memorial of the municipal officers.

This document shows that the city corporation was created in 1474 by Louis XI. upon the ruins of the old democratic constitution of the city, and that its principle was of the nature explained above; that is to say, nearly all political power was vested in the middle classes; the people were kept at a distance, or weakened; a vast number of municipal officers were created in order to muster partisans for the scheme; hereditary titles of nobility were granted in profusion, and all sorts of privileges were secured to the burgher administrators.

The same paper also contains letters patent from successors of Louis XI., which recognize this new constitution and curtail still further the power of the people. It mentions that in 1485 the letters patent granted with this view by Charles VIII. were assailed by the people of Angers before the Parliament, just as, in England, disputes relative to the charter of a city would have been carried before the courts. In 1601 a decree of Parliament again fixed the political rights which were authorized by the royal charter. From thenceforth, no other controlling authority appears but the Royal Council.

It appears from the same memorial that mayors, like all other city officers, were selected by the king out of a list of three names presented by the General Assembly; this was in virtue of an Order in Council of 22d June, 1708. It also appears that, in virtue of Orders in Council of 1733 and 1741, the small traders were entitled to one alderman (perpetual) or councilor. Finally, the memorial shows that at that time the corporation was intrusted with the distribution of the tax levied for the capitation, equipment, lodgings, provisions of the poor, of the troops, of the revenue service, of foundlings.

Then follows an enumeration of the great labors which devolve upon municipal officers. They fully justify, in the opinion of the memorialists, the privileges and the permanent rank which they enjoy, and which, it is plain, they are much afraid of losing. Many of the reasons which they assign for the severity of their office-labors are curious, such as the following: “Their financial duties have been much increased by the extensions which are constantly being made to the aid dues, the gabel, the stamp and registry dues, and the unlawful exactions of registry dues and freehold duties. They have been involved, on the city’s behalf, in perpetual lawsuits with the financial companies in reference to these taxes; they have had to go from court to court, from the Parliament to the Council, in order to resist the oppression under which they are groaning. An experience and a public service of thirty years enable them to state that the life of man is hardly long enough to defend one’s self against the stratagems and the traps which the agents of the revenue-farmers are constantly laying for the citizen, in order to preserve their commissions.”

Curiously enough, it is to the comptroller-general that these things are said, and said with the view of winning his support for the privileges of the class that expresses these views. So deeply rooted was the habit of viewing the companies which farmed the taxes as an adversary that might be abused on all sides without objection from any one. This habit steadily spread and gained strength; men learned to view the treasury as an odious tyrant, hateful to all: the common enemy instead of the common agent.

“All offices were first united with the corporation,” adds the same memorial, “by an Order in Council of the 4th September, 1694, in consideration of a sum of 22,000 livres;” that is to say, the offices were redeemed that year for that sum. By an order of 26th April, 1723, the offices created by the edict of 24th May, 1722, were also united to the corporation, or, in other words, the city was permitted to redeem them. By another order of 24th May, 1723, the city was authorized to borrow 120,000 livres for the acquisition of the said offices. Another, of 26th July, 1728, authorized it to borrow 50,000 livres to redeem the office of clerk-secretary of the City Hall. “The city,” says the memorial, “has paid its money to preserve the freedom of its elections, and to secure to the officers it elects for one or two years, or for life, the various prerogatives attached to their offices.” Some of the municipal offices were re-established by the edict of November, 1733; an order was subsequently obtained at the instance of the mayor and aldermen, allowing the city to purchase an extension of its rights, for a term of fifteen years, for a sum of 170,000 livres.

This is a fair criterion of the policy of the government of the old regime, as regards cities. It compelled them to contract debts, then authorized them to establish extraordinary taxes to liquidate them. And to this it must be added that afterward many of these taxes, which were naturally temporary, were made perpetual, and then the government got its share.

The memorial continues: “The municipal officers were never deprived of their judicial functions till the establishment of royal courts. Until 1669, they had sole cognizance of disputes between masters and servants. The accounts of the town dues are rendered before the intendant, in obedience to the decrees establishing or continuing the said dues.”

The memorial makes it plain that the representatives of the sixteen parishes, who, as above mentioned, had seats in the General Assembly, were chosen by companies, corporate bodies, or communities, and were the mere organs of these bodies. They were bound by their instructions on all points.

In fine, this memorial shows that, at Angers as elsewhere, no expenses could be incurred by the city without the concurrence of the intendant and the Council. And it must be acknowledged that, when the government of a city is intrusted to certain men to be used as their private property, and when these men receive no salary, but enjoy in lieu thereof privileges which exonerate them from all responsibility to their fellow-citizens for maladministration, the guardianship of the state may seem a necessity.

The whole of this memorial, which is clumsily drawn up, indicates a state of great alarm on the part of these officials lest the existing state of things should be changed. All kinds of reasons, good and bad, are accumulated together, and pressed into the service of the statu quo.

memorial of the sub-delegate.

The intendant, having received these two contradictory memorials, asks for the opinion of his sub-delegate. He gives it:

“The memorial of the municipal councilors,” says he, “does not deserve attention; its only aim is to subserve their own privileges. That of the presidial may be beneficially consulted, but there is no reason for granting them all the prerogatives they desire.”

He admits that the constitution of the civic body has long needed reform. Besides the immunities already mentioned, which were enjoyed by all the municipal officers of Angers, he states that the mayor, during his term of service, was lodged at a cost of at least 600 francs; that he received 50 francs salary, and 100 francs for expenses of his office, besides the jetons. The attorneysyndic was also lodged, and so was the clerk. In order to escape aid and town dues, the municipal officers had fixed upon a presumed amount of consumption by each of them; and by accounting for this, they could introduce into the city as many casks of wine or other merchandise as they pleased.

The sub-delegate does not propose to deprive the councilors of their exemption from taxes; but he thinks their capitation-tax, which is now fixed at a very low figure, should be settled every year by the intendant. He also advises that these officials should be made to contribute with every one else to the don gratuit, their exemption from which is without authority or precedent.

The municipal officers, says the memorial, are intrusted with the preparation of the capitation-rolls for the people. They perform this duty carelessly and arbitrarily, whence the intendant is regularly overwhelmed every year with petitions and reclamations. It would be desirable that this tax should be distributed hereafter, in the interest of each community or company, by its members, in a general and stable manner; and that municipal officers should in future fix the capitation of burghers only, and of persons belonging to no public body, such as certain workmen and the servants of privileged persons.

The memorial of the sub-delegate confirms what the municipal officers have already stated in regard to the redemption, in 1735, of the municipal offices, for the sum of 170,000 livres.

letter from the intendant to the comptroller-general.

Armed with these various documents, the intendant writes to the minister: “The public interest and that of the citizens,” he says, “require a reduction in the number of municipal officers, whose privileges have become a heavy burden on the public.”

“I am struck,” he adds, “with the enormous amount of money that has been repeatedly paid for the redemption of municipal offices at Angers. A similar sum, employed usefully, would have done the city much good; as it is, it has only made people feel the weight of the authority and of the privileges of these officials.

“The internal abuses of this government fully deserve the attention of the Council. Independently of jetons and candle, which consume the annual appropriation of 2127 livres (this was the sum set apart for this class of expenditures in the normal budget, which was occasionally imposed on cities by the king), the public money is squandered and employed for clandestine purposes by these officers. The king’s attorney, who has held his office for thirty or forty years, has obtained such a mastery over the administration, of which he alone understands the details, that the citizens have been unable to obtain the least information with regard to the employment of their money.” In consequence, the intendant proposes to the minister to reduce the corporation to a mayor serving for four years, six aldermen serving for six years, one king’s attorney serving for eight, and a perpetual clerk and receiver.

In other respects the Constitution which he proposes for Angers is precisely the same as the one he elsewhere proposed for Tours. In his opinion,

1st. The government should preserve the General Assembly, but merely as an electoral body for the election of municipal officers.

2d. It should create an extraordinary Council of Notables, whose functions should be those with which the edict of 1764 appeared to invest the General Assembly. This council to be composed of twelve persons, holding office for six years, and elected, not by the General Assembly, but by the twelve bodies esteemed notable, each body electing one. He designates as notable bodies,

The presidial,

The university,

The election,

The office of woods and forests,

The salt warehouse,

The office of the traites,

The mint,

The advocates and attorneys,

The consular judges,

The notaries,

The traders (marchands),

The burghers (bourgeois).

As will be remarked, nearly all these notables were public functionaries, and all the public functionaries were notables. From this, as from a thousand other papers in these collections, it may be inferred that the middle classes were then as great place-hunters and as destitute of independent ambition as they are now. The only difference is, as I remarked in the text, that formerly the petty importance afforded by these places was bought, whereas now candidates beg the government to grant them the charity of a place for nothing.

It is here seen that the whole real power in the municipality is vested in the extraordinary council, and the administration of the city is thus further confined to a small circle of burghers. The only assembly in which the people continue to exercise the least interference is now confined to the electing of municipal officers whom it can not instruct. It is to be remarked, also, that the intendant is more unbending and antipopular in his principles than the king, who seemed in his edict to have transferred most of the public authority to the General Assembly, and again, that the intendant is far more liberal and democratic than the burghers. This last inference is at all events a fair one from the memorial I have quoted in the text, from which it appears that the notables of another city were desirous of excluding the people from the election of municipal officers in opposition to the views of the intendant and the king.

