The Modern Regime, Volume 1 [Napoleon] The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5
by
Hippolyte A. Taine
Part 5 out of 8
and the schoolhouse no longer exist? - Fortunately, instruction is an
article of such necessity that a father almost always tries to procure
it for his children; even if poor, he is willing to pay for it, if not
too dear; only, he wants that which pleases him in kind and in quality
and, therefore, from a particular source, bearing this or that factory
stamp or label. If you want him to buy it do not drive the purveyors
of it from the market who enjoy his confidence and who sell it
cheaply; on the contrary, welcome them and allow them to display their
wares. This is the first step, an act of toleration; the conseils-
généraux demand it and the government yields.[125] It permits the
return of the Ignorantin brethren, allows them to teach and authorizes
the towns to employ them; later on, it graduates them at its
University: in 1810, they already possess 41 schoolhouses and 8400
pupils.[126] Still more liberally, it authorizes and favors female
educational congregations; down to the end of the empire and
afterwards, nuns are about the only instructors of young girls,
especially in primary education. - Owing to the same toleration, the
upper schools are likewise reorganized, and not less spontaneously,
through the initiative of private individuals, communes, bishops,
colleges or pensionnats, at Reims, Fontainebleau, Metz, Évreux,
Sorrèze, Juilly, La Fléche and elsewhere small seminaries in all the
dioceses. Offer and demand have come together; instructors meet the
children half-way, and education begins on all sides.[127]
Thought can now be given to its endowment, and the State invites
everybody, the communes as well as private persons, to the
undertaking. It is on their liberality that it relies for replacing
the ancient foundations; it solicits gifts and legacies in favor of
new establishments, and it promises "to surround these donations with
the most invariable respect."[128] Meanwhile, and as a precautionary
measure, it assigns to each its eventual duty;[129] if the commune
establishes a primary school for itself, it must provide the tutor
with a lodging and the parents must compensate him; if the commune
founds a college or accepts a lycée, it must pay for the annual
support of the building,[130] while the pupils, either day-scholars or
boarders, pay accordingly. In this way, the heavy expenses are already
met, and the State, the general-manager of the service, furnishes
simply a very small quota; and this quota, mediocre as a rule, is
found almost null in fact, for its main largess consists in 6400
scholarships which it establishes and engages to support; but it
confers only about 3000 of them,[131] and it distributes nearly all of
these among the children of its military or civilian employees This
way a son's scholarship becomes additional pay or an increased salary
for the father; thus, the 2 millions which the State seems, under this
head, to assign to the lycées are actually gratifications which it
distributes among its functionaries and officials: it takes back with
one hand what it be-stows with the other. - Having put this in place,
it establishes the University. It is not at its own expense, however,
but at the expense of others, at the expense of private persons and
parents, of the communes, and above all at the expense of rival
schools and private boarding-schools, of the free institutions, and
all this in favor of the University monopoly which subjects these to
special taxation as ingenious as it is multifarious.[132] A private
individual obtaining diploma to open on a boarding school must pay
from 200 to 300 francs to the University; likewise, every person
obtaining a diploma to open an institution shall pay from 400 to 600
francs to the University; likewise every person obtaining permission
to lecture on law or medicine.[133] Every student, boarder, half-
boarder or day-scholar in any school, institution, seminary, college
or lycée, must pay to the University one-twentieth of the sum which
the establishment to which he belongs demands of each of its pupils.
In the higher schools, in the faculties of law, medicine, science and
literature, the students pay entrance and examination fees and for
diplomas, so that the day comes when superior instruction provides for
its expenditures out of its receipts and even shows on its budget a
net surplus of profit. The new University, with its expenses thus
defrayed, will support itself alone; accordingly, all that the State
really grants to it, as a veritable gift, in ready cash, is 400,000
francs annual income on the public ledger, a little less than the
donation of one single college, Louis-le-Grand, in 1789.[134] It may
even be said that it is exactly the fortune of the old college which,
after being made use of in many ways, turned aside and with other
mischance, becomes the patrimony of the new University.[135] From
high-school to University, the State has effected the transfer. Such
is its generosity. This is especially apparent in connection with
primary instruction; in 1812, for the first time, it allows 25,000
francs for this purpose, of which only 4,500 are received.[136]
Such is the final liquidation of the great collective fortunes. A
settlement of accounts, an express or tacit bargain, intervenes
between the State and all institutions for instruction, worship and
charity. It has taken from the poor, from the young and from
believers, 5 milliards of capital and 270 millions of revenue;[137] it
gives back to them, in public income and treasury interest, about 17
millions per annum. As it has the might and makes the law it has no
difficulty in obtaining or in giving itself its own discharge; it is a
bankrupt who, having spent his creditors money, bestows on these 6%.
of their claim by way of alms.
Naturally, it takes the opportunity to bring them under its strict and
permanent dependence, in adding other claims to those with which the
old monarchy had already burdened the corporations that administered
collective fortunes. Napoleon increases the weight of these chains and
screws them tighter. Not only does he take it upon himself to impose
order, probity, and economy on the administrators, but, again, he
appoints them, dismisses them, and prescribes or authorizes each of
their acts. He puts words in their mouths; he wants to be the great
bishop, the universal genius, the sole tutor and professor, in short,
the dictator of opinion, the creator and director of every political,
social and moral idea throughout his empire. - With what rigidity and
pertinacious intent, with what variety and convergence of means, with
what plenitude and certainty of execution, with what detriment and
with what danger, present and to come, for corporations, for the
public, for the State, for himself, we shall see presently; he
himself, living and reigning, is to realize this. For his
interference, pushed to extremes, is to end in encountering resistance
in a body which he considers as his own creature, the Church: here,
forgetting that she has roots of her own, deep down and out of his
reach, he carries off the Pope, holds him captive, sends cardinals
into the interior, (Page 198/504)imprisons bishops, banishes priests,
and incorporates seminarians in his regiments.[138] He decrees the
closing of all small seminaries,[139] alienates forever the Catholic
clergy like the royalist nobility, precisely at the same moment and
through the same absolutism, through the same abuse of power, through
the same recurrence to revolutionary tradition, to Jacobin infatuation
and brutality, even to the frustration of his Concordat of 1802 as
with his amnesty of 1802, even to compromising his capital work of the
attempted reconciliation and reunion of old France with the new
France. His work, nevertheless, although incomplete, even interrupted
and marred by himself, remains substantial and salutary. The three
grand machines which the Revolution had demolished with so little
foresight, and which he had reconstructed at so little cost, are in
working order, and, with deviations or shortcomings in result, they
render to the public the required services, each its own, worship,
charity and instruction. Full toleration and legal protection to the
three leading Christian cults, and even to Judaism, would of itself
already satisfy the most sensitive of religious demands; owing to the
donation furnished by the State and communes and by private
individuals, the necessary complement is not wanting.
The Catholic community, in particular, the most numerous of all,
exercises and celebrates its system of worship in conformity with its
faith, according to ecclesiastical canons under its own orthodox
hierarchy; in each parish, or within reach of each parish, dwells one
authorized priest who administers valid sacraments; in his stole he
says mass publicly in a consecrated edifice, plainly decorated at
first but gradually beautified; not less publicly, various
congregations of monks and nuns, the former in black robes and the
"sisters in wimples and white caps, serve in the schools and asylums.
On the other hand, in these well-equipped and well-governed asylums
and hospitals, in the bureaux of charity, their resources are no
longer inferior to their needs, while Christian charity and
philanthropic generosity are constantly operating in all directions to
fill the empty drawers; legacies and private donations, after 1802,
authorized by the Council of State, multiply; we see them swelling the
pages of the "Bulletin des Lois."[140] From 1800 to 1845, the
hospitals and asylums are thus to receive more than 72 millions, and
the charity bureaux over 49 millions; from 1800 to 1878, all together
will thus receive more than 415 millions.[141] The old patrimony of
the poor is again reconstituted piece by piece; and on January 1st,
1833, asylums and hospitals, with their 51 millions of revenue, are
able to support 154,000 elderly and the sickly.[142]
Like public charity, public education again becomes effective;
Fourcroy, after 1806,[143] lists 29 organized and full lycées; besides
these, 370 communal secondary schools and 377 private secondary
schools are open and receive 50,200; there are 25,000 children in the
4500 schools. Finally, in 1815,[144] we find in France, restored to
its ancient boundaries, 12 faculties of Law or Medicine with 6,329
students, 36 lycées with 9000 pupils, 368 colleges with 28,000 pupils,
41 small seminaries with 5233 pupils, 1255 boarding-schools and
private institutions with 39,623 pupils, and 22,348 primary schools
with 737,369 scholars; as far as can be gathered, the proportion of
men and women able to read and to sign their name is raised under the
empire up to and beyond the figures[145] it had reached previous to
1789.
In this manner are the worst damages repaired. The three new
administrative services, with a different set-up, do the job of the
old ones and, at the expiration of twenty-five years, give an almost
equal return. - In sum, the new proprietor of the great structure
sacked by the Revolution has again set up the indispensable apparatus
for warming, lighting and ventilation; as he knows his own interests
perfectly, and is poorly off in ready money, he contributes only a
minimum of the expense; in other respects, he has grouped together his
tenants into syndicates, into barracks, in apartments, and,
voluntarily or involuntarily, he has put upon them the burden of cost.
In the meantime, he has kept the three keys of the three engines in
his own cabinet, in his own hands, for himself alone; henceforth, it
is he who distributes throughout the building, on each story and in
every room, light, air and heat. If he does not distribute the same
quantity as before he at least distributes whatever is necessary; the
tenants can, at last, breathe comfortably, see clearly and not shiver;
after ten years of suffocation, darkness and cold they are too well
satisfied to wrangle with the proprietor, discuss his ways, and
dispute over the monopoly by which he has constituted himself the
arbitrator of their wants. - The same thing is done in the material
order of things, in relation to the highways, dikes, canals, and
structures useful to the people: here also he repairs or creates
through the same despotic initiative,
* with the same economy,[146]
* the same apportionment of expense,[147]
* the same spontaneous or forced aid to those interested,
* the same practical efficiency.[148]
Summing it up and if we take things as a whole, and if we offset the
worse with the better, it may be said that the French people have
recovered the possessions they had been missing since 1789:
* internal peace,
* public tranquility,
* administrative regularity,
* impartial justice,
* a strict police,
* security of persons, property and consciences,
* liberty in private life,
* enjoyment of one's native land, and, on leaving it, the privilege of
coming back;
* the satisfactory endowment, gratuitous celebration and full exercise
of worship;
* schools and instruction for the young;
* beds, nursing and assistance for the sick, the indigent and for
foundlings;
* the maintenance of roads and public buildings.
