The World's Greatest Books - Volume 12 Part 10

Favoured by Colbert, to Louis the Huguenots were suspect as rebels who had with difficulty been forced to submission. By him they were subjected to constantly increasing disabilities. At last the Huguenots disobeyed the edicts against them. Still harsher measures were adopted; and the climax came in 1685 with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, following on the "dragonnades" in Alsace. Protestantism was proscribed.

The effect was not the forcible conversion of the Calvinists. but their wholesale emigration; the transfer to foreign states of an admirable industrial and military population. Later, the people of the Cevennes rose, and were put down with great difficulty, though Jean Cavalier was their sole leader worthy the name. In fact, the struggle was really ended by a treaty, and Cavalier died a general of France.

Calvinism is the parent of civil wars. It shakes the foundations of states. Jansenism can excite only theological quarrels and wars of the pen. The Reformation attacked the power of the Church; Jansenism was concerned exclusively with abstract questions. The Jansenist disputes sprang from problems of grace and predestination, fate and free-will--that labyrinth in which man holds no clue.

A hundred years later Cornells Jansen, Bishop of Ypres, revived these questions. Arnauld supported him. The views had authority from Augustine and Chrysostom, but Arnauld was condemned. The two establishments of Port Royal refused to sign the formularies condemning Jansen's book, and they had on their side the brilliant pen of Pascal. On the other were the Jesuits. Pascal, in the "Lettres Provinciales," made the Jesuits ridiculous with his incomparable wit. The Jansenists were persecuted, but the persecution strengthened them. But full of absurdities as the whole controversy was to an intelligent observer, the crown, the bishops, and the Jesuits were too strong for the Jansenists, especially when Le Tellier became the king's confessor. But the affair was not finally brought to a conclusion, and the opposing parties reconciled, till after the death of Louis. Ultimately, Jansenism became merely ridiculous. The fall of the Jesuits was to follow in due time.

DE TOCQUEVILLE

The Old Regime

Born at Paris on July 29, 1805, Alexis Henri Charles Clerel de Tocqueville came of an old Norman family which had distinguished itself both in law and in arms. Educated for the Bar, he proceeded to America in 1831 to study the penitentiary system. Four years later he published "De la Democratie en Amerique" (see Miscellaneous Literature), a work which created an enormous sensation throughout Europe. De Tocqueville came to England, where he married a Miss Mottley. He became a member of the French Academy; was appointed to the Chamber of Deputies, took an important part in public life, and in 1849 became vice-president of the a.s.sembly, and Minister of Foreign Affairs. His next work, "L'Ancien Regime" ("The Old Regime"), translated under the t.i.tle "On the State of Society in France before the Revolution of 1789; and on the Causes which Led to that Event," appeared in 1856. It is of the highest importance, because it was the starting point of the true conception of the Revolution. In it was first shown that the centralisation of modern France was not the product of the Revolution, but of the old monarchy, that the irritation against the n.o.bility was due, not to their power, but to their lack of power, and that the movement was effected by ma.s.ses already in possession of property. De Tocqueville died at Cannes on April 16, 1859.

_I.---The Last Days of Feudal Inst.i.tutions_

The French people made, in 1789, the greatest effort which was ever attempted by any nation to cut, so to speak, their destiny in halves, and to separate by an abyss that which they had heretofore been from that which they sought to become hereafter.

The munic.i.p.al inst.i.tutions, which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had raised the chief towns of Germany into rich and enlightened small republics, still existed in the eighteenth; but they were a mere semblance of the past.

All the powers of the Middle Ages which were still in existence seemed to be affected by the same disease; all showed symptoms of the same languor and decay.

Wherever the provincial a.s.semblies had maintained their ancient const.i.tution unchanged, they checked instead of furthering the progress of civilisation.

Royalty no longer had anything in common with the royalty of the Middle Ages; it enjoyed other prerogatives, occupied a different place, was imbued with a different spirit, and inspired different sentiments; the administration of the state spread in all directions upon the ruin of local authorities; the organised array of public officers superseded more and more the government of the n.o.bles.

This view of the state of things, which prevailed throughout Europe as well as within the boundaries of France, is essential to the comprehension of what is about to follow, for no one who has seen and studied France only can ever, I affirm, understand anything of the French Revolution.