It may be noticed that the intendant recognizes two distinct classes of notables under the names of bourgeois and marchands. It may not be useless to give an exact definition of these words, in order to show into how many small fragments the bourgeoisie was divided, and by how many petty vanities it was actuated.

The word bourgeois had a general and also a particular meaning; it meant the members of the middle classes at large, and it also meant a certain number of men within those classes. “Bourgeois,” says a memorial filed at the inquiry of 1764, “are individuals whose birth and fortune enable them to live without engaging in lucrative pursuits.” Other portions of the memorial show that the word bourgeois does not apply to persons who belong to companies or industrial corporations; it is not so easy to say to whom it does apply. “For,” as the same memorial says, “many persons assume the title of bourgeois whose only claim to it is their idleness, who have no fortune, and lead a rude, obscure life. Bourgeois should, on the contrary, always be distinguished by their fortune, their birth, their talents, manners, and mode of life. Mechanics composing trade-companies have never been classed in the rank of notables.”

Traders (marchands) were another class of individuals who, like the bourgeois, belonged to no company or corporation: but where were the limits of this little class? “Must we,” says the same memorial, “confound small, low-born dealers with wholesale merchants?” To overcome the difficulty, the memorial proposes to have the aldermen draw up every year a table of notable traders (marchands), to be handed to their chief or syndic, who shall invite to the deliberations at the city hall none but those who are thereon inscribed. Care will be taken to inscribe on this table no traders who may have been domestics, porters, wagoners, or followers of other low trades.

In the text the words bourgeois and bourgeoisie are translated “burghers” or “the middle classes,” according to the context. The exact meaning of the French word is often doubtful, and the search for an exact English equivalent almost always hopeless.—Trans.

One of the most striking features of the administration of cities in the eighteenth century is, not the absence of all representation and intervention of the public in city business, but the extreme variability of the rules governing such administration. Civic rights were constantly bestowed, taken away, restored, increased, diminished, modified in a thousand ways, and unceasingly. No better indication of the contempt into which all local liberties had fallen can be found than these eternal changes of laws which no one seemed to notice. This mobility would alone have sufficed to destroy all initiative or recuperative energy, and all local patriotism in the institution which is best adapted to it. It helped to prepare the great work of destruction which was to be effected by the Revolution.

a village government in the eighteenth century (taken from the papers of the intendant’s office in the ile de france).

The affair which I am about to relate is one instance out of a thousand which illustrates the forms and the dilatory methods used by parochial governments, and shows what a general parochial assembly really was in the eighteenth century.

The parsonage-house and steeple of a rural parish—that of Ivry, Ile de France—required repair. To whom was application to be made to make the repairs? Who was to pay for them? How was the money to be procured?

1st. Petition from the curate to the intendant, setting forth that the parsonage-house and steeple need immediate repairs; that his predecessor had caused useless buildings to be erected adjoining the parsonage-house, and had thus altered and deformed the character of the spot; and that the inhabitants, having permitted him to do this, ought to bear the expense of all needful repairs, having their recourse on the late curate’s heirs for the expense.

2d. Ordinance of monseigneur the intendant (29th August, 1747), ordering the syndic diligently to convene an assembly to deliberate on the necessity of the repairs.

3d. Deliberation of the inhabitants, by which they declare that they do not object to the parsonage-house being repaired, but as for the steeple, they hold that, as it is built on the choir, which the curate, as a large tithe-holder, is bound to repair, he must pay for any repairs it may need. [An Order in Council of April, 1695, had, in fact, imposed the duty of keeping the choir in repair upon the tithe-holder, leaving the tithe-payers to look after the nave.]

4th. New ordinance of the intendant, which, in view of the conflict of statements, orders an architect, the Sieur Cordier, to visit and examine the parsonage-house and steeple, hear evidence, and make estimates of the works.

5th. Authentic report of all these proceedings, testifying that a certain number of landholders of Ivry, apparently men of rank, burghers, and peasants, appeared before the intendant’s commissioner, and gave evidence for or against the pretensions of the curate.

6th. New ordinance of the intendant, directing that the estimates prepared by his architect be laid before the landholders and inhabitants in a general assembly convoked with due diligence by the syndic for the purpose.

7th. New parochial assembly in pursuance of the ordinance, in which the people declare that they adhere to their expressed opinions.

8th. Ordinance of the intendant, directing, first, that in presence of his sub-delegate at Corbeil, the curate, syndic, and principal inhabitants of the parish being also present, the contracts for the work according to the estimates shall be given out; and, secondly, that, whereas the want of repairs involves absolute danger, the whole cost shall be levied upon the inhabitants, without prejudice to the legal rights of those who conceive that the cost of repairing the steeple should be borne by the curate as tithe-holder.

9th. Notice to all parties to be present at the office of the sub-delegate at Corbeil, where the contracts are to be given out.

10th. Petition of the curate and several inhabitants, praying that the costs of the preliminary proceedings be not charged, as usual, against the contractor, lest they should deter bidders from coming forward.

11th. Ordinance of the intendant, directing that all expenses incurred in order to bring the affair to issue be settled by the sub-delegate, added to the contract, and included in the imposition.

12th. Authority from several notables of the parish to the Sieur X. to be present on their behalf at the execution of the contract, and confirm it according to the architect’s estimates.

13th. Certificate of the syndic, stating that the usual notices and advertisements have been made.

14th. Official report of the contract:

15th. Lastly, Order in Council (23d July, 1748), authorizing an impost to raise this sum.

It may have been noticed that frequent allusions are here made to the parochial assembly. The following report of one of these assemblies will show how matters were usually managed on these occasions.

Notarial Act.—“This day, at the close of the parochial mass, at the usual and customary place, was present at the assembly held by the inhabitants of the said parish before X., notary at Corbeil undersigned, and the witnesses hereinafter mentioned, the Sieur Michaud, vine-dresser, syndic of the said parish, who presented the ordinance of the intendant authorizing the assembly, read the same, and applied for an official certificate of his due diligence in the premises:

“And then and there appeared an inhabitant of the said parish, who stated that the steeple was upon the choir, and, consequently, that its repairs should be charged to the curate; did furthermore appear —— (here follow the names of various parishioners, who, on the contrary, consent to the request of the curate); and thereafter appeared fifteen peasants, mechanics, masons, and vine-dressers, who declare themselves of the same mind as the preceding persons. Did also appear the Sieur Raimbaud, vine-dresser, who declared that he would agree to whatever monseigneur the intendant decided in the premises. Did also appear the Sieur X., doctor of the Sorbonne, curate, who persists in the allegations and conclusions of his request.

“Whereof the said parties have required of us official certificate.

“Done and passed at the said place of Ivry, in front of the burial-ground of the said parish, before the undersigned; and the meeting aforesaid lasted from eleven o’clock in the morning till two.”

It will be noticed that this parish assembly was a mere administrative inquiry, in the same form and as costly as judicial inquiries; that it never led to a vote or other clear expression of the will of the parish; that it was merely an expression of individual opinions, and constituted no check upon government. Many other documents indicate that the only object of parish assemblies was to afford information to the intendant, and not to influence his decision even in cases where no other interest but that of the parish was concerned.

It may be remarked, also, that this affair gives rise to three separate inquiries; one before the notary, another before the architect, and a third before two notaries, to ascertain whether the people have not changed their minds.

The impost of 724 liv. 18 s., authorized by the Order of 23d July, 1748, bears upon all landholders, whether privileged or not. This was generally the case in affairs of this kind; but the share of the various rate-payers was not fixed on uniform principles. Persons who paid the taille were taxed in proportion to their taille. Privileged individuals, on the other hand, were taxed in proportion to their assumed fortunes, which gave them a great advantage over the former class.

It appears, finally, that in this matter the distribution of the impost was made by two collectors, inhabitants of the village; not elected, nor serving in their turn, as was usually the custom, but chosen and appointed by the intendant’s sub-delegate.

The pretext which Louis XIV. put forward for destroying the municipal liberty of towns was the maladministration of their finances; yet the evil, according to Turgot, continued to exist, and even assumed larger proportions after the reform of this monarch. He adds that most cities are heavily in debt at the present time, partly for moneys lent to government, and partly for expenses or decorations which municipal officers—who dispose of other people’s money, who render no account, and receive no instructions—are constantly incurring, in order to increase the splendor or the profit of their position.

the state was guardian of convents as well as communes; instance thereof.

The comptroller-general, authorizing the intendant to pay over 15,000 livres to the Convent of Carmelites, to which certain indemnities were due, desires the intendant to satisfy himself that the money, which represents a capital, is properly invested. Similar instances abound.

how the administrative centralization of the old regime can be best judged in canada.

The physiognomy of governments can be best detected in their colonies, for there their features are magnified, and rendered more conspicuous. When I want to discover the spirit and vices of the government of Louis XIV., I must go to Canada. Its deformities are seen there as through a microscope.

