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THE

OLD EEGIMETHE REVOLUTION.

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE.OF THE ACAD^MIE FEANgAISE,

AUTHOE OP "DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA."

TRANSLATED

BY JOHN BONNER,

NEW YORK:HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,

FEANKLIN SQUARE.1856.


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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousandeight hundred and fifty-six, byHarper & Brothers,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern Districtof New York.


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CONTENTS.Preface Page 1

BOOK I.CHAPTEE I.Contradictory Opinions formed upon the Revolution when it broke

out 13CHAPTER n.

that the fundamental and final Object of the Revolution was not,us some have supposed, to destroy religious and to weaken polit-ical Authority 18

CHAPTER ni.That the French Revolution, though political, pursued the same

Course as a religious Revolution, and why 24

CHAPTER IV.How the same Institutions had been established over nearly all Eu-rope, and were every where falling to pieces 29

CHAPTER V.What did the French Revolution really achieve ? 35

BOOK II.CHAPTER I.

Why the feudal Rights were more odious to the People in Francethan any where else 38

CHAPTER n.That we owe "Administrative Centralization," not to the Revolutionor the Empire, as some say, but to the old Regime 50

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CONTENTS.CHAPTER m.

That what is now called "the Guardianship of the State" {TutelleAdministrative) was an Institution of the old Regime Page 61

CHAPTER IV.That administrative Tribunals Qa Justice Administrative) and official

Irresponsibility (Garantie des Functionnaires) were Institutions ofthe old Regime 73

CHAPTER V.How Centralization crept in among the old Authorities, and sup-

planted without destroying them 79CHAPTER VI.

Of official Manners and Customs under the old Regime 93CHAPTER VII.

How the Capital of France had acquired more Preponderance overthe Provinces, and usurped more Control over the Nation, thanany other Capital in Europe 95

CHAPTER Vni.That Frenchmen had grown more like each other than any otherPeople 101

CHAPTER IX.That these Men, who were so alike, were more divided than theyhad ever been into petty Groups, each independent of and indif-ferent to the others 106

CHAPTER X.How the Destruction of political Liberty and Class Divisions were

the Causes of all the Diseases of which the old Regime died. 124CHAPTER XI.

Of the kind of Liberty enjoyed under the old Regime, and of its In-fluence upon the Revolution 137

CHAPTER XII.y How the Condition of the French Peasantry was worse in some re-

spects in the Eighteenth Century than it had been in the Thir-teenth, notwithstanding the Progress of Civilization 1516


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CONTENTS.CHAPTER XIII.

How, toward the middle of the Eighteenth Century, literary Menbecame the leading Politicians of the Country, and of the Effectsthereof Page 170

CHAPTER XIV.How Irreligion became a general ruling Passion among Frenchmen

in the Eighteenth Century, and of the Influence it exercised overthe Character of the Revolution 182

CHAPTER XV.How the French sought Reforms before Liberties 192CHAPTER XVI.

That the Reign of Louis XVI. was the most prosperous Era of theold Monarchy, and how that Prosperity really hastened the Revo-lution 206

CHAPTER XVn.How Attempts to relieve the People provoked Rebellion 218CHAPTER XVm.

Of certain Practices by means of which the Government completedthe revolutionary Education of the People 228

CHAPTER XIX.How great administrative Changes had preceded the political Revo-lution, and of the Consequences thereof 234

CHAPTER XX.How the Revolution sprang spontaneously out of the preceding

Facts 246Appendix 257Notes 271-344

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PREFACE,The book I now publisli is not ca history of the

Eevolution. That history has been too brilliantlywritten for me to think of writing it afresh. This isa mere essay on the Revolution.The French made, in 1789, the greatest eifort that

has ever been made by any people to sever their his-tory into two parts, so to speak, and to tear open agulf between their past and their future. In this de-sign, they took the greatest care to leave every traceof their past condition behind them ; they imposed allkinds of restraints upon themselves in order to be dif-ferent from their ancestry ; they omitted nothing whichcould disguise them.I have always fancied that they-were less success-ful in this enterprise than has been generally believedabroad, or even supposed at home. I have alwayssuspected that they unconsciously retained most ofthe sentiments, habits, and ideas which the old regimehad taught them, and by whose aid they achieved theRevolution ; and that, without intending it, they usedits ruins as materials for the construction of their newsociety. Hence it seemed that the proper way ofstudying the Revolution was to forget, for a time, theFrance we see before us, and to examine, in its grave,the France that is gone. That is the task which I


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PREFACE. mpublic documents in whicli the French expressed theiropinions and their views at the approach of the E-ev-olution. I have derived much information on thishead from the reports of the States, and, at a later pe-riod, from those of the Provincial Assemblies. I havefreely used the cahiei'S which were presented by thethree orders in 1789. These cahiers^ whose originalsform a large series of folio volumes, will ever remainas the testament of the old French society, the finalexpression of its wishes, the authentic statement of itslast will. They are a historical document that isunique.Nor have I confined my studies to these. In coun-

tries where the supreme power is predominant, veryfew ideas, or desires, or grievances can exist withoutcoming before it in some shape or other. But few in-terests can be created or passions aroused that are notat some time laid bare before it. Its archives revealnot merely its own proceedings, but the movement ofthe whole nation. Free access to the files of the De-partment of the Interior and the various prefectureswould soon enable a foreigner to know more aboutFrance than we do ourselves. In the eighteenth cen-tury, as a perusal of this work will show, the gov-ernment was already highly centralized, very power-ful, prodigiously active. It was constantly at workaiding, prohibiting, permitting this or that. It hadmuch to promise, much to give. It exercised para-mount influence not only over the transaction of busi-ness, but over the prospects of families and the privatelife of individuals. None of its business was madepublic ; hence people did not shrink from confiding to


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IV PEEFACE. it their most secret infirmities. - I have devoted muchtime to the study of its remains at Paris and in theprovinces.*

I have found in them, as I anticipated, the actuallife of the old regime, its ideas, its passions, its preju-dices, its practices. I have found men speaking freelytheir inmost thoughts in their own language. I havethus obtained much information upon the old regimewhich was unknown even to the men who lived underit, for I had access to seurces which were closed tothem.As I progressed in my labors, I was surprised to

find in the France of that day many features which areconspicuous in the France we have before us. I metwith a host of feelings and ideas which I have alwayscredited to the Revolution, and many habits which itis supposed to have engendered ; I found on every sidethe roots of our modern society deeply imbedded inthe old soil. The nearer I drew to 1789, the moredistinctly I noticed the spirit which brought about theRevolution. The actual physiognomy of the Revolu-tion was gradually disclosed before me. Its temper,its genius were apparent ; it was all there. I sawthere not only the secret of its earliest efibrts, but thepromise also of its ultimate resultsfor the Revolu-

* I have made especial use of the archives of some of the greaterintendants' offices, such as those of Tours, which are very complete

;

they refer to a very large district (generalite), placed in the centre ofFrance, and containing a million of souls. My thanks are due to theyoung and able keeper of the archives, M. Grandmaison. Other in-tendants' offices, such as that of lie de France, have satisfied me thatbusiness was conducted on the same plan throughout most of thekino;dom.


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PREFACE. Vtion had two distinct phases : one during which theFrench seemed to want to destroy everj remnant ofthe past, another during which they tried to regain aportion of what they had thrown off. Many of thelaws and political usages of the old regime which dis-appeared in 1789 reappeared some years afterward,just as some rivers bury themselves in the earth andrise to the surface at a distance, washing new shoreswith the old waters.

The especial objects of the work I now present tothe public are to explain why the Revolution, whichwas impending over every European country, burstforth in France rather than elsewhere ; why it issuedspontaneously from the society which it was to de-stroy ; and how the old monarchy contrived to fall socompletely and so suddenly.My design is to pursue the work beyond these lim-its. I intend, if I have time and my strength does notfail me, to follow through the vicissitudes of their longrevolution thes^ Frenchmen with whom I have lived onsuch famihar terms under the old regime ; to see themthrowing off the shape they had borrowed from thisold regime, and assuming new shapes to suit events,yet never changing their nature, or wholly disguisingthe old familiar features by changes of expression.

I shall first go over the period of 1789, when theiraffections were divided between the love of freedomand the love of equality ; when they desired to estab-lish free as well as democratic institutions, and to ac-knowledge and confirm rights as well as to destroyprivileges. This was an era of youth, of enthusiasm,of pride, of generous and heartfelt passions ; despite


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VI PREFACE.its errors, men will remember it long, and for many aday to come it will disturb the slumbers of those whoseek to corrupt or to enslave the French.