What was the real object of the revolution? What was its peculiar character? For what precise reason was it made, and what did it effect?

The revolution was not made, as some have supposed, in order to destroy the authority of religious belief. In spite of appearances, it was essentially a social and political revolution; and within the circle of social and political inst.i.tutions it did not tend to perpetuate and give stability to disorder, or--as one of its chief adversaries has said--to methodise anarchy.

However radical the revolution may have been, its innovations were, in fact, much less than have been commonly supposed, as I shall show hereafter. What may truly be said is that it entirely destroyed, or is still destroying--for it is not at an end--every part of the ancient state of society that owed its origin to aristocratic and feudal inst.i.tutions.

But why, we may ask, did this revolution, which was imminent throughout Europe, break out in France rather than elsewhere? And why did it display certain characteristics which have appeared nowhere else, or, at least, have appeared only in part?

One circ.u.mstance excites at first sight surprise. The revolution, whose peculiar object it was, as we have seen, everywhere to abolish the remnant of the inst.i.tutions of the Middle Ages, did not break out in the countries in which these inst.i.tutions, still in better preservation, caused the people most to feel their constraint and their rigour, but, on the contrary, in the countries where their effects were least felt; so that the burden seemed most intolerable where it was in reality least heavy.

In no part of Germany, for instance, at the close of the eighteenth century, was serfdom as yet completely abolished. Nothing of the kind had existed in France for a long period of time. The peasant came, and went, and bought and sold, and dealt and laboured as he pleased. The last traces of serfdom could only be detected in one or two of the eastern provinces annexed to France by conquest; everywhere else the inst.i.tution had disappeared. The French peasant had not only ceased to be a serf; he had become an owner of land.

It has long been believed that the subdivision of landed property in France dates from the revolution of 1789, and was only the result of that revolution. The contrary is demonstrable by all the evidence.

The number of landed proprietors at that time amounted to one-half, frequently to two-thirds, of their present number. Now, all these small landowners were, in reality, ill at ease in the cultivation of their property, and had to bear many charges, or eas.e.m.e.nts, on the land which they could not shake off.

Although what is termed in France the old regime is still very near to us, few persons can now give an accurate answer to the question--How were the rural districts of France administered before 1789?

In the eighteenth century all the affairs of the parish were managed by a certain number of parochial officers, who were no longer the agents of the manor or domain, and whom the lord no longer selected. Some of these persons were nominated by the intendant of the province, others were elected by the peasants themselves. The duty of these authorities was to a.s.sess the taxes, to repair the church, to build schools, to convoke and preside over the vestry or parochial meeting. They attended to the property of the parish, and determined the application of it; they sued, and were sued, in its name. Not only the lord of the domain no longer conducted the administration of the small local affairs, but he did not even superintend it. All the parish officers were under the government or control of the central power, as we shall show in a subsequent chapter. Nay, more; the seigneur had almost ceased to act as the representative of the crown in the parish, or as the channel of communication between the king and his subjects.

If we quit the parish, and examine the const.i.tution of the larger rural districts, we shall find the same state of things. Nowhere did the n.o.bles conduct public business either in their collective or their individual capacity. This was peculiar to France.

Of all the peculiar rights of the French n.o.bility, the political element had disappeared; the pecuniary element alone remained, in some instances largely increased.

_II.---A Shadow of Democracy_

Picture to yourself a French peasant of the eighteenth century. Take him as he is described in the doc.u.ments--so pa.s.sionately enamoured of the soil that he will spend all his savings to purchase it, and to purchase it at any price. To complete his purchase he must first pay a tax, not to the government, but to other landowners of the neighbourhood, as unconnected as himself with the administration of public affairs, and hardly more influential than he is. He possesses it at last; his heart is buried in it with the seeds he sows. This little nook of ground, which is his own in this vast universe, fills him with pride and independence. But again these neighbours call him from his furrow, and compel him to come to work for them without wages. He tries to defend his young crops from their game; again they prevent him. As he crosses the river they wait for his pa.s.sage to levy a toll. He finds them at the market, where they sell him the right of selling his own produce; and when, on his return home, he wants to use the remainder of his wheat for his own sustenance--of that wheat which was planted by his own hands, and has grown under his eyes--he cannot touch it till he has ground it at the mill and baked it at the bakehouse of these same men. A portion of his little property is paid away in quit-rents to them also, and these dues can neither be extinguished nor redeemed.