So that of the two groups of cravings which troubled men in 1800, the
first one, that which dated from the Revolution, has, towards 1808 or
1810, obtained reasonable satisfaction.
______________________________________________________________________
Notes:
[1] Roederer, III., 334 (August 6, 1800).
[2] The word means "what is beyond the Alps" but refers to a number
of doctrines favoring the Pope's absolute authority. (SR.)
[3] Stanislas Girardin, "Mémoires," I., 273 (22 Thermidor, year X):
"The only craving, the only sentiment in France, disturbed for so many
years, is repose. Whatever secures this will gain its assent. Its
inhabitants, accustomed to take an active part in all political
questions, now seem to take no interest in them." - Roederer, III.,
484 (Report on the Sénatorerie of Caen, Dec. 1, 1803): "The people of
the rural districts, busy with its new affairs, . . . are perfectly
submissive, because they now find security for persons and property. .
. . They show no enthusiasm for the monarch, but are full of respect
for and trust in a gendarme; they stop and salute him on passing him
on the roads."
[4] Rocquam, "l'État de la France au 18 Brumaire." (Report by Barbé-
Marbois, p. 72, 81.) Cash-boxes broken open and exclamations by the
officers "Money and fortune belong to the brave. Let us help
ourselves. Our accounts will be settled at the cannon's mouth." - "
The subordinates," adds Barbé-Marbois, "fully aware of their
superior's drafts on the public treasury, stipulate for their share of
the booty; accustomed to exacting contributions from outside enemies
they are not averse to treating as conquered enemies the departments
they were called upon to defend."
[5] Ibid. (Reports of Barbe-Marbois and Fourcroy while on their
missions in the 12th and 13th military divisions, year IX., p.158, on
the tranquility of La Vendée.) "I could have gone anywhere without an
escort. During my stay in some of the villages I was not disturbed by
any fear or suspicion whatever. . . . The tranquility they now enjoy
and the cessation of persecutions keep them from insurrection."
[6] Archives nationales, F7,3273 (Reports by Gen. Ferino, Pluviôse,
year IX, with a table of verdicts by the military commission since
Floreal, year VIII.) The commission mentions 53 assassinations, 3
rapes, 44 pillagings of houses, by brigands in Vaucluse, Drôme, and
the Lower Alps; 66 brigands taken in the act are shot, 87 after
condemnation, and 6, who are wounded, die in the hospital. - Rocquain,
ibid., p. 17, (Reports of Français, from Nantes, on his mission in the
8th military division.) "The South may be considered as purged by the
destruction of about 200 brigands who have been shot. There remains
only three or four bands of 7 or S men each."
[7] Three classes of insurrectionary peasants or marauders. - Tr.
[8] Archives Nationales, F7, 7152 (on the prolongation of brigandage).
Letter from Lhoste, agent, to the minister of justice, Lyons, Pluviôse
8, year VIII. "The diligences are robbed every week." - Ibid.,
F7,3267, (Seine-et-Oise, bulletins of the military police and
correspondence of the gendarmerie). Brumaire 25, year VIII, attack on
the Paris mail near Arpajon by 5 brigands armed with guns. Fructidor,
year VIII, at three o'clock P.M., a cart loaded with 10,860 francs
sent by the collector at Mantes to the collector at Versailles is
stopped near the Marly water-works, by 8 or 10 armed brigands on
horseback. - Similar facts abound. It is evident that more than a year
is required to put an end to brigandage. - It is always done by
employing an impartial military force. (Rocquam, Ibid, p. 10.) "There
are at Marseilles three companies of paid national guards, 60 men
each, at a franc per man. The fund for this guard is supplied by a
contribution of 5 francs a month paid by every man subject to this
duty who wishes to be exempt. The officers . . . are all strangers in
the country. Robberies, murders, and conflicts have ceased in
Marseilles since the establishment of this guard."
[9] Archives Nationales, 3144 and 3145, No.1004. (Reports of the
councillors of State on mission during the year IX, published by
Rocquam, with omissions, among which is the following, in the report
of François de Nantes.) "The steps taken by the mayors of Marseilles
are sufficiently effective to enable an émigré under surveillance and
just landed, to walk about Marseilles without being knocked down or
knocking anybody else down, an alternative to which they have been
thus far subject. And yet there are in this town nearly 500 men who
have slaughtered with their own hands, or been the accomplices of
slaughterers, at different times during the Revolution. . . . The
inhabitants of this town are so accustomed to being annoyed and
despoiled, and to being treated like those of a rebellious town or
colony, that arbitrary power no longer frightens them, and they simply
ask that their lives and property be protected against murderers and
pillagers, and that things be entrusted to sure and impartial hands."
[10] Roederer, III., 481. (Report on the Sénatorerie of Caen, Germinal
2, year XIII.)- Faber, "Notice sur l'intérieur de la France"(1807),
p.110, 112. "Justice is one of the bright sides of France of to-day.
It is costly, but it cannot be called venal."
[11] Rocquain, ibid., 19. (Report of François de Nantes on the 8th
military division.) "For the past eighteen months a calm has prevailed
here equal to that which existed before the Revolution. Balls and
parties have been resumed in the towns, while the old dances of
Provence, suspended for ten years, now gladden the people of the
country."
[12] Proclamation to the French people, Dec. 15, 1799.
[13] See "The Revolution," vol. III., p.292. (Notes.) (Laff. II, the
notes on pp. 218-219.)
[14] Decision of the Council of State, Pluviôse 5, year VIII (Jan. 25,
1800).
[15] Forneron, "Histoire générale des émigrés," II., 374. In 1800, the
army of Condé still comprised 1007 officers and 5840 volunteers.
[16] Decrees of Brumaire 3, year IV, and of Frimaire 9, year VI. (Cf.
"The Revolution," pp.433, 460.)
[17] Constitution of Frimaire 22, year VIII. (December 13, 1799),
article 93. "The French nation declares that in no case will it suffer
the return of the Frenchmen who, having abandoned their country since
the 14th of July 1789, are not comprised in the exceptions made to the
laws rendered against émigrés. It interdicts every new exception in
this respect."
[18] Opinion of the Council of State, Dec. 25, 1799.
[19] Resolution of Dec. 26, 1799. - Two ultra-Jacobins, exiled after
Thermidor, are added to the list, Barère and Vadier, undoubtedly by
way of compensation and not to let it appear that the scales inclined
too much on one side.
[20] Resolution of Dec. 30, 1799.
[21] Resolutions of February 26, March 2, and March 3, 1800.
[22] Thibaudeau, "Mémoires sur le Consulat," 199. (Stated by the First
Consul at Regnault at a meeting of the council of state, Aug.12,
1801.) "I am glad to hear the denunciation of striking off names. How
many have you yourselves not asked for? It could not be otherwise.
Everybody has some relation or friend on the lists."
[23] Thibaudeau. ibid. (Speech by the First Consul.) "Never have there
been lists of émigrés;" there are only lists of absentees. The proof
of this is that names have always been struck off. I have seen members
of the Convention and even generals on the lists. Citizen Monge was
inscribed."
[24] Thibaudeau, ibid., 97. - "The minister of police made a great hue
and cry over the arrest and sending back of a few émigrés who returned
without permission, or who annoyed the buyers of their property,
while, at the same time, it granted surveillance to all who asked for
it, paying no attention to the distinction made by the resolution of
Vendémiaire 28."
[25] Sénatus-consulte of April 26, 1802.
[26] Sénatus-consulte of April 26, 1802, title II., articles 16 and
17. - Gaudin, Duc de Gaëte, "Mémoires," I., 183. (Report on the
administration of the Finances in 1803.) "The old proprietors have
been reinstated in more than 20,000 hectares of forests."
[27] Thibaudeau, ibid., p. 98. (Speech of the First Consul, Thermidor
24, year IX.) Some of the émigrés who have been pardoned are cutting
down their forests, either from necessity or to send money abroad. I
will not allow the worst enemies of the republic, the defenders of
ancient prejudices, to recover their fortunes and despoil France. I am
glad to welcome them back; but it is important that the nation should
preserve its forests; the navy needs them."
[28] An arpent measures about an acre and a half.(TR.)
[29] Stourm, "Les Finances de l'ancien régime et de la
révolution,"II., 459 to 461. - (According to the figures appended to
the projected law of 1825.) - This relates only to their patrimony in
real estate; their personal estate was wholly swept away, at first
through the abolition, without indemnity, of their available feudal
rights under the Constituent and Legislative assemblies, and
afterwards through the legal and forced transformation of their
personal capital into national bonds (titres sur le grand-livre,
rentes) which the final bankruptcy of the Directory reduced to almost
nothing.
[30] Pelet de la Lozère, "Opinions de Napoléon au conseil d'état"
(March 15th and July 1st, 1806): "One of the most unjust effects of
the revolution was to let an émigré; whose property was found to be
sold, starve to death, and give back 100,000 crowns of rente to
another whose property happened to be still in the hands of the
government. How odd, again, to have returned unsold fields and to have
kept the woods! It would have been better, starting from the legal
forfeiture of all property, to return only 6000 francs of rente to one
alone and distribute what remained among the rest."
[31] Léonce de Lavergne, "Economie rurale de la France," p.26.
(According to the table of names with indemnities awarded by the law
of 1825.) - Duc de Rovigo, Mémoires," IV., 400.
[32] De Puymaigre, "Souvenirs de l'émigration de l'empire et de la
restauration," p.94.
[33] Pelet de la Lozère, ibid., p.272.