In the course of a hasty sketch of the Eevolution, Ishall endeavor to show what errors, what faults, whatdisappointments led the French to abandon their firstaim, to forget liberty, and to aspire to become the equalservants of the master of the world ; how a far stron-ger and more absolute government than the one theRevolution overthrew then seized and monopolized allpolitical power, suppressed all the liberties which hadbeen so dearly bought, and set up in their stead emptyshams; deprived electors of all means of obtaining in-formation, of the right of assemblage, and of the facultyof exercising a choice, yet talked ofpopular sovereign-ty ; said the taxes were freely voted, when mute or en-slaved assemblies assented to their imposition ; and,while stripping the nation of every vestige of self-gov-ernment, of constitutional guarantees, and of liberty ofthought, speech, and the pressthat is to say, of themost precious and the noblest conquests of 1789stilldared to claim descent from that great era.

I shall stop at the period at which the work of theEevolution appears complete, and the new society cre-ated. I shall then examine that new society. I shalltry to discover wherein it resembles and wherein itdiffers from the society which preceded it ; to ascertainwhat we have gained and what we have lost by theuniversal earthquake ; and shall lastly attempt to fore-see our future prospects.A portion of this second work Iliave roughly sketch-ed, but it is not yet fit for the public eye. Shall I be


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PREFACE. VUpermitted to finish it ? Who knows ? The fate ofindividuals is even more obscure than that of na-tions.

I trust I have written this work without prejudicebut I do not claim to have written dispassionately.It would he hardly decent for a Frenchman to be calmwhen he speaks of his country, and thinks of the times.I admit that, in studying every feature of the societyof other times, I have never lost sight of that whichwe see before us. I have tried not only to detect thedisease of which the patient died, but to discover theremedy that might have saved him. I have acted likethose physicians who try to surprise the vital princi-ple in each paralyzed organ. My object has been todraw a perfectly accurate, and, at the same time, aninstructive picture. Whenever I have found amongour ancestors any of those masculine virtues which weneed so much and possess so littlea true spirit of in-dependence, a taste for true greatness, faith in ourselvesand in our causeI have brought them boldly forward;and, in like manner, whenever I have discovered in thelaws, or ideas, or manners of olden time, any trace ofthose vices which destroyed the old regime and weak-en us to-day, I have taken pains to throw light onthem, so that the sight of their mischievous effects inthe past might prove a warning for the future.

In pursuing this object, I have not, I confess, allowedmyself to be influenced by fears of wounding either in-dividuals or classes, or shocking opinions or recollec-tions, however respectable they may be. I have oftenfelt regret in pursuing this course, but remorse, never.Those whom I may have offended must forgive me, in


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viii PREFACE.consideration of the honesty and disinterestedness ofmy aim.

I may perhaps be charged with evincing in this worka most inopportune love for freedom, about which I amassured that Frenchmen have ceased to care.

I can only reply to those who urge this charge thatin me the feeling is of ancient date. More than twen-ty years have elapsed since I wrote, in reference to an-other society, almost these very words.

In the darkness of the future three truths may beplainly discerned. The first is, that all the men of ourday are driven, sometimes slowly, sometimes violently,by an unknown forcewhich may possibly be regu-lated or moderated, but can not be overcometowardthe destruction of aristocracies. The second is, that,among all human societies, those in which there existsand can exist no aristocracy are precisely those inwhich it will be most difficult to resist, for any lengthof time, the establishment of despotism. And the thirdis, that despotisms can never be so injurious as in so-cieties of this nature; for despotism is the form of gov-ernment which is best adapted to facilitate the devel-opment of the vices to which these societies are prone,and naturally encourages the very propensities that areindigenous in their disposition.When men are no longer bound together by caste,class, corporate or family ties, they are only too proneto give their whole thoughts to their private interest,and to wrap themselves up in a narrow individualityin which public virtue is stifled. Despotism does notcombat this tendency ; on the contrary, it renders itirresistible, for it deprives citizens of all common pas-


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PREFACE. IXsions, mutual necessities, need of a common tmderstand-ing, opportunity for combined action : it ripens them,so to speak, in private life. Tliej had a tendency tohold themselves aloof from each other: it isolates them.They looked coldly on each other: it freezes their souls.

In societies of this stamp, in which there are nofixed landmarks, every man is constantly spurred onby a desire to rise and a fear of falling. And as money,which is the chief mark by which men are classifiedand divided one from the other, fluctuates incessantly,passes from hand to hand, alters the rank of individu-als, raises families here, lowers them there, every oneis forced to make constant and des,perate efforts to ac-quire or retain it. Hence the ruling passions becomea desire for wealth at all cost, a taste for business, alove of gain, and a liking for comfort and materialpleasures. These passions pervade all classes, not ex-cepting those which have hitherto been strangers tothem. If they are not checked they will soon ener-vate and degrade them all. Now, it is essential todespotism to encourage and foster them. Debilitatingpassions are its natural allies ; they serve to divert at-tention from public affairs, and render the very nameof revolution terrible. Despotism alone can supplythe secrecy and darkness which cupidity requires to beat ease, and which embolden men to brave dishonorfor the sake of fraudulent gain. These passions wouldhave been strong in the absence of despotism : with itsaid they are paramount.On the other hand, liberty alone can combat the

vices which are natural to this class of societies, andarrest their downward progress. Nothing but libertyA2


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X PEEPACE.can draw men forth from the isolation into which theirindependence naturally drives themcan compel themto associate together, in order to come to a commonunderstanding, to debate, and to compromise togetheron their joint concerns. Liberty alone can free themfrom money-worship, and divert them from their petty,every-day business cares, to teach them and make themfeel that there is a country above and beside them.It alone awakens more energetic and higher passionsthan the love of ease, provides ambition with nobleraims than the acquisition of wealth, and yields thelight which reveals, in clear outline, the virtues and thevices of mankind.

Democratic societies which are not free may be rich,refined, ornate, even magnificent, and powerful in pro-portion to the weight of their homogeneous mass ; theymay develop private virtues, produce good family-men,honest merchants, respectable landowners, and evengood Christians^for their country is not of this world,and it is the glory of their religion that it producesthem in the most corrupt societies and under the worstgovernmentstheEoman empire during its decline wasfull of such as these ; but there are things which suchsocieties as those I speak of can never produce, andthese are great citizens, and, above all, a great people.I will go farther; I do not hesitate to affirm that thecommon level of hearts and minds will never cease tosink so long as equality and despotism are combined.

This is what I thought and wrote twenty yearsago. I acknowledge that nothing has since happenedthat could lead me to think or write otherwise. As Imade known my good opinion of liberty when it was


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PREFACE. XIin favor, I can not be blamed for adhering to thatopinion now that it is in disgrace.

I must, moreover, beg to assure my opponents thatI do not differ from them as widely as they perhapsimagine. Where is the man whose soul is naturallyso base that he would rather be subject to the capricesof one of his fellow-men than obey laws which he hadhelped to make himself, if he thought his nation suffi-ciently virtuous to make a good use of liberty ? I donot think such a man exists. Despots acknowledgethat liberty is an excellent thing ; but they want it allfor themselves, and maintain that the rest of the worldis unworthy of it. Thus there is no difference of opin-ion in reference to liberty ; we differ only in our ap-preciation of men; and thus it may be strictly saidthat one's love for despotism is in exact proportion toone's contempt for one's country. I must beg to beallowed to wait a little longer before I embrace thatsentiment.

I may say, I think, without undue self-laudation,that this book is the fruit of great labor. I couldpoint to more than one short chapter that has cost meover a year's work. I could have loaded my pageswith foot-notes, but I have preferred inserting a fewonly, and placing them at the end of the volume, witha reference to the pages to which they apply. Theycontain examples and proofs of the facts stated in thetext. I could furnish many more if this book inducedany one to take the trouble of asking for them.


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THE

OLD REGIME AND THE REVOLUTION.

BOOK FIRST.CHAPTER I.

CONTKADICTORT OPESTIONS FORMED UPON THE REVOLUTION "WHENIT BROKE OUT.

PHILOSOPHERS and statesmen may learn a val-uable lesson of modesty from the history of our

Revolution, for there never were events greater, betterprepared, longer matured, and yet so little foreseen.With all his genius, Frederick the Great had no

perception of what was at hand. He touched the Rev-olution, so to speak, but he did not see it. More thanthis, while he seemed to be acting according to his ownimpulse, he was, in fact, its forerunner and agent. Yethe did not recognize its approach ; and when at lengthit appeared full in view, the new and extraordinarycharacteristics which distinguished it from the commonrun of revolutions escaped his notice.

