igS LAND REFORM 



peasants' land and ate his scanty grain, was a source 

 of continual loss and grrievance. The lord had the 

 exclusive right to all game ; he had unlimited rabbit 

 warrens, of which the peasants had to pay the cost. 

 The poor men, under heavy penalties, were forbidden 

 to touch pigeons, rabbits, or game, though they were 

 impoverished by them. 



Worst of all was the hated corvie. The lord had 

 the right to compel the peasants to make roads, to 

 lay out and ornament his grounds, gardens, etc. This 

 right was enforced vigorously, even at harvest and 

 other times when the peasants' own land needed at- 

 tention. The peasants were compelled to grind their 

 corn in the lord's mill and to pay any price asked for 

 the grinding. Their bread had to be baked in the 

 lord's bakery, while both mill and oven had been built 

 by their forced labour. No wonder that the deep 

 hatred of the oppressors pent up for ages in the hearts 

 of these poor cultivators showed itself in violence and 

 excesses when once set free by the Revolution. But 

 from the peasants* point of view these excesses, and 

 even the horrors and brutalities of the whole Revolu- 

 tion, pale before those which the peasantry had en- 

 dured for centuries.^ Volumes have been written to 

 describe the excesses of the peasantry at this time, 

 the sufferings of high-born women and well-nurtured 

 children, and the burnings of stately mansions where 

 ease, wealth, and luxury had reigned. Our sympathies 



1 A short but vivid description of the manifold character of the 

 oppression which the French peasantry suffered is given in "The Mean- 

 ing of History," by P^rederic Harrison. One of the best accounts of the 

 general political and social state of France before the Revolution is to 

 be found in De Tocqueville's " L'Ancien Regime," edited by G. W. 

 Headlam, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1904. Books ii and iii deal with the 

 rural population. 