A number of obstacles, created by previous occurrences or old social forms, which hindered the development of the true tendencies of government at home, did not exist in Canada. There was no nobility, or, at least, none had taken deep root. The Church was not dominant. Feudal traditions were lost or obscured. The power of the judiciary was not interwoven with old institutions or popular customs. There was, therefore, no hindrance to the free play of the central power. It could shape all laws according to its views. And in Canada, therefore, there was not a shadow of municipal or provincial institutions; and no collective or individual action was tolerated. An intendant far more powerful than his colleagues in France; a government managing far more matters than it did at home, and desiring to manage every thing from Paris, notwithstanding the intervening 1800 leagues; never adopting the great principles which can render a colony populous and prosperous, but, instead, employing all sorts of petty, artificial methods, and small devices of tyranny to increase and spread population; forced cultivation of lands; all lawsuits growing out of the concession of land removed from the jurisdiction of the courts and referred to the local administration; compulsory regulations respecting farming and the selection of land—such was the system devised for Canada under Louis XIV.: it was Colbert who signed the edicts. One might fancy one’s self in the midst of modern centralization and in Algeria. Canada is, in fact, the true model of what has always been seen there. In both places the government numbers as many heads as the people; it preponderates, acts, regulates, controls, undertakes every thing, provides for every thing, knows far more about the subject’s business than he does himself—is, in short, incessantly active and sterile.

In the United States, on the contrary, the English anti-centralization system was carried to an extreme. Parishes became independent municipalities, almost democratic republics. The republican element, which forms, so to say, the foundation of the English constitution and English habits, shows itself and develops without hindrance. Government proper does little in England, and individuals do a great deal; in America, government never interferes, so to speak, and individuals do every thing. The absence of an upper class, which renders the Canadian more defenseless against the government than his equals were in France, renders the citizen of the English colonies still more independent of the home power.

In both colonies society ultimately resolved itself into a democratic form. But in Canada, so long as it was a French possession at least, equality was an accessory of absolutism; in the British colonies it was the companion of liberty. And, so far as the material consequences of the two colonial systems are concerned, it is well known that in 1763, at the conquest, the population of Canada was 60,000 souls, that of the English provinces 3,000,000.

an example, chosen at haphazard, of the general regulations which the council of state was in the habit of making for the whole of france, and by which it created special misdemeanors of which the government courts had sole cognizance.

I take the first which I happen to find. Order in Council of 29th April, 1779, which enacts that thereafter throughout the kingdom all sheep-growers and sheep-dealers shall mark their sheep in a peculiar manner, under penalty of 300 livres fine. “His majesty orders the intendant to see this order obeyed,” it says, whence it follows that it devolved upon the intendant to pronounce penalties incurred. Another instance: An Order in Council of 21st December, 1778, forbids express companies and wagoners to warehouse the goods they have in charge, under pain of 300 livres fine. “His majesty enjoins upon his lieutenant general of police and his intendants to see to it.”

The Provincial Assembly of Guienne cries aloud for new brigades of horse-police, just as in our day the council-general of the department of Aveyron or Lot no doubt demands new brigades of gendarmerie. Always the same idea—gendarmerie constitute order, and order can not be had with the gendarme except through government. The report adds: “Complaint is daily made that there is no police in the country.” (How could there be? Noblemen take no concern for any thing, burghers live in town; and the community is represented by a rude peasant, and has no power at all.) “It must be admitted that, except in some cantons in which benevolent and just seigniors use their influence over their vassals to prevent those appeals to violence to which the country people are prone, in consequence of the rudeness of their manners and the roughness of their character, there exists hardly any where any means of controlling these ignorant, rough, and hot-headed men.”

Such was the manner in which the nobles of the Provincial Assembly allowed themselves to be spoken of, and in which the Third Estate, comprising half the assembly, spoke of the people in public documents.

Tobacco licenses were as eagerly sought after under the old regime as at present. The most distinguished people begged them for their dependents. Some, I find, were granted at the request of noble ladies, some to please archbishops.

Local life was more thoroughly extinguished than almost seems credible. One of the roads leading from Maine into Normandy had become impassable. Who calls for its repair? The district of Touraine, which it crosses? The province of Normandy, or that of Maine, both vitally interested in the cattle-trade of which it is the outlet? Some canton particularly injured by the bad condition of the road? Neither district, nor province, nor canton utter a word. The duty of attracting the attention of government to the road is left to the traders who use it, and whose wagons stick in the mud. They write to Paris to the comptroller-general, and beg him to come to their rescue.

varying value of seigniorial rents and dues according to provinces.

Turgot says in his works: “I must remark that the importance of these dues is very different in most of the rich provinces, such as Normandy, Picardy, and the vicinity of Paris. In the latter, riches usually consist in the produce of land; the farms are large, close together, and bring high rents. The seigniorial rents of large farms form a very small portion of the income from them, and are regarded rather as honorary than lucrative. In poorer and worse-farmed provinces, seigniors and men of rank possess but little land of their own; farms, which are much subdivided, are burdened with heavy rents in produce, and all the co-tenants are jointly responsible for their payment. These rents eat up the clearest portion of the income of the land, and constitute the bulk of the seignior’s revenue.”

discussion of public affairs antagonistic to the establishment of castes.

The unimportant labors of the agricultural societies of the eighteenth century show how the general discussion of public affairs militated against castes. Though these assemblages took place thirty years prior to the Revolution, in the midst of the old regime, the mere fact that they discussed questions in which all classes were interested, and that all classes mingled in the discussion, drew men together and effected a sort of fusion. Ideas of reasonable reform suggested themselves to the minds even of the privileged classes, and yet they were mere conversations about agriculture.

I am satisfied that no government but one which relied wholly on its own strength, and invariably dealt with individuals singly, as that of the old regime did, could have maintained the ridiculous and insane inequality which existed at the time of the Revolution. The least touch of self-government would have soon altered or destroyed it.

Provincial liberties may survive national liberty for a time, when they are of old standing, and interwoven with manners, customs, and recollections, and the despotism is new. But it is unreasonable to suppose that local liberties can be created at will, or maintained for any length of time, when general liberty is extinct.

Turgot gives a statement of the extent of the privileges of the nobility, in the matter of taxation, in a memorial to the king. It appears to me to be quite correct.

1st. Privileged persons may claim exemption from taxes for a farm which consumes the labor of four plows. Such a farm in the neighborhood of Paris would usually pay 2000 francs of taxes.

2dly. The same privileged persons pay nothing for woods, meadows, rivers, ponds, or inclosed lands near their chateau, whatever be their extent. Some cantons are almost wholly laid out in meadow or vineyard; in these, seigniors who have their lands managed by a steward pay no impost whatever. All the taxes fall on the taille-payers. The advantage of this is immense.

indirect privilege in respect of taxes.—difference in the manner of collection when the tax is levied on all alike.

Turgot draws a picture of this, which I have reason to believe is correct.

“The indirect advantages of the privileged classes with regard to the capitation-tax are very great. The capitation-tax is naturally an arbitrary impost; it is impossible to divide it among the citizens at large otherwise than blindly. It was found convenient to take the taille rolls, which were already made, as a basis. A special roll was made for the privileged classes; but, as the latter made objections, and the taille-payers had no one to speak for them, it came about that the capitation of the privileged classes was gradually reduced in the provinces to a very small sum, while the taille-payers paid as much for capitation as the principal of the taille.”

another example of inequality in the collection of a uniform tax.

It is known that local imposts were levied on all classes equally; “which sums,” say the Orders in Council authorizing these expenditures, “shall be levied on all persons without distinction, whether privileged or not, jointly with the capitation-tax, or in proportion thereto.”

Note that, as the capitation-tax of taille-payers, which was assimilated to the taille, was always heavier than the capitation of privileged persons, the very plan which seemed to favor uniformity kept up the inequality between the two.

same subject.

I find in a bill of 1764, which designed to render the taxes uniform, all sorts of provisions that were intended to preserve a distinction in favor of the privileged classes in respect to the tax levy. For instance, no property of theirs could be appraised for taxation except in their presence or in the presence of their attorney.

how the government admitted that, even in the case of taxes weighing alike on all classes, the tax ought to be collected differently from the privileged and privileged classes.

“I see,” said the minister in 1766, “that the most difficult taxes to collect are those which are due by nobles and privileged persons, in consequence of the consideration which the tax-collectors feel bound to pay to these persons. It has resulted from this that they are heavily in arrears on their capitation-tax and twentieths (the taxes which they paid in common with the people).

Arthur Young, in his Journey in 1789, draws a picture in which the condition of the two societies is so agreeably sketched and so skillfully set that I can not resist giving it here.

In traveling through France during the emotion caused by the capture of the Bastille, Young was arrested in a village by a mob, who, seeing no cocarde on his hat, were about to drag him to jail. To get out of the scrape, Young improvises the following little speech:

“ ‘Gentlemen, it has just been said that the taxes are to be paid just as before. The taxes must be paid, certainly, but not as before. They must be paid as they are in England. We have many more taxes than you; but the Third Estate, the people, pays none of them; they fall upon the rich. In my country, windows pay a tax; but a man who has only six in his house pays nothing. A seignior pays his twentieths and the taille, but the owner of a small garden escapes scot free. Rich men pay for their horses, their carriages, their servants, for the right of shooting their own partridges; but small landholders know nothing of these taxes. More than this: we have, in England, a tax that is levied on the rich for the maintenance of the poor. If, then, taxes are still to be paid, they must be paid on a new plan. The English plan is the best.’