Abroad, it excited universal curiosity. It gave birthto a vague notion that a new era was at hand. Na-tions entertained indistinct hopes of changes and re-forms, but no one suspected what they were to be.Princes and ministers did not even feel the confused


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14 THE OLD EEGIMEpresentiment wliich it stirred in the minds of their sub-jects. Thej viewed it simply as one of those chron-ic diseases to which every national constitution is sub-ject, and whose only eiFect is to pave the way for po-litical enterprises on the part of neighbors. "Whenthey spoke truly about it, it was unconsciously. Whenthe principal sovereigns of Germany proclaimed at Pil-nitz, in 1791, that all the powers of Europe were men-aced by the danger which threatened royalty in France,they said what was true, but at bottom they were farfrom thinking so. Secret dispatches of the time provethat these expressions were only intended as clever pre-texts to mask their real purposes, and disguise themfrom the public eye. They knew perfectly wellorthought they knewthat the French Revolution was amere local and ephemeral accident, which might beturned to account. In this faith they formed plans,made preparations, contracted secret alliances ; quar-reled among themselves about the booty they saw be-fore them; were reconciled, and again divided; wereready, in short, for every thing except that which wasgoing to happen.

Englishmen, enlightened by the experience of theirown history, and trained by a long enjoyment of polit-ical liberty, saw, through a thick mist, the steady ad-vances of a great revolution ; but they could not dis-cern its form, or foresee the influence it was destinedto exercise over the world and over their own interests.Arthur Young, who traveled through France just be-fore the outbreak of the Eevolution, was so far fromsuspecting its real consequences that he rather fearedit might increase the power of the privileged classes.


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AND THE REVOLUTION. 15"As for the nobility iind the clergy," says he, "if thisrevolution enhances their preponderance, I fear it willdo more harm than good."

Burke's mind was illumined by the hatred he boreto the Eevolution from the first ; still he doubted for atime. His first inference was, that France would beweakened, if not annihilated. ' ' France is at this time,he said, " in a political light, to be considered as ex-punged out of the system of Europe. Whether shecan ever appear in it again as a leading power is noteasy to determine ; but at present I consider Franceas not politically existing, and most assuredly it wouldtake up much time to restore her to her former activeexistence. Gallos quoque in hellis Jloruisse audivi-Tnics ' We have heard that the Gauls too were oncenoted in war,' may be the remark of the present gen-eration, as it was of an ancient one."Men judged as loosely on the spot. On the eve of

the outbreak, no one in France knew what Avould bethe result. Among all the contemporaneous cahiers,I have only found two which seem to mark any ap-prehension of the people. Fears are exj)ressed thatroyalty, or the court, as it was still called, will retainundue preponderance. The States-General are said tobe too feeble, too short-lived. Alarm is felt lest theyshould suffer violence. The nobility is very u.neasyon this bead. Several cahiers affirm that " the Swisstroops will swear never to attack the citizens, even incase of affray or revolt." If the States-General arefree, all the abuses may be corrected ; the necessaryreform is extensive, but easy.

Meanwhile the Eevolution pursued its course. It


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16 THE OLD EEGIMEwas not till the strange and terrible physiognomy ofthe monster's head was visible ; till it destroyed civilas well as political institutions, manners, customs,laws, and even the mother tongue ; till, having dashedin pieces the machine of government, it shook thefoundations of society, and seemed anxious to assaileven God himself; till it overflowed the frontier, and,by dint of methods unknown before, by new systemsof tactics, by murderous maxims, and " armed "5pin-ions" (to use the language of Pitt), overthrew the land-marks of empires, broke crowns, and crushed sub-jects, while, strange to say, it won them over to itsside : it was not till then that a change came overmen's minds. Then sovereigns and statesmen beganto see that what they had taken for a mere every-dayaccident in history was an event so new, so contraryto all form^er experience, so widespread, so monstrousand incomprehensible, that the human mind was lostin endeavoring to examine it. Some supposed thatthis unknown power, whose strength nothing could en-hance and nothing diminish, which could not be check-ed, and which could not check itself, was destined tolead human society to complete and final dissolution.M. de Maistre, in 1797, observed that "the FrenchEevolution has a satanic character." On the otherhand, others discerned the hand of God in the Eevo-lution, and inferred a gracious design of Providence topeople France ^nd the world with a new and betterspecies. Several writers of that day seem to havebeen exercised by a sort of religious terror, such asSalvian felt at the sight of the barbarians. Burke,pursuing his idea, exclaims, " Deprived of the old gov-ernment, deprived in a manner of all government.


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AND THE REVOLUTION. 17France, fallen as a monarcliy to common speculators,appears more likely to be an object of pity or insult,according to tlie disjDosition of the circumjacent pow-ers, than to be the scourge and terror of them all ; butout of the tomb of the murdered monarchy in Francelias arisen a vast, tremendous, unformed spectre, in afar more terrific guise than any \vhicli ever yet haveoverpowered the imagination and subdued the forti-tude of man. Going straight forward to its end, un-appalled by peril, unchecked by remorse, despising allcommon maxims and all common means, that hideousphantom has overpowered those who could not believeit was possible she could at all exist except on theprinciples which habit rather than nature has per-suaded them are necessary to their own particular wel-fare and to their own ordinary modes of action."Now, was the Revolution, in reality, as extraordina-

ry as it seemed to its contemporaries? Was it as unex-ampled, as deeply subversive as they supposed? Whatwas the real meaning, what the true character of thisstrange and terrible revolution ? What did it actual-ly destroy ? What did it create ?

It appears that the proper time has come to putthese questions and to answer them. This is the mostopportune moment for an inquiry and a judgment uponthe vast topic they embrace. Time has cleared fromour eyes the film of passion which blinded those whotook part in the movement, and time has not yet im-paired our capacity to appreciate the spirit which ani-mated them. A short while hence the task will havebecome arduous, for successful revolutions obliteratetheir causes, and thus, by their own act, become inex-plicable.


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18 THE OLD REGIME

CHAPTER II.THAT THE FUNDAMENTAL AND FINAL OBJECT OF THE EEVOLUTIONWAS NOT, AS SOME HAVE SUPPOSED, TO DESTROY RELIGIOUS AND

TO WEAKEN POLITICAL AUTHORITY.ONE of the first measures of the French Eevolu-tion was an attack upon the Church. Of all the

passions to which that Revolution gave birth, that ofirreligion was the first kindled, as it was the last ex-tinguished. Even when the first enthusiasm of liber-ty had worn off, and peace had been purchased by thesacrifice of freedom, hostility to religion survived. Na-poleon subdued the liberal spirit of the Revolution,but he could not conquer its anti-Christian tendencies.Even in the times in which we live, men have fanciedthey were redeeming their servility to the most slen-der officials of the state by their insolence to God, andhave renounced all that was free, noble, and exalted inthe doctrines of the Revolution, in the belief that theywere still faithful to its spirit so long as they were in-fidels.

Yet nothing is easier than to satisfy one's self thatthe anti-religious war was a mere incident of the greatRevolution ; a striking, but fleeting expression of itsphysiognomy ; a temporary result of ideas, and pas-sions, and accidents which preceded itany thing butits own proper fruit.


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AND THE REVOLUTION. 1^It is generally understoodand justly sothat the

philosophy of the eighteenth century was one of thechief causes of the Revolution ; and it is not to he de-nied that that philosophy was deeply irreligious ; but itwas twofold, and the two divisions are widely distinct.One division or system contained all the new or re-

vived opinions with reference to the conditions of soci-ety, and the principles of civil and political law. Suchwere, for example, the doctrines of the natural equali-ty of man, and the consequent aholition of all caste,class, or professional privileges, popular sovereignty,the paramount authority of the social hody, the uni-formity of rules These doctrines are not onlythe causes of the French Revolution ; they are, so tospeak, its substance; they constitute the most funda-mental, the most durable, the truest portion of its work.The other system was widely different. Its leaders

attacked the Church with absolute fiiry. They assail-ed its clergy, its hierarchy, its institutions, its doc-trines ; to overthrow these, they tried to tear up Chris-tianity by the roots. But this portion of the philoso-phy of the eighteenth century derived its origin fromobjects which the Revolution destroyed : it naturallydisappeared with its cause, and was, so to speak, bm-ied in its triumph. I purpose returning to this greattopic herafter, and will add but one word here in orderto explain myself more fully. Christianity was hatedby these philosophers less as a religious doctrine thanas a political institution ; not because the priests as-sumed to regulate the concerns of the other world, butbecause they were landlords, seigniors, tithe-holders,administrators in tliis ; not because the Church could


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20 THE OLD REGIMEnot find a place in the new society which was beingestablished, but because she then occupied the placeof honor, privilege, and might in the society which wasto be overthrown.

