FRANCE. (EFFECTS OF THE REVOLUTION.) 



285 



arrogance of the nobility inspired them. The most 

 contemptuous appellations (see Canaille) were ap- 

 plied to them by the nobility, for the purpose of 

 keeping up a distinction, which the cultivation and 

 wealth of the citizens had long deprived of all truth. 

 Although a great part of the nation was deficient in 

 regular education (the lowest classes of Frenchmen, 

 before the revolution, were among the most ignorant 

 of all the Europeans), yet there had been a consi- 

 derable advancement in the intelligence of the nation; 

 and, as reform was loudly called for by all classes, it 

 was natural that, even without the writings of Vol- 

 taire and Rousseau, the primitive and natural state of 

 political society should have become the general sub- 

 ject of reflection. The foundation of the state on a 

 social contract, the derivation of all power from the 

 will of the nation, is by no means an idea of late 

 origin, as many persons would persuade us ; it is the 

 most natural and the oldest theory of society ; and it 

 had been propagated in France by works which were 

 read by much greater numbers than Rousseau's Con- 

 trat Social by the works of Fenelon, Bossuet, and 

 Massillon. Bossuet's Politique tiree de VEcriture 

 sainte is full of passages of this nature. Fenelon, 

 in his Directions pour la Conscience d'un Hoi, says 

 (Direct. 36, p. 65,) plainly, C'est un contrat fait avec 

 les peuples pour les rendre vos sujets ; commencerez- 

 VOUA par violer votre titre fondamental ? Us ne vo.us 

 doivent robeissance que suivant ce contrat, et si vans 

 le violez vous ne meritez plus quails Fobservent. Mas- 

 sillon, in his Sermons in Lent (Petit careme) tliat 

 manual of the people represents to the king, that 

 he owes his power only to the choice of the nation, 

 and concludes with the following words : En un mot, 

 comme la premiere source de leur autorite vient de 

 nous, les rots n'en doivent faire usage que pour nous. 

 No sooner, therefore, had the parliaments effected the 

 meeting of the states-general, than these ideas pre- 

 sented themselves, at once, from every quarter. It 

 required only a motion by Mirabeau (in July, 1789), 

 for the establishment of a national guard, and all 

 France was under arms. Tliis general arming of all 

 the communities on one day, merely on account of an 

 empty rumour, that the harvest was to be burned 

 down, and the insurrections of the peasants against 

 their lords, which followed immediately, are among 

 the most mysterious and important events of the 

 revolution. How many castles were destroyed, how 

 many archives burnt, the historians of the revolution 

 do not inform us ; but it was evident that the com- 

 mon people were already aiming at the destruction of 

 all feudal documents in the hands of the nobility. It 

 was a practical anticipation of the decrees of the 

 national assembly, adopted on the night of August 

 4, 1789, and on the following days, abolishing all 

 feudal rights. These decrees are the real basis of 

 the whole revolution ; they threw off the restrictions 

 on landed property, which had been imposed by the 

 feudal system, and thus paved the way for a munici- 

 pal organization, upon which the constitution of 

 modern France is founded. All the feudal services 

 and their substitutes were abolished without indemni- 

 fication; all other seigneurial imposts, perquisites, and 

 rents were declared redeemable by the tenants. The 

 exclusive right of the nobility to keep pigeons, and 

 to let them loose in sowing time, on the fields of the 

 peasants (apparently an insignificant privilege, but a 

 great annoyance to the peasantry), was abolished. 

 The game laws were also abolished. The right to kill 

 game on his own ground was given to every one, on 

 condition of his observing the general police regula- 

 tions. The feudal tribunals were suppressed, and a 

 new administration of justice provided for. The organ- 

 isation of the judiciary, introduced by the national 

 assembly, still exists in its essential features, and has 



ever been considered by the nation as one of the 

 greatest benefits of the new order of things. The 

 tithes paid to the church and ecclesiastical orders 

 were abolished, and the state took upon itself the 

 maintenance of the church and the public support of 

 religion. The tithes in the possession of laymen 

 were declared redeemable. The venality and here- 

 ditary descent of all judicial and magisterial offices, 

 the exemption of the nobility from taxes, the exclu- 

 sion of the third estate from military offices, from 

 places at court, and from the higher dignities of the 

 church, the provincial estates and privileges, the 

 annates of the pope, and other abuses in the church, 

 were abolished. A new order of things was estab- 

 lished, and the revolution accomplished. If, at a 

 later period, when the redemption of the feudal ser- 

 vices proceeded too slowly, they were absolutely 

 abolished without indemnification, this was merely 

 an anticipation of the natural course of things ; it 

 was not a change of the new order. Much has been 

 said against the justice of these decrees, and there is 

 much ground for argument. If the former destruc- 

 tion of free municipal institutions, of which history 

 gives us an account, was lawful, their restoration 

 was equally so ; for both changes arose from the cha- 

 racter of the times. If the necessity of protection in 

 a state of brute force, when there was no legal secu- 

 rity, once drove the freemen into bondage, yet, when 

 things were changed, and the power of the state came 

 to depend on the people at large, the good order and 

 security of the state required that the people should 

 be set free from their feudal subservience. By those 

 decrees, France at once reached that point, at which 

 all the European states must, sooner or later, arrive. 

 As the imperial government was able to exist, in 

 France, after those changes, the throne of Louis XVI. 

 might have stood with the new principles, had he 

 been able and willing to become the leader of the 

 nation in its reforms. The limitation of the royal 

 power, which the parliaments, clergy, and nobility 

 constantly contended for, and in many cases effected, 

 would have satisfied the national assembly, if they had 

 not been obliged, by the court itself, to leave as 

 little power to the king as possible, because even 

 this little was used to annul, in secret, what had 

 been publicly sanctioned. Even the royalists, in the 

 struggles which have taken place in the French 

 chambers since the restoration of the Bourbons, have 

 contended for the same constitutional restrictions on 

 the monarch, which have been demanded by theii 

 opponents of the left side. They only differ from 

 their opponents by wishing to be themselves deposi- 

 taries of all the power taken from the king. The 

 independence of the judiciary, a share in legislation, 

 the responsibility of ministers, the right of granting 

 the taxes, and even the liberty of the press, have 

 been contended for as warmly by the royalists as by 

 the liberals, with this difference, only, that they 

 claimed in addition, restoration of the privileges lost 

 in 1789, or, at least, compensation for them ; an 

 exclusive right to seats in both chambers, so far, at 

 least, as only to share it with the magistrates of some 

 large towns ; exclusive right to all offices of trust 

 and honour. None could be absurd enough to go 

 beyond this, to the restoration of tithes, corvees, feu- 

 dal tribunals of justice, &c. 



In regard to the social relations of France, the 

 principal effects of the revolution may be described 

 as follows: 1. A more general division of landed 

 property. It has been already remarked, that, from 

 May, 1790, until the end of 1800, national domains 

 to the amount of 2,609,000,000 were sold. These 

 were mostly estates of the church and of the religious 

 orders, as a reluctance existed to buying the estates 

 of the emigrants. These estates were generally sold 