“As my bad French,” adds Young, “suited their patois well enough, they understood what I said. They applauded every word of this speech, and concluded that I might be a good fellow—an impression which I confirmed by crying Vive le Tiers! They then let me pass with a hurrah.”

The church of X., election of Chollet, was falling into ruin. Measures were being taken to repair it, according to the plan indicated by the Order of 16th December, 1684, that is to say, by a tax on all the citizens. When the collectors proceed to levy the tax, the Marquis of X., seignior of the parish, declares that, as he undertakes to repair the choir without assistance, he can not be expected to contribute to the tax. The other inhabitants reply very reasonably that, as seignior and large tithe-holder (he possessed, no doubt, the tithes enfeoffed), he was bound to repair the choir, and that he was by no means, on that account, relieved from his obligation to contribute to the other repairs. On reference to the intendant, he decides against the marquis and in favor of the collectors. The records of the affair contain more than ten letters of the marquis, each more pressing than the last, begging that the other people of the parish be made to pay in his stead, and condescending to call the intendant “monseigneur,” and even to “supplicate him.”

example of the manner in which the government of the old regime respected acquired rights, formal contracts, and city or associate liberties.

Royal declaration “suspending, in time of war, repayment of all loans made to the crown by cities, bourgs, colleges, communities, hospitals, poor-houses, corporations of artisans and tradesmen, and others, for the payment of which town or other dues were pledged; interest to accrue on the same.”

This was not only suspending payment at the time fixed, but laying hands on the security pledged for the payment of the loan. Similar measures were common under the government of the old regime; they could never have occurred in a country where a free press or free assemblies existed. Compare these proceedings with those which have taken place in England and America in the like circumstances. Here the contempt for right was not less flagrant than the contempt for local liberties.

The case cited in the text is not the only one in which the privileged classes perceived that they were affected by the feudal dues which weighed upon the peasantry. An agricultural society, composed wholly of privileged persons, said, thirty years before the Revolution,

“Irredeemable rents, whether ground-rents or feudal rents attaching upon land, become so onerous to the debtor when they are considerable, that they ruin him and the land too. He is forced to neglect his farm, for he can not effect loans on a property so burdened, nor can he find a purchaser for it. If the rent were redeemable, he would soon find a lender to advance money to pay it off, or a purchaser to extinguish it. One is always glad to improve a property of which one believes one’s self peaceable owner. It would be of infinite service to agriculture if a means could be found of rendering these rents redeemable. Many feudal seigniors are convinced of this, and would gladly concur in any arrangement for the purpose. It would therefore be desirable to indicate a plan for redeeming all these ground-rents.”

All public functionaries, including the agent of the tax-farmers, enjoyed exemptions from taxes. The privilege was granted them by the ordinance of 1681. An intendant says, in a letter addressed to the minister in 1782, “The most numerous class of privileged persons consists of clerks of the gabel, of traites, of the domain, of the post, of aids, and other excise of all kinds. One or more of these are to be found in every parish.”

The object was to prevent the ministers from proposing to the Council a measure to extend the exemption from taxes to the clerks and servants of these privileged agents. The farmers-general, says the intendant, are always asking for extensions of the privilege, in order to obtain clerks without paying them a salary.

Venal offices were not wholly unknown abroad. In Germany some small sovereigns had introduced the system; but they had applied it to but few offices, and these subordinate ones. The system was carried out on a grand scale in France only.

One must not be surprised—though it certainly seems surprising—to see functionaries of the old government, closely connected with the administration, go to law before the Parliament about the limits of their respective powers. The fact is easily explained: the questions at issue were questions of public administration, but they were also questions of private property. What here appears to be an encroachment of the judiciary was, in fact, nothing but a consequence of the fault which the government committed in selling offices. All places being bought, and their incumbents being paid by fees, it was impossible to alter the functions of an office without injuring individual rights which had been purchased for a valuable consideration. One example out of a thousand: the lieutenant general of police of Mans institutes an action against the financial department of that city to claim the right of paving the streets, and obtaining fees thereon, that being, he says, part of the police of the streets, which devolves upon him. The department replies that the very title of its commission intrusts it with the paving of the streets. This time it is not the king’s council which decides between them; as the point involved is chiefly the interest of the capital invested by the lieutenant in the purchase of his office, the case goes before the Parliament. Instead of being a government question, it is a civil suit.

analysis of the cahiers of the nobility in 1789.

The French Revolution is the only one, I believe, at the beginning of which the different classes of society were enabled to present an authentic account of the ideas they had conceived, and express the feelings which animated them, before the Revolution had distorted or modified those ideas and feelings. This authentic account was recorded, as is known, in the cahiers which the three orders drew up in 1789. These cahiers or memoires were drawn up in perfect freedom, in the midst of the widest publicity, by each of the three orders; they were the fruit of long discussion by the parties in interest, and ripe deliberation by their authors; for in those days, when the government spoke to the nation, it did not undertake to answer its own questions. At the time the cahiers were composed, the principal parts of them were collected and published in three volumes, which are to be found in all libraries. The originals are deposited in the national archives, and with them the reports of the assemblies which drew them up, and a portion of the correspondence between M. Necker and his agents in reference to the subject. This collection forms a long series of folio volumes, and is the most precious document we have on the subject of ancient France. All who desire to become acquainted with the spirit of our forefathers at the time of the Revolution should consult it without delay.

I had imagined that perhaps the printed extract, in three volumes, which I have mentioned above, was a one-sided performance, and an unfaithful reflection of this immense collection; but I find, on comparing the two, that the smaller work is a correct miniature of the greater.

The following extract from the cahiers of the nobility shows the spirit which animated the majority of that body. It shows which of their old privileges the nobility desired at all hazards to keep, which they were half inclined to abandon, and which they proposed of their own accord to sacrifice. It discloses especially the views which pervaded the whole body on the subject of political liberty. Curious and melancholy spectacle!

Individual Rights.—The nobility demand, in the first place, that an explicit declaration of the rights of man be made, and that that declaration bear witness to the liberty and secure the safety of all men.

Personal Liberty.—They desire that the serfdom of the glebe be abolished wherever it may still exist, and that means be sought for the extinction of the slave-trade and negro slavery; that all be free to travel whithersoever they will, and to reside where they please, within or without the kingdom, without being liable to arbitrary arrest; that the police regulations be amended, and that the police be under control of the magistracy, even in case of riot; that no one be arrested and judged except by his natural judges; that, in consequence, state prisons and other illegal places of detention be suppressed. Some demand the destruction of the Bastille. The nobility of Paris insist warmly on this point.

All letters of cachet should be prohibited. If the danger of the state requires the arrest of a citizen who can not be handed over directly to the ordinary courts of justice, measures must be taken to prevent injustice, either by notifying the Council of State, or in some other way.

The nobility desire that all special commissions, irregular courts, privileges of committimus, reprieves, be abolished; that the most severe penalties be laid upon all who execute or order the execution of an arbitrary command; that the ordinary courts—which alone should be preserved—take all necessary measures to secure individual liberty, especially in criminal matters; that justice be administered gratuitously, and useless jurisdictions abolished. One cahier says, “Magistrates were made for the people, not the people for magistrates.” They demand that an honorary counsel and advocates for the poor be established in every bailiwick; that all examinations be public, and prisoners be allowed to defend themselves; that in criminal matters the prisoner be provided with a counsel, and the judge assisted by a number of citizens of the same order as the prisoner, who shall decide upon the fact of the crime or misdemeanor charged (reference is here made to the constitution of England); that penalties be proportioned to offenses, and uniform: that capital punishment be employed more rarely, and all corporal punishments, torture, &c., be abolished; that the condition of prisoners be improved, especially those who are confmed before their trial.

The cahiers demand that an effort be made to respect individual liberty in the recruiting service both of soldiers and sailors. It should be allowable to avoid military service by paying a sum of money. No lots should be drawn save in the presence of deputies of the three orders. Finally, an attempt should be made to reconcile military discipline and subordination with the rights of the citizen and the freeman. Blows with the flat of the sword should be forbidden.

Liberty and Inviolability of Property.—Property should be inviolable, and should never be molested save for the necessities of the public weal. In such cases the government should pay a high price, and that promptly. Confiscations should be abolished.

Liberty of Trade, Labor, and Industry.—Freedom of labor and trade should be secured. In consequence, all monopolies should be taken from trade-companies, as well as other privileges of the kind. No custom-houses should exist except on the frontier.

Liberty of Religion.—The Catholic faith shall be the only dominant religion in France, but all other religions shall be tolerated, and persons who are not Catholics shall be reinstated in their properties and civil rights.

Liberty of the Press, Inviolability of Letters in the Post-office.—The liberty of the press shall be secured, and a law shall fix beforehand the restrictions that may be established in the interest of the public. No works but such as treat of religious doctrine shall be liable to ecclesiastical censorship; in the case of all others, it shall be sufficient that the names of the author and printer are known. Many demand that charges against the press be tried before jury.

All the cahiers insist energetically on the inviolability of secrets confided to the post, so that private letters may never be brought in accusation against individuals. The opening of letters, say they, bluntly, is the most odious form of espionage, as it violates the public faith.

