THE LAND SYSTEM OF FRANCE 415 



thus embraces a great part of the soil, and that part increases incessantly. The 

 price of parcels of land, accordingly, which are within reach of the industry 

 and thrift of the peasant, increases at a remarkable rate. The competition 

 of buyers is active, and sales in small lots take place on excellent terms for 

 the seller, when the interval has been sufficient to allow fresh savings to 

 reaccumulate. 



This is in some degree an official statement, and official state- 

 ments in France are sometimes suspected of exaggerating the 

 prosperity of the nation at large ; but it is confirmed by a super- 

 abundance of unofficial and unquestionable authority not on the 

 side of imperial government. In one of several passages to the 

 same effect, in his " ficonomie rurale de la France," and other 

 works, M. Leonce de Lavergne, for instance, says : 



The small proprietors of land, who, according to M. Rubichon, were about 

 three millions and a half in 1815, are at this day much more numerous; they 

 have gained ground, and one cannot but rejoice at it, for they have won it by 

 their industry. 



And in a very recent communication l to the present writer, 

 M. de Lavergne observes : 



The best cultivation in France on the whole is that of the peasant propri- 



rs, and the subdivision of the soil makes perpetual progress. Progress in 



both respects was indeed retarded for a succession of years after 1848 by 



political causes, but it has brilliantly resumed its course of late years. All 



round the town in which I write to you (Toulouse) it is again a profitable 



operation to buy land in order to re-sell it in small lots. ... I have just spent 



rtnight near Beziers. You could not believe what wealth the cultivation of 



vine has spread through that country, and the peasantry have gotten no 



small share of it. The market price of land has quadrupled in ten years. But 



f-r the duty on property changing hands (rimpdt des mutations], and the 



still heavier burden of the conscription, the prosperity of the rural population 



e would be great. It advances in spite of everything, in consequence 



of the high prices of agricultural produce. 



rig with the subdivision of landed property thus taking 

 plan- there is also, as we shall see, a movement in the land 

 market towards tin- cnlar^'im-nt <>f peasant properties, the con- 

 'I'lation of small parcels, and even in some plans toward* tin- 

 acquisition of what in France are considered as large estates ; as, 



November 6, 1869. 



