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THE RURAL REVOLUTION AND ITS AFTERMATH
French Revolution began in 1789. One of its important aspects was the revolt of the people working on the land. Grain merchants, fermiers, sharecroppers, small dirt farmers, day laborers, vagabonds, beggars, even the village priests, were all involved. Peasants all over France rose in revolt in 1789. They had well developed, local organizations and leadership. Their revolt lasted for at least five years, until most of their goals were reached. They were joined by others, and by so me, like the fermiers, who in the past had seemed like enemies. When the rural revolt was over, it became clear that the countryside would never again be what it had been before.1789.
The people of France had not anticipated a peasant uprising. Rural revolutions do not occur easily. A society based on the timeless rhythm of planting, harvesting, heavy physical labor, and just enough food to live on hardly leaves people time and energy to organize a revolution. Even if times are especially difficult -taxes high, rents rising, seigneurs harsh-the peasant farmers usually "take it" and survive. Was it not worse for the 18thcentury Prussian or Polish peasant? Did they do more than bear their burden and suffer? Occasionally, the villagers of Eastern Europe rose in local bread riots. These were acts of desperation against hopeless odds and were quickly suppressed. But these were not rural revolutions of national scale with clear goals, sustained organization, and support.
It takes a certain surplus of time and energy just to think about revolt. Very ordinary peasants must become open to some general ideas. They must be able to understand the cause and effect of their actions. Most important, they must recognize the possibility that, simply by their own actions, they can improve their lot. For a thousand years and more, however, peasants around the world had believed that their misery was caused by God or "Providence." People were helpless before fate. They might pray or light a candle in the parish church, or look for "signs" in folklore and legend, but that was all. Landlords and taxes, rents and dues, poverty and misery, indignities and indifference were, like the weather, beyond the control of human beings. How could peasants ever think they were treated with indignity if they had never known what dignity was? How could they ever believe that the powers-that-be- the priest, the tax collector, the seigneur, the moneylender -were not timeless and even ordained by God or the Devil? Their power over the peasants was the peasants' earthly lot. At least there was the promise of paradise. To revolt was to place even this final hope and comfort in question.
With the whole weight of custom and tradition to keep the peasants quiet, patient, and "in their place," how did it come about, then, that a nationwide revolt of villagers took place? The answer lies, as it always does, in a combination of kings. Further, new attitudes were as important as material conditions of life.
Remember the grievances of the peasants had been mounting. First, food was getting scarcer because the population was growing and food production was not increasing. Second, the seigneurial dues were rising. Old ones were being rediscovered and reinforced. The seigneur used his rights of justice more harshly. He was taking away the peasants right to forage their animals on communal land and to use the wood of communal forests. The seigneur alone was profiting from the sale of hay and wood. He alone seemed to profit from the high price of wheat. Even the fermiers were by higher and higher rents. In all of this, the no seigneur was the object of hostility. Hatred and focused on him. He was seigneur, grain hoarder, landlord, and "outsider" all in one person.
Yet hard times and economic grievances alone do explain this revolution. Peasants were gaining s respect from the way they were treated by the royal government. Had they not been asked to help reform I taxes? And wasn't the government trying to make the nobles pay taxes? Did this mean that peasants nobles were "equal" at least as taxpayers? The peas were beginning to think of themselves as "citizens" rather than as nobodies. With the help of some powerful friends at Paris, was improvement in the lot of country peasants now possible? A growing number of peasants began to think so. This change in attitude was crucial. Without it, there could be no rural revolution.
A successful revolution also needs leaders. They must be persons better educated than the majority of the villagers and trusted by them. They must be able to focus hostilities on a "villain" such as the seigneur. In 1789 there would seem to be three kinds of people in the villages who could act as leaders: fermiers, the priest, and the notary or local lawyer.