Education.—The cahiers of the nobility confine themselves to recommending that all proper means be taken to spread education, both in cities and in the country, and that each boy be taught with a view to his future vocation. They insist on the necessity of teaching children the political rights and duties of the citizen, and suggest that a catechism on the principal points of the Constitution be used in schools. They do not, however, point out any means to be used to facilitate and spread education. They merely demand educational establishments for the children of the poor nobility.

Care to be taken of the People.—Many of the cahiers demand that the people be treated with more consideration. They exclaim against the police regulations, in virtue of which they say hosts of mechanics and useful citizens are daily thrust into prisons and jails without any regular commitment, and often on mere suspicions, a manifest violation of natural liberty. All the cahiers demand that corvées be definitely abolished. A majority of bailiwicks desire that rights of banality and toll be made redeemable. Many demand that the collection of various feudal dues be rendered less oppressive, and that the freehold duty be abolished. One cahier observes that the government is interested in facilitating the purchase and sale of lands. This is precisely the reason that will soon be urged for abolishing at a blow all seigniorial rights, and throwing all mainmortable lands into the market. Many cahiers ask that the right of pigeon-houses be rendered less prejudicial to agriculture. As for the establishments for the preservation of the king’s game, known by the name of captainries, they demand their immediate abolition, as being subversive of the rights of property. They desire to see, in lieu of the present taxes, new ones established which shall be less onerous to the people.

The nobility demand that an effort be made to disseminate plenty and comfort throughout the rural districts; that looms and factories of coarse stuffs be established in the villages, so as to occupy the country-people during the idle season; that in each bailiwick public store-houses be founded, under the inspection of the provincial governments, to provide for seasons of famine, and sustain the regularity of prices; that attempts be made to improve agriculture and better the condition of the country parts; that more public works be undertaken, and especially that marshes be drained, and means taken to guard against inundations, &c.; finally, that special encouragements be offered to agriculture and trade in all the provinces.

The cahiers suggest that, instead of the present hospitals, small establishments of the kind be founded in every district; that the poor-houses be abolished, and replaced by work-houses; that a charitable fund be placed at the disposal of the Provincial States; that surgeons, physicians, and midwives be appointed for every county to tend the poor gratuitously, and paid by the province; that the Courts of Justice should always be open to the poor, free of charge; that thought be taken for the establishment of blind, deaf and dumb asylums, foundling-hospitals, &c.

In all these matters the nobility express their general views as to what reforms are needed; they do not enter into details. It is easy to see that they have been less frequently brought into contact with the poor than the lower order of clergy, and that, having seen less of their sufferings, they have reflected less on the subject of a remedy.

Of Eligibility to Office, of the Hierarchy of Ranks, and of the honorary Privileges of the Nobility.— It is chiefly, or, rather, it is only when they come to deal with distinctions of rank and class divisions that the nobles turn their backs on the prevailing spirit of reform. They make important concessions, but, on the whole, they adhere to the spirit of the old regime. They feel that they are fighting for life. Their cahiers thus demand energetically that the nobility and the clergy be maintained as distinct orders. They even desire that a method be devised for preserving the purity of the order of the nobility; that, for instance, the practice of selling titles or coupling them with certain offices be prohibited, and that rank be the reward of long and meritorious services rendered to the state. They wish that all the false nobles could be found out and prosecuted. All the cahiers, in short, demand that the nobility be maintained in all its honors. Some think it would be well for men of rank to wear a distinctive badge.

Nothing could be more characteristic than such a demand; nothing could indicate more plainly the similarity between the noble and the commoner. Generally speaking, the nobility, while abandoning many of their beneficial rights, cling with anxiety and warmth to those which are purely honorary. They want not only to preserve those which they possess, but also to invent new ones. So conscious were they that they were being dragged into the vortex of democracy: so terribly did they dread perishing there. Singular fact! Their instinct warned them of the danger, but they never perceived it.

As to the distribution of office, the nobility demand that posts in the magistracy be no longer sold, but that any citizen of suitable age and capacity be eligible as a candidate to be presented by the nation to the king. In respect to military rank, a majority of the cahiers are against excluding the Third Estate, and conceive that a man who has deserved well of his country ought to be able to attain the highest rank. Several cahiers say, “The order of the nobility disapproves all laws which close the door of military preferment to the order of the Third Estate.” Some few, however, suggest that noblemen alone should have the right of entering the army as officers without passing through the inferior grades. Nearly all the cahiers demand that uniform rules be established with regard to promotion, that advancement be not wholly obtained by favor, and that, with the exception of the highest posts, promotion proceed by seniority.

As for clerical functions, they demand that elections be re-established for the distribution of livings, or, at all events, that the king appoint a committee to guide him in distributing ecclesiastical preferment.

They say that henceforth pensions must be granted with more discrimination, and not accumulated in certain families; that no citizen must receive two pensions, or draw pay for two offices at once; that survivorships must be abolished.

Church and Clergy.— When they have done with their own rights and peculiar constitution, and turn to the privileges and constitution of the Church, the nobility are not so timid; they have a very sharp eye for abuses.

They demand that the clergy be deprived of all exemptions from taxes; that they pay their debts, and do not call upon the nation to pay them; that the monastic orders be thoroughly reformed. Most of the cahiers declare that these institutions have departed from the spirit of their founders.

Most of the bailiwicks desire that tithes be rendered less injurious to agriculture; several demand their entire abolition. One cahier says that “tithes are for the most part exacted by those curates who give themselves the least trouble to supply their flocks with spiritual food.” The first Order, as is seen, handled the second unceremoniously. Nor was it more respectful in dealing with the Church itself. Many bailiwicks formally assert the right of the States-General to suppress certain religious orders, and apply their property to other uses. Seventeen bailiwicks declare that the States-General may regulate ecclesiastical discipline. Many say that there are too many fête-days; that they injure agriculture, and favor drunkenness; that, in consequence, a great number of them must be suppressed, and Sundays kept instead.

Political Rights.— As to these, the cahiers recognize the right of all Frenchmen to take part directly or indirectly in the government, that is to say, to be electors and eligible. But this right is restricted by the distinction of ranks; that is to say, no one can be elected but by and for his Order. This principle laid out, representation should be so devised as to secure to each Order an active share in the public affairs.

Opinions are divided as to the way of taking votes in the assembly of the States-General: a majority advocate voting by Order, others think this rule ought not to apply to questions of taxation, and others, again, object to it altogether. These latter say, “Each member shall have a vote, and all questions shall be decided by a majority of votes. This is the only rational plan, and the only one that can extinguish that esprit de corps which has been the only source of our misfortunes, draw men together, and lead them to the result which the nation is entitled to expect of an assembly in which patriotism and the virtues are enlightened by learning.” Still, as this innovation might be fraught with danger if hastily introduced in the present state of the public mind, many are for postponing its adoption to subsequent assemblies of the States-General. In any event, the nobility demand that each order preserve the dignity that is meet in Frenchmen; that, consequently, the old humiliating forms which were imposed on the Third Estate—such as bending the knee—be abolished. One cahier says that the “sight of one man on his knees before another is offensive to the dignity of man, and indicates an unnatural inequality among men whose essential rights are the same.”

Of the form of Government and its Constitutional Principles.— As to the form of government, the nobility demand the maintenance of royalty, the preservation of legislative, judicial, and executive powers in the hands of the king, but, at the same time, the establishment of fundamental laws for the purpose of guarding the rights of the nation against the exercise of arbitrary power.

Consequently, all the cahiers proclaim that the nation is entitled to be represented in the States-General, which body must be numerous enough to secure its independence. They desire that these States meet at periodical intervals, and at every change of monarch without special summons. Many bailiwicks express a wish to see this assembly permanent. If the States-General are not convened at the time appointed, it ought to be lawful to refuse to pay taxes. Some cahiers propose that during the interval between the sessions of the States a small committee be intrusted with the duty of watching the administration; but the bulk oppose this scheme flatly, on the ground that such a committee would be unconstitutional. The reason they allege is curious. They say there would be reason to fear that so small a body could easily be seduced by government.

The nobility deny to ministers the right of dissolving the assembly, and propose that they be prosecuted before the courts when they disturb it with their intrigues; they desire that no official, or person in any way dependent on government, shall be a deputy; that the persons of deputies shall be inviolable, and that they shall not be liable to account for opinions expressed in debate; finally, that all sittings of the assembly shall be public, and that the nation be made a spectator by printing the debates.

The nobility unanimously demand that the principles which must govern the state administration be applied to the administration of every portion of the national territory; hence, that in every province, district, and parish, assemblies be established composed of members freely elected for a limited period.

Many cahiers think that the offices of intendant and receiver-general should be abolished; all are of opinion that thenceforth the business of distributing taxes, and managing provincial business, should be left to the provincial assemblies. They advise that a similar plan be adopted with regard to county and parochial assemblies, which henceforth should be under the control of the Provincial States.