See how time has confirmed this view, and is stillconfirming it under our own eyes ! Simultaneouslywith the consolidation of the political work of the Rev-olution, its religious work has been undone. The morethoroughly the political institutions it assailed havebeen destroyed ; the more completely the powers, in-fluences, and classes which were peculiarly obnoxiousto it have been conquered, and have ceased in theirruin to be objects of hatred ; in fine, the more the cler-gy have held themselves aloof from the institutionswhich formerly fell by their side, the higher has thepower of the Church risen, and the deeper has it takenroot in men's minds.

This phenomenon is not peculiar to France ; everyChristian Church in Europe has gained ground sincethe French Revolution.

Nothing can be more erroneous than to suppose thatdemocracy is naturally hostile to religion. NeitherChristianity nor even Catholicism involves any contra-diction to the democratic principle ; both are, in somerespects, decidedly favorable to it. All experience, in-deed, shows that the religious instinct has invariablytaken deepest root in the popular heart. All the re-ligions which have disappeared found a last refugethere. Strange, indeed, it would be if the tendency ofinstitutions based on the predominance of the pojoularwill and popular passions were necessarily and abso-lutely to impel the human mind toward impiety.


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AND THE EEVOLUTION. 21All that I have said of religious I may repeat with

additional emphasis in regard to political authority.When the Eevolution overthrew simultaneously all

the institutions and all the usages which had governedsociety and restrained mankind within bounds, it was,perhaps, only natural to suppose that its result wouldhe the destruction, not of one particular frame of so-ciety, but of all social order ; not of this or that gov-ernment, but of all public authority. There was a de-gree of plausibility in assuming that it aimed essen-tially at anarchy ; yet I will venture to say that thisalso was an illusion.

Less than a year after the Revolution had begun,Mirabeau wrote secretly to the king, " Compare thepresent state of things with the old regime, and con-sole yourself and take hope. A partthe greater partof the acts of the national assembly are decidedly fa-vorable to a monarchical government. Is it nothing tohave got rid of Parliament, separate states, the clericalbody, the privileged classes, and the nobility ? Rich-elieu would have liked the idea of forming but oneclass of citizens ; so level a surface assists the exer-cise ofpower. A series of absolute reigns would havedone less for royal authority than this one year ofEevolution." He understood the Revolution like aman who was competent to lead it.

The French Revolution did not aim merely at achange in an old government ,* it designed to abolish theold form of society. It was bound to assail all formsof established authority together ; to destroy acknowl-edged influences ; to efface traditions ; to substitutenew manners and usages for the old ones ; in a word.


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22 THE OLD REGIMEto sweep out of men's minds all the notions which hadhitherto commanded respect and ohedience. Hence itssingular anarchical aspect.But a close inspection brings to light from under the

ruins an immense central power, which has gathered to-gether and grasped all the several particles of author-ity and influence formerly scattered among a host ofsecondary powers, orders, classes, professions, families,and individuals, sown broadcast, so to speak, over thewhole social body. No such power had been seen inthe world since the fall of the Eoman empire. Thisnew power was created by the Eevolution, or, rather, itgrew spontaneously out of the ruins the Revolutionmade. If the governments it created were fragile,they were still far stronger than any that had precededthem, and their very fragility, as will be shown here-after, sprang from the same cause as their strength.

It was the simple, regular, grand form of this cen-tral power which Mirabeau discerned through the dustofthe crumbling institutions of olden time. The mass-es did not see it, great as it was. Time gradually dis-closed it to all ; and now, princes can see nothing else.Admiration and envy of its work fill the mind, not onlyof the sovereigns it created, but of those who werestrangers or inimical to its progress. All are busy de-stroying immunities, abolishing privileges throughouttheir dominions; mingling ranks, leveling, substitut-ing hired officials in the room of an aristocracy, a uni-form set of laws in the place of local franchises, a sin-gle strong government instead of a system of diversi-fied authorities. Their industry in this revolutionarywork is unceasing ; when they meet an obstacle, they


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AND THE EEVOLUTION. 23will sometimes even borrow a hint or a maxim fromthe Eevolution. They have been noticed inciting thepoor against the rich, the commoner against the noble,the peasant against his lord. The French Eevolutionwas both their scourge and their tutor.


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24 THE OLD REGIME

CHAPTEE III.THAT THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, THOUGH POLITICAL, PURSUED THE

SAME COURSE AS A RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION, AND WHY.ALL political and civil revolutions have been con-fined to a single country. The French Revolu-

tion had no country ; one of its leading effects appear-ed to be to efface national boundaries from the map.It united and divided men, in spite of law, traditions,characters, language; converted enemies into fellow-countrymen, and brothers into foes ; or, rather, tospeak more precisely, it created, far above particularnationalities, an intellectual country that was commonto all, and in which every human creature could obtainrights of citizenship.

ISTo similar feature can be discovered in any otherpolitical revolution recorded in history. But it occursin certain religious revolutions. Therefore those whowish to examine the French Eevolution by the lightof analogy must compare it with religious revolutions.

Schiller observes with truth, in his History of theThirty Years' War, that one striking effect of the Eef-ormation was that it led to sudden alliances and warmfriendships among nations which hardly knew eachother. Frenchmen were seen, for instance, fightingagainst Frenchmen, with Englishmen in their ranks.Men born on distant Baltic shores marched down into


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AND THE REVOLUTION. 25the heart of Germany to protect Germans of whomthey had never heard before. All the foreign wars ofthe time partook of the nature of civil wars ; in all thecivil wars foreigners bore arms. Old interests wereforgotten in the clash of new ones ; questions of terri-tory gave way to questions of principle. All the oldrules of politics and diplomacy were at fault, to thegreat surprise and grief of the politicians of the day.Precisely similar were the events which followed 1789in Europe.The French Eevolution, though political, assumed

the guise and tactics of a religious revolution. Somefarther points of resemblance between the two may benoticed. The former not only spread beyond the lim-its of France, but, like religious revolutions, spreadby preaching and propagandism. A political revolu-tion, which inspired proselytism, and whose doctrineswere preached abroad with as much warmth as theywere practiced at home, was certainly a new spectacle,the most strikingly original of aU the novelties whichwere presented to the world by the French Eevolution.But we must not stop here. Let us go further, andtry to discover whether these parallel results did notflow from parallel causes.

Eeligions commonly affect mankind in the abstract,without allowance for additions or changes effected bylaws, customs, or national traditions. Their chiefaimis to regulate the concerns of man with God, and thereciprocal duties of men toward each other, independ-ently of social institutions. They deal, not with menof any particular nation or any particular age, but withmen as sons, fathers, servants, masters, neighbors.B


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26: THE OLD REGIMEBased on principles essential to human nature, theyare applicable and suited to all races of men. Henceit is that religious revolutions have swept over suchextensive areas, and have rarely been confined, as po-litical revolutions have, to the territory of one people,or even one race ; and the more abstract their charac-ter, the wider they have spread, in spite of differencesof laws, climate, and race.The old forms of paganism, which were all more or

less interwoven with political and social systems, andwhose dogmas wore a national and sometimes a sort ofmunicipal aspect, rarely traveled beyond the frontiersof a single country. They gave rise to occasionaloutbursts of intolerance and persecution, but never toproselytism. Hence, the first religious revolution feltin Western Europe was caused by the establishmentof Christianity. That faith easily overstepped theboundaries which had checked the outgrowth of pa-gan systems, and rapidly conquered a large portion ofthe human race. I hope I shall exhibit no disrespectfor that holy faith if I suggest that it owed its suc-cesses, in some degree, to its unusual disentanglementfrom all national peculiarities, forms of government,social institutions, and local or temporary considera-tions.The French Eevolution acted, with regard to thingsof this world, precisely as religious revolutions haveacted with regard to things of the other. It dealt withthe citizen in the abstract, independent of particularsocial organizations, just as religions deal with man-kind in general, independent of time and place. It in-quired, not what were the particular rights of French


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AND THE REVOLUTION. 27citizens, but what were the general rights and dutiesof mankind in reference to political concerns.

It was by thus divesting itself of all that was pecu-liar to one race or time, and by reverting to naturalprinciples of social order and government, that it be-came intelligible to all, and susceptible of simultane-ous imitation in a hundred different places.By seeming to tend rather to the regeneration ofthehuman race than to the reform ofFrance alone, it rousedpassions such as the most violent political revolutionshad been incapable of awakening. It inspired prose-lytism, and gave birth to propagandism ; and hence as-sumed that quasi religious character which so terrifiedthose who saw it, or, rather, became a sort of new re-ligion, imperfect, it is true, without God, worship, orfuture life, but still able, like Islamism, to cover theearth with its soldiers, its apostles, and its martyrs.

