The Revolution 333 



posterity, if possible, may be ignorant that feudal tyranny in 

 Bretagne, armed with the judicial power, has not blushed even in 

 these times at breaking hand-mills, and at selling annually to the 

 miserable the faculty of bruising between two stones a measure 

 of buck-wheat or barley.^ The very terms of these complaints 

 are unknown in England, and consequently untranslatable: 

 they have probabl)' arisen long since the feudal system ceased 

 in this kingdom. What are these tortures of the peasantry in 

 Bretagne, which they call chevanches, quintaines , sov.le, saut 

 de poison, baiser de mariees ; chansons ; transporte d''csuf sv.r un 

 charette ; silence des gre)io utiles ; - corvee a misericorde ; milods ; 

 leide ; coiiponage ; cartelage ; barage ; foiiage ; marechaussee ; 

 banvin; ban d'aout ; troiisses ; gelinage ; civerage ; taillahlite ; 

 vingtain ; sterlage ; bordelage ; ininage ; ban de vendauges ; 

 droit d'accapte? In passing through many of the French pro- 

 vinces, I was struck with the various and heavy complaints of 

 the farmers and little proprietors of the feudal grievances with 

 the weight of which their industry was burthened; but I could 

 not then conceive the multiplicity of the shackles which kept 

 them poor and depressed. I understood it better afterwards, 

 from the conversation and complaints of some grand seigneurs 

 as the revolution advanced; and I then learned that the prin- 

 cipal rental of many estates consisted in services and feudal 

 tenures, by the baneful influence of which the industry of the 

 people was almost exterminated. In regard to the oppressions 

 of the clergy, as to tithes, I must do that body a justice to which 

 a claim cannot be laid in England. Though the ecclesiastical 

 tenth was levied in France more severely than usual in Italy, yet 

 was it never exacted with such horrid greediness as is at present 

 the disgrace of England. WTien taken in kind, no such thing 

 was known in any part of France where I made inquiries as a 

 tenth : it was always a twelfth, or a thirteenth, or even a twentieth 

 of the produce. And in no part of the kingdom did a new 

 article of culture pay anything; thus turnips, cabbages, clover, 

 chicoree, potatoes, etc., etc., paid nothing. In many parts, 

 meadows were exempted. Silk worms nothing. Olives in 

 some places paid — in more they did not. Cows nothing. 

 Lambs from the 12th to the 21st. Wool nothing. — Such mild- 



' Rennes, p. 57. — Author's note. 



'This is a curious article: when the lady of the seigneur lies in, the 

 people are obliged to heat the waters in marshy districts to keep the frogs 

 silent, that she may not be disturbed; this duty, a very oppressive one, 

 is commuted into a pecuniary fine. — Author's note. 



^ Resume des cahiers, tom. iii. pp. 316, 317. — .Author's note. 