The fermiers were seldom trusted enough by the villagers to be suitable leaders at the beginning of the Revolution. Fermiers may have provided necessary services for the villagers. But too many local people owed them money or believed them to be against the old methods of farming. The middling villagers favored the priest or local notary. The priest was a ready-made chairman for village meetings held after mass. Many notaries had already worked for the village community. When the village was arguing with the seigneur about the dues he was trying to collect, or when he was trying to take possession of communal property, the notary was there. The local notary or lawyer, of whom there seemed to be so many in rural France, was an ideal leader since he could address a crowd, write a petition, and interpret the law. He could also be a legal strategist for the village.
Behind these potential local leaders was the village community itself-a local, organized, living body. It became a formidable revolutionary force where it owned a good deal of valuable communal property and where it had been in the habit of holding frequent village meetings. In Burgundy, for example, the villages often acted together. The representatives of as many as 30 of them would meet to discuss common action, especially in early 1789 when Paris asked every village in France to draw up lists of grievances.
There were leaders, then, and some local organization to lead a rural revolution when the time came.
In the two years before 1789, two events put a torch to the peasants' pile of varied grievances. There was a disastrous crop failure, and the French government declared itself bankrupt.
The years 1788 and 1789 were two consecutive years of very bad weather and poor harvests. Grain prices shot up to an all-time high. To make matters worse, there was also a fall in the market for cloth. This drop hit peasants working at home very hard. At the very time the dirt farmer and day laborer needed extra work to buy food and pay taxes, there were fewer opportunities for employment. The winter of 1788-89 was the harshest in 80 years. People literally froze in their huts and cottages for lack of food and heat. Others sold their furniture and even their precious livestock and few tools to buy food for their families. But by the second bad year, there was nothing left to sell. The wretched day laborers, of course, were the worst hit. They took to the road by the hundreds, begging and stealing for food, terrorizing those who had a little something.
By coincidence, a grave financial crisis broke out in the midst of the economic crisis. The royal government was bankrupt. It could no longer borrow money to pay the interest on the debts it already had, much less borrow more to keep itself going. What were the results for the countryside? There was less money for everything- to buy grain abroad, to distribute food to the needy, to undertake public works that would provide jobs, or even to maintain law and order in towns and villages. Since tax revenues fell off dramatically in these bad years, that source of public money was also reduced.
Obviously the royal government had to find some way out of its plight. Since 1750, there had been efforts to tax the nobles, but none had succeeded. It was now decided to call the ancient French parliament, the Estates General, which had not met since 1614, that is, for 175 years! Nobody quite knew after so long a time just how that body should be organized, or what it could rightly do. The royal government summoned all the villages and towns of France to take part in electing representatives to go to Paris and advise the king about how France should be reformed. All towns and villages were also asked to draw up lists of their own grievances. The meeting of the Estates General (soon known as the National Assembly) in May 1789 can be taken as t beginning of the French Revolution.
When the king's call for help with planning the meeting of -the Estates General arrived, the effect in the smallest village was enormous. For the first time it seemed that the great men in Paris, the king especially, needed the help of the little people, of ordinary dirt farmers and artisans. The king wanted to hear their grievances. In a small village near Dijon "They are going to do something especially for us!" At a time when peasant meekness had been breaking down, the calling of this national assembly in the spring of 1784 encouraged hopes of change all over rural France.
Imagine the excitement as all the villagers gathered in the parish church to elect representatives and write down their complaints! Imagine the priest trying to maintain order at the pulpit. Can you see the local notary trying to write everything down- no doubt his quill splashing ink in his own excitement-as the larger tenants and the seigneurial agent tried to prevent too many grievances against them from being listed. But the grievance list proved how often these conservatives failed. In many villages the middle group of farmers and artisans shouted down the moderates and made their complaints known. These lists of grievances, called the cahiers,{ka-Ya’} (notebooks), stand as clear evidence of the strong feelings of the peasants. They show how the villagers hated the seigneurial system, unfairly apportioned, taxes, and privileges of any kind. The lists also reveal the general desire for equality before the law, and even for public primary education for all. In effect, these meetings pumped fresh life into the village assemblies. Many of them continued to meet and write down grievances, bombarding Paris with petitions. What a wonderful feeling to have "friends in high places" for the first time!
