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 " iSconomie 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 ^ to the present writer, 

 M. de Lavergne observes : 



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

 etors, 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 

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

 the 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 

 for the duty on property changing hands (IHmpot des mutations), and the 

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

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

 of the high prices of agricultural produce. 



Along with the subdivision of landed property thus taking 

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

 market towards the enlargement of peasant properties, the con- 

 solidation of small parcels, and even in some places towards the 

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



^ November 6, 1869. 