Division of Powers: Legislative Power.— In dividing power between the assembled nation and the king, the nobility ask that no law shall take effect until it has been sanctioned by the States-General and the king, and recorded in the registers of the courts appointed to enforce it; that the business of establishing and fixing the quotas of taxes shall belong exclusively to the States-General; that subsidies voted shall only be considered as having been appropriated for the interval between one session of the States and another; that all taxes, established or levied without the consent of the States, shall be deemed illegal, and that all ministers and collectors who shall have ordered or levied such taxes shall be prosecuted for extortion; that, on the same principle, no loan shall be contracted without the consent of the States-General, but that a limited credit shall be opened by the States, to be used by government in case of war or sudden calamity, until a new session of the States can be called; that all the national treasuries shall be under the supervision of the States; that the expenses of each department shall be fixed by them, and that the most careful precautions shall be taken to prevent any appropriation being exceeded.

Most of the cahiers demand the suppression of those vexatious imposts known by the names of insinuation dues, centième denier, ratification dues, and comprised under the title of régie of the king’s domains (one cahier says: “The word régie would alone suffice to condemn them, since it implies that property which actually belongs to citizens is owned by the king”); that all the public domains which are not sold shall be placed under the government of the Provincial States, and that no ordinance or edict for raising extraordinary taxes shall be issued, except with the consent of the three orders of the nation.

The idea of the nobility obviously was to transfer the whole administration of the finances, including loans, taxes, and this class of imposts, to the nation as represented by the general and provincial assemblies.

Judicial Power.— In the same way, the organization of the judiciary tends to make the power of the judges largely dependent upon the assembled nation. Thus several cahiers declare:

“That magistrates shall be responsible for their acts to the assembled nation;” that they shall only be dismissed with the consent of the States-General; that no court shall, on any pretext whatever, be disturbed in the exercise of its functions without the consent of these States; that delinquencies of the Court of Cassation and of the Parliaments shall be judged by these States. Most of the cahiers recommend that no judges but such as the people present for office be appointed by the king.

Executive Power.— This is wholly reserved to the king, but it is limited in order to prevent abuses.

Thus, as to the administration, the cahiers demand that the accounts of the various departments be printed and made public, and that the ministers be responsible to the nation assembled; and in like manner, that the king be bound to communicate his intentions to the States-General before he can employ the troops on foreign service. At home, the troops shall not be used against the people without a requisition from the States-General. The standing army shall be limited; and in ordinary seasons, two thirds only shall be kept in effective service. As to the foreign troops which the king may have in his service, they must be kept away from the heart of the kingdom, and stationed on the frontier.

The most striking feature of the cahiers of the nobility—a feature which no extract can reproduce—is the perfect harmony which exists between these noblemen and their age. They are imbued with its spirit and speak its language. They speak of “the inalienable rights of man,” “principles inherent to the social compact.” In treating of individuals, they speak of their rights; in alluding to society, they talk of its duties. Political principles seem to them “as absolute as moral truths, both the one and the other having reason for their basis.” When they want to abolish the remains of serfdom, they say they must “efface the last traces of human degradation.” They sometimes call Louis XVI. a “citizen king,” and constantly allude to the crime of “high-treason against the nation,” with which they are so soon themselves to be charged. In their eyes, as in those of every one else, public education seems the grand panacea, and its director must be the state. One cahier says that “the States-General will give their attention to forming the national character by modifying the education of children.” Like their contemporaries, they are fond of uniformity in legislative measures, always excepting every thing that concerns the existence of the Orders. They seek a uniform administration, uniform laws, &c., as ardently as the Third Estate. They call for all kinds of reforms, and those radical enough. They are for abolishing or transforming all the taxes without exception, and the whole judicial system, with the exception of the seigniorial courts, which only need improvement. Like all other Frenchmen, they regard France as a trial-field—a sort of political model-farm—in which every thing should be tried, every thing turned upside down, except the little spot in which their particular privileges grow. To their honor, it may even be said that they did not wholly spare that spot. In a word, it is seen from these cahiers that the only thing the nobles lacked to effect the Revolution was the rank of commoners.

example of the religious government of an ecclesiastical province in the middle of the eighteenth century.

1. The archbishop.

2. Seven vicars general.

3. Two ecclesiastical courts called officialities: the one, known as the “metropolitan officiality,” having cognizance of all sentences of the suffragans; the other, known as the “diocesan officiality,” having cognizance, first, of all personal affairs among the clergy, and, secondly, of all disputes regarding the validity of marriages, in reference to the sacrament. This last tribunal is composed of two judges: there are attorneys and notaries attached to it.

4. Two fiscal courts: one, styled the diocesan office, has original jurisdiction over all disputes which may arise respecting the taxes of the clergy in the diocese (the clergy, as is known, imposed their own taxes). This tribunal consisted of the archbishop, presiding, and six other priests. The other court hears appeals from the other diocesan offices of the ecclesiastical province. All these courts admit lawyers, and hear cases pleaded in due form.

spirit of the clergy in the provincial states and assemblies.

What I say in the text of the States of Languedoc applies equally to the Provincial States which assembled in 1779 and 1787, especially those of Haute Guienne. The members of the clergy are distinguished in this assembly for their learning, their activity, their liberality. The proposition to make the reports of the assembly public comes from the Bishop of Rodez.

This liberal tendency of the clergy in political matters, which was evidenced in 1789, was not the fruit of the excitement of the moment; it was of old standing. It was witnessed in Berri in 1779, when the clergy offered 68,000 livres as a free gift if the provincial administration were allowed to subsist.

Note that political society was disjointed, but that civil society still held together. In the heart of the different classes individuals were linked together; there even subsisted some trace of the old bond of union between seigniors and people. These peculiarities of civil society had their influence on politics; men thus united formed irregular and ill-organized masses, but bodies that were certain to be found refractory by government. The Revolution burst these ties, and substituted no political bonds in their stead; it thus paved the way for both equality and servitude.

example of the tone in which the courts spoke of certain arbitrary measures.

It appears from a memorial laid before the comptroller-general by the intendant of the district of Paris, that it was the custom of that district that each parish should have two syndics, one elected by the people in an assembly over which the sub-delegate presided, the other appointed by the intendant, and directed to superintend his colleague. A quarrel took place between the two syndics of the parish of Rueil, the one who was elected refusing to obey his colleague. The intendant induced M. de Breteuil to imprison the refractory syndic for a fortnight in the prison of La Force; on his liberation he was discharged, and a new syndic appointed in his stead. Thereupon the syndic appealed to the Parliament. I have not been able to find the conclusion of the proceedings, but the Parliament took occasion to declare that the imprisonment of the syndic and the nullification of his election could not but be considered “arbitrary and despotic acts.” The courts were sometimes badly muzzled in those days.

The educated and wealthy classes, the burghers included, were far from being oppressed or enslaved under the old regime. On the contrary, they had generally too much freedom; for the crown could not prevent them from securing their own position at the sacrifice of the people’s, and, indeed, almost always felt bound to purchase their good-will or soothe their animosity by abandoning the people to their mercy. It may be said that a Frenchman belonging to this class in the eighteenth century was better able to resist government and protect himself than an Englishman of the same period would have been in the like case. The crown felt bound to use more tenderness and deal more gently with him than the English government would have done to a man of the same standing. So wrong it is to confound independence with liberty. No one is less independent than a citizen of a free state.

a reason which often compelled the government of the old regime to use moderation.

In ordinary times, the most perilous acts for governments are the augmentation of old or the creation of new taxes. In olden times, when a king had expensive tastes, when he rushed into wild political schemes, when he let his finances fall into disorder, or when he needed large sums of money to sustain himself by gaining over his opponents, by paying heavy salaries that were not earned, by keeping numerous armies on foot, by undertaking extensive works, &c., he was obliged to have recourse to taxation, and this at once aroused all classes, especially that one which achieves violent revolutions—the people. Nowadays, in the same circumstances, loans are effected, which are not immediately felt, and whose burden falls on the next generation.

One of the many examples of this is to be found in the election of Mayence. The chief domains of that election were farmed out to farmers-general, who hired as sub-farmers small wretched peasants, who had nothing in the world, and to whom the most necessary farm-tools had to be furnished. It is easy to understand how creditors of this stamp would deal harshly with the farmers or debtors of the feudal seignior whom they represented, and would render the feudal tenure more oppressive than it had been in the Middle Ages.

another example.

The inhabitants of Montbazon had entered on the taille-roll the stewards of a duchy owned by the Prince of Rohan, in whose name it was worked. The prince, who was no doubt very rich, not only has “this abuse,” as he calls it, corrected, but recovers a sum of 5344 livres 15 sous, which he had been wrongfully made to pay, and has the same charged to the inhabitants.

example of the effect of the pecuniary rights of the clergy in alienating the affections of those whose isolation should have made them friends of the church.

The curate of Noisai declares that the people are bound to repair his barn and wine-press, and proposes that a local tax be imposed for the purpose. The intendant replies that the people are only bound to repair the parson’s house; the curate, who seems more attentive to his farm than to his flock, must himself repair his barn and wine-press. (1767.)

The following passage is taken from a clear and moderate memorial presented in 1788 by the peasantry to a provincial assembly: “To the other grievances incident to the collection of the taille must be added that of the bailiff’s followers. They usually appear five times during the levy. They are, in general, invalid soldiers or Swiss. At each visit they remain four or five days in the parish, and for each of them 36 sous a day are added to the tax-levy. As for the distribution of the tax, we will not expose the well-known abuses of authority, or the bad effects of a distribution made by persons who are often incapable, and almost invariably partial and vindictive. These causes have, however, been a source of trouble and strife. They have led to lawsuits which have been very costly to litigants, and very advantageous to the places where the courts sit.”

superiority of the methods used in the pays d’états admitted by officials of the central govrenment itself.