THE RURAL REVOLUTION:
STAGE I, SPRING AND SUMMER 1789
But if hope was a strong emotion in rural France in the spring and summer of 1789, fear was another. Hardship and desperation, added to hope of reform, easily lead to impatience and fear of disappointment if results are not quickly forthcoming. As news trickled back from Paris, it became clear that not all of the deputies at the National Assembly would vote for the reforms the villagers wanted. Furthermore, after two months of arguing over how the assembly should be organized, no agreement could be reached. There were stories that the king was gathering troops in order to suppress the meeting altogether.
While hearing these disappointing reports from Paris -no doubt incomplete and often garbled -the villagers continued to struggle against growing problems at home. On the one hand, they became increasingly concerned about the numbers of wandering beggars and vagabonds. On the other hand, they became suspicious and angry about grain hoarding. They often prevented the wagon trains of grain from leaving the local district. There was obvious need for a- local police force. The peasants armed themselves. As the summer advanced, alarming rumors spread throughout France. It was said that the nobles were organizing the vagabond poor into an army of bandits. It was spread about that the grain hoarders had conspired with landlords to starve the "people" and stop reform. It was rumored that the "aristocrats" were all in league with foreign powers to betray the hopes of the villagers. Most of these feelings and fears had no basis, in reality. However, the fact that many Parisian aristocrats, including the king's two brothers, were leaving France did not reassure the villagers. Should these aristocrats be stopped from going abroad? Something must be done.
All over France these rumors spread like wildfire. Something like this would happen. A villager claimed he actually saw hundreds of armed thieves emerging from the communal wood. The whole village rose in arms. The church bell summoned help from the neighboring villages, and whole nights were spent in armed waiting. Morning usually uncovered a few scared woodcutters or harmless beggars, nothing more. Yet the nervous tension continued, worse than ever. Here was a striking example of the mass psychology that came to be called the "Great Fear."
Then in July of 1789 dramatic news came from Paris. A famous royal prison, the Bastille, had been seized by a crowd of Parisians after some heavy fighting. Peaceful reform seemed to be failing. The villagers were more convinced than ever that the rumor of an "aristocratic plot" was true. They began to shift their attention from the largely imaginary bands of thieves to the very real manor houses of the noble seigneurs. Groups of villagers armed with pitchforks, sometimes led by the parish priest - or the village council, marched to the nearest chateau. They pulled down the coat of arms and then burned the tower where the rent registers were kept. They seldom murdered the seigneur, but they certainly scared him to death. Many seigneurs fled to Paris or to the larger towns. Others tried to calm the angry villagers by publicly renouncing their seigneurial dues and turning- over their account books. Few noble landlords joined the villagers, however. Most waited, hoping for a restoration of law and order. To most nobles, "law and order" meant restoration of privileges.
Thus, the summer of 1789 witnessed the first stag of the rural -revolution. It had its effect not only in ma local villages, but also in Paris and in the National Assembly. Many members of the Assembly, some them large landlords, were so frightened by reports peasant violence that they were willing to take action In the famous night session of August 4-5, they adopted a, series of resolutions declaring an end to all seigniorial rights. But the laws carrying out these resolutions al provided that peasants should repay their seigneur for his loss of revenue. Peasants who had previously paid a quitrent of a few bushels of wheat, or a dime of o twelfth or -one-eighth of the harvest now had to pa their seigneur at least 20 times the value of these annual dues in exchange. Very few peasants could make such a large payment all at once. Their high hopes were dashed by disappointment. Many of them felt betrayed
THE RURAL REVOLUTION:
STAGE II, 1790-91
The second stage of the rural revolution took place in the years 1790 and 1791. In Paris the National Assembly was voting a whole series of revolution changes for France. It was decided that a regular parliament would be elected to govern with the king. Most of the old offices and organs of government were re placed by new ones. No one could buy an office. There were new courts, a new criminal law, and a new loc government. Local power through local representative was established in all the towns and villages. Taxes were to be paid by all persons in proportion to their income. Titles of nobility and coats of arms were abolished. Nobles were hereafter required to use their family names only. The central government took over the lands of the Church in order to balance the budget. Thereafter the government paid the salaries of the priest and bishops. These men were now to be elected by popular vote and supervised by the government. A
political press and political parities were born. The mere listing of these far-reaching changes leaves no doubt that the National Assembly had legislated a political and social revolution in France.
