The Ancient Regime Part 5

[Footnote 1305: Mme. de Larochejacquelein, ibid. I. 84. "As M. de Marigny had some knowledge of the veterinary art the peasants of the canton came after him when they had sick animals."]

[Footnote 1306: Marquis de Mirabeau, "Traite de la Population," p. 57.]

[Footnote 1307: De Tocqueville, ibid. p.180. This is proved by the registers of the capitation-tax which was paid at the actual domicile.]

[Footnote 1308: Renauldon, ibid.., Preface p. 5.--Anne Plumptre, "A narrative of three years residence in France from 1802 to 1805." II.

357.--Baroness Oberkirk, "Memoires," II. 389.--"De l'etat religieux,"

by the abbes Bonnefoi and Bernard, 1784, p. 295.--Mme.Vigee-Lebrun, "Souvenirs," p.171.]

[Footnote 1309: Archives nationales, D, XIX. portfolios 14, 15, 25. Five bundles of papers are filled with these pet.i.tions.]

[Footnote 1310: Ibid. D, XIX. portfolio 11. An admirable letter by Joseph of Saintignon, abbe of Domievre, general of the regular canons of Saint-Sauveur and a resident. He has 23,000 livres income, of which 6,066 livres is a pension from the government, in recompense for his services. His personal expenditure not being over 5,000 livres "he is in a situation to distribute among the poor and the workmen, in the s.p.a.ce of eleven years, more than 250,000 livres."]

[Footnote 1311: On the conduct and sentiments of lay and ecclesiastical seigniors cf. Leonce de Lavergne, "Les a.s.semblees provinciales," I vol.

Legrand, "L'intendance du Hainaut," I vol. Hippeau, "Le Gouvernement de Normandie," 9 vols.]

[Footnote 1312: "The most active sympathy filled their b.r.e.a.s.t.s; that which an opulent man most dreaded was to be regarded as insensible."

(Lacretelle, vol. V. p. 2.)]

[Footnote 1313: Floquet, "Histoire du Parlement de Normandie," vol. VI.

p.696. In 1772 twenty-five gentlemen and imprisoned or exiled for having signed a protest against the orders of the court.]

[Footnote 1314: De Tocqueville, ibid. pp. 39, 56, 75, 119, 184. He has developed this point with admirable force and insight.]

[Footnote 1315: De Tocqueville, ibid. p.376. Complaints of the provincial a.s.sembly of Haute-Guyenne. "People complain daily that there is no police in the rural districts. How could there be one? The n.o.bles takes no interest in anything, excepting a few just and benevolent seigniors who take advantage of their influence with va.s.sals to prevent affrays."]

[Footnote 1316: Records of the States-General of 1789. Many of the registers of the n.o.blesse consist of the requests by n.o.bles, men and women, of some honorary distinctive mark, for instance a cross or a ribbon which will make them recognizable.]

[Footnote 1317: De Boulle, "Memoires," p.50.--De Toqueville, ibid.. pp.

118, 119.--De Lomenie, "Les Mirabeau," p. 132. A letter of the bailiff of Mirabeau, 1760.--De Chateaubriand, Memoires," I. 14, 15, 29, 76, 80, 125.--Lucas de Montigny, "Memoires de Mirabeau," I. 160.--Reports of the Societe du Berry. "Bourges en 1753 et 1754," according to a diary (in the national archives), written by one of the exiled parliamentarians, p. 273.]

[Footnote 1318: "La vie de mon pere," by Retif de la Bretonne, I. 146.]

[Footnote 1319: The rule is a.n.a.logous with the other coutumes (common-law rules), of other places and especially in Paris. (Renauldon, ibid.. p. 134.)]

[Footnote 1320: A sort of dower right. TR.]

[Footnote 1321: Mme. d'Oberkirk, "Memoires," I. 395.]