In a confidential letter dated 3d June, 1772, and addressed by the Director of Taxes to the intendant, it is stated, “In the pays d’états the imposition is a fixed percentage, which is exacted and really paid by the taxable. This percentage is raised in the levy in proportion to the increase in the total required by the king (a million, for instance, instead of 900,000 livres). This is a very simple matter. In our districts, on the contrary, the tax is personal, and, to a certain degree, arbitrary. Some pay what they owe, others only half, others a third, others a quarter, and some nothing at all. How is it possible to increase such a tax one ninth, for instance?”

arbitrary imprisonment for corvées.

Example.—It is stated in a letter of the high provost in 1768, “I ordered three men to be arrested yesterday on the requisition of M. C., the assistant engineer, for not having performed their corvée. The affair made quite a stir among the women of the village, who cried, ‘Nobody thinks of the poor people when the corvée is in question; nobody cares how they live—do you see?’ ”

of the manner in which the privileged classes originally understood the progress of civilization in reference to roads.

The Count of K., in a letter to the intendant, complains of the want of zeal with which a road that is to pass near his place is prosecuted. He says it is the fault of the sub-delegate, who is not energetic enough, and does not force the peasantry to perform their corvées.

There were two means of making roads. One was by corvées for all heavy work requiring mere manual labor; the other—and the least valuable resource—was by imposing a general tax, whose proceeds were placed at the disposal of the Department of Bridges and Roads for the construction of scientific works. The privileged classes, that is to say, the principal landholders, who were of course the parties most interested in the roads, had nothing to do with corvées; and as the general tax in favor of the Bridge and Road Department was always joined with the taille, and levied on those who paid it, they escaped that too.

instance of corvées for the removal of convicts.

A letter dated 1761, and addressed to the intendant by the commissioner of the chain-service, states that the peasants were forced to transport the convicts in carts; that they did so very reluctantly; that they were often maltreated by the keepers of the convicts, “who,” says the letter, “are coarse, brutal men, while the peasants, who dislike this duty, are often insolent.”

Turgot’s sketches of the inconveniences and annoyances of corvées for the transportation of military baggage do not seem to me exaggerated now that I have read the documents bearing on the subject. He says, among other things, that the first inconvenience of the system is the extreme inequality with which this heavy burden is borne. It falls wholly on a small number of parishes, who are exposed to it by the misfortune of their position. The distance to be traversed is often five, six, and sometimes ten or fifteen leagues; three days are consumed in the journey and the return. The sum allowed is not one fifth the value of the labor. These corvées are almost invariably required in summer during harvest-time. The oxen are almost always overdriven, and often come home sick, so that many farmers prefer paying 15 or 20 livres to furnishing a cart and four oxen. The work is done in a most disorderly manner; the peasantry are constantly in prey to the violence of the soldiery. Officers almost always exact more than the law allows: they sometimes compel the farmers to yoke saddle-horses to carts, whereby the animals are often lamed. Soldiers will insist on riding on carts that are already heavily laden; in their impatience at the slow gait of the oxen, they will prick them with their swords, and if the farmer objects he is very roughly handled.

example of the application of corvées to every thing.

The marine intendant of Rochefort complains that the peasants are indisposed to perform their corvées by carting the timber that has been purchased by the naval purveyors in the various provinces. (This correspondence shows that the peasants were, in fact, still—1775—bound to corvées of this kind, for which the intendant fixed their remuneration.) The Minister of Marine sends the letter to the intendant of Tours, and says that the carts required must be supplied. The intendant, M. Ducluzel, refuses to sanction corvées of this nature. The Minister of Marine writes him a threatening letter, in which he notifies him that he will apprize the king of his resistance. The intendant replies directly (11th December, 1775), and states firmly, that during the whole ten years of his service as intendant at Tours, he has always refused to authorize these corvées, in consequence of the abuses they involve—abuses which the rates of wages do not compensate; “for,” says he, “the cattle are often lamed by drawing heavy logs over roads as bad as the weather in which this service is usually required of them.” The secret of this intendant’s firmness seems to have been a letter of M. Turgot’s, filed with the correspondence, and dated 30th July, 1774, when Turgot entered the ministry; the letter states that Turgot never sanctioned these corvées at Limoges, and approves M. Ducluzel for refusing to sanction them at Tours.

Other portions of this correspondence show that purveyors of timber frequently exacted these corvées without being authorized to do so by a bargain with the state. They saved at least a third in freight. A sub-delegate gives the following instance of this profit: “Distance to draw the logs from the place where they are cut to the river, over roads almost impassable, six leagues; time consumed, two days. The corvéables are paid at the rate of six liards a league per cubic foot; they will thus receive 13 fs. 10 s. for the journey, which will barely cover the expenses of the farmer, his assistant, and the cattle yoked to his cart. He loses his own time, his trouble, and the labor of his cattle.”

On 17th May, 1776, a positive order of the king to insist on this corvée is intimated to the intendant by the minister. M. Ducluzel having died, his successor, M. L’Escalopier, hastens to obey, and to promulgate an ordinance stating that “the sub-delegate is empowered to distribute the duty among the parishes; and all persons liable to corvées in the said parishes are hereby ordered to be present, at the hour directed by the syndics, at the place where the timber lies, and to cart it at the rate that shall be fixed by the sub-delegate.”

instance of the manner in which the peasantry were often treated.

1768. The king remits 2000 francs of the taille to the parish of Chapelle Blanche, near Saumur. The curate claims a portion of this sum to build a steeple, and so rid himself of the noise of the bells which incommodes him in his parsonage. The inhabitants object and resist. The sub-delegate takes the side of the curate, and has three of the principal inhabitants arrested at night, and locked up in jail.

Another example: Order of the king to imprison for two days a woman who has insulted two troopers of the horse-police. Another to imprison for a fortnight a stocking-maker who has spoken ill of the horse-police. In this case the intendant replies that he has already had the fellow arrested, for which he is warmly praised by the minister. The police, it seems, had been insulted in consequence of the arrests of beggars, which had shocked people. When the intendant arrested the stocking-maker, he gave out that any person thereafter insulting the police would be still more severely punished.

The correspondence between intendant and sub-delegates (1760-1770) shows that the former ordered the arrest of mischievous persons, not to bring them to trial, but to get them out of the way. The sub-delegate asks permission to keep two dangerous beggars he has arrested in perpetual confinement. A father protests against the imprisonment of his son, who has been arrested as a vagabond because he traveled without papers. A landowner of X. demands that a neighbor of his, who has lately come to settle in his parish, whom he aided, but who is conducting himself badly toward him and annoying him, be forthwith arrested. The intendant of Paris begs his colleague of Rouen to oblige him thus far, as the petitioner is his friend.

To some one who desired to have some beggars set at liberty, the intendant replied “that poor-houses must not be considered prisons, but mere establishments intended for the detention of beggars and vagabonds by way of administrative correction.” This idea found its way into the Penal Code. So well preserved have been the notions of the old regime in this matter.

It has been said that the character of the philosophy of the eighteenth century was a sort of adoration of human intellect, an unlimited confidence in its power to transform at will laws, institutions, customs. To be accurate, it must be said that the human intellect which some of these philosophers adored was simply their own. They showed, in fact, an uncommon want of faith in the wisdom of the masses. I could mention several who despised the public almost as heartily as they despised the Deity. Toward the latter they evinced the pride of rivals—the former they treated with the pride of parvenus. They were as far from real and respectful submission to the will of the majority as from submission to the will of God. Nearly all subsequent revolutionaries have borne the same character. Very different from this is the respect shown by Englishmen and Americans for the sentiments of the majority of their fellow-citizens. Their intellect is proud and self-reliant, but never insolent; and it has led to liberty, while ours has done little but invent new forms of servitude.

Frederick the Great says in his Memoirs, “The Fontenelles, the Voltaires, the Hobbeses, the Collinses, the Shaftesburys, the Bolingbrokes—all these great men dealt a deadly blow to religion. Men began to examine what they had stupidly adored. Intellect overthrew superstition. Fables that had long been believed fell into disgust. Deism made many converts. If Epicureanism was fatal to the idolatrous worship of the pagans, Deism was equally fatal to the Judaical visions of our ancestry. The liberty of thought which reigned in England was very favorable to the progress of philosophy.”

It may be here seen that Frederick the Great, at the time he wrote these lines, that is to say, in the middle of the eighteenth century, regarded England as the centre of irreligious doctrines. A still more striking fact is the total ignorance displayed by one of the most enlightened and experienced sovereigns of history, of the political utility of religion. The faults of his masters had injured the natural qualities of his mind.

A similar spirit of progress manifested itself at the same time in Germany, and there, as in France, was accompanied by a desire for a change of institutions. See the picture which a German historian draws of the state of his country at that time:

“During the second half of the eighteenth century,” says he, “the new spirit of the age has been introduced even into ecclesiastical territory, on which reforms are commenced. Industry and tolerance penetrate into every corner of it; it is reached by the enlightened absolutism which has already mastered the greater states. And it must be acknowledged that at no period during the century has the territory of the Church been ruled by sovereigns as worthy of esteem and respect as those who figured during the ten years which preceded the French Revolution.”