It must not be supposed that all its methods wereunprecedented, or aU the ideas it brought forward ab-solutely original. On many former occasions, even inthe heart of the Middle Ages, agitators had invokedthe general principles on which human societies restfor the purpose of overthrowing particular customs,and had assailed the constitution of their country witharguments drawn from the natural rights ofman ; butall these experiments had been failures. The torchwhich set Europe on fire in the eighteenth centurywas easily extinguished in the fifteenth. Argumentsof this kind can not succeed till certain changes in thecondition, customs, and minds of men have prepared away for their reception.

There are times when men differ so widely that the


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28 THE OLD REGIMEbare idea of a common law for all appears unintelligi-'He. There are others, again, when they will recog-nize at a glance the least approach toward such a law,and embrace it eagerly.The great wonder is not that the French Eevolution

employed the methods it did, and conceived the ideasit brought forth ; what is wonderful and startling isthat mankind had reached a point at which these meth-ods could be usefully employed, and these ideas readi-ly admitted.


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AND THE REVOLUTION. 29

CHAPTER lY.HOW THE SAME INSTITUTIONS HAD BEEN ESTABLISHED OVER NEAR-LY ALL EUROPE, AND WERE EVERY WHERE FALLING TO PIECES.THE tribes which overthrew the Roman empire,and eventually constituted modern nations, differ-ed in race, origin, and language ; they were alike inbarbarism only. They found the empire in hopelessconfusion, which they aggravated; and thus, when theysettled, each was isolated from the others by the ruinsit had made. Civilization was almost extinct. So-'cial order had ceased to exist. International commu-nication was difficult and dangerous. Safety dictatedthe division of the great European family into a thou-sand little states, which soon became exclusive andhostile to each other.

Yet out of this chaos uniform laws suddenly issued.They were not borrowed from Roman legislation.

They were, indeed, so much opposed to it that the oldRoman law was the instrument afterward used totransform and abolish them.^ Their principles wereoriginal, and wholly different from any that had everbeen broached before. Composed of symmetrical parts,knit together as closely as the articles of any modemcode, they constituted a body of really learned laws forthe use of a semi-barbarous people.

It is not my design to inquire how such a systemwas formed and spread over Europe. I merely note


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30 THE OLD REGIMEthe fact that, during the Middle Ages, it existed tosome extent in every country ; and in many, to thetotal exclusion of all other systems.

I have had occasion to study the political institu-tions which flourished in England, France, and Ger-many during the Middle Ages. As I advanced in thework, I have been filled with amazement at the won-derful similarity of the laws established by races sofar apart and so widely different. They vary con-stantly and infinitely, it is true, in matters of detail,but in the main they are identical every where. When-ever I discovered in the old legislation of Germany apolitical institution, a rule, or a power, I Imew that athorough search would bring something similar to lightin France and England ; and I never failed to find itso. Each of the three nations enabled me to under-stand the other two.

In all three the government was carried on in ac-cordance with the same principles : the political assem-blies were constituted from the same materials, andarmed with the same powers ; society was divided intothe same classes, on the same sliding-scale ; the noblesoccupied the same rank, enjoyed the same privileges,were marked by the same natural characteristicsinshort, the men were, properly speaking, identically thesame in all.The city constitutions resembled each other; the

rural districts were governed on one uniform plan.There was no material difference in the condition ofthe peasantry; land was held, occupied, cultivated onthe same plan, and the farmer paid the same taxes.From the confines of Poland to the Irish Sea we can


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AND THE REVOLUTION. 31trace the same seigniories, seigniors' court, feuds, rents,feudal services, feudal rights, corporate bodies. Some-times the names are the same, and, what is still moreremarkable, the same idea pervades all these analo-gous institutions. I think it is safe to say that in thefourteenth century the various social, political, admin-istrative, judicial, economical, and literary institutionsof Europe were more nearly alike than they are now,though civilization has done so much to facilitate in-tercourse and efface national barriers.The task I have undertaken does not require me to

relate how this old constitution of Europe graduallygave way and broke down ; I merely state that in theeighteenth century it was in proximate ruin everywhere. ^ Decay was least conspicuous in the easternhalf of the continent, and most in the west ; but oldage and decrepitude were prominent on all sides.The records of the old Middle-Age institutions con-

tain the history of their decline. It is well knownthat land registers {terriers) were kept in each seign-iory, in which, century after century, were entered theboimdaries of the feuds and seigniories, the rents due,the services to be rendered, the local customs. I haveseen registers of the fourteenth and thirteenth centu-ries, which are masterpieces of method, perspicuity,and intellect. The more modem ones grow more ob-scure, more incomplete, more confused as they ap-proach our own day. It would seem as though thecivilization of society had involved the relapse of thepolitical system into barbarism.The old European constitution was better preserved

in Germany than in France ; but there, too, a portion


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32 THE OLD REGIMEof the institutions to wHcli it had given life were al-ready destroyed. One can judge of the ravages oftime, however, better from the portion which survivedthan from that which had perished.Of the municipal franchises which, in the thirteenth

and fourteenth centuries, had converted the chief citiesof Germany into rich and enlightened republics,^ a mereempty shadow remained. Their enactments were un-repealed ; their magistrates bore the old titles, and ap^peared to perform the old duties ; but the activity, theenergy, the civic patriotism, the manly and fruitful vir-tues of olden time had vanished. These venerable in-stitutions seemed to have sunk down without dis-tortion.

All the surviving mediaeval sources of authority hadsuffered from the same disease ; all alilie were decay-ed and languishing. Nor was this all; every thingwhich, without actually growing out of the mediaevalsystem, had been connected with it and marked by itsstamp, seemed equally lifeless. Aristocracy wore anair of servile debility. Even political freedom, whichhad filled the Middle Ages with its works, becamesterile in the dress in which they had clothed it. '*' Thoseprovincial assemblies which had preserved their oldconstitution in its integrity were rather a hindrancethan a help to civilization. They presented a stolid,impenetrable front to the march of intellect,, and drovethe people into the arms of monarchs. There wasnothing venerable in the age of these institutions ; theolder they grew, the smaller their claims to respectand somehow, the more harmless they became, the morehatred they seemed to inspire.^ A German writer, whose


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AND THE REVOLUTION. 33sympathies were all on the side of the old regime un-der which he lived, says, " The present state of thingsis shameful for all of us, and even contemptible. Itis strange how unfavorably men look upon every thingthat is old. Novelty penetrates even the family cir-cle, and overturns its peace. Our very housekeeperswant to get rid of their old furniture." Yet in Ger-many, as in France, society was then thrilling with ac-tivity, and highly prosperous ; but (mark this well ! itis the finishing touch to the picture) every living, act-ing, producing agent was new, and not only new, butcontrary to the old.

Royalty had nothing in common with mediaevalroyalty ; its prerogatives were different, its rank hadchanged, its spirit was new, the homage it received wasunusual. ^ The central power encroached on every sideupon decaying local franchises. A hierarchy of pub-lic functionaries usurped the authority of the nobles.All these new powers employed methods and took fortheir guide principles which the Middle Ages eithernever knew or rejected, and which, indeed, were only-suitable for a state of society they never conceived.At first blush it would appear that the old constitu-

tion of Europe is still in force in England ; but, on acloser view, this illusion is dispelled. Forget oldnames, pass over old forms, and you will find the feu-dal system substantially abolished there as early as theseventeenth century : all classes freely intermingled,an eclipsed nobility, an aristocracy open to all, wealthinstalled as the supreme power, all men equal beforethe law, equal taxes, a free press, public debatesphe-nomena which were all unknown to mediaeval society.B2


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34 THE OLD REGIMEIt was the skillful infusion of this young blood intothe old feudal body which preserved its life, and im-bued it with fresh vitality, without divesting it of itsancient shape. England was a modern nation in theseventeenth century, though it preserved, as it wereembalmed, some relics of the Middle Ages.

This hasty glance at foreign nations was essentialto a right comprehension of the following pages. 'Noone can understand the French Revolution withouthaving seen and studied something more than France.


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AND THE REVOLUTION. 35

CHAPTER V.WHAT DID THE FRENCH REVOLUTION REALLY ACHIEVE ?

THE object of the preceding inquiries was to clearthe way for the solution of the question I origin-ally put : What was the real object of the Revolution ?what was its peculiar character ? why was it broughtabout ? what did it achieve ?