[34] De Puymaigre, ibid., passim. - Alexandrine des Écherolles, "Une
famille noble pendant la Terreur," pp.328, 402, 408. - I add to
published documents personal souvenirs and family narrations.
[35] Duc de Rovigo, "Mémoires," IV., 399. (On the provincial noblesse
which had emigrated and returned.) "The First Consul quietly gave
orders that none of the applications made by the large number of those
who asked for minor situations in various branches of the
administration should be rejected on account of emigration."
[36] M. de Vitrolles, "Mémoires." - M. d'Haussonville, "Ma jeunesse,"
p. 6o: "One morning, my father learns that he has been appointed
chamberlain, with a certain number of other persons belonging to the
greatest families of the faubourg Saint-Germain."
[37] Madame de Rémusat, "Mémoires," II., 312, 315 and following pages,
373. - Madame de Staël, "Considérations sur la révolution française,"
4th part, ch IV.
[38] Roederer, III., 459. (Speech by Napoleon, December 30, 1802.)--"
Very well, I do protect the nobles of France; but they must see that
they need protection. . . . I give places to many of them; I restore
them to public distinction and even to the honors of the drawing-room;
but they feel that it is alone through my good will. - Ibid., III.,
558 (January 1809): "I repent daily of a mistake I have made in my
government; the most serious one I ever made, and I perceive its bad
effects every day. It was the giving back to the émigrés the totality
of their possessions. I ought to have massed them in common and given
each one simply the chance of an income of 6000 francs. As soon as I
saw my mistake I withdrew from thirty to forty millions of forests;
but far too many are still in the hands of a great number of them." -
We here see the attitude he would impose on them, that of clients and
grateful pensioners. They do not stand in this attitude. (Roederer,
III., 472. Report on the Sénatorerie of Caen, 1803.) - "The returned
émigrés are not friendly nor even satisfied; their enjoyment of what
they have recovered is less than their indignation at what they have
lost. They speak of the amnesty without gratitude, and as only partial
justice. . . . In other respects they appear submissive."
[39] Duc de Rovigo1 "Memoires." V., 297. Towards the end, large
numbers of the young nobles went into the army. "In 1812, there, was
not a marshal, or even a general, who had not some of these on his
staff, or as aids-de-camp. Nearly all the cavalry regiments in the
army were commanded by officers belonging to these families. They had
already attracted notice in the infantry. All these young nobles had
openly joined the emperor because they were easily influenced by love
of glory."
[40] Madame de Rémusat II., 299 (1806): "He began to surround himself
about this time with so much ceremony that none of us had scarcely any
intimate relations with him. . . . The court became more and more
crowded and monotonous, each doing on the minute what he had to do.
Nobody thought of venturing outside the brief series of ideas which
are generated within the restricted circle of the same duties. . . .
Increasing despotism, . . . fear of a reproof if one failed in the
slightest particular, silence kept by us all. . . . There was no
opportunity to indulge emotion or interchange any observation of the
slightest importance."
[41] Roederer, III., 558 (January 1809). - "The Modern Régime," ante,
book I., ch. II.
[42] Madame de Rémusat, III., 75, 155: "When the minister of police
learned that jesting or malicious remarks had been made in one of the
Paris drawing-rooms he at once notified the master or mistress of the
house to be more watchful of their company." - Ibid., p.187 (1807):
"The emperor censured M. Fouché for not having exercised stricter
watchfulness. He exiled women, caused distinguished persons to be
warned, and insinuated that, to avoid the consequences of his anger,
steps must be taken to show that his power was recognized in atonement
for the faults committed. In consequence of these hints many thought
themselves obliged to be presented." - Ibid., II., 170, 212, 303. - Duc
de Rovigo, "Mémoires," IV., 311 and 393. "Appointed minister of
police, said he, I inspired everybody with fear: each packed up his
things; nothing was talked about but exiles, imprisonment and worse
still." - He took advantage of all this to recommend "everybody on his
list who was inscribed as an enemy of the government" to be presented
at court, and all, in fact, except stubborn "grandmothers" were
presented. (Note that the Duc de Rovigo and the general Savary
mentioned many times by Taine is one and the same person. Savary was
the general who organized the infamous kidnapping and execution of the
Duc d'Enghien. He was later made minister of police (1810-1814) and
elevated Duke of Rovigo by Napoleon. SR.)
[43] Madame de Staël, "Considérations sur la révolution française" and
"Dix ans d'exil." Exile of Madame de Balbi, of Madame de Chevreuse, of
Madame de Duras, of Madame d'Aveaux, of Madame de Staël, of Madame de
Récamier, etc. - Duc de Rovigo, Ibid., IV., 389: "The first exiles
dated from 1805; I think there were fourteen."
[44] Roederer, III., 472. (Report on the Sénatorerie of Caen, 1803.)
The nobles "have no social relations either with citizens or with the
public functionaries, except with the prefect of Caen and the general
in command. . . . Their association with the prefect intimates their
belief that they might need him. All pay their respects to the general
of division; his mantelpiece is strewed with visiting-cards."
[45] Madame de la Rochejaquelein, "Mémoires," 423: "We lived exposed
to a tyranny which left us neither calm nor contentment. At one time a
spy was placed amongst our servants, at another some of our relations
would be exiled far from their homes, accused of exercising a charity
which secured them too much affection from their neighbors. Sometimes,
my husband would be obliged to go to Paris to explain his conduct.
Again, a hunting-party would be represented as a meeting of Vendéans.
Occasionally, we were blamed for going into Poitou because our
influence was regarded as too dangerous; again, we were reproached for
not living there and not exercising our influence in behalf of the
conscription." - Her brother-in-law, Auguste de la Rochejaquelein,
invited to take service in the army comes to Paris to present his
objections. He is arrested, and at the end of two months "the minister
signifies to him that he must remain a prisoner so long as he refuses
to be a second-lieutenant."
[46] Sénatus-consulte of April 26, 1802: "Considering that this
measure is merely one of pardon to the large number who are always
more led astray than criminal . . . the amnestied will remain for ten
years under a special government surveillance." It may oblige each one
"to leave his usual residence and go to a distance of twenty leagues,
and even farther if circumstances demand it."
[47] Thiers, X., 41. (Letter to Fouché, Dec.31, 1808, not inserted in
the correspondence.) - "The Modern Régime," book I., ch.II.
[48] Rocquain, "État de la France au 18 brumaire," pp.33, 189, 190.
(Reports of Français de Nantes and of Fourcroy.) - "Statistique
elementaire de la France," by Peuchet (according to a statement
published by the minister of the interior, year IX), p. 260. -
"Statistiques des préfets," Aube, by Aubray, p.23; Aisne, by Dauchet,
p.87; Lot-et-Garonne, by Pieyre, p. 45: "It is during the Revolution
that the number of foundlings increased to this extraordinary extent
by the too easy admission in the asylums of girls who had become
mothers, along with their infants; through the passing sojourn of
soldiers in their houses; through the subversion of every principle of
religion and morality." - Gers, by Balguerie: "Many defenders of the
country became fathers before their departure. . . . The soldiers, on
their return, maintained the habits of their conquests. . . . Many of
the girls, besides, for lack of a husband took a lover."- Moselle, by
Coichen, p.91: "Morals are more lax. In 1789, at Metz, there are 524
illegitimate births; in the year IX, 646; in 1789, 70 prostitutes; in
the year IX, 260. There is the same increase of kept women." -
Peuchet, " Essai d'une statistique générale de la France," year IX,
p.28. "The number of illegitimate births, from one forty-seventh in
1780, increased to nearly one eleventh of the total births, according
to the comparative estimates of M. Necker and M. Mourgue."
[49] Rocquam, ibid., p. 93. (Report of Barbé-Marbois.)
[50] "The Revolution," III., p.416 (note), P.471 (note). (Laff. II.
pp. 307-308, p 348.)
[51] "Statistiques des préfets," Deux-Sèvres, by Dupin, p. 174:
"Venereal diseases which thanks to good habits. were still unknown in
the country in 1789, are now spread throughout the Bocage and in all
places where the troops have sojourned." - "Dr. Delahay, at Parthenay
observes that the number of maniacs increased fright fully in the
Reign of Terror." (It should be remembered that the terminal stage of
untreated syphilis is madness and death. SR.)
[52] Decrees of March 19, 1793, and Messidor 23, year II. - Decrees of
Brumaire 2, year IV, and Vendémiaire 16 year V.
[53] "Statistiques des préfets," Rhône, by Verminac, year X. Income of
the Lyons Asylums in 1789,1.510,827 francs; to-day, 459,371 francs. -
Indre, by Dalphonse, year XII. The principal asylum of Issoudun,
founded in the twelfth century, had 27,939 francs revenue, on which it
loses 16,232. Another asylum, that of the Incurables, loses, on an
income of 12,062 francs, 7457 francs. - Eure, by Masson Saint-Amand,
year XIII: "14 asylums and 3 small charity establishments in the
department, with about 100,000 francs income in 1789, have lost at
least 60,000 francs of it. - Vosges, by Desgouttes, year X: "10
asylums in the department. Most of these have been stripped of nearly
the whole of their property and capital on account of the law of
Messidor 23, year II; on the suspension of the execution of this law,
the property had been sold and the capital returned. - Cher, by Luçay:
"15 asylums before the revolution; they remain almost wholly without
resources through the loss of their possessions. - Lozère, by
Jerphaniou, year X: "The property belonging to the asylums, either in
real estate or state securities, has passed into other hands." -
Doubs, analysis by Ferrieres: "Situation of the asylums much inferior
to that of 1789, because they could not have property restored to them
in proportion to the value of that which had been alienated. The
asylum of Pontarlier lost one-half of its revenue through
reimbursements in paper-money. All the property of the Ornans asylum
has been sold," etc. - Rocquain, p. 187. (Report by Fourcroy.) Asylums
of Orne: their revenue, instead of 123,189 francs, is no more than
68,239. - Asylums of Calvados: they have lost 173,648 francs of
income, there remains of this only 85,955 francs. - Passim, heart-
rending details on the destitution of the asylums and their inmates,
children, the sick and the infirm. - The figures by which I have tried
to show the disproportion between requirements and resources are a
minimum.
