An Introduction to the History of Western Europe

by James Harvey Robinson

The privileges of the nobles, like those of the clergy, had originated in the mediæval conditions described in an earlier chapter.[381] A detailed study of their rights would reveal many survivals of the conditions which prevailed in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when the great majority of the people were serfs living upon the manors. While serfdom had largely disappeared in France long before the eighteenth century, and the peasants were generally free men who owned or rented their land, the lords still enjoyed the right to collect a variety of time-honored dues from the inhabitants living within the limits of the former manors.

The privileges and dues enjoyed by the nobles varied greatly in different parts of France. It was quite common for the noble landowner to have a right to a certain portion of the peasants' crops; occasionally he could collect a toll on sheep and cattle driven past his house. In some cases the lord maintained, as he had done in the Middle Ages, the only mill, wine press, or oven within a certain district, and could require every one to make use of these and pay him a share of the product. Even when a peasant owned his land, the neighboring lord usually had the right to exact one fifth of its value every time it was sold. The nobles, too, enjoyed the aristocratic privilege of the hunt. The game which they preserved for their amusement often did great damage to the crops of the peasants, who were forbidden to interfere with hares, deer, pigeons, etc.

All these privileges were vestiges of the powers which the nobles had enjoyed when they ruled their estates as feudal lords. Louis XIV had, as we know, induced them to leave their domains and gather round him at Versailles, where all who could afford it lived for at least part of the year. The higher offices in the army were reserved for the nobles, as well as the easiest and most lucrative places in the church and about the king's person.[382]

The third estate.

211. Everybody who did not belong to either the clergy or nobility was regarded as being of the third estate. The third estate was therefore nothing more than the nation at large, which was made up in 1789 of about twenty-five million souls. The privileged classes can scarcely have counted altogether more than two hundred and seventy thousand individuals. A great part of the third estate lived in the country and tilled the soil. Most historians have been inclined to make out their condition as very bad indeed. They were certainly oppressed by an abominable system of taxation and were irritated by the dues which they had to pay to the lords. They also suffered frequently from local famines. Yet there is no doubt that the evils of their situation have been greatly exaggerated. When Thomas Jefferson traveled through France in 1787 he reports that the country people appeared to be comfortable and that they had plenty to eat. Arthur Young, a famous English traveler who has left us an admirable account of his journeys in France during the years 1787–1789, found much prosperity and contentment, although he gives, too, some forlorn pictures of destitution.

Favorable situation of the peasant in France compared with other countries.

Rapid increase of population in the eighteenth century.

The latter have often been unduly emphasized by historical writers; for it has commonly been thought that the Revolution was to be explained by the misery and despair of the people who could tolerate the old system no longer. If, however, instead of comparing the situation of the French peasant under the old régime with that of an English or American farmer to-day, we contrast his position with that of his fellow-peasant in Prussia, Austria, or Italy, it will be clear that in France the agricultural classes were really much better off than elsewhere on the continent. In Prussia, for example, the peasants were still serfs: they had to work three whole days in each week for their lord; they could not marry or dispose of their land without his permission. Moreover, the fact that the population of France had steadily increased from seventeen million after the close of the wars of Louis XIV to about twenty-five million at the opening of the Revolution, indicates that the general condition of the people was improving rather than growing worse.

Popular discontent, not the exceptionally miserable condition of the French people, accounts for the Revolution.