[Footnote 1322: De Bouille, "Memoires," p. 50. According to him, "all the n.o.ble old families, excepting two or three hundred, were ruined. A larger portion of the great t.i.tled estates had become the appanage of financiers, merchants and their descendants. The fiefs, for the most part, were in the hands of the bourgeoisie of the towns."--Leonce de Lavergne, "Economie rurale en France," p. 26. "The greatest number vegetated in poverty in small country fiefs often not worth more than 2,000 or 3,000 francs a year."--In the apportionment of the indemnity in 1825, many received less than 1,000 francs. The greater number of indemnities do not exceed 50,000 francs.--"The throne," says Mirabeau, "is surrounded only by ruined n.o.bles."]

[Footnote 1323: De Bouille, "Memoires," p. 50.--Cherin, "Abrege chronologique des edits" (1788). "Of this innumerable mult.i.tude composing the privileged order scarcely a twentieth part of it can really pretend to n.o.bility of an immemorial and ancient date."--4,070 financial, administrative, and judicial offices conferred n.o.bility.--Turgot, "Collection des Economistes," II. 276. "Through the facilities for acquiring n.o.bility by means of money there is no rich man who does not at once become n.o.ble."--D'Argenson, "Memoires," III. 402.]

[Footnote 1324: Necker, "De l'Administration des Finances," II. 271.

Legrand, "L'Intendance de Hainaut," pp. 104, 118, 152, 412.]

[Footnote 1325: Even after the exchange of 1784, the prince retains for himself "all personal impositions as well as subventions on the inhabitants," except a sum of 6,000 livres for roads. Archives Nationales, G, 192, a memorandum of April 14th, 1781, on the state of things in the Clermontois.--Report of the provincial a.s.sembly of the Three Bishoprics (1787), p. 380.]

[Footnote 1326: The town of St. Amand, alone, contains to day 10,210 inhabitants.]

[Footnote 1327: See note 3 at the end of the volume.]

[Footnote 1328: De Ferrieres, "Memoires," II. 57: "All had 100,000 some 200, 300, and even 800,000."]

[Footnote 1329: De Tocqueville, ibid.. book 2, Chap. 2. p.182.--Letter of the bailiff of Mirabau, August 23, 1770. "This feudal order was merely vigorous, even though they have p.r.o.nounced it barbarous, because France, which once had the vices of strength, now has only those of feebleness, and because the flock which was formerly devoured by wolves is now eaten up with lice. . . . Three or four kicks or blows with a stick were not half so injurious to a poor man's family, nor to himself, as being devoured by six rolls of handwriting."--"The n.o.bility," says St. Simon, in his day, "has become another people with no choice left it but to crouch down in mortal and ruinous indolence, which renders it a burden and contemptible, or to go and be killed in warfare; subject to the insults of clerks, secretaries of the state and the secretaries of intendants." Such are the complaints of feudal spirits.--The details which follow are all derived from Saint Simon, Dangeau, de Luynes, d'Argenson and other court historians.]

[Footnote 1330: Works of Louis XIV. and his own words.--Mme Vigee-Lebrun, "Souvenirs," I.71: "I have seen the queen (Marie Antoinette), obliging Madame to dine, then six years of age, with a little peasant girl whom she was taking care of, and insisting that this little one should be served first, saying to her daughter: 'You must do the honors.'" (Madame is the t.i.tle given to the king's oldest daughter.

SR.)]

[Footnote 1331: Moliere, "Misanthrope." This is the "desert" in which Celimene refuses to be buried with Alceste. See also in "Tartuffe" the picture which Dorine draws of a small town.--Arthur Young," Voyages en France," I. 78.]

[Footnote 1332: 'Traite de la Population,' p. 108, (1756).]

[Footnote 1333: I have this from old people who witnessed it before 1789.]

[Footnote 1334: "Memoires" de M. de Montlosier," I. p. 161,.]

[Footnote 1335: Reports of the Societe de Berry, "Bourges en 1753 et 1754," p. 273.]

