THE LAND SYSTEM OF FRANCE 

 By T. E. Cliffe Leslie 



THE object of this essay is to describe the land system of 

 France in respect of the distribution of landed property in 

 that country, with the rural organisation in which it results and 

 to examine its causes and effects. In considering its causes, 

 laws and customs relating to property (including succession and 

 transfer), and to tenure, of necessity form prominent objects of 

 inquiry ; but their operation is so bound up with that of eco- 

 nomical causes and conditions, that we should miss in place of 

 obtaining clearness by separating what may be termed the legal 

 from the economical class of subjects of discussion. It ought, 

 too, to be premised that although political causes, in that narrow 

 sense of the word which relates merely to the constitution and 

 action of the State, do not fall within the scope of the present 

 essay, yet the fact of their existence ought not to be altogether 

 ignored. There are such causes, and their disturbing influence 

 is powerful. A striking illustration of the potency of this class 

 of causes is afforded in the fact that M. Leonce de Lavergne, in 

 his celebrated work on the " Rural Economy of Great Britain," 

 refers the progress of English agriculture during the last two 

 hundred years, in the main, directly or indirectly, to political 

 institutions, political liberty, and political tranquillity. The influ- 

 ences and effects of the French land system cannot then be fairly 

 estimated without taking into consideration matters excluded by 

 the non-political character of these pages. On the other hand, it 

 will be pertinent and material to their purpose to show that much 

 which is commonly ascribed in this country to political causes 

 (in that wider sense which comprehends all the institutions of 

 a country, especially those relating to property in land), as the 

 chief agencies regulating the division of the soil in France and 



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