It is an error to suppose, as some have done, thatthe object of the Revolution was to overthrow thesovereignty of religious creeds. Despite appearances,it was essentially_a_social..and political revolution. Itdid not tend to perpetuate or consolidate disorder, toy methodize anarchy" (as one of its leading opponentsremarked), but rather to augment the power and therights of public authority. It was not calculated tochange the character of our civilization, as others im-agined, or to arrest its progress, or even to alter, es-sentially, any of the fundamental laws upon which ourWestern societies rest. When it is disengaged fromthe extraneous incidents which imparted a temporarycoloring to its complexion, and is examined on its ownproper merits, it will be seen that its sole effect was toabolish those institutions which had held undividedsway over Europe for several centuries, and which areusually known as the feudal system,; in order to sub-stitute therefor a social and political organization mark-


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36 THE OLD EEGIMEed by more uniformity and more simplicity, and rest-ing on the basis of the equality of all ranks.

That alone required a stupendous revolution ; forthese old institutions were not only connected and in-terwoven with all the religious and political laws ofEurope, but had, besides, created a host of ideas, andfeelings, and habits, and customs, which had grown uparound them. To destroy and cut out of the socialbody a part which clung to so many organs involveda frightful operation. This made the Eevolution ap-pear even greater than it was. It appeared the uni-versal destroyer ; for what it did destroy was linked,and, in some degree, incorporated with almost everything else.Eadical as it was, the Eevolution introduced fewerinnovations than has been generally supposed, as Ishall have occasion to show hereafter. What it reallyachieved was the destructionrtotal, or partial, for thework is still in progressof every thing which pro- ^ceeded from the old aristocratical and feudal institu-tions, and of every thing which clung to them or borein any way their distinguishing mark. It respectedno legacy of the past but such as had been foreign tothese institutions, and could exist without them.

It was, least of all, a casual accident. True, it tookthe world by surprise ; yet it was the mere natural re-sult of very long labors, the sudden and violent term-ination of a task which had successively engaged tengenerations of men. Had it never taken place, theold social edifice would none the less have fallen,though it would have given way piecemeal instead ofbreaking down with a crash. The Eevolution effect-


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AND THE REVOLUTION. 37ed suddenly, by a convulsive and sudden effort, with-out transition, precautions, or pity, what would havebeen gradually effected by time had it never occurred.That was its achievement.

It is surprising that this fact, which we discern soplainly to-day, should have once been hidden from theeyes of the shrewdest observers. Burke appeals tothe French : " Had you but made it to be understoodthat, in the delusion of your amiable error, you hadgone farther than your wise ancestors ; that you wereresolved to assume your ancient privileges while youpreserved the spirit of your ancient and your recentloyalty and honor ; or, if diffident of yourselves, andnot clearly discerning the almost obliterated consti-tution of your ancestors, you had but looked to yourneighbors in this land, who had kept alive the ancientprinciples and the models of the old common law ofEurope "

Burke can not see that the real object of the Bevo-lution is to abolish that very common law in Europehe does not perceive that that, and nothing else, is thegist of the movement.

But, as society was every where prepared for thisEevolution, why did it break out in France rather thanabroad ? Why did it present features here which wereeither wholly dropped or only partially reproduced inother countries ? This secondary inquiry is worth re-solving : it will form the subject of the following Book.


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BOOK SECOND.CHAPTER I.

WHY THE FEUDAL RIGHTS WERE MORE ODIOUS TO THE PEOPLE INFRANCE THAN ANY WHERE ELSE.

APAEADOX meets us at the threshold of the in-quiiy. The Revolution was designed to abolish

the remains of the institutions of the Middle Ages : yetit did not "break out in countries where those institu-tions were in full vitality and practically oppressive,but, on the contrary, in a country where they werehardly felt at all ; whence it would follow that theiryoke was the most intolerable where it was in factlightest.At the close of the eighteenth century there was

hardly any part of Germany in which serfdom wascompletely abolished.*^ Generally speaking, peas-ants still formed part of the stock on lands, as theyhad done during the Middle Ages. Nearly all thesoldiers in the armies of Maria Theresa and Frederickwere absolute serfs.

In 1788, the general rule with regard to Germanpeasants was that they should not leave the seigniory,and if they did that they should be brought back byforce. They were subject to dominical courts, and bythem punished for intemperance and idleness. Theycould not rise in their calling, or change it, or marrywithout leave from their master. A great proportionof their time was given up to his service. Seigniorial


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THE OLD REGIME, ETC. 39corvees were rigorously exacted, and absorbed, in someplaces, three days of the week. The peasant rebuiltand kept in repair his seignior's house, took his prod-uce to market, served him as coachman and messen-ger. Many years of his youth were spent in domesticservice on the manor. A serf might obtain a farm,but his rights of property always remained inchoate.He was bound to farm his land under his seignior'seye, according to his seignior's directions ; he couldneither alienate nor mortgage it without leave. Hewas sometimes bound to sell the produce of his farm,sometimes forbidden to sell ; he was always bound tokeep his land under cultivation. His estate did notwholly pass to his children; a portion went to theseignior.

I have not groped through antiquated laws to findthese rules ; they are to be found in the code drawnup by Frederick the Great, and promulgated by hissuccessor just before the French Revolution broke out.^

Nothing of the kind had existed for many, manyyears in France. Peasants came and went, bought andsold, wrought and contracted without let or hindrance.In one or two eastern provinces, acquired by conquest,some stray relics of serfdom survived ; but it had dis-appeared every where else ; and that so long ago, thateven the period of its disappearance had been forgot-ten. Elaborate researches of recent date establish thatit had ceased to exist in Normandy as early as thetliirteenth century.But of all the changes that had taken place in the

condition of the French peasantry, the most importantwas that which had enabled them to become freehold-


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40 THE OLD REGIMEers. As this fact is not universally understood, thoughit is so important, I shall dwell upon it briefly.

It has been commonly believed that the subdivisionof farms began with and was caused by the Kevolution.All kinds of evidence establish the very reverse.Twenty years before the outbreak, agricultural so-

cieties deplored the subdivision offarm lands. Aboutthe same period Turgot declared that " the division ofestates was so general that a property barely sufficientto maintain a family was often parceled out among fiveor six children, who were consequently unable to sup-port themselves by agriculture alone." A few yearslater, Necker observed that the number of small ruralestates had become immense.A few years before the Revolution a steward of aseigniory informed his employer, in a secret report,that " estates are being subdivided so equally that thefact is growing alarming : every body wants to have apiece of this and a piece of that, and farms are inces-santly split into shreds." What more could be saidof our own time ?

I have myself taken infinite pains to reconstruct thecadastres, so to speak, of the old regime, and I haveoccasionally succeeded. The law of 1790, imposing aland tax, devolved upon each parish the duty of pre-paring a schedule of the estates within its limits. Mostof these schedules have disappeared. I have, howev-er, discovered them in some villages, and I find, oncomparing them with our modern rolls, that the num-ber of landed proprietors was formerly one half andsometimes two thirds of what it is now ; a surprisingfact, as the total population of France has, since thattime, increased more than twenty-five per cent.


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AND THE REVOLUTION. 41Then, as now, a sort of mania for the acquisition of

land pervaded the rural population. A judicious con-temporary observer notes that "land is selling aboveits value, owing to the rage of the peasantry to be-come landowners. All the savings of the lower class-es, which in other countries are lodged in private handsor invested in public securities, are used for the pur-chase of land in France."None of the novelties which astonished Arthur

Young on his first visit to France appeared to him sostriking as the infinite subdivision of land among thepeasantry, who, he estimated, held among them onehalf the landed property in the kingdom. " I had noidea of such a state of things," he writes more thanonce ; nor, indeed, could he have, for no such phenom-enon existed beyond the frontiers of France or theirimmediate neighborhood.

There had been peasant proprietors in England, butthey were, even then, growing rare. In Germany, too,there had been, from time to time, in every section ofthe country, free farmers owning portions of the soil.&The oldest German customs recognized a freeholdpeasantry, and embraced curious regulations regardingland held by them ; but the nuniber of such landhold-ers was always small, and their case an exceptionalone.The only portions of Germany where, at the close

of the eighteenth century, the peasantry were landhold-ers, and comparatively free, were those which borderedon the Rhine ;^ and it was in the Rhenish provincesthat the French revolutionary fever developed itselffirst and raged most fiercely. Those portions of Gerr


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42 THE OLD REaiMEmany which resisted the Eevolution the longest werethose where neither freeholds nor rural liberty hadmade their appearance ; a significant fact.

It is, then, a vulgar error to suppose that the subdi-vision of property in France dates from the Eevolution.It began much farther back. It is true that the Eev-olution was the means of bringing into market theChurch property and many of the estates of the no-bility; but it will be found, on examination of thesales (a task which I have occasionally had patienceto perform), that the bulk of these lands passed intothe hands of persons who held land already, so that nogreat increase in the number of landowners can havetaken place. They were already, to use the ambitiousbut accurate expression of M. Necker, immensely nu-merous. 'The Eevolution did not divide, it freed land. All

these small landowners were bound to render variousfeudal services, of which they could not get rid, andwhich gravely impeded a proper development of theirproperty.