[Footnote 1336: Ibid.. p. 271. One day the cardinal, showing his guests over his palace just completed, led them to the bottom of a corridor where he had placed water closets, at that time a novelty. M. Boutin de la Coulommiere, the son of a receiver-general of the finances, made an exclamation at the sight of the ingenious mechanism which it pleased him to see moving, and, turning towards the abbe de Canillac, he says: "That is really admirable, but what seems to me still more admirable is that His Eminence, being above all human weakness, should condescend to make use of it." This anecdote is valuable, as it serves to ill.u.s.trate the rank and position of a grand-seignior prelate in the provinces.]

[Footnote 1337: Arthur Young, V.II. P.230 and the following pages.]

[Footnote 1338: Abolition of the t.i.the, the feudal rights, the permission to kill the game, etc.]

[Footnote 1339: De Lomenie, "Les Mirabeau," p.134. A letter of the bailiff, September 25, 1760: "I am at Harcourt, where I admire the master's honest, benevolent greatness. You cannot imagine my pleasure on fete days at seeing the people everywhere around the chateau, and the good little peasant boys and girls looking right in the face of their good landlord and almost pulling his watch off to examine the trinkets on the chain, and all with a fraternal air; without familiarity. The good duke does not make his va.s.sals to go to court; he listens to them and decides for them, humoring them with admirable patience."

Lacretelle, "Dix ans d'epreuve," p. 58.]

[Footnote 1340: "De l'etat religieux," by the abbes de Bonnefoi et Bernard, 1784, I. pp. 287, 291.]

[Footnote 1341: See on this subject "La partie de cha.s.se de Henri IV" by Colle. Cf. Berquin, Florian, Marmontel, etc, and likewise the engravings of that day.]

[Footnote 1342: Boivin-Champeaux, "Notice historique sue la Revolution dans le departement de l'Eure," p. 63, 61.]

[Footnote 1343: Archives nationales, Reports of the States-General of 1789, T, x.x.xIX., p. 111. Letter of the 6th March, 1789, from the curate of St. Pierre de Ponsigny, in Berry. D'Argenson, 6th July, 1756. "The late cardinal de Soubise had three millions in cash and he gave nothing to the poor."]

[Footnote 1344: De Tocqueville, ibid.. 405.--Renauldon, ibid.. 628.]

[Footnote 1345: The example is set by the king who sells to the farmer-generals, for an annual sum, the management and product of the princ.i.p.al indirect taxes.]

[Footnote 1346: Voltaire, "Politique et Legislation, La voix du Cure," (in relation to the serfs of St. Claude).--A speech of the Duke d'Aiguillon, August 4th, 1789, in the National a.s.sembly: "The proprietors of fiefs, of seigniorial estates, are rarely guilty of the excesses of which their va.s.sals complain; but their agents are often pitiless."]

[Footnote 1347: Beugnot. "Memoires," V. I. p.136.--Duc de Levis, "Souvenirs et portraits," p. 156.--"Moniteur," the session of November 22, 1872, M. Bocher says: "According to the statement drawn up by order of the Convention the Duke of Orleans's fortune consisted of 74,000,000 of indebtedness and 140,000,000 of a.s.sets." On the 8th January, 1792, he had a.s.signed to his creditors 38,000,000 to obtain his discharge.]

[Footnote 1348: King Louis the XVI's brother. (SR.)]

[Footnote 1349: In 1785, the Duke de Choiseul In his testament estimated his property at fourteen millions and his debts at ten millions. (Comte de Tilly, "Memoires," II. 215.)]

[Footnote 1350: Renauldon, ibid.. 45, 52, 628.--Duvergier, "Collection des Lois," II. 391; law of August 31;--October 18, 1792.--Statements (cahier) of grievances of a magistrate of the Chatelet on seigniorial courts (1789), p. 29.--Legrand, "l'Intendance du Hainaut," p.119.]