[54] Abbé Allain, "l'Instruction primaire en France avant la
Révolution," and Albert Duruy, "l'Instruction publique et la
Révolution," passim.
[55] "Statistique de l'enseignement primaire" (1880),II., CCIV. The
proportion of instructed and uninstructed people has been ascertained
in 79 departments, and at various periods, from 168o down to the year
1876, according to the signatures on 1,699,985 marriage-records. - In
the "Dictionnaire de pédagogie et d'instruction primaire," published
by M. Buisson, M. Maggiolo, director of these vast statistics, has
given the proportion of literate and illiterate people for the
different departments; now, from department to department, the figures
furnished by the signatures on marriage records correspond with
sufficient exactness to the number of schools, verified moreover by
pastoral visits and by other documents. The most illiterate
departments are Cantal, Puy-de-Dome, Nièvre, Allier, Vienne, Haute-
Vienne, Deux-Sèvres, Vendée and the departments of Brittany.
[56] One sou equals 1/20 of a franc or 5 centimes. (SR.)
[57] Albert Duruy, ibid., p.25. (According to the report of M.
Villemain on common-school education in 1843.) - Abbé Allain, "la
Question d'enseignement en 1789," p. 88 - A. Silvy, "les Collèges en
France avant la Révolution," p.5. The researches of M. Silvy show that
the number of high-schools (collèges) given by M. Villemain is much
too low: "The number of these schools under the ancient Régime cannot
be estimated at less than about 900. . . . I have ascertained 800. . .
. I must add that my search is not yet finished and that I find new
institutions every day."
[58] Lunet, "Histoire du collège de Rodez," p. 110. - Edmond,
"Histoire du collège de Louis-le-Grand," p. 238. - "Statistiques des
préfets," Moselle. (Analysis by Ferrière, year XII.) Before 1789, 4
high-schools at Metz, very complete, conducted by regular canons,
Benedictines, with 33 professors, 38 assistant teachers, 63 servants,
259 day-scholars and 217 boarders. All this was broken up. In the year
IX there is only one central school, very inadequate, with 9
professors, 5 assistants, 3 servants and 233 day-scholars.
[59] Albert Duruy, ibid., p. 25.
[60] Lunet, ibid, p.110,
[61] "Statistiques des préfets," Ain, by Bossi, p.368. At Bourg,
before the revolution, 220 pupils, of which 70 were boarders, 8000
livres income in real property confiscated during the revolution. - At
Belley, the teachers consist of the congregationist of Saint-Joseph;
250 pupils, 9950 francs revenue from capital invested in the pays
d'état, swept away by the revolution. - At Thoissy, 8000 francs rental
of real property sold, etc. - Deux-Sèvres, by Dupin, year IX, and
"analyse" by Ferrière, P. 48: "Previous to the revolution, each
department town had its high-school. - At Thouars, 60 boarders at 300
livres per annum, and 40 day-scholars. At Niort, 80 boarders at 450
livres per annum, and 100 day-scholars". -Aisne, by Dauchy, p.88.
Before 1789, nearly all the small high-schools were gratuitous, and,
in the large ones, there were scholarships open to competition. All
their possessions, except large buildings, were alienated and sold, as
well as those of the 60 communities in which girls were taught
gratuitously. - Eure, by Masson Saint-Amand. There were previous to
1789, 8 high-schools which were all suppressed and destroyed. - Drôme,
by Collin, p.66. Before the revolution, each town had its high-
school," etc.
[62] Cf. Marmontel, "Mémoires," I., 16, for details of these customs;
M. Jules Simon found the same customs afterwards and describes them in
the souvenirs of his youth. - La Chalotais, at the end of the reign of
Louis XV., had already described the efficiency of the institution.
"Even the people want to study. Farmers and craftsmen send their
children to the schools in these small towns where living is cheap."--
This rapid spread of secondary education contributed a good deal
towards bringing on the revolution.
[63] "Statistiques des préfets," Indre, by Dalphonse, year XII, p.104:
"The universities, the colleges, the seminaries, the religious
establishments, the free schools are all destroyed; vast plans only
remain for a new system of education raised on their ruins. Nearly all
of these rest unexecuted. . . . Primary schools have nowhere, one may
say, been organized, and those which have been are so poor they had
better not have been organized at all. With a pompous and costly
system of public instruction, ten years have been lost for
instruction."
[64] Moniteur, XXI., 644. (Session of Fructidor 19, year II.) One of
the members says: "It is very certain, and my colleagues see it with
pain, that public instruction is null." - Fourcroy: "Reading and
writing are no longer taught." - Albert Duruy, p. 208. (Report to the
Directory executive, Germinal 13, year IV.) "For nearly six years no
public instruction exists." - De La Sicotiere, "Histoire du collège de
Alençon," p.33: "In 1794, there were only two pupils in the college."
- Lunet, "Histoire du collège de Rodez," p.157: "The recitation-rooms
remained empty of pupils and teachers from March 1793 to May 16,
1796." - " Statistiques des préfets," Eure, by Masson Saint-Amand year
XIII: "In the larger section of the department, school-houses existed
with special endowments for teachers of both sexes. The school-houses
have been alienated like other national domains; the endowments due to
religious corporations or establishments have been extinguished - As
to girls, that portion of society has suffered an immense loss,
relatively to its education, in the suppression of religious
communities which provided them with an almost gratuitous and
sufficiently steady instruction."
[65] My maternal grandmother learned how to read from a nun concealed
in the cellar of the house.
[66] Albert Duruy, ibid., 349. (Decree of the Directory, Pluviôse 17,
year V, and circular of the minister Letourneur against free schools
which are "dens of royalism and superstition." - Hence the decrees of
the authorities in the departments of Eure, Pas de Calais, Drôme,
Mayenne and La Manche, closing these dens.) "From Thermidor 27, year
VI, to Messidor 2, year VII, say the authorities of La Manche, we have
revoked fifty-eight teachers on their denunciation by the
municipalities and by popular clubs."
[67] Archives nationales, cartons 3144 to 3145, No. l04. (Reports of
the Councillors of State on mission in the year IX.) Report by Lacuée
on the first military division. Three central schools at Paris, one
called the Quatre-Nations. "This school must be visited in order to
form any idea of the state of destruction and dilapidation which all
the national buildings are in. No repairs have been made since the
reopening of the schools; everything is going to ruin. . . . Walls are
down and the floors fallen in. To preserve the pupils from the risks
which the occupation of these buildings hourly presents, it is
necessary to give lessons in rooms which are very unhealthy on account
of their small dimensions and dampness. In the drawing-class the
papers and models in the portfolios become moldy."
[68] Albert Duruy, ibid., 484. ("Procès-verbaux des conseils-
généraux," year IX, passim.)
[69] Ibid., 476. ("Statistiques des préfets," Sarthe, year X.)
"Prejudices which it is difficult to overcome, as well on the
stability of this school as on the morality of some of the teachers,
prevented its being frequented for a time." - 483. (Procès-verbaux des
conseils-généraux," Bas-Rhin.) "The overthrow of religion has excited
prejudices against the central schools." - 482. (Ibid., Lot.) "Most of
the teachers in the central school took part in the revolution in a
not very honorable way. Their reputation affects the success of their
teaching. Their schools are deserted."
[70] Albert Duruy, ibid., '94. (According to the reports of 15 central
schools, from the year VI. to the year VIII.) The average for each
central school is for drawing, 89 pupils; for mathematics, 28; for the
classics, 24; for physics, chemistry and natural history, 19; for
general grammar, 5; for history, 10; for legislation, 8: for belles-
lettres, 6. - Rocquam, ibid., P.29. (Reports of Français de Nantes, on
the departments of the South-east.) "There, as elsewhere, the courses
on general grammar, on belles-lettres, history and legislation, are
unfrequented. Those on mathematics, chemistry, Latin and drawing are
better attended, because these sciences open up lucrative careers. -
Ibid., p. 108. (Report by Barbé-Marboi on the Brittany departments.)
[71] Statistiques des préfets," Meurthe, by Marquis, year XIII, p.120.
"In the communal schools of the rural districts, the fee was so small
that the poorest families could contribute to the (teacher's) salary.
Assessments on the communal property, besides, helped almost
everywhere in providing the teacher with a satisfactory salary, so
that these functions were sought after and commonly well fulfilled. .
. . Most of the villages had Sisters of Saint-Vincent de Paul for
instructors, or others well known under the name of Vatelottes." -
"The partition of communal property, and the sale of that assigned to
old endowments, had deprived the communes of resources which afforded
a fair compensation to schoolmasters and schoolmistresses. The product
of the additional centimes scarcely sufficed for administrative
expenses. - Thus, there is but little else now than people without
means, who take poorly compensated places; again, they neglect their,
schools just as soon as they see an opportunity to earn something
elsewhere." - Archives nationales, No. 1004, cartons 3044 and 3145.
(Report of the councillors of state on mission in the year IX. - First
military division, Report of Lacuée.) Aisne: "There is now no primary
school according to legal institution." - The situation is the same
in Oise, also in Seine for the districts of Sceaux and SaintDenis.
[72] Albert Duruy, 178. (Report drawn up in the bureaux of the
ministry of the interior, year VIII.) "A detestable selection of those
called instructors; almost everywhere, they are men without morals or
education, who owe their nomination solely to a pretended civism,
consisting of nothing but an insensibility to morality and propriety.
. . . They affect an insolent contempt for the (old) religious
opinions." - Ibid., p.497. (Procès-verbaux des conseils-généraux.) On
primary school-teachers, Hérault: "Most are blockheads and vagabonds."
- Pas-de-Calais:" Most are blockheads or ignoramuses."
[73] Rocquam, '94. (Report by Fourcroy on the 14th military division,
Manche, Orne, Calvados.) "Besides bad conduct, drunkenness, and the
immorality of many of these teachers, it seems certain that the lack
of instruction in religion is the principal motive which prevents
parents from sending their children to these schools." - Archives
nationales, ibid. (Report by Lacuée on the 1st military division.)