In the countryside this second stage of the rural revolution was less violent than the first. The villagers simply refused to pay seigneurial dues, the dime, or even many taxes. Village communities were increasingly willing to act together against the seigneur and his agent. Such action was made possible by the breaking down of the old royal administration, especially the replacement of the old courts. With new organs and new men governing France, village people were more able than ever before to make their wishes known.
This shift in local power can be illustrated on the land of Duke-Saulx-Tavanes near Dijon. At first the duke and his agent, F6n6on, could not understand why the villagers did not pay their dues. Did the villagers misunderstand the new law requiring them to pay the seigneur back for his revenue loss? The agent petitioned the new local court and was surprised to lose his case. The new judges seemed to side with the villagers, or, as F6n6on said, they were under pressure from the crowd in the courtroom. Lawsuits over communal wood also went against the duke for the first time. He even had to give up some of his own wood to the new village communes. The duke was also distressed to find out that many of the local' lawyers he used to rely on were no longer helpful or friendly. It was no longer popular to work for a "former seigneur."
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Villagers no longer willing to pay seigneurial dues also affected the fermiers of the duke. Recall that the fermiers had collected these dues. Fermiers now requested a rent decrease to balance off the losses from the dues. There was much arguing. Many fermiers simply refused to pay the same rents they paid before 1789. They began to believe that it would be better for them if the seigneurial dues were permanently removed and their rents permanently lowered. The new legislation should not be reversed. In fact, the new government might be called upon to pass other laws, especially for fermiers. Why should they be left out? They began to request longer leases and back pay for farm improvements. They also asked that the seigneurs share the taxes. In short, the fermiers began to fall in behind the smaller farmers. Having waited carefully on the sidelines for two years, they now began to believe that the Revolution was not going to be undone. Why not join in and perhaps guide it to their advantage? At least this seemed to be the reaction of the fermiers of the Saulx-Tavanes family. By 1791 the taxes were reapportioned and now fell much more heavily on the duke. His agent complained to the officials that the duke's taxes had doubled while the villagers paid less than in 1789. He got nowhere. In fact, by 1792 the government raised the tax rate even higher on the "former privileged."
THE RURAL
REVOLUTION:
STAGE III, 1792-94
From 1792 to 1794 events in Paris, closely related to international affairs, took the spotlight away from the rural revolution. These years were, the most violent. They are the ones people today are most likely to have in min when they hear of the French Revolution. Early in 1792 war broke out between France and a combination of a most all the great powers of Europe. Believing that the king was secretly allied with enemy countries which his attempted flight to Austria seemed to confirm revolutionaries arrested and later executed him. France became a republic, a very radical form of government in 1792. For a time France was almost overwhelmed b foreign armies and by a series of revolts within the country that spread from Brittany to the Rhone River Valley. To end this civil war, thousands of people who were thought to be against the Revolution were execute in the so-called Reign of Terror. Laws were adopted to control inflation, to subject men to a draft, and to organize the country for war. As a result of this national effort, the French armies beat off their foreign enemies. It took them two desperate years of struggle
The villagers, as they learned of these development
were often confused as well as excited, full of fear well as hope. Their greatest fear was that their ear gains
would be lost. Large numbers of nobles fleeing
other countries, not only from Paris but also from the country estates, made
the peasants more suspicious all noble landlords. Were these nobles entering into alliance with foreign powers to
undo all the changes made by the Revolution? When the king and queen tempted to
flee to Austria, they too appeared to be traitors to the Revolution. The war with Austria and Prussia in 1792,
followed by England in 1793, confirmed the fear that the Revolution had
powerful enemies everywhere.