The lord, when deprived of his former power, considered himself liberated from his former obligations; and no local authority, no council, no provincial or parochial a.s.sociation had taken his place. No single being was any longer compelled by law to take care of the poor in the rural districts, and the central government had boldly undertaken to provide for their wants by its own resources.

Every year the king's council a.s.signed to each province certain funds derived from the general produce of the taxes, which the intendant distributed.

Sometimes the king's council insisted upon compelling individuals to prosper, whether they would or no. The ordinances constraining artisans to use certain methods and manufacture certain articles are innumerable; and, as the intendants had not time to superintend the application of all these regulations, there were inspectors general of manufactures, who visited in the provinces to insist on their fulfilment.

So completely had the government already changed its duty as a sovereign into that of a guardian.

In France munic.i.p.al freedom outlived the feudal system. Long after the landlords were no longer the rulers of the country districts, the towns still retained the right of self-government.

In most instances the government of the towns was vested in two a.s.semblies. All the great towns were thus governed, and some of the small ones. The first of these a.s.semblies was composed of munic.i.p.al officers, more of less numerous according to the place. These munic.i.p.al officers never received any stipend, but they were remunerated by exemptions from taxation and by privileges.

The second a.s.sembly, which was termed the general a.s.sembly, elected the corporation, wherever it was still subject to election, and always continued to take a part in the princ.i.p.al concerns of the town.

If we turn from the towns to the villages, we meet with different powers and different forms of government.

In the eighteenth century the number and the name of the parochial officers varied in the different provinces of France. In most of the parishes they were, in the eighteenth century, reduced to two persons--the one named the "collector," the other most commonly named the "syndic." Generally, these parochial officers were either elected, or supposed to be so; but they had everywhere become the instruments of the state rather than the representatives of the community. The collector levied the _taille_, or common tax, under the direct orders of the intendant. The syndic, placed under the daily direction of the sub-delegate of the intendant, represented that personage in all matters relating to public order or affecting the government. He became the princ.i.p.al agent of the government in relation to military service, to the public works of the state, and to the execution of the general laws of the kingdom.

Down to the revolution the rural parishes of France had preserved in their government something of that democratic aspect which they had acquired in the Middle Ages. The democratic a.s.sembly of the parish could express its desires, but it had no more power to execute its will than the corporate bodies in the towns. It could not speak until its mouth had been opened, for the meeting could not be held without the express permission of the intendant, and, to use the expression of those times, which adapted language to the fact, "_under his good pleasure_."

_III.--The Ruin of the n.o.bility_

If we carefully examine the state of society in France before the revolution, we may see that in each province men of various cla.s.ses, those, at least, who were placed above the common people grew to resemble each other more and more, in spite of differences of rank.

Time, which had perpetuated, and, in many respects, aggravated the privileges interposed between two cla.s.ses of men, had powerfully contributed to render them alike in all other respects.

For several centuries the French n.o.bility had grown gradually poorer and poorer. "Spite of its privileges, the n.o.bility is ruined and wasted day by day, and the middle cla.s.ses get possession of the large fortunes,"

wrote a n.o.bleman in a melancholy strain in 1755-Yet the laws by which the estates of the n.o.bility were protected still remained the same, nothing appeared to be changed in their economical condition.

Nevertheless, the more they lost their power the poorer they everywhere became in exactly the same proportion.

The non-n.o.ble cla.s.ses alone seemed to inherit all the wealth which the n.o.bility had lost; they fattened, as is were, upon its substance. Yet there were no laws to prevent the middle cla.s.s from ruining themselves, or to a.s.sist them in acquiring riches; nevertheless, they incessantly increased their wealth--in many instances they had become as rich, and often richer, than the n.o.bles. Nay, more, their wealth was of the same kind, for, though dwelling in the towns, they were often country landowners, and sometimes they even bought seignorial estates.