That these services were onerous can not be ques-tioned. Still, the very circumstance which it wouldseem ought to have lightened their burden rendered itintolerable. A revolution scarcely less radical thanthat which had enabled them to become freeholders hadreleased the peasantry of France, alone out of all Eu-rope, from the government of their rural lords.

Brief as is the interval which divides us from the oldregime, and often as we see persons who were born un-der it, it seems already lost in the night of time. Soradical was the revolution which has intervened, that


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AND THE REVOLUTION. 43it appears to have perished ages ago, and to be nowburied in obscurity. Hence there are but few personswho can give a correct answer to the simple questionHow were the rural districts governed before 1789?Nor, indeed, can any precise and comprehensive an-swer be found in books, or elsewhere than in the officialrecords of the time.

I have often heard it remarked that, long after thenobility had ceased to participate in the governmentof the kingdom, the rural administration remained intheir hands, and the seigniors still governed the peas-antry. This too looks like a misconception.

In the eighteenth century, all parochial businesswas transacted by functionaries who were not seignio-rial agents, and who, instead of being chosen by theseigniors, were either appointed by the intendant ofthe province or elected by the peasantry. It devolvedupon these officers to distribute the taxes, to repairthe churches, to build schools, to convene and presideover parish meetings ; to administer and superintendthe expenditure of the funds of the comrriune; to in-stitute or answer, on behalf of the community, all nec-essary legal proceedings. The seignior had lost notonly the management, but even the supervision of thesepetty local matters. All parish officers were subjectto the government or the central power, as I shallshow in the following chapter. Nor did the seigniorfigure any longer as the king's deputy in the parish.The execution of the laws, the assembling of the mi-litia, the levying of the taxes, the promulgation of theking's commands, the distribution of his alms, were nolonger intrusted to the seignior. They devolved upon


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44 THE OLD REGIMEnew functionaries. The seignior was in fact nothingmore than a simple individual, isolated from his fel-lows by the enjoyment of peculiar immunities and priv-ileges ; his rank was different^his power no greaterthan theirs. The intendants were careful to remindtheir sub-agents that "the seignior is nothing morethan the first peasant in the parish."The cantons exhibit the same spectacle as the par-

ishes. Nowhere do the nobles, either collectively orseparately, administer public affairs.

This was peculiar to France. Every where else, thatstriking feature of the old feudal system, the connectionbetween the ownership of land and the government ofits inhabitants, had been partially preserved. Englandwas administered as well as governed by its chiefland-holders. In parts of Germany, such as Prussia andAustria, the sovereigns had contrived to shake off thecontrol of the nobility in state affairs ; but they stillabandoned the government of the rural districts to theseigniors, and even where they assumed to control, didnot venture to supersede them.

In France, the only public department in which thenobles stiU had a hand was the administration of jus-tice. Leading noblemen still preserved a right of juris-diction over certain cases (which were decided by judgesin their name), and occasionally issued police regula-tions for the use of their seigniories ; but their juris-diction had been so curtailed, and limited, and over-ridden by the royal courts, that the seigniors who stillenjoyed it viewed it rather as a source of income thanas a source of power.The other rights of the nobility had shared the same


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AND THE JIEVOLUTION. 45fate. They had lost their political significance, buttheir pecuniary value had been retained and occasion-ally augmented.

I am alluding now only to those tangible privilegeswhich were known as feudal rights proper, as theyalone affected the people.

It is no easy matter to point out what they actuallywere in 1789, for their number had been immense, andtheir diversity prodigious. Many had disappeared al-together. Others had undergone modifications, so thatthe words used to describe them were not easily under-stood even by contemporaries ; they are necessarilyfiill of obscurities for us. Still, a careful study of thewriters on feudal law in the eighteenth century, and asearching inquiry into the various local customs, per-mits us to range the then existing feudal rights in afew leading classes, all others being mere isolated cases.

Seigniorial corvees were almost wholly disused.Many of the tolls on highways were either substan-tially reduced or abolished, though they were still metwith in a majority of the provinces. The seigniorsstill levied a toll upon fairs and markets. It is wellknown that they enjoyed an exclusive privilege of hunt-ing. Generally spealdng, none but they could keeppigeons or own dove-cotes. The farmers were everywhere bound to carry their grain to the seignior's mill,their grapes to his wine-press. Mutation finesa taxpaid to the seignior on every purchase or sale of landswithin the seigniorywere universally in force. Onall land, moreover, ground-rents {cens et rentes foncv-eres) and returns in money or kind were exacted fromthe proprietor by the seignior, and were essentially ir-


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46 THE OLD KEGIMEredeemable. One single feature is common to all thesevarious rules : all bear upon tlie soil or its produceall are leveled at the farmer.

Clerical seigniors enjoyed the same advantages astheir lay brethren ; for, though there was no similitudebetween the Church and the feudal system in point oforigin, destiny, or character, and though they were nev-er actually incorporated into one, they clung togetherso closely that they seemed incrusted one upon theother. 1^ 1

Bishops, canons, ahbes held feuds and seigniories invirtue of their ecclesiastical rank ; convents were usu-ally the seigniors of the village in which they stood. "^They owned serfs at a time when no other seignior inFrance did. They exacted corvees, levied toll uponfairs and markets, owned the only oven, the only mill,the only wine-press, the only bull in the seigniory.Besides these rights as seigniors, the French clergy,like the clergy elsewhere, levied tithes.The main point, however, to which I wish to draw

attention just now, is the fact that analogous feudalrights were in force all over Europe at that time, andthat in France they were far less burdensome than inother parts of the Continent. As an illustration ofthe difference I may cite corvees, which in Francewere rarely claimed and slight, in Germany universal-ly and rigorously exacted.More than this, the feudal rights which roused most

indignation among our ancestors, as being not only un-just, but inimical to civilizationsuch, for instance,as tithes, inalienable ground-rents {rentes fondtres)^interminable rent-charges, and mutation fines, which,


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AND THE EEVOLUTION. , 47in the somewhat forcible idiom of the eighteenth cen-tury, were said to constitute the "slavery of the land,"were all more or less in force in England. Many ofthem are still in full vigor, and yet English agricul-ture is the most perfect and richest in the world. TheEnglish people hardly notice their existence.How did it happen, then, that these usages rousedin France a hatred so fierce that it survived its cause,and seems as though it would never he extinguished ?The phenomenon is due partly to the fact that theFrench peasant was a landholder, and partly to hisemancipation from the government of his seignior.Other causes co-operated, no doubt ; but, I take it,these were the main reasons.Had the peasantry not been landholders, they wouldhave paid no attention to many of the burdens laid bythe feudal system on real estate. Tithes, which arelevied on produce, interest no one but farmers. Rent-charges are immaterial to those who do not own land.Legal hindrances to the development of property areno serious inconvenience to those who are hired to de-velop it for others. And, on the other hand, if theFrench peasantry had still been governed by theirseigniors, they would have borne with the feudal rightsmore patiently, for they would have viewed them inthe light of a natural consequence of the constitutionof the country.

Aristocracies, which possess not merely privileges,but actual power, which govern and administer publicaffairs, may exercise private rights of great magnitudewithout attracting much attention. In the old feudaltimes people looked upon the nobility as they now look


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48 THE OLD EEGIMEon government : they Ibore its impositions for the sakeof the protection it afforded. If the nobility possessedinconvenient privileges and exacted onerous duties, itsecured public order, administered justice, executed thelaws, succored the weak, managed public affairs. Itwas when it ceased to do these things that the burdenof its privileges began to be felt, and its very existencebecame inexplicable.Picture to yourself, I beg, the French peasant of theeighteenth century, or, rather, the peasant you see to-day, for he is still the same ; his condition has changed,but not his character. Picture him, as the documentsof the time depict him, so eager for land that he savesall his money to buy, and buys at any price. In or-der to purchase, he is bound, in the first place, to pay atax, not to the government, but to some neighbors ofhis, who have no more authority, and no more to dowith public business than he. Still he buys, and putshis heart into his land with his seed. The idea thatthis little corner of the vast universe belongs to himalone fills him with pride and independence. But thesame neighbors pass along and compel him to work ontheir land without wages. If he tries to protect hisharvest from the game, they prevent him. He can notcross the river without paying them toll. He, can nottake his produce to market and sell it till he has boughtleave to do so from them ; and when, on his returnhome, he wants to consume in his family the surplusof his producesown by his hands and grown underhis eyeshe finds he must first send his grain to theirmill to be ground, and to their oven to be cooked.The largest part of the income of his little estate goes


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AND THE REVOLUTION. 49to the same parties in tlie shape of rents, which can notbe redeemed or got rid of in any way.