"The teachers, male and female, who desired to conform to the law of
Brumaire 3 and to the different rules prescribed by the central
administration, on placing the constitution and the rights of man in
the hands of their pupils, found their schools abandoned one after the
other. The schools the best attended are those where the Testament,
the catechism, and the life of Christ are used. . . . The instructors,
obliged to pursue the line marked out by the government, could not do
otherwise than carry out the principles which opposed the prejudices
and habits of the parents; hence their loss of credit, and the almost
total desertion of the pupils."
[74] "The Revolution," vol. III., p. 81, note 2. (Laff. II. pp.68-69,
note 4.)
[75] "Statistiques des préfets," Moselle. (Analysis by Ferrière.) At
Metz, in 1789, there were five free schools for young children, of
which one was for boys and four for girls, kept by monks or nuns; in
the year XII there were none: "An entire generation was given up to
ignorance." Ibid., Ain, by Bossi, 1808: "In 1800, there were scarcely
any primary schools in the department, as in the rest of France." In
1808, there are scarcely thirty. - Albert Duruy, p.480, 496. (Procès-
verbaux des conseils-généraux, year IX.) Vosges: "Scarcely any primary
instruction." - Sarthe: "Primary instruction, none." - Meuse-
Inférieure: "It is feared that in fifteen years or so there will not
be one man in a hundred able to write," etc.
[76] These are the minimum figures, and they are arrived at through
the following calculation. Before 1789, 47 men out of 100, and 26
women out of 100, that is to say 36 or 37 persons in 100, received
primary instruction. Now, according to the census from 1876 to 1881
(official statistics of primary instruction, III., XVI.), children
from six to thirteen number about twelve % of the entire population.
Accordingly, in 1789, out of a population of 26 millions, the children
from 6 to 13 numbered 3,120,000, of whom 1,138,000 learned to read and
write. It must be noted that, in 1800, the adult population had
greatly diminished, and that the infantine population had largely
increased. France, moreover, is enlarged by 12 departments (Belgium,
Savoy, Comtat, Nice), where the old schools had equally perished. - If
all the old schools had been kept up, it is probable that the children
who would have had primary instruction would have numbered nearly
1,400,000.
[77] Saint Thomas, "Summa theologica," pars III., questio 60 usque ad
85: "Sacramenta efficiunt quod figurant. . . . Sant necessaria ad
salutem hominum. . . . Ab ipso verbo incarnata efficaciam habent. Ex
sua institutione habent quod conferant gratiam. . . . Sacramentum est
causa gratiœ, causa agens, principalis et instrumentalis."
[78] Except priests ordained by a bishop of the Greek church.
[79] "The Revolution," I. 161. - Archives nationales. (Reports of the
Directory commissioners from the cantons and departments. - There are
hundreds of these reports, of which the following are specimens.) -
F7, 7108. (Canton of Passavent, Doubs, Ventôse 7, year IV.) "The sway
of religious opinions is much more extensive here than before the
revolution, because the mass of the people did not concern themselves
about them, while nowadays they form among the generality the subject
of conversation and complaint." - F7, 7127. (Canton of Goux, Doubs,
Pluviôse 13, year IV.) "The hunting down of unsworn priests, coupled
with the dilapidation and destruction of the temples, displeased the
people, who want a religion and a cult; the government became hateful
to them." - Ibid. (Dordogne, canton of Livrac, Ventôse 13, year IV.)
"The demolition of altars, the closing of the churches, had rendered
the people furious under the Tyranny." - F7, 7129. (Seine-Infèrieure,
canton of Canteleu, Pluviôse 12, year IV.) "I knew enlightened men
who, in the ancient regime, never went near a church, and yet who
harbored refractory priests." - Archives nationales, cartons 3144-
3145, No. 1004. (Missions of the councillors of state in the year IX.)
At this date, worship was everywhere established and spontaneously.
(Report by Lacuée.) In Eure-et-Loire, "nearly every village has its
church and minister; the temples are open in the towns and are well
attended." - In Seine-et-Oise, "the Roman Catholic cult prevails in
all the communes of the department." - In Oise, "worship is carried on
in all the communes of the department."-In Loiret, "the churches are
attended by the multitude almost as regularly as before 1788. One-
sixth of the communes (only) have neither worship nor minister and, in
these communes, both are strongly desired."
[80] Archives nationales, F7, 7129. (Tarn, canton of Vielmur, Germinal
10, year IV.) "The ignorant now regard patriot and brigand as
synonymous."
[81] Archives nationales, F7, 7108. (Doubs, canton of Vercel, Pluviôse
20, year IV.) "Under the law of Prairial II, the unsworn priests were
all recalled by their former parishioners. Their hold on the people is
so strong that there is no sacrifice that they will not make, no ruse
nor measures that they will not employ to keep them and elude the
rigor of the laws bearing on them" - (Ibid., canton of Pontarlier,
Pluviôse 3, year IV.) "In the primary assemblies, the aristocracy,
together with spite, have induced the ignorant people not to accept
the constitution except on condition of the recall of their
transported or emigrant priests for the exercise of their worship." -
(Ibid., canton of Labergement, Pluviôse 14, year IV.) "The
cultivators adore them. . . . I am the only citizen of my canton who,
along with my, family, offers up prayers to the Eternal without any
intermediary." - F7, 7127. (Côte-d'Or, canton of Beaune, Ventôse 5,
year IV.) "Fanaticism is a power of great influence." - (Ibid., canton
of Frolois, Pluviôse 9, year IV.) "Two unsworn priests returned
eighteen months ago; they are hidden away and hold nocturnal meetings.
. . They have seduced and corrupted at least three-quarters of the
people of both sexes." - (Ibid., canton of Ivry, Pluviôse 1, year IV.)
"Fanaticism and popery have perverted the public mind." - F7, 7119.
(Puy-de-Dôme, canton of Ambert, Ventôse 15, year IV.) "Five returned
priests have celebrated the mass here, and each time were followed by
3000 or 4000 persons." - F7, 7127. (Dordogne, canton of Carlux,
Pluviôse 18, year IV.) "The people are so attached to the Catholic
faith, they walk fully two leagues to attend mass." - F7, 7119.
(Ardèche, canton of Saint-Barthélemy, Pluviôse 15, year IV.) "The
unsubmissive priests have become absolute masters of popular opinion."
- (Orne, canton of Alençon, Ventôse 22, year IV.) "Presidents,
members of the municipal councils, instead of arresting the refractory
priests and bringing them into court, admit them to their table, lodge
them and impart to them the secrets of the government." - F7, 7129.
(Seine-et-Oise, canton of Jouy, Pluviôse 8, year IV.) "Forty-nine out
of fifty citizens seem to have the greatest desire to profess the
Catholic faith." - Ibid., canton of Dammartin, Pluviôse 7, year IV.)
"The Catholic religion has full sway; those who do not accept it are
frowned upon." - At the same date (Pluviôse 9, year IV), the
commissioner at Chamarande writes: "I see persons giving what they
call blessed bread and yet having nothing to eat."
[82] Ibid., cartons 3144 and 3145, No. 1004, missions of the
councillors of state, year IX. - (Report of Barbé-Marbois on
Brittany.) "At Vannes, I entered the cathedral on the jour des Rois,
where the constitutional mass was being celebrated; there were only
one priest and two or three poor people there. A little farther on I
found a large crowd barring the way in the street; these people could
not enter a chapel which was already full and where the mass called
for by the Catholics was being celebrated. - Elsewhere, the churches
in the town were likewise deserted, and the people went to hear mass
by a priest just arrived from England." - (Report by Français de
Nantes on Vaucluse and Provence.) One tenth of the population follows
the constitutional priests; the rest follow the returned emigré
priests; the latter have on their side the rich and influential
portion of society." - (Report of Lacuée on Paris and the seven
surrounding departments.) "The situation of the unsubmissive priests
is more advantageous than that of the submissive priests. . . . The
latter are neglected and abandoned; it is not fashionable to join
them. . . (The former) are venerated by their adherents as martyrs;
they excite tender interest, especially from the women."
[83] Archives nationales, cartons 3144 and 3145, No.1004, missions of
the councillors of state, year IX.- (Report by Lacuée.) "The wants of
the people in this way seem at this moment to be confined. . . to a
vain spectacle, to ceremonies: going to mass, the sermon and vespers,
which is all very well; but confession, the communion, fasting, doing
without meat, is not common anywhere. . . . In the country, where
there are no priests, the village schoolmaster officiates, and people
are content; they would prefer bells without priests rather than
priests without bells." - This regret for bells is very frequent and
survives even in the cantons which are lukewarm. - (Creuse, Pluviôse
10, year IV.) "They persist in replanting the crosses which the
priests have dug up; they put back the ropes to the bells which the
magistrate has taken away."
[84] Archives nationales, cartons 3144 and 3145, No. 1004, missions of
the councilors of state, year IX. - (Report by Fourcroy.) "The keeping
of Sunday and the attendance on the churches, which is seen
everywhere, shows that the mass of Frenchmen desire a return to
ancient usages, and that the time has gone by for resisting this
national tendency. . . The mass of mankind require a religion, a
system of worship and a priesthood. It is an error of certain modern
phi1osophers, into which I have myself been led, to believe in the
possibility of any instruction sufficiently widespread to destroy
religious prejudices; they are a source of consolation for the vast
number of the unfortunate. . . . Priests, altars and worship must
accordingly be left to the mass of the people."
[85] Peuchet, "Statistique élémentaire de la France" (published in
1805), p.228. According to statements furnished by prefects in the
years IX and X, the population is 33,111,962 persons; the annexation
of the island of Elbe and of Piedmont adds 1,864,350 Total,
34,976,313. - Pelet de la Lozère, P.203. (Speech by Napoleon to the
council of state, February 4, 1804, on the Protestant seminaries of
Geneva and Strasbourg, and on the number of Protestants in his
states.) "Their population numbers only 3 millions."
[86] Roederer, III., 330 (July 1800): "The First Consul spoke to me
about the steps necessary to be taken to prevent the (emigrés) who had
been struck off from getting back their possessions, in view of
maintaining the interest in the revolution of about 1,200,000
purchasers of national domains. " - Rocquain, "État de la France au 18
Brumaire." (Report by Barbé-Marbois on Morbihan, Finisterre, Ile-et-
Vilaine, and Côtes-du-Nord, year IX.) "In every place I have just
passed through the proprietors recognize that their existence is
attached to that of the First Consul."
