524 
Rural Economy of France since 1789. 
of tlieir produce within the kingdom and abroad without pre- 
judice to the rights of others, and in conformity with the law," 
In order fully to appreciate the extent of these concessions it 
must be borne in mind that a most absurd system of commercial 
restrictions prevailed, not only as regards foreign exports and 
imports, but even in the intercourse between province and pro- 
vince within the boundaries of the kingdom. Any province 
could forbid the export of grain or cattle into another province ; 
and it did not unfrequently happen that one part of the country 
rejoiced in the greatest abundance, whilst the very next province 
suffered the pangs of famine. The government could absolutely 
close or open the ports, fix the price of corn, and even regulate 
the cultivation of wheat, settling for the farmer the breadth of 
cereal crops he was to grow, and forbidding any modification of 
the then prevailing rule of husbandry. Hence fallows were re- 
stricted ; a judicious rotation unknown ; and the culture of wheat 
enforced with suicidal rigour, till the exhausted land could 
make no adequate return. The only rule then in use and con- 
sequently strictly enforced, was white crops and bare fallow. It 
was even forbidden to withdraw land from wheat cultivation 
by planting vines, without express permission to do so. 
These ill-judged restrictions, which not only checked im- 
provement but tended to create famine, were greater obstacles in 
the way of progress than the burden of tithes or the abuses of the 
feudal system. 
Some partisans of the Revolution point, however, to one of its 
most violent acts, viz. the seizure and sale of the landed property 
of the nobles and the clergy, as having exercised a most salutary 
influence upon agriculture by causing a greater division of the 
soil. 
M. de Lavergne examines at length this proposition, to which 
he rightly demurs ; not indeed from a consideration of any evil 
effects arising from the division of property, but from the fact, 
that neither in this or in other respects did that measure of 
wholesale confiscation produce anything like the changes which 
are generally ascribed to it. In respect to church property, M. 
de Lavergne shows in detail that the net income of two and a half 
millions then derived from this source, and expended on the 
maintenance of the clergy, the exigencies of public worship, the 
repairs of ecclesiastical buildings, the education and mainte- 
nance of the poor, was not more than equivalent to the sum now 
charged upon the Consolidated Fund for those purposes, so that 
the nation is no gainer by the change. He also points out that 
the terms on which much of this church property was held, were 
such as to conduce to the development of agriculture on a large 
