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[ Albert Babeau, "La Ville," p. 27;—"Histoire de Troyes," p. 21.—This portrait is drawn according to recollections of childhood and family narrations. I happen to have known the details of two or three small provincial towns, one of about six thousand inhabitants where, before 1800, nearly all the notables, forty families, were relations; to-day all are scattered. The more one studies documents, the more does Montesquieu's definition of the incentive of society under the ancient régime seem profound and just, this incentive consisting of honor. In the bourgeoisie who were confounded with the nobility, namely the Parliamentarians, their functions were nearly gratuitous; the magistrate received his pay in deference. (Moniteur, V., 520. Session of August 30, 1790, speech by d'Espremenil.) "Here is what it cost a Councillor; I take myself as an example. He paid fifty thousand livres for his place, and ten thousand more for the tax of the 'marc d'or.' He received three hundred and eighty-nine livres ten sous salary, from which three hundred and sixty-seven livres 'capitation' had to be deducted. The King allowed us forty-five livres for extra service of 'La Tournelle'. How about the fees? is asked. The (grande chambre) superior court, asserted to have received the largest amount, was composed of one hundred and eighty members; the fees amounted to two hundred and fifty thousand livres, which were not a burden on the nation, but on the litigants. M. Thouret, who practiced in the Rouen parliament, will bear witness to this. I appeal to him to say conscientiously what sum a Councillor derived from his office—not five hundred livres... When a judgment cost the litigant nine hundred livres the King's portion was six hundred livres... To sum up, the profits of an office were seven livres ten sous.">[
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[ Albert Babeau, "La Ville," ch. II., and "Histoire de Troyes," I., ch. 1. At Troyes, fifty merchants, notables, elected the judge-consul and two consuls; the merchants' guild possessed its own hall and had its own meetings. At Paris, the drapers, mercers, grocers, furriers, hatters and jewelers formed the six bodies of merchants. The merchants' guild everywhere took precedence of other industrial communities and enjoyed special privileges. "The merchants," says Loyseau, "hold rank (qualité d'honneur), being styled honorable men, honest persons and bourgeois of the towns, qualifications not attributed to husbandmen, nor to sergeants, nor to artisans, nor to manual laborers."—On paternal authority and domestic discipline in these old bourgeois families see the History of Beaumarchais and his father. (" Beaumarchais," by M. de Lomenie, vol. I.)]
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[ Albert Babeau, "Le village sous l'Ancien Régime," p. 56, ch. III and IV., (on the village syndics), and pp. 357 and 359. "The peasants had the right to deliberate on their own affairs directly and to elect their principal agents. They understood their own needs, were able to make a sacrifice for school and church.... for repairs of the town clock and the belfry. They appointed their own agents and generally elected the most capable."—Ibid, "La Ville sous 1'Ancien Regime," p.29. The artisans' guilds numbered at Paris one hundred and twenty-four. at Amiens sixty-four, and at Troyes fifty, also Chalons-sur-Marne, at Angers twenty-seven. The edicts of 1776 reduced them to forty-four at Paris, and to twenty as the maximum for the principal towns within the jurisdiction of the Paris parliament.—"Each guild formed a city within a city... Like the communes, it had its special laws, its selected chiefs, its assemblies, its own building or, at least, a chamber in common, its banner, coat-of-arms and colors."—Ibid., "Histoire de Troyes Pendant la Revolution," I., 13, 329. Trade guilds and corporations bear the following titles, drawn up in 1789, from the files of complaints: apothecaries, jewelers and watch-makers, booksellers and printers, master-barbers, grocers, wax and candle-makers, bakers and tailors, master shoemakers, eating-house-keepers, inn-keepers and hatters, master-masons and plasterers in lime and cement, master-joiners, coopers and cabinet-makers, master-cutlers, armorers, and polishers; founders, braziers, and pin-makers; master-locksmiths, ironmongers, tinsmiths and other metal workers, vinegar-makers, master-shearers, master rope-makers, master-tanners, dealers and master-dyers and dressers; master saddle and harness-makers, charcoal-burners, carters, paper-makers and band-box-makers, cap-makers and associates in arts and trades.—In some towns one or two of these natural guilds kept up during the Revolution and still exist, as, for example, that of the butchers at Limoges.]
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[ F. Leplay, "Les Ouvriers Européens," V., 456, 2nd ed., (on workmen's guilds), Charpentier, Paris.]
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[ F. Leplay, "Les Quvriers Européens," (2nd ed.) IV., 377, and the monographs of four families (Bordier of Lower Brittany, Brassier of Armagnac, Savonnier of Lower Provence, Paysan of Lavedan, ch. 7, 8 and 9).—Ibid., "L'Organization de la Famille," p.62, and the whole volume.—M. Leplay, in his exact, methodical and profound researches, has rendered a service of the highest order to political science and, consequently, to history. He has minutely observed and described the scattered fragments of the old organization of society; his analysis and comparison of these fragments shows the thickness and extent of the stratum almost gone, to which they belonged. My own observations on the spot, in many provinces in France, as well as the recollections of my youth, agree with M. Leplay's discoveries.—On the stable, honest and prosperous families of small rural proprietors, Cf. Ibid., p. 68, (Arthur Young's observation in Béarn), and p.75. Many of these families existed in 1789, more of them than at the present time, especially in Gascony, Languedoc, Auvergne, Dauphiny, Franch-Comté, Alsace and Normandy.—Ibid., "L'Organization du Travail," pp.499, 503, 508. (Effects of the "Code Civile" on the transmission of a manufactory and a business establishment in France, and on cultivation in Savoy; the number of suits in France produced by the system of forced partition of property.)]