[87] Constitution of Frimaire 22, year VIII, art. 94. - Article 93,
moreover, declares that "the possessions of the émigrés are
irrevocably acquired by the republic."
[88] Law of Floréal 29, year X, title I, article 8. The member also
swears "to combat with all the means which justice, reason and the law
authorize, every enterprise tending to restore the feudal régime,"
and, consequently, feudal rights and tithes
[89] Organic Sénatus-consulte, Floreal 28, year XII (18th May 1804).
Title VII., art. 53.
[90] Roederer, III., 430-432 (April 4, 1802, May I, 1802): "Defermon
remarked to me yesterday, 'This will all go on well as long as the
First Consul lives; the day after his death we shall all emigrate.' "
- " Every one, from the sailor to the worker, says to himself, 'All
this is very well, but will it last? . . .- This work we undertake,
this capital we risk, this house we build, these trees we plant, what
will become of them if he dies?"
[91] Ibid., 340. (Words of the First Consul, November 4, 1800.) "Who
is the rich man to-day? The buyer of national domains, the contractor.
the robber." -These details, above, are provided for me by family
narrations and souvenirs.
[92] Napoleon, "Correspondance," letter of September 5, 1795.
"National and émigré property is not dear; patrimonies are priceless."
- Archives nationales, cartons 3144 to 3145, No.1004, missions of the
councillors of state, year IX. (Report by Lacuée on the seven
departments of the division of the Seine.) "The proportion of value,
in Seine, between national and patrimonial properties is from 8 to
15." - In Eure, national property of every kind is sold about 10 %.
off, and patrimonial at about 4 %. off. There are two sorts of
national property, one of first origin (that of the clergy), and the
other of second origin (that of the émigrés). The latter is much more
depreciated than the former. Compared with patrimonial property, in
Aisne, the former loses a fifth or a quarter of its value and the
latter a third; in Loiret, the former loses a quarter and the latter
one-half; in Seine-et-Oise the former loses one-third and the latter
three-fifths; in Oise the former is at about par, the latter loses a
quarter. - Roederer, III., 472 (December 1803). Depreciation of
national property in Normandy: "But little is bought above 7 %. off;
this, however, is the fate of this sort of property throughout
France." - Ibid., III., 534 (January 1809): "In Normandy, investments
on patrimonial property bring only 3 %., while State property brings 5
%. " - Moniteur (January 4, 1825). Report of M. de Martignac: "The
confiscated property of the emigrés finds its purchasers with
difficulty, and its commercial value is not in proportion to its real
value." - Duclosonge, former inspector of domains, "Moyens de porter
les domaines nationaux à la valeur des biens patrimoniaux," p.7.
"Since 1815, national property has generally been bought at a rate of
income of 3 %. or, at the most, 4 %. The difference for this epoch is
accordingly one-fifth, and even two-fifths."
[93] Treaty between the Pope and the French government, July '5, 1801.
Ratifications exchanged September 1, 1801, and published with its
articles April 8, 1802. - Article 13.
[94] Ibid., article 14.
[95] Articles organiques, 64, 65, 66.
[96] Law of November 30, 1809, and opinion of the Council of State,
May 19, 1811.
[97] Articles organiques, 68.
[98] Articles organiques, 71, 72. - Concordat, article 12. - Law
passed July 26, 1803.
[99] Councils of laymen entrusted with the administration of parish
incomes.
[100] Law of December 30, 1809, articles 39, 92 and following
articles, 105 and following articles.
[101] Law of September 15, 1807, title IX.
[102] Concordat, article 15. - Articles organiques, 73.
[103] Alexis Chevalier, "les Frères des écoles chrétiennes et
l'Enseignement primaire après la révolution," passim. (Act of
Vendémiare 24 and Prairial 28, year XI, and Frimiaire II, year XII;
laws of May 14, 1806, March 7, 1808, February 17, 1809, Dec. 26,
1810.)
[104] Alexis Chevalier, ibid., 189.
[105] Ibid., p.185 sequitur. (Decision of Aug. 8, 1803, of March 25,
of May 30, 1806.)
[106] Decree of June 22, 1804 (articles I and 4). - "Consultation sur
les decrets du 29 Mars 1880," by Edmond Rousse, p.32. (Out of 54
communities, there were two of men, the "Pères du tiers-ordre de
Saint-François" and the priests of "la Miséricorde," one founded in
1806 and the other in 1808.)
[107] "Mémorial de Sainte-Héléne." Napoleon adds" that an empire like
France may and must have some refuge for maniacs called Trappists." -
Pelet de la Lozère, p.208. (Session of the council of state, May 22,
1804.) "My intention is to have the house of foreign missions
restored; these monks will be of great use to me in Asia, Africa, and
America. . . . I will give them a capital of 15,000 francs a year to
begin with. . . . I shall also re-establish the 'Sisters of Charity;'
I have already had them put in possession of their old buildings. I
think it necessary also, whatever may be said of it, to re-establish
the 'Ignorantins.' "
[108] Roederer, III., 481. (Sénatorerie of Caen, Germinal 17, year
XIII.) Constant lamentations of bishops and most of the priests he has
met. "A poor curé, an unfortunate curé, . . . The bishop invites you
to dinner, to partake of the poor cheer of an unfortunate bishop on
12,000 francs salary." - The episcopal palaces are superb, but their
furniture is that of a village curé; one can scarcely find a chair in
the finest room. - "The officiating priests have not yet found a fixed
salary in any commune. . . . The peasants ardently longed for their
usual mass and Sunday service as in the past, but to pay for this is
another thing."
[109] Decrees of May 31 and Dec. 26, 1804, assigning to the Treasury
the salaries of 24,000 and then 30,000 assistant-priests.
[110] Charles Nicolas, "le Budget de la France depuis le commencement
du XIXe siecle;" appropriation in 1807, 12,341,537 francs.
[111] Decrees of Prairial 2, year XII, Nivôse 5. year XIII, and Sep.
30, 1807. - Decree of Dec. 30, 1809 (articles 37, 39, 40, 49 and ch.
IV.)- - Opinion of the council of state, May 19, 1811.
[112] These are limited (articles organiques, 5): "All ecclesiastical
functions are gratuitous except the authorized oblations fixed by the
regulations."
[113] Articles organiques, 73.
[114] Ibid., 74: " Real property other than dwellings with their
adjoining gardens, shall not be held under ecclesiastical titles or
possessed by ministers of worship by reason of their functions."
[115] Opinion of the Council of State, January 22, 1805, on the
question whether the communes have become owners of the churches and
parsonages abandoned to them by the law of Germinal 18, year X
(articles organiques). - The Council of State is of the opinion that
"the said churches and parsonages must be considered as communal
property." If the State renounces ownership in these buildings it is
not in favor of the fabrique, curé or bishop, but in favor of the
commune.
[116] In 1790 and 1791 a number of communes had made offers for
national property with a view to re-sell it afterwards, and much of
this, remaining unsold, was on their hands.
[117] Articles organiques, 26. "The bishops will make no ordination
before submitting the number of persons to the government for its
acceptance."
[118] "Archives de Grenoble." (Documents communicated by Mdlle. de
Franclieu.) Letter of the bishop, Monseigneur Claude Simon, to the
Minister of Worship, April 18, 1809. "For seven years that I have been
bishop of Grenoble, I have ordained thus far only eight priests;
during this period I have lost at least one hundred and fifty. The
survivors threaten me with a more rapid gap; either they are infirm,
bent with the weight of years, or wearied or overworked. It is
therefore urgent that I be authorized to confer sacred orders on those
who are old enough and have the necessary instruction. Meanwhile, you
are limited to asking authorization for the first eight on the
aforesaid list, of whom the youngest is twenty-four. . . . I beg Your
Excellency to present the others on this list for the authorization of
His Imperial Majesty." - Ibid., October 6, 1811. "I have only one
deacon and one subdeacon, whilst I am losing three or four priests
monthly."
[119] Articles organiques, 68, 69. "The pensions enjoyed by the curés
by virtue of the laws of the constituent assembly shall be deducted
from their salary. The vicars and assistants shall be taken from the
pensioned ecclesiastics according to the laws of the constituent
assembly. The amount of these pensions and the product of oblations
shall constitute their salary."
[120] Laws of Vendémiaire 16, year V, and Ventôse 20, year V..
[121] Decree of Nov. 6, 1800.
[122] Decisions of February 23, 1801, and June 26, 1801. (We find,
through subsequent decisions, that these recoveries were frequently
effected.)
[123] Law of Frimaire 7, year V (imposing one decime per franc above
the cost of a ticket in every theatre for the benefit of the poor not
in the asylums). - Also the decree of Dec. 9, 1809. - Decisions of
Vendémiaire 27, year VII, and the restoration of the Paris octroi,
"considering that the distress of the civil asylums and the
interruption of succor at domiciles admit of no further delay." - Also
the law of Frimaire 19, year VIII, with the addition of 2 decimes per
franc to the octroi duties, established for the support of the asylums
of the commune of Paris. - Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "Traité de la science
des finances," I., 685. Many towns follow this example: "Two years had
scarcely passed when there were 293 Octrois in France."
[124] Law of Messidor 25, year V. - Alexis Chevalier, ibid., p. 185.
(Decisions of Thermidor 20, year XI, and Germinal 4, year XIII.) - Law
of Dec.. 11, 1808 (article 1.)
[125] Albert Duruy, "l'Instruction publique et la Révolution," p.480
et seq. ("Procès-verbaux des conseils-généraux de l'an IX;" among
others, the petitions from Gironde, Ile-et-Vilaine, Maine-et-Loire,
Puy.de-Dôme, Haute-Saône, Haute Vienne, la Manche, Lot-et-Garonne,
Sarthe, Aisne, Aude, Côte-d'Or, Pas-de-Calais, BassePyrénées,
Pyrénées-Orienta1es, and Lot.)
[126] Alexis Chevalier, ibid., p. 182. (According to statistical
returns of the parent establishment, rue Oudinot. - These figures are
probably too low.)