The villagers did not approve of all the policies adopted by the revolutionary governments. They resented taxes, the draft, price controls, and the growth of -power in Paris. Many peasants were upset by the radical new law that made bishops and priests elective officials, paid by the government. About half of the parish priests throughout France formally rejected this new arrangement. Remember that the local priests had great influence among the villagers. Their refusal to follow the new rules- meant that, for the first time, large numbers of local priests began to turn against the Revolution. Many went into hiding or, like many nobles, left France. Because of these religious policies, some peasant farmers, especially from the very religious regions of France, rose in arms against the new French republic in 1793. However, the vast majority of French villagers remained loyal to the Revolution. Their sons filled the ranks of the new Republican armies. These armies, after many reverses, began to win the war in the spring of 1794. No doubt village youths who joined the national army in victory were among the most eager supporters of the new regime. They felt part of a crusading "nation in aims" fighting "tyrants" everywhere.
The government had an enormous need of money during the war years. This need led to the adoption of a far-reaching policy, which, more than anything else, affected the peasant population. You will recall that the government was already in possession of the land of the Church. Now the government took over the land of the nobles and any others who had fled from the country or were suspected of treason. By 1793 it was offering this land for sale in small pieces, only one or two acres in many cases. The terms were reasonable. With a small down payment and ten years to pay the balance, the highest bidder got the land. It will be noted that very few revolutionaries, even among the most radical in Paris, proposed distributing the land free to the poor. It is probable that most people in France believed that the landless poor did not deserve free land. If they could find money to buy a few pieces, however, they could in that way prove themselves worthy of landowning. They would then have shown the virtues of self-reliance, hard work, thrift, and the desire for economic independence. Nor was there any serious suggestion that the government keep the land as national property. Here was no Socialist revolution. Some of the land-hungry farmers were slow to buy. They had bad feelings about buying land that had been taken from the Church. Other persons, who profited from other policies of the Revolution, hesitated to buy because they thought if the war were lost and the Revolution put down, they would be in trouble.
POST-REVOLUTION LANDOWNERS
Who then bought the land-about 15 per cent of the soil of France? Along with fermiers, it appears the wealthier merchants and holders of government bonds in the towns had the money to buy the largest pieces. The Saulx-Tavanes family emigrated. About 3,000 acres of their land (about 1,214 hectares)-was sold by the government. Between 15 and 20 per cent, including the best farm buildings, went either to former fermiers of the duke or to well-to-do buyers from the larger towns such as Dijon. But the other 80 per cent was bought by that mass of small holders who added an acre, or fraction thereof, to their "micro-holdings." Most of these buyers were still not self-sufficient owners. Their deep desire for the land was partly satisfied, however. Perhaps 10 per cent of the buyers were people who had never before owned land. One of the duke's former fermiers bought 1 50 acres (about 61 hectares) of the Saulx-Tavanes land in 1793. By 1807 he had earned a local reputation for experimental farming. This reputation he could not have earned by renting 1,000 acres of the duke's land (about 405 hectares) before 1789.
In other parts of France, like the neighborhood of Toulouse, there was less land sold. Marquis d'Escouloubre stayed in France during the Revolution and his land was not taken. Little land was sold in this region, at least to sharecroppers.
It would be wrong to undervalue the importance of this land redistribution. Of course it did not create small landowners in France, for they already existed. Nor did it destroy large landowners. Among the nobles, at least three-quarters of them remained in France and did not lose their domain land. But the ideal of small, middling, self-reliant landowners was enormously strengthened. For these people the Revolution was a, great milestone. They profited from the downgrading of the nobility. They benefited from the redistribution of the land to those like themselves. They enjoyed the new names of "citizen" and "proprietor" that were used to describe them. Indeed, they acquired a new sense of dignity that not even the return of the old nobility and of royalty in 1815 could reverse or undo.
In the main, the rural revolution was completed by 1794. Seigneurial dues were gone. The peasant owners of lands belonging to former seigneurs were now outright owners like their modern counterparts. About 15 per cent of the soil had been taken from large owners and sold to middling and small owners. Taxes were shared by all property holders. All French landholders large, middling, and small -were alike under law; they were "citizens," Legal privileges of nobility, of office, of cities, and of property were gone forever.
In other ways the French Revolution continued until 1799. During these five years there was a marked trend to avoid further social reform and a strong effort to protect private property. Unfortunately, the struggling parliamentary government failed to solve many problems. Chief among them were war, inflation, religious tension, and security at home. In the midst of these uncertainties, Napoleon Bonaparte managed to himself at the head of the French armies and then of the government. He posed as a "strong man," promising to solve all problems and still "save" the revolutionary reforms. He seized power in 1799 and ruled as dictator for 16 years.
Napoleon declared at the beginning of his reign that he was "a child of the Revolution." Indeed, he preserved a large number of the changes made by the Revolution, including those affecting the villages. But as we try to weigh the consequences of the revolutionary and Napoleonic periods in the countryside, we make one startling discovery. In the end, the Revolution and Napoleon brought about the collapse of the villages as independent, functioning units.
It is difficult to believe that the French Revolution, and the wars of Napoleon that followed, in the end destroyed meaningful village government. All that we have said of the rural revolution to this point seems to lead to an opposite conclusion. The rural revolution in its early stages, 1789 to 1791, had been led by the newly established village communes. For over a century before 1789, especially in eastern France, the villages had fought their seigneurs in the law courts, usually to be sure, losing their cases. Then between 1789 and 1791, the village revolted and destroyed forever the power of the seigneur over it. How did it happen, then, that by the 1820's the village was no longer an active force? How can we explain that it had already become the sleepy, -politically powerless, and economically helpless cluster of houses, half-deserted churches, and boarded-up town halls that we know today?
One answer lies in the attitudes of the people in the larger towns and especially in Paris. They disliked giving too much power to the villages. They considered it inefficient, disorderly, and even dangerous to permit each village commune to act on its own. It was all very well for villages to refuse to pay seigneurial dues. Bu when they refused to pay taxes, debts, and even regular rents it was time to place limits on what independent actions they could take.
A village in the 20th century, although it may not be as
influential as the village communes were during the Revolution, is nevertheless
a center where farmers and villagers can enjoy an independent life.
In the second place, events forced the government in Paris to resume a good deal of authority over the villages. From 1792 to 1815 the country had to be organize4 for war. Troops had to be ordered up and supplied. Food had to be rationed and prices controlled. Unless the government was centralized and orders carried out in uniform way all over the country, the Revolution would be defeated by foreign invaders, émigrés (people who fled France), and countless "enemies" from within. Reluctantly, the villages had to give way to the new centralization. In this respect, the new central government was not unlike the old royal government before 1789. After 1800, Napoleon's "prefects" took the places once occupied by Louis XIV’s intendents. These officials had to approve even the smallest local decision, such as repairing the parish church bell or digging the village well. Even worse, Napoleon’s government began to forcer the villager to pay back taxes. Here were old debts that went back to the bad years before 1789. The answer was, by selling communal property to the national government, or more often, to individual buyers. The loss of communal land was the greatest blow of all to village.
The decline of the village commune could not have been foreseen in 1789. The demands of war, the mass departure of the nobles, and the reaction of the Church against the Revolution brought unexpected results. One of these results was the extreme centralization of government in Paris. Without these emergencies, centralization might not have been necessary. But, unfortunately, history does not deal with what might have happened or even what is intended to happen. It deals with what does happen. Much of history is made up of unintended results of action.
The decline in influence of the landed nobility after the Revolution seems more understandable. Of course, the decline was slow. But the revolution has started the process of decreasing wealth, power, and respect for the nobility. The history of several noble families during and after the Revolution will show how the decline was felt.
Noble landlords began to come out of hiding around 1800. Napoleon promised them personal security if they would not resist his new government. But some nobles stayed abroad until 1815, when the old mon00-archy was reestablished. Most had survived in life and limb, although their fortunes had been hard hit. Of some 40,000 noble families, perhaps one in four had lost some, or all, of their land. As a group, the nobles lost about one-fifth of their land, but close to one-third of their fortunes. But what of their social prestige, political influence, and control over the countryside? These matters can be illustrated by examining again the three families we have come to know best-the Saulx-Tavanes, the Depont, and the Escouloubre.
The Saulx-Tavanes family had gone into exile in 1792. The duke's son fought with the exile army of French nobles against the new republic. But all such military efforts were in vain. The family spent almost ten, years in exile, most of it in Russia or England. There they were -supported by the Russian czar and the English government. In the eyes of the French Republic this was treason, and in 1793 the government took over the properties of Saulx-Tavanes in Burgundy. The household furnishings were sold first, then the land. Fortunately for the family, the revolutionary government did not break up the forests for sale. They were returned to the duke in 1802. But about 3,000 acres (about 1,214 hectares) of arable and meadowland were sold, often in pieces of less than an acre. Of course, all the duke's seigneurial rights and all his pensions from the king were taken from him. In 1800 the family had one-third of its land and only one-fifth of its income of 1789. The second duke never regained his old position at the royal court. Influence in high places was greatly lessened after 1789. All later governments recognized that rewards for public positions had to be earned.
The family was further weakened by bitter arguing over the division of the first duke's estate. The Revolution had passed a new inheritance law. This law stated that the fortune of a noble family had to be divided almost equally among all the children, just as it always had been among non-nobles. The last duchess of Saulx-Tavanes had to be content with spending the rest of her life in the provinces as one proprietor among many. Since her long life spans the Revolution, her reflections near the~ middle of the 19th century tell us something about declining prestige:
All the ties which hold me to life have been successively broken. Only a few traces of what I have known remain. Ideas, opinions, mores [customs] have changed; and like the. daughters of Jerusalem, I mourn the miseries of Zion in a strange land.
The glorious days with connections at court and with vassals" in Burgundy were gone forever. But the change in "ideas, opinions, and mores" was even more threatening to the prestige of an old noble family like the Saulx-Tavanes.
The Depont family at La Rochelle and Paris reacted differently to the events of the Revolution. Had they been old court nobles, perhaps they would have behaved like the duke. Maybe they would have fought against the Revolution by joining its enemies abroad. But the Depont had learned to adapt to new situations before. They had been town councilors, intendants, and judges. These positions were achieved largely through personal merit and very little by ancestry or name. One member of the younger branch of the family at Paris even favored the first phase of the Revolution. He wanted a constitutional monarchy like that of England. His sense of public service, even to a new form of government, was stronger than the blind aristocratic loyalty of the Saulx-Tavanes for the king and the king's heirs.
However, the small farmers and winegrowers on the family estate near La Rochelle saw little difference. Depont was, after all, a seigneur. The Revolution broke out in this region amid a desperate food shortage. Depont's agent reported in 1789 that there were peasants in his villages that had not eaten for days. Soon the overthrow of seigneurial dues liberated dozens of small winegrowers from their one-twelfth or one-eighth payments and reduced Depont's income from the land by one-third. His public bonds went down in the bankruptcy of government finances. Nevertheless, like so many provincial nobles, Depont did not leave France but remained quietly at home. He had one scare in 1797. Local revolutionaries at La Rochelle discovered that his son-in-law had fought with the English against France, and they seized part of Depont's land. Ironically, the highest bidder for it was Depont himself. He managed to buy back his own land for silver. A few years later, he emerged as a local landlord whose meadows produced hay for the horses of Napoleon's army. Depont had survived.
Yet the national prominence of the younger branch of Deponts was gone by 1800. They had not been allowed to work for the new republic. Even liberal monarchists had to go. Leaving his diplomatic post -at Cologne in 1792, the son of jean-Samuel De Pont, the intendant, never regained high office. He married into a poor, but very old, provincial noble family. The Deponts had reached the top of the noble "ladder" at a time when its prestige was falling. Of course, they might have adapted to the new century as important officials or diplomats. But they didn't. As it was, both branches of the family became local landlords again, more modest than the Saulx-Tavanes.
