3. Life under the Ancien Régime.
It is difficult to form a very clear idea of life under the
ancien régime, and, above all, of the real
situation of the peasants.
The writers who defend the Revolution as theologians
defend religious dogmas draw such gloomy pictures of the
existence of the peasants under the ancien régime
that we ask ourselves how it was that
all these unhappy creatures had not died of hunger long before.
A good example of this style of writing may be found in a book by
M. A. Rambaud, formerly professor at the Sorbonne, published
under the title
History of the French Revolution. One
notices especially an engraving bearing the legend,
Poverty of
Peasants under Louis XIV. In the foreground a man is
fighting some dogs for some bones, which for that matter are
already quite fleshless. Beside him a wretched fellow is
twisting himself and compressing his stomach. Farther back a
woman lying on the ground is eating grass. At the back of the
landscape figures of which one cannot say whether they are
corpses or persons starving are also stretched on the soil. As
an example of the administration of the
ancien
régime the same author assures us that “a place in
the police cost 300 livres and brought in 400,000.” Such
figures surely indicate a great disinterestedness on the part of
those who sold such productive employment! He also informs us
“that it cost only 120 livres to get people arrested,”
and that “under Louis XV. more than 150,000
lettres de
cachet were distributed.”
The majority of books dealing with the Revolution are
conceived with as little impartiality and critical spirit, which
is one reason why this period is really so little known to us.
Certainly there is no lack of documents, but they are
absolutely contradictory. To the celebrated description of La
Bruyére we may oppose the enthusiastic picture drawn by
the English traveller Young of the prosperous condition of the
peasants of some of the French provinces.
Were they really crushed by taxation, and did they, as has
been stated, pay four-fifths of their revenue instead of a fifth
as to-day? Impossible to say with certainty. One capital fact,
however, seems to prove that under the ancien
régime the situation of the inhabitants of the rural
districts could not have been so very wretched, since it seems
established that more than a third of the soil had been bought by
peasants.
We are better informed as to the financial system. It was
very oppressive and extremely complicated. The budgets usually
showed deficits, and the imposts of all kinds were raised by
tyrannical farmers-general. At the very moment of the Revolution
this condition of the finances became the cause of universal
discontent, which is expressed in the cahiers of the
States General. Let us remark that these cahiers did not
represent a previous state of affairs, but an actual condition
due to a crisis of poverty produced by the bad harvest of 1788
and the hard winter of 1789. What would these cahiers
have told us had they been written ten years earlier?
Despite these unfavourable circumstances the
cahiers contained no revolutionary ideas. The most
advanced merely asked that taxes should be imposed only with the
consent of the States General and paid by all alike. The same
cahiers sometimes expressed a wish that the power of the
king should be limited by a Constitution defining his rights and
those of the nation. If these wishes had been granted a
constitutional monarchy could very easily have been
substituted for the absolute monarchy, and the Revolution
would probably have been avoided.
Unhappily, the nobility and the clergy were too strong and
Louis XVI. too weak for such a solution to be possible.
Moreover, it would have been rendered extremely difficult
by the demands of the bourgeoisie, who claimed to
substitute themselves for the nobles, and were the real authors
of the Revolution. The movement started by the middle classes
rapidly exceeded their hopes, needs, and aspirations. They had
claimed equality for their own profit, but the people also
demanded equality. The Revolution thus finally became the
popular government which it was not and had no intention of
becoming at the outset.