[127] "Recueil des lois et réglemens sur l'enseignement supérieur," by
A. de Beauchamp, I., 65. (Report by Fourcroy, April 20, 1802.) "Old
schools, since the suppression of upper schools and universities, have
taken a new extension, and a pretty large number of private
institutions have been formed for the literary education of the
young."
[128] Ibid., 65 and 71. (Report by Fourcroy.) "As to the primary
schools, the zeal of the municipalities must be aroused, the emulation
of the functionaries excited, and charitable tendencies revived, so
natural to the French heart and which will so promptly spring up when
the religious respect of the government for local endowments becomes
known."
[129] Ibid., p. 81. (Decree of May 1st, 1802, titles 2 and 9. - Decree
of Sept. 17, 1808, article 23.)
130] "Histoire du collège des Bons-Enfans de l'université de Reims,"
by abbé Cauly, p. 649. - The lycée of Reims, decreed May 6, 1802, was
not opened until the 24th of September, 1803. The town was to furnish
accommodations for 150 pupils. It spent nearly 200,000 francs to put
buildings in order. . . . This sum was provided, on the one hand, by a
voluntary subscription which realized 45,000 francs and, on the other
hand, by an additional tax.
[131] Law of May 1, 1802, articles 32, 33, and 34. - Guizot, "Essai
sur l'instruction publique, I., 59. Bonaparte maintained and brought
up in the lycées, at his own expense and for his own advantage, about
3000 children . . . commonly selected from the sons of soldiers or
from poor families." - Fabry, "Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de
l'instruction publique," III., 802. "Children of soldiers whose wives
lived in Paris, the sons of office-holders who were prevented by
luxury from bringing up their families - such were the scholarships of
Paris." - "In the provinces, the employees in the tax- and post-
offices, with other nomadic functionaries - such were the communal
scholarships." - Lunet, "Histoire du collège de Rodez," 219, 224. Out
of 150 scholarships, 87 are filled, on the average.
[132] "Recueil," etc., by A. de Beauchamp, I, 171, 187, 192. (Law of
September 17, 1808, article 27, and decision of April 7, 1809.)
[133] Ibid. Masters of private schools and heads of institutions must
pay additionally every year one-quarter of the sums above fixed. (Law
of Sept. 17, 1808, article 25. Law of March 17, 1808, title 17.- Law
of February 17, 1809.)
[134] Ibid., I., 189. (Decree of March 24, 1808, on the endowment of
the University.)
[135] Emond, "Histoire du collège Louis-le-Grand," p.238. (This
college, previous to 1789, enjoyed an income of 450,000 livres.) -
Guizot, ibid., I., 62. - This college was maintained during the
revolution under the name of the "Prytanée Français" and received in
1800 the property of the University of Louvain. Many of its pupils
enlisted in 1792, and were promised that their scholarships should be
retained for them on their return; hence the military spirit of the
"Prytanée." - By virtue of a decree, March 5, 1806, a perpetual income
of 400,000 francs was transferred to the Prytanée de Saint-Cyr. It is
this income which, by the decree of March 24, 1808, becomes the
endowment of the imperial University. Henceforth, the expenses of the
Prytanée de Saint-Cyr are assigned to the war department.
[136] Alexis Chevalier, Ibid., p.265. Allocution to the "Ignorantin"
brethren.
[137] "The Ancient Régime," pp.13-15. (Laff. I. pp. 17 and 18.)- "The
Revolution," III., p. 54. (Laff. II. pp. 48-49) - Alexis Chevalier,
"Les Frères des écoles chrétiennes," p.341. "Before the revolution,
the revenues of public instruction exceeded 30 millions." - Peuchet,
"Statistique elementaire de la France (published in 1805), p.256.
Revenue of the asylums and hospitals in the time of Necker, 40
millions, of which 23 are the annual income from real-estate and 17
provided by personal property, contracts, the public funds, and a
portion from octrois, etc.
[138] D'Haussonville, "l'Église romaine et le premier Empire," vol.
IV. et V., passim - Ibid., III., 370, 375. (13 Italian cardinals and
19 bishops of the Roman states are transported and assigned places in
France, as well as many of their grand-vicars and chanoines; about the
same date over 200 Italian priests are banished to Corsica). - V.,
181. (July 12, 1811, the bishops of Troyes, Tournay and Ghent are sent
to (the fortress-prison of) Vincennes.) - V., 286. (236 pupils in the
Ghent seminary are enrol1ed in an artillery brigade and sent off to
Wesel, where about fifty of them die in the hospital.) - "Souvenirs",
by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc) Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. (Numbers
of Belgian priests confined in the castles of Ham, Bouillon and
Pierre-Châtel were set free after the Restoration.)
[139] Decree of November 15, 1811, art. 28, 29, and 30. (Owing to M.
de Fontanes, the small seminaries were not all closed, many of them,
41, still existing in 1815.)
[140] Collection of laws and decrees, passim, after 1802.
[141] Documents furnished by M. Alexis Chevalier, former director of
public charities. The total amount of legacies and bequests is as
follows: 1st Asylums and hospitals, from January 1, 1800, to December
31, 1845, 72,593,360 francs; from January 1st, 1846, to December 31,
1855, 37,107,812; from January 1st, 1856, to December 31, 1877,
121,197,774. in all, 230,898,346 francs. - 2d. Charity bureaux. From
January 1st, 1800, to December 31, 1845, 49,911,090; from January 1st,
1846, to December 31, 1873, 115,629,925; from January 1st 1874, to
December 31, 1877, 19,261,065. In all, 184,802,080 francs. - Sum
total, 415,701,026 francs.
[142] According to the statements of M. de Watteville and M. de
Gasparin.
[143] Report by Fourcroy, annexed to the exposition of the empire and
presented to the Corps Législatif, March 5, 1806.
[144] Coup d'œil général sur l'éducation et l'instruction publique en
France," by Basset, censor of studies at Charlemagne college (1816), -
p. 21.
[145] "Statistique de l'enseignement primaire," II., CCIV. (From 1786
to 1789, 47 out of 100 married men and 26 married women out of a
hundred signed their marriage contract. From 1816 to 1820, the figures
show 54 husbands and 34 wives.) - Morris Birbeck, "Notes of a Journey
through France in July, August and September 1814." p.3 (London,
1815). "I am told that all the children of the laboring classes learn
to read, and are generally instructed by their parents."
[146] Madame de Rémusat, I., 243. (Journey in the north of France and
in Belgium with the First Consul, 1803.) "On journeys of this kind he
was in the habit, after obtaining information about the public
buildings a town needed, to order them as he passed along, and, for
this munificence, he bore away the blessings of the people." - Some
time after this a letter came from the minister of the interior: "In
conformity with the favor extended to you by the First Consul (later,
emperor) you are required, citizen mayor, to order the construction of
this or that building, taking care to charge the expenses on the funds
of your commune," and which the prefect of the department obliges him
to do, even when available funds are exhausted or otherwise applied.
[147] Thiers, VIII., 117 (August 1807) and 124. 13,400 leagues of
highways were constructed or repaired; 10 canals were dug or
continued, at the expense of the public treasury; 32 departments
contribute to the expense of these through the extra centimes tax,
which is imposed on them. The State and the department, on the
average, contribute each one-half. - Among the material evils caused
by the Revolution, the most striking and the most seriously felt was
the abandonment and running down of roads which had become
impracticable, also the still more formidable degeneracy of the dikes
and barriers against rivers and the sea. (Cf. in Rocquain, "État de la
France au 18 Brumaire," the reports of Français de Nantes, Fourcroy,
Barbeé-Marbois, etc.) - The Directory had imagined barrriers with
toll-gates on each road to provide expenses, which brought in scarcely
16 millions to offset 30 and 35 millions of expenditure. Napoleon
substitutes for these tolls the product of the salt-tax. (Decree of
April 24, 1806, art. 59.)
[148] "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc) Librarie Plon,
Paris 1893. "Scarcely two or three highways remained in decent order.
. . . Navigation on the rivers and canals became impossible Public
buildings and monuments were everywhere falling to ruin. . . . If the
rapidity of destruction was prodigious, that of restoration was no
less so.
CHAPTER II. TAXATION AND CONSCRIPTION.
I. Distributive Justice in Allotment of Burdens and Benefits.
Requirements previous to the Revolution. - Lack of distributive
justice. - Wrongs committed in the allotment of social sacrifices and
benefits. - Under the ancient Regime. - During the Revolution. -
Napoleon's personal and public motives in the application of
distributive justice. - The circumstances favorable to him. - His
principle of apportionment. - He exacts proportion in what he grants.
The other group of needs, dating from long before 1789, involve wants
which have survived the Revolution, because the Revolution has not
satisfied these. The first, the most tenacious, the most profound, the
most inveterate, the most frustrated of all is the desire for
distributive justice. - In political society, as in every other
society, there are burdens and benefits to be allotted. When the
apportionment of these is unbiased, it takes place according to a very
simple, self-evident principle:
For each individual the costs must be in proportion to the benefits
and the benefits to the costs, so that, for each one, the final
expense and the final receipt may exactly compensate each other, the
larger or smaller share of expense being always equal to the larger or
smaller share of profits.
Now, in France, this proportion had been wanting for many centuries;
it had even given way to the inverse proportion. If, towards the
middle of the eighteenth century, two sum-totals of the budget,
material and moral, had been calculated, assets on one side and
liabilities on the other:
On the one hand the sum of the apportionments exacted by the State,
taxes in ready money, enforced labor, military service, civil
subordination, every species of obedience and subjection, in short,
every sacrifice of leisure, comfort and self-esteem.
On the other hand the sum of dividends distributed by the State of
whatever kind or shape, security for persons and property, use and
convenience of roads, delegations of public authority land liens on
the public treasury, dignities, ranks, grades, honors, lucrative
salaries, sinecures, pensions, and the like, that is to say, every
gratification belonging to leisure, comfort, or pride - one might have
concluded that the more a man contributed to the receipts the less
would his dividend be, and the greater his dividend the less would he
furnish to the general contribution.