As for Marquis d'Escouloubre, he survived the Revolution better than the others. Like most of the nobility of Toulouse, he did not leave France. He spent most of the revolutionary decade quietly on his estate at Vieillevigne. Only during the year of the "Terror" (1793-94) did the marquis decide to hide in Paris away from his land. Although his property was taken over by the revolutionaries, it was never sold. Local administrators seemed very slow to sell land around Toulouse. They probably sensed that the old landed families would one day return from hiding.
Remember that villages like Vieillevigne did not have the revolutionary organization and leadership to sustain a rural revolution. The, village assemblies were practically dead before 1789, and the village elders were controlled by the local seigneurs. Without fermiers, rural notaries, or even a few discontented seigneurial agents, there was little possible leadership in the countryside. Even the middle group of small owners and rural artisans, the backbone of rural revolution elsewhere, was economically weak and very dependent on the noble landlords. Most sharecroppers never really rebelled against their seigneur. Surely they had material complaints, but they never lost their respect for the "master" in the chateau. It was another 50 years before the lack of farm labor and the division of properties under new rules of equal inheritance changed things in the villages. Then these new conditions weakened the hold of landlords like Escouloubre over the villagers in this region. And only then do we begin to see the small farmers speak with independence and even disrespect for the old seigneur.
In France as a whole, then, noble landlords with local influence continued to exist after 1800. But they were deprive of privileges and favor from the government and of dependence of the villagers. The nobles could rarely regain the same hold on the local community they had had before 1789Loss of influence was the fate of those who had kept their land as well as of those who lost part or all of it. No doubt this fate was not clear immediately after the Revolution, nor everywhere at once. The breakdown of respect for nobility advanced much more quickly in the region around Dijon, for example, than in the region around Toulouse. But the French Revolution marked the beginning of this change everywhere.
Finally, what about the poor? They had neither the means nor the ability to start a revolutionary movement to keep it going. Although the very poor made up one-forth of the total population of France in 1789, they gained few benefits from the Revolution.
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Very few of the poor acquired land. Moreover, the sale of Church property even hurt the. The Church no longer had the means to offer charity. The republican government attempted to provide public relief, but it never had money enough. The war absorbed it all.
The poor were also injured by the decrease of communal land and by the frequent loss of other traditional rights. No longer could they collect leftover grain or pasture their animals on fields from which the harvest had been taken. Now laws made it easier to abolish these rights. Even small owners sometimes argued for dividing the common land so that they could buy pieces of it. Many persons argued, with good reason, that communal rights to pasture and “glean” were an insult to private property. They said also that these rights were an obstacle to farm improvement. The ideal and respectability of private ownership now outweighed the tradition of communal rights in many minds. The idea of communal property fell in importance for the great mass of peasant owners after 1789. Fortunately for the poor there was no blanket overthrow of communal rights as there had been of seigneurial rights. It seems clear, however, that the fermiers, townspeople, and middling peasants profited most by changes in land ownership, not the poor or the landless
In fact, the poor were viewed with suspicion and even fear by both small property owners and fermiers. The poor, they thought, were too ready to take violent and uncontrollable action, to steal communal wood and hay, and to injure all forms of private property. The small property owners were in the majority in most parts of France. They were not anxious to use the Revolution to help the poor.
Revolutions not only alter power relations, and sometimes property relations, by changes in the law. They also wrench people out of old ways of thinking and reacting. The "great" fall, and although they may seem to pull themselves up after the storm, things are never the same again. In France, after a decade of revolution, an increasing number of "pigmy" farmers and middling landholders looked upon the old manor-house on the hill in a different way. It looked less imposing, and it seemed less worthy of respect. New “citizens” and “proprietors” expressed an independence that was more than a matter of acres and revenues. More important than the improvement in the living standard of these people was their growing feeling of self-worth and individual dignity. A plot of ground for everyone; a household free from outside interference. After the seigneur had fallen, but before the age of mass production and industrial growth, the ideal of the small but proud peasant owner had- its moment in the history of Western Europe. It still remains the goal of millions of "little people" throughout the world.