Note how this sketch resembles France, where progress and reform took a start at the same moment, and the men who were most worthy of governing appeared just when the Revolution was about to devour them all.

Note, also, how visibly this part of Germany was drawn into the French movement of civilization and politics.

how the organization of the english courts proves that institutions may have made secondary faults without failing in their original object.

Nations have a faculty of prospering in spite of imperfections in the secondary parts of their institutions, so long as the general principles and spirit of these institutions are imbued with vitality. This phenomenon is well illustrated by the judicial organization of England during the last century, as we find it in Blackstone.

Two anomalies at once meet the eye: 1st. The laws differ; 2d. They are carried into effect by different tribunals.

1st. As to the laws:

1. One set of laws is in force for England proper, another for Scotland, another for Ireland, another for certain European possessions of Great Britain, such as the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, others for the colonies.

2. In England alone four systems of law are in use: customary law, statute law, Roman law, equity. Customary law, again, is subdivided into general customs which apply to the whole kingdom, customs which apply to certain seigniories or towns, and customs which apply to certain classes—such, for instance, as the custom of merchants. Some of these customs differ widely from the others, as, for instance, those which, in opposition to the general spirit of the English laws, direct the equal division of property among children (gavelkind), and those more singular customs still which award a right of primogeniture to the youngest child.

2d. As to the courts:

The law, says Blackstone, has established an infinite variety of courts. Some idea may be formed of their number from the following very brief analysis:

1. One meets first with the courts established out of England proper, such as the courts of Scotland and Ireland, which were not subordinate to the superior courts of England, though they were all, I fancy, subject to appeal to the House of Lords.

2. As to England proper, if my memory serves me, Blackstone counts, 1st. eleven kinds of courts existing at common law, of which four seem, indeed, to have fallen into disuse in his time. 2d. Three kinds of courts exercising jurisdiction over certain cases throughout the country. 3d. Ten kinds of special courts: one of these is local courts, created by special acts of Parliament or existing by custom, either at London or in the towns or boroughs of the provinces. These are so numerous and so varied in their systems and rules that Blackstone abandons the attempt to describe them in detail.

Thus, in England proper, if Blackstone is to be believed, there existed at the time he wrote, that is to say, during the second half of the eighteenth century, twenty-four kinds of courts, of which several were subdivided into various species, each having a particular physiognomy. Setting aside those which seem to have fallen into disuse, there yet remain eighteen or twenty.

Now the least examination of this judicial system brings to light ever so many imperfections.

Notwithstanding the immense number of courts, there are none, it seems, close at hand, which can hear petty cases promptly and at small expense, and hence the administration of justice is embarrassing and costly. Several courts exercise jurisdiction over the same class of cases, whence troublesome doubts are thrown upon the validity of judgments. Nearly all the courts of appeal exercise original jurisdiction of one kind or another, either at common law or as equity courts. There are a variety of courts of appeal. The only point where all business centres is the House of Lords. Suits against the crown are not distinguished from other suits, which would seem a great deformity in the eyes of most of our lawyers. Finally, all these courts judge according to four different systems of laws, one of which consists wholly of precedents, and another—equity—has no settled basis, being designed, for the most part, to contradict the customs or statutes, and to correct the obsolete or over-harsh provisions of these by giving play to the discretion of the judge.

Here are astounding defects. Compare this old-fashioned and monstrous machine with our modern judiciary system, and the contrast between the simplicity, the coherence, and the logical organization of the one will place in still bolder relief the complicated and incoherent plan of the other. Yet there does not exist a country in which, even in Blackstone’s time, the great ends of justice were more fully attained than in England; not one where every man, of whatever rank, and whether his suit was against a private individual or the sovereign, was more certain of being heard, and more assured of finding in the court ample guarantees for the defense of his fortune, his liberty, and his life.

This does not indicate that the faults of the judiciary system of England served the ends of justice. It only shows that there may exist in every judiciary system secondary faults which are but a slight impediment to the proper transaction of business, while there are radical faults which, though they coexist with many secondary excellences, may not only interfere with, but absolutely defeat the ends of justice. The former are the easiest to detect; they are instantly noticed by common minds. One can see them at a glance. The others are more difficult to discover, and lawyers are not always the people who perceive or point them out.

Note, also, that the same qualities may be secondary or principal, according to the times and the political organization of society. In aristocratic times, all inequalities, or other contrivances to diminish the privileges of certain individuals before the courts, to guarantee the protection of the weak against the strong, or to give predominance to the action of the government, which naturally views disputes between its subjects with impartiality, are leading and important features. They lose their importance when society and political institutions point toward democracy.

Studying the judiciary system of England by the light of this principle, it will be discovered that, while defects were allowed to exist which rendered the administration of justice among our neighbors obscure, complicated, slow, costly, and inconvenient, infinite pains had been taken to protect the weak against the strong, the subject against the monarch; and the closer the details of the system are examined, the better will it be seen that every citizen had been amply provided with arms for his defense, and that matters had been so arranged as to give to every one the greatest possible number of guarantees against the partiality and venality of the courts, and, above all, against that form of venality which is both the commonest and the most dangerous in democratic times—subserviency to the supreme power.

In all these points of view, the English system, notwithstanding its secondary faults, appears to me superior to our own. Ours has none of its vices, it is true, but it is not endowed with the same excellences. It is admirable in respect of the guarantees it offers to the citizen in suits against his neighbor, but it fails in the particular that is most essential in a democratic society like ours, namely, the guarantees of the individual against the state.

advantages enjoyed by the district of paris.

This district (généralité) enjoyed as large advantages in respect of government charities as of taxes. For example, the comptroller-general writes, on 22d May, 1787, to the intendant of the district of Paris, to say that the king has fixed the sum to be spent in charitable works, in the district of Paris, during the year, at 172,800 livres. Besides this, 100,000 livres are to be spent in cows to be given to farmers. This letter shows that this sum of 172,800 livres was to be distributed by the intendant alone, in conformity with the general rules laid down by the government, and subject to the general approval of the comptroller-general.

The administration of the old regime comprised a multitude of different powers, which had been created—rather to help the treasury than the government—at various times, and often intrusted with the same sphere of action. Confusion and conflicts of authority could only be avoided on condition that each power should agree to do little or nothing. The moment they shook off inertia, they clashed and incommoded each other. Hence it happened that complaints of the complications of the administrative system and of the confusion of powers were much more pressing just before the Revolution than they had been thirty or forty years previous. Political institutions had grown better, not worse; but political life was more active.

arbitrary increase of the taxes.

What the king here says of the taille might have been said with equal truth of the twentieths, as is shown by the following correspondence. In 1772, Comptroller-general Terray had decided upon a considerable increase—100,000 livres—in the twentieths in the district of Tours. M. Ducluzel, an able administrator and a good man, shows all the grief and annoyance he feels at the step in a confidential letter, in which he says, “It is the facility with which the 250,000 livres were obtained by the last increase which has doubtless suggested the cruel step, and the letter of the month of June.”

In a very confidential letter from the director of taxes to the intendant, in reference to the same matter, he says, “If you still think the increase as aggravating and revolting, in view of the public distress, as you were good enough to say it was, it would be desirable that you should contrive to spare the province—which has no other defender or protector but yourself—the supplementary rolls, which, being retroactive in their effect, are always odious.”

This correspondence likewise shows how sadly some standard rule of action was needed, and how arbitrarily matters were managed even with honest views. Intendant and minister both throw the surplus tax sometimes on agriculture rather than labor, sometimes on one branch of agriculture (vines, for instance) rather than another, according to their own ideas as to which interest requires gentle treatment.

style in which turgot speaks of the people of the country parts in the preamble of a royal declaration.

“The country communities,” says he, “in most parts of the kingdom, are composed of poor, ignorant, and brutal peasants, incapable of self-government.”

how revolutionary ideas were spontaneously germinating in men’s minds under the old regime.

In 1779 a lawyer begs the Council to pass an order establishing a maximum price for straw throughout the kingdom.

The chief engineer wrote to the intendant, in 1781, on the subject of a demand for increased indemnity: “The applicant forgets that these indemnities are a special favor granted to the district of Tours, and that he is fortunate in obtaining partial repayment for his loss. If all the parties in interest were reimbursed on the scale he proposes, four millions would not suffice.”

This prosperity did not cause the Revolution; but the spirit which was to cause it—that active, restless, intelligent, innovating, ambitious, democratic spirit, which imbued the new society, was giving life to every thing, and stirring up and developing every social element before it overthrew the whole.

conflict of the several administrative powers in 1787.

Example.— The intermediate commission of the provincial assembly of Ile de France claims the administration of the poor-house. The intendant insists on retaining control of it, as “it is not kept up out of the provincial funds.” During the discussion, the commission applies to the intermediate commissions of other provinces for their opinion. That of Champagne, among others, replies that the same difficulty has been raised there, and that it has, in like manner, resisted the pretensions of the intendant.

I find in the reports of the first provincial assembly of Ile de France this assertion, made by the reporter of a committee: “Hitherto the functions of syndic have been more onerous than honorable, and persons who possessed both means and information suitable to their rank were thus deterred from accepting the office.”