Let him do what he like, he can not but meet at ev-ery step of his life these same neighbors, who interferewith his enjoyments, impede his work, consume hisproduce; and when he has done with these, others,dressed in black, make their appearance, and sweep offthe clearest part of his harvest. Picture, if you can,the condition, the wants, the character, the passions ofsuch a man, and estimate the store of hatred and envyhe is laying up in his heart !^The feudal system, though stripped of its political

attributes, was still the greatest of our civil institu-tions ; but its very curtailment was the source of itsunpopularity. It may be said, with perfect truth, thatthe destruction of a part of that system rendered theremainder a hundred-fold more odious than the wholehad ever appeared.

C


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60 _ THE OLD REGIME

CHAPTEE II.THAT WE OWE "ADMINISTRATIVE CENTRALIZATION," NOT TO THEREVOLUTION OR THE EMPIRE, AS SOME SAT, BUT TO THE OLD RE-GIME.

I ONCE heard an orator, in the days when we had po-litical assemblies, call administrative centralization" that noble conquest of the Eevolution which Europeenvies us." I am willing to admit that centralizationwas a noble conquest, and that Europe envies us itspossession ; but I deny that it was a conquest of theEevolution. It was, on the contrary, a feature of theold regime, and, I may add, the only one which out-lived the Eevolution, because it was the only one thatwas suited to the new condition of society created bythe Eevolution. A careful perusal of this chapter willperhaps convince the reader that I have more thanproved this.

I must, at the outset, beg to be permitted to set asidethose provinces known as pays d^ttats^ which did actu-ually, or, at least, had the appearance of partially con-trolling the administration of their own government.The pays d^etats^ situated at the extremities of the

kingdom, contained barely one fourth of the total pop-ulation of France ; and, with one or two exceptions,their provincial liberties were in a dying condition. Ishall have occasion hereafter to return to them, and toshow how far the central power had rendered themsubject to the ordinary rules.*

* See Appendix.


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AND THE REVOLUTION. 51I purpose to devote attention at present chiefly to

those provinces which were styled, in administrativeparlance, j?


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62 THE OLD REGIMEheart of the kingdom, and close to the monarch, an ad-ministrative "body of singular power has lately grownup and absorbed all minor powers. That is the Koy-al Council.Though its origin is ancient, most of its functions

are modern. ' It is 'every thing at once : supreme courtof justice, for it can reverse the decision of all ordi-nary tribunals and highest administrative authority,from which all subordinate authorities derive theirpower. As adviser of the king, it possesses, underhim, legislative powers, discusses all and proposesmost of the laws, levies and distributes the taxes. Itmakes rules for the direction of aU government agents.It decides all important affairs in person, and superin-tends the working of all subordinate departments. Allbusiness originates with it, or reaches it at last ; yet ithas no fixed, well-defined jurisdiction. Its decisionsare the king's, though they seem to be the Council's.Even while it is administering justice, it is nothingmore than an assembly of "givers of advice," as theParliament said in one of its remonstrances.^-

This Council is not composed of nobles, but of per-sons of ordinary or low extraction, who have filledvarious offices and acquired an extensive knowledgeof business. They all hold office during good behav-ior.

It works noiselessly, discreetly, far less pretentiousthan powerful. It has no brilliancy of its own. Itsproximity to the king makes it a partner in every im-portant measure, but his greater effulgence eclipses it.^As the national administration was in the hands ofa single body, nearly the whole executive direction of


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AND THE REVOLUTION. 53home affairs was in like manner intrusted to a singleagent, the comptroller-general.

Old almanacs furnish lists of special ministers foreach province, but an examination of the "business rec-ords shows that these ministers had very little impor-tant business to transact. That fell to the lot of thecomptroller -general, who gradually monopolized themanagement of all money affairsin other words, thewhole public administration. He was alternately min^ister of finance, of the interior, of public works, of com-merce.On the same principle, one agent in each province

sufficed. As late as the eighteenth century, some greatseigniors were entitled provincial governors. Theywere the representatives, often by hereditary descent,of feudal royalty. They enjoyed honors still, but theywere unaccompanied by power. The substantial gov^emment was in the hands of the intendant.

That functionary was not of noble extraction. Hewas invariably a stranger to the province, a young manwith his fortune to make. He obtained his office nei-ther by purchase, election, nor inheritance ; he was se-lected by the government from among the inferiormembers of the Council of State, and held his officeduring good behavior. While in his province, he rep-resented that body, and was hence styled in office di-alect the absent commissioner {coniTnissaire departt).His powers were scarcely less than those of the coun-cil itself, though his decisions were subject to appeal.Like the Council, he held administrative and judicialauthority : he corresponded with ministers ; he was,


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54 THE OLD EEGIMEin his province, the sole instrument of the will of gov-ernment.

Under him he appointed for each canton an officercalled a sub-delegate {suhdelegue)^ who also held of-fice during good behavior. The intendant was usual-ly the first noble of his family ; the sub-delegate wasalways a commoner, yet the latter was the sole repre-sentative of the government in his little sphere, as theintendant was in his province. He was subject to theintendant, himself subject to the minister.

The Marquis d'Argenson tells us in his Memoirsthat one day Law said to him, " I never could havebelieved beforehand what I saw when I was comp-troller of finances. Let me tell you that this kingdomof France is governed by thirty intendants. You haveneither Parliament, nor estates, nor governors ; nothingbut thirty masters of requests, on whom, so far as theprovinces are concerned, welfare or misery, plenty orwant, entirely depend."These powerful officials were, however, outwardlyeclipsed by the remains of the old feudal aristocracy,thrown into the shade by its lingering splendor ; henceit was that even in their day one saw so little of them,though their hand was every where felt. Li society,the nobility took precedence of them in virtue of theirrank, their wealth, and the respect always paid to whatis ancient. In the government, the nobility surround-ed the king and constituted the court ; noblemen ledthe armies and commanded the fleet ; they performedthose duties, in a word, which are most noticed by con-temporaries, and too often best remembered by pos-terity. A seignior of high rank would have felt him-


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AND THE EEVOLUTION. 55self insulted by the offer of a place of intendant ; thepoorest gentleman of his house would have disdainedto accept it. In their eyes the intendants were thetypes of usurped authority, new men, employed to lookafter burghers and peasants ; at best, very poor com-pany. For all this, these men governed France, asLaw said, and as we shall soon discover.

Let us begin with the right of levying taxes, whichmay be said to involve all other rights.It is well known that a portion of the taxes were

farmed out to financial companies, which levied themunder the directions of the Eoyal Council. All othertaxes, such as the taille^ capitation-tax, and twentieths,were established and levied directly by the agents ofthe central administration, or under their all-powerfulcontrol.Every year the Council fixed and distributed among

the provinces the amount of the taille and its numer-ous accessories. ^The session and decision of the Coun-cil were secret ; the taille increased year after year, andno one was aware of it.,The taille was a very old tax ; in foniier times it

had been apportioned and levied by local agents, whowere independent of government, and held office invirtue of their birth, or by election, or by purchase.Such were the "seignior," the "parochial collector,"the "treasurers of France," the "select-men" (elics).These titles were still in existence in the eighteenthcentury ; but some of the persons who bore them hadceased wholly to have to do with the taille, while oth-ers were only concerned with it in a subordinate andsecondary capacity. The whole real authority on the


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56 THE OLD REGIMEsubject was in the hands of the intendant and hisagents ; it was he who apportioned the taille amongthe parishes, directed and overlooked the collectors,granted delays or remissions*More modern imposts, such as the capitation-tax,

were regulated by government without interferencefrom the surviving officers of the old system. Thecomptroller-general, the intendant, and the Council fix^ed the amount of each impost, and levied it withoutthe intervention of the taxables.

Let us pass from money to men.Surprise has been expressed at the docility with

which the French bore the burden of the conscriptionduring and after the Revolution ; but it must be bornein mind that they had long been used to it. The mi-litia system which had preceded it was more onerous,though the contingents raised were smaller. Fromtime to time, in the country parts, young men weredrawn by lot to serve in militia regiments for a termof six years.As the militia was a comparatively modern institu-

tion, none of the feudal authorities interfered with itit was wholly under the control of the central govern-ment. The entire contingent, and the proportion to beborne by each province, were regulated by the Council.The intendant fixed the number of men to be furnish-ed by each parish. His sub-delegate presided over thelottery, awarded exemptions, decided who were to re-main at home and who were to march. It was hisduty to hand over the latter to the military authorities.There was no appeal from him but to the intendantand the Council.

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the old regime and t alexis de tocqueville

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