Consequently, every social or local group consisted of two other
groups: a majority which suffered for the benefit of the minority, and
a minority which benefited at the expense of the majority, to such an
extent that the privations of the greatest number defrayed the luxury
of the small number. This was the case in all compartments as on every
story, owing to the multitude, enormity and diversity of honorific or
useful privileges, owing to the legal prerogatives and effective
preferences by which the court nobles benefited at the expense of the
provincial nobility,
* the noblesse at the expense of plebeians,
* the prelates and beneficiaries at the expense of poorly-paid curés
and vicars,
* the two highest orders of the clergy at the expense of the third,
* the bourgeoisie at the expense of the people,
* the towns at the expense of the rural districts,
* this or that town or province at the expense of the rest,
* the artisan member of a corporation at the expense of the free
workman,
and, in general, the strong, more or less well-to-do, in league and
protected, at the expense of the weak, more or less needy, isolated
and unprotected (indéfendus).[1]
One hundred years before the Revolution a few clairvoyant, open-
hearted and generous spirits had already been aroused by this
scandalous disproportion.[2] Finally, everybody is shocked by it, for,
in each local or social group, nearly everybody is a sufferer, not
alone the rural, the peasant, the artisan, and the plebeian, not alone
the citizen, the curé and the bourgeois notable," but again the
gentleman, the grand seignior, the prelate and the King himself.[3]
Each is denouncing the privileges of all others that affect his
interests, each striving to diminish another's share in the public
cake and to keep his own, all concurring in citing natural right and
in claiming or accepting as a principle liberty and equality, but all
concurring in misconception and solely unanimous in destroying and in
allowing destruction,[4] to such an extent that, at last, the attack
being universal and no defense anywhere, social order itself perishes,
entirely owing to the abuses of it.
On the reappearance of the same abuses, the lack of distributive
justice in revolutionary France became still more apparent than in
monarchical France. Through a sudden transposition, the preferred of
the former Régime had become the disgraced, while the disgraced of the
former Régime had become the preferred; unjust favor and unjust
disfavor still subsisted, but with a change of object. Before 1789,
the nation was subject to an oligarchy of nobles and notables; after
1789, it became subject to an oligarchy of Jacobins big or little.
Before the Revolution, there were in France three or four hundred
thousand privileged individuals, recognizable by their red heels or
silver shoe-buckles. After the Revolution, there were three or four
hundred thousand of the privileged, recognizable by their red caps or
their carmagnoles.[5] The most privileged of all, the three or four
thousand verified nobles, presented at court and of racial antiquity,
who, by virtue of their parchments, rode in the royal carriages, were
succeeded by three or four thousand Jacobins of a fresh sprout, no
less verified and accepted, who, by virtue of their civic patent, sat
in the club of the rue Saint-Honoré and the latter coterie was still
more dominant, more exclusive, more partial than the former one.
Consequently, before the Revolution, the burden of taxation was light
for the rich or the well-to-do, crushing for the peasants or the
common people; after the Revolution, on the contrary, the peasants,
the common people, paid no more taxes,[6] while from the rich and the
well-to-do the government took all, not alone their income but their
capital. - On the other hand, after having fed the court of
Versailles, the public treasury had to feed the rabble of Paris, still
more voracious; and, from 1793 to 1796, the maintenance of this rabble
cost it twenty-five times as much as, from 1783 to 1786, the
maintenance of the court.[7] Finally, at Paris as at Versailles, the
subordinates who lived on the favored spot, close to the central
manger, seized on all they could get and ate much more than their
allowance. Under the ancient Régime, "the ladies of honor, every time
they travel from one royal country-house to another, gain 80 %. on the
cost of the journey," while the queen's first chambermaid gains, over
and above her wages, 38,000 francs a year out of the sales of half-
burnt candles.[8] Under the new Régime, in the distribution of food,
"the matadors of the quarter," the patriots of the revolutionary
committees, deduct their portions in advance, and a very ample
portion, to the prejudice of the hungry who await their turn, one
taking seven rations and another twenty.[9] Thus did the injustice
remain; in knocking it over, they had simply made matters worse; and
had they wished to build permanently, now was the time to put an end
to it; for, in every social edifice it introduced an imbalance.
Whether the plumb-line deflects right or left is of little
consequence; sooner or later the building falls in, and thus had the
French edifice already fallen twice, the first time in 1789, through
imminent bankruptcy and hatred of the ancient Régime, and the second
time in 1799, through an actual bankruptcy and hatred of the
Revolution.
An architect like the French Consul is on his guard against a
financial, social and moral danger of this sort. He is aware that, in
a well-organized society, there must be neither surcharge nor
discharge, no favors, no exemptions and no exclusions. Moreover,
"l'Etat c'est lui;"[10] thus is the public interest confounded with
his personal interest, and, in the management of this double interest,
his hands are free. Proprietor; and first inhabitant of France in the
fashion of its former kings, he is not obliged and embarrassed as they
were by immemorial precedents, by the concessions they have sanctioned
or the rights they have acquired. At the public table over which he
presides and which is his table, he does not, like Louis XV. or Louis
XVI., encounter messmates already installed there, the heirs or
purchasers of the seats they occupy,[11] extending in long rows from
one end of the room to the other, each in his place according to rank,
in an arm-chair, or common chair, or on a footstool, all being the
legitimate and recognized owners of their seats, all of them the
King's messmates and all authorized by law, tradition and custom to
eat a free dinner or pay for it at less than cost, to find fault with
the dishes passed around, to reach out for those not near by, to help
themselves to what they want and to carry off the dessert in their
pockets. At the new table there are no places secured beforehand. It
is Napoleon himself who arranges the table, and on sitting down, he is
the master who has invited whomsoever he pleases, who assigns to each
his portion, who regulates meals as he thinks best for his own and the
common interest, and who introduces into the entire service order,
watchfulness and economy. Instead of a prodigal and negligent grand-
seignior, here at last is a modern administrator who orders supplies,
distributes portions and limits consumption, a contractor who feels
his responsibility, a man of business able to calculate. Henceforth,
each is to pay for his portion, estimated according to his ration, and
each is to enjoy his ration according to his quota. - Judge of this by
one example: In his own house, customarily a center of abuses and
sinecures, there must be no more parasites. From the grooms and
scullions of his palace up to its grand officials, even to the
chamberlains and ladies of honor, all his domestics, with or without
titles, work and perform their daily tasks in person, administrative
or decorative, day or night, at the appointed time, for exact
compensation, without pickings or stealing and without waste. His
train and his parades, as pompous as under the old monarchy, admit of
the same ordinary and extraordinary expenses - stables, chapel, food,
hunts, journeys, private theatricals, renewals of plate and furniture,
and the maintenance of twelve palaces or châteaux. While, under Louis
XV., it was estimated that "coffee with one roll for each lady of
honor cost the King 2,000 livres a year," and under Louis XVI.," the
grand broth night and day" which Madame Royale, aged two years,
sometimes drank and which figured in the annual accounts at 5201
livres,[12] under Napoleon "in the pantries, in the kitchens, the
smallest dish, a mere plate of soup, a glass of sugared water, would
not have been served without the authorization or check of grand-
marshal Duroc. Every abuse is watched; the gains of each are
calculated and regulated beforehand."[13] Consequently, this or that
journey to Fontainebleau which had cost Louis XVI. nearly 2 million
livres, cost Napoleon, with the same series of fêtes, only 150,000
francs, while the total expense of his civil household, instead of
amounting to 25 million livres, remains under 3 million francs.[14]
The pomp is thus equal, but the expense is ten times less; the new
master is able to derive a tenfold return from persons and money,
because he squeezes the full value out of every man he employs and
every crown he spends. Nobody has surpassed him in the art of turning
money and men to account, and he is as shrewd, as careful, as sharp in
procuring them as he is in profiting by them.
II. Equitable Taxation.
The apportionment of charges. - New fiscal principle and new fiscal
machinery.
In the assignment of public burdens and of public offices Napoleon
therefore applies the maxims of the new system of rights, and his
practice is in conformity with the theory. For the social order,
which, according to the philosophers, is the only just one in itself,
is at the same time the most profitable for him: he adds equity
because equity is profitable to him. - And first, in the matter of
public burdens, there shall be no more exemptions. To relieve any
category of taxpayers or of conscripts from taxation or from military
service would annually impoverish the treasury by so many millions of
crowns, and diminish the army by so many thousands of soldiers.
Napoleon is not the man to deprive himself without reason of either a
soldier or a franc; above all things, he wants his army complete and
his treasury full; to supply their deficits he seizes whatever he can
lay his hands on, both taxable material as well as recruitable
material. But all material is limited; if he took too little on the
one hand he would be obliged to take too much on the other; it is
impossible to relieve these without oppressing those, and oppression,
especially in the matter of taxation, is what, in 1789, excited the
universal jacquerie, perverted the Revolution, and broke France to
pieces. - At present, in the matter of taxation, distributive justice
lays down a universal and fixed law; whatever the property may be,
large or small, and of whatever kind or form, whether lands,
buildings, indebtedness, ready money, profits, incomes or salaries, it
is the State which, through its laws, tribunals, police, gendarmes and
army, preserves it from ever ready aggression within and without; the
State guarantees, procures and ensures the enjoyment of it.
Consequently, property of every species owes the State its premium of
assurance, so many centimes on the franc. The quality, the fortune,
the age or the sex of the owner is of little importance; each franc
assured, no matter in whose hands, must pay the same number of
centimes, not one too much, not one too little. - Such is the new
principle. To announce it is easy enough; all that is necessary is to
combine speculative ideas, and any Academy can do that. The National
Assembly of 1789 had proclaimed it with the rattling of drums, but
merely as a right and with no practical effect. Napoleon turns it into
a reality, and henceforth the ideal rule is applied as strictly as is
possible with human material, thanks to two pieces of fiscal machinery
of a new type, superior of their kind, and which, compared with those
of the ancient Régime, or with those of the Revolution, are
masterpieces.
III. Formation of Honest, Efficient Tax Collectors
Direct real and personal taxation. - In what respect the new machinery
is superior to the old. - Full and quick returns. - Relief to
taxpayers. - Greater relