VIII Complaints in the Registers5272
“I am miserable because too much is taken from me. Too much is taken from me because not enough is taken from the privileged. Not only do the privileged force me to pay in their place, but, again, they previously deduct from my earnings their ecclesiastic and feudal dues. When, out of my income of 100 francs, I have parted with fifty-three francs, and more, to the collector, I am obliged again to give fourteen francs to the seignior, also more than fourteen for tithes,5273 and, out of the remaining eighteen or nineteen francs, I have additionally to satisfy the excise men. I alone, a poor man, pay two governments, one the old government, local and now absent, useless, inconvenient and humiliating, and active only through annoyances, exemptions and taxes; and the other, recent, centralized, everywhere present, which, taking upon itself all functions, has vast needs, and makes my meager shoulders support its enormous weight.”
These, in precise terms, are the vague ideas beginning to ferment in the popular brain and encountered on every page of the records of the States-General.
“Would to God,” says a Normandy village,5274 “the monarch might take into his own hands the defense of the miserable citizen pelted and oppressed by clerks, seigniors, justiciary and clergy!”
“Sire,” writes a village in Champagne,5275 “the only message to us on your part is a demand for money. We were led to believe that this might cease, but every year the demand comes for more. We do not hold you responsible for this because we love you, but those whom you employ, who better know how to manage their own affairs than yours. We believed that you were deceived by them and we, in our chagrin, said to ourselves, If our good king only knew of this!... We are crushed down with every species of taxation; thus far we have given you a part of our bread, and, should this continue, we shall be in want.... Could you see the miserable tenements in which we live, the poor food we eat, you would feel for us; this would prove to you better than words that we can support this no longer and that it must be lessened.... That which grieves us is that those who possess the most, pay the least. We pay the tailles and for our implements, while the ecclesiastics and nobles who own the best land pay nothing. Why do the rich pay the least and the poor the most? Should not each pay according to his ability? Sire, we entreat that things may be so arranged, for that is just.... Did we dare, we should undertake to plant the slopes with vines; but we are so persecuted by the clerks of the excise we would rather pull up those already planted; the wine that we could make would all go to them, scarcely any of it remaining for ourselves. These exactions are a great scourge and, to escape them, we would rather let the ground lie waste.... Relieve us of all these extortions and of the excisemen; we are great sufferers through all these devices; now is the time to change them; never shall we be happy as long as these last. We entreat all this of you, Sire, along with others of your subjects as wearied as ourselves.... We would entreat yet more but you cannot do all at one time.”
Imposts and privileges, in the really popular registers, are the two enemies against which complaints everywhere arise5276.
“We are overwhelmed by demands for subsidies,... we are burdened with taxes beyond our strength,... we do not feel able to support any more, we perish, overpowered by the sacrifices demanded of us. Labor is taxed while indolence is exempt.... Feudalism is the most disastrous of abuses, the evils it causes surpassing those of hail and lightning.... Subsistence is impossible if three-quarters of the crops are to be taken for field-rents, terrage, etc.... The proprietor has a fourth part, the décimateur a twelfth, the harvester a twelfth, taxation a tenth, not counting the depredations of vast quantities of game which devour the growing crops: nothing is left for the poor cultivator but pain and sorrow.”
Why should the Third-Estate alone pay for roads on which the nobles and the clergy drive in their carriages? Why are the poor alone subject to militia draft? Why does “the subdelegate cause only the defenseless and the unprotected to be drafted?” Why does it suffice to be the servant of a privileged person to escape this service? Destroy those dove-cotes, formerly only small pigeon-pens and which now contain as many as 5,000 pairs. Abolish the barbarous rights of “motte, quevaise and domaine congéable5277 under which more than 500,000 persons still suffer in Lower Brittany.” “You have in your armies, Sire, more than 30,000 Franche-Comté serfs;” should one of these become an officer and be pensioned out of the service he would be obliged to return to and live in the hut in which he was born, otherwise; at his death, the seignior will take his pittance. Let there be no more absentee prelates, nor abbés-commendatory. “The present deficit is not to be paid by us but by the bishops and beneficiaries; deprive the princes of the church of two-thirds of their revenues.” “Let feudalism be abolished. Man, the peasant especially, is tyrannically bowed down to the impoverished ground on which he lies exhausted.... There is no freedom, no prosperity, no happiness where the soil is enthralled.... Let the lord’s dues, and other odious taxes not feudal, be abolished, a thousand times returned to the privileged. Let feudalism content itself with its iron scepter without adding the poniard of the revenue speculator.”5278
Here, and for some time before this, it is not the Countryman who speaks but the procureur, the lawyer, who places professional metaphors and theories at his service. But the lawyer has simply translated the countryman’s sentiments into literary dialect.
Notes
5201 “Collection des économistes,” II. 832. See a tabular statement by Beaudan.
5202 “Ephémérides du citoyen,” IX. 15; an article by M. de Butré, 1767.
5203 “Collection des économistes,” I. 551, 562.
5204 “Procès-verbaux de l’assemblée provinciale de Champagne” (1787), p. 240.
5205 Cf., “Notice historique sur la Révolution dans le département de l’Eure,” by Boivin-Champeaux, p. 37.—A register of grievances of the parish of Epreville; on 100 francs income the Treasury takes 22 for the taille, 16 for collaterals, 15 for the poll-tax, 11 for the vingtièmes, total 67 livres.
5206 “Procès-verbaux de l’assemblée provinciale de Ile-de-France” (1787), p. 131.
5207 “Procèx-verbaux de l’ass. prov de la Haute-Guyenne” (1784), II. 17, 40, 47.
5208 “Procès-verbaux de l’ass. prov. d’Auvergne” (1787), p. 253.—Doléances, by Gautier de Biauzat, member of the council elected by the provincial assembly of Auvergne. (1788), p.3.
5209 See note 5 at the end of the volume.
5210 “Théron de Montaugé,” p. 109 (1763). Wages at this time are from 7 to 12 sous a day during the summer.
5211 Archives nationales, procès-verbaux and registers of the States-General, V. 59, p. 6. Memorandum to M. Necker from M. d’Orgeux, honorary councilor to the Parliament of Bourgogne, 25 Oct. 1788..
5212 Ibid. H, 1418. A letter of the intendant of Limoges, Feb. 26, 1784.
5213 Turgot, II. 259.
5214 Archives nationales, H, 426 (remonstrances of the Parliament of Brittany, Feb. 1783).
5215 Mercier; XI. 59; X. 262.
5216 Archives nationales, H, 1422, a letter by M d’Aine, intendant of Limoges (February 17, 1782) one by the intendant of Moulins (April, 1779); the trial of the community of Mollon (Bordelais), and the tables of its collectors.
5217 “Procès-verbaux de l’ass. prov. d’Auvergne,” p. 266.
5218 Albert Babeau, “Histoire de Troyes,” I. 72
5219 “Procés-verbaux de l’ass. prov. de Berry” (1778), I. pp.72, 80.
5220 De Tocqueville, 187.
5221 Archives nationales, H, 1417. (A letter of M. de Cypièrre, intendant at Orleans, April 17, 1765).
5222 “Traité de Population,” 2d part, p.26.
5223 Archives nationales, H, 1417. (A letter of M. de Cypièrre, intendant at Orleans, April 17, 1765).
5224 Ibid. H, 1418. (Letter of May 28, 1784).
5225 Ibid. (Letter of the intendant of Tours, June 15, 1765.)
5226 Archives Nationales, H, 1417. A report by Raudon, receiver of tailles in the election of Laon, January, 1764.
5227 “Procèx-verbaux de l’ass. prov. de Berry” (1778), I. p.72.
5228 Champfort, 93.
5229 “Procèx-verbaux de l’ass. prov. de Berry,” I. 77.
5230 Arthur Young, II. 205.
5231 “Procès-verbaux of the ass. prov. of the generalship of Rouen” (1787), p.271.
5232 Letrosne (1779). “De l’administration provinciale et de Ia reforme de l’impôt,” pp. 39 to 262 and 138.—Archives nationales, H. 138 (1782). Cahier de Bugey, “Salt costs a person living in the countryside purchasing it from the retailers from 15 to 17 sous a pound, according to the way of measuring it.”
5233 Floquet, VI. 367 (May 10, 1760).
5234 Boivin-Champeaux, p.44. (Cahiers of Bray and of Gamaches).
5235 Arthur Young, II. 175-178.
5236 Archives nationales, G, 300; G, 319. (Registers and instructions of various local directors of the Excise to their successors).
5237 Letrosne, ibid. 523.
5238 Octroi: a toll or tax levied at the gates of a city on articles brought in. (SR.)
5239 Archives Nationales, H, 426 (Papers of the Parliament of Brittany, February, 1783).
5240 “Procès-verbaux de l’ass. prov. de Soissonnais” (1787), p.45.—Archives nationales, H, 1515 (Remonstrances of the Parliament of Metz, 1768). “The class of indigents form more than twelve-thirteenths of the whole number of villages of laborers and generally those of the wine-growers.” Ibid. G, 319 (Tableau des directions of Chateaudon and Issoudun).
5241 Albert Babeau, I. 89. p. 21.
5242 “Mémoires,” presented to the Assembly of Notables, by M. de Calonne (1787), p.67.
5243 Here we are at the root of the reason why democratically elected politicians and their administrative staffs are today taxed even though such taxation is only a paper-exercise adding costs to the cost of government administration. (SR.)
5244 Gautier de Bianzat, “Doléances,” 193, 225. “Procès-verbaux de l’ass. prov. de Poitou” (1787), p.99.
5245 Gautier de Bianzat, ibid..
5246 Archives nationales, the procès-verbaux and cahiers of the States-General, V. 59. P. 6. (Letter of M. Orgeux to M. Necker), V. 27. p. 560-573. (Cahiers of the Third-Estate of Arnay-le-Duc)
5247 In these figures the rise of the money standard has been kept in mind, the silver “marc,” worth 59 francs in 1965, being worth 49 francs during the last half of the eighteenth century.
5248 “Procès-verbaux de l’ass. prov. de Ile-de-France,” 132, 158; de l’Orléanais, 96, 387.
5249 “Mémoire,” presented to the Assembly of Notables (1787), p. 1.—See note 2 at the end of the volume, on the estate of Blet.
5250 “Procès-verbeaux de l’ass. prov. d’Alsace” (1787), p. 116;”—of Champagne,” 192. (According to a declaration of June 2, 1787, the tax substituted for the corvée may be extended to one-sixth of the taille, with accessory taxes and the poll-tax combined). “De la généralité d’Alençcon,” 179; “—du Berry,” I. 218.
5251 Archives nationales, G, 322 (Memorandum on the excise dues of Compiègne and its neighborhood, 1786)
5252 “Procès-verbaux de l’ass. prov. de l’Ile-de-France,” p. 104.
5253 “Procès-verbaux de l’ass. prov. de Berry, I. 85, II. 91. —de l’Orléanais, p. 225.” “Arbitrariness, injustice, inequality, are inseparable from the taille when any change of collector takes place.”
5254 “Archives Nationales,” H. 615. Letter of M. de Lagourda, a noble from Bretagne, to M. Necker, dated December 4, 1780: “You are always taxing the useful and necessary people who decrease in numbers all the time: these are the workers of the land. The countryside has become deserted and no one will any longer plow the land. I testify to God and to you, Sir, that we have lost more than a third of our budding wheat of the last harvest because we did not have the necessary man-power do to the work.”
5255 Ibid. 1149. (letter of M. de Reverseau, March 16, 1781); H, 200 (letter of M. Amelot, Nov. 2, 1784).
5256 “Procès-verbaux de l’ass. prov. de la généralite de Rouen,” p.91.
5257 Hippeau, VI. 22 (1788).
5258 D’Argenson. VI. 37.
5259 Archives nationales, H. 200 (Memoir of M. Amelot, 1785).
5260 “Procès-verbaux de l’ass. prov. d’Auvergne,” 253.
5261 Boivin-Champeaux, “Doléances de la parvisse de Tilleul-Lambert” (Eure). “Numbers of privileged characters, Messieurs of the elections, Messieurs the post-masters, Messieurs the presidents and other attachés of the salt-warehouse, every individual possessing extensive property pays but a third or a half of the taxes they ought to pay.”
5262 De Tocqueville, 385.—“Procès-verbaux de l’ass. prov. de Lyonnais,” p. 56
5263 Archives nationales, H, 1422. (Letters of M. d’Aine, intendant, also of the receiver for the election of Tulle, February 23, 1783).
5264 De Tocqueville, 64, 363.
5265 Archives nationales, H, 612, 614. (Letters of M. de la Bove, September 11, and Dec. 2, 1774; June 28, 1777).
5266 Mercier, II. 62.
5267 “Grievances” of the parish of Aubervilliers.
5268 Archives nationales, G, 300; G, 322 (“Mémoires” on the excise duties).
5269 “Procès-verbaux de l’ass. prov. des Trois-Evêchés p. 442.
5270 Archives nationales, H, 1422 (Letter of the intendant of Moulins, April 1779).
5271 Archives nationales, H. 1312 (Letters of M. D’Antheman procureur-général of the excise court (May 19, 1783), and of the Archbishop of Aix (June 15, 1783).)—Provence produced wheat only sufficient for seven and a half months’ consumption.
5272 Abbreviation for the “cahier des doléances”, in English ‘register of grieviances’, brought with them by the representatives of the people to the great gathering in Paris of the “States-Généraux” in 1789. (SR.)
5273 The feudal dues may be estimated at a seventh of the net income and the dime also at a seventh. These are the figures given by the ass. prov. of Haute-Guyenne (Procès-verbaux, p. 47).—Isolated instances, in other provinces, indicate similar results. The dime ranges from a tenth to the thirteenth of the gross product, and commonly the tenth. I regard the average as about the fourteenth, and as one-half of the gross product must be deducted for expenses of cultivation, it amounts to one-seventh. Letrosne says a fifth and even a quarter.
5274 Boivin-Champeaux, 72.
5275 Grievances of the community of Culmon (Election de Langres.)
5276 Boivin-Champeaux, 34, 36, 41, 48.—Périn (“Doléances des paroisses rurales de l’Artuis,” 301, 308).—Archives nationales, procès-verbaux and cahiers of the States-Géneraux, vol. XVII. P. 12 (Letter of the inhabitants of Dracy-le Viteux).
5277 Motte: a mound indicative of Seigniorial dominion; quevaise; the right of forcing a resident to remain on his property under penalty of forfeiture; domaine congéable; property held subject to capricious ejection. (TR)
5278 Prud’homme, “Résumé des cahiers,” III. passim, and especially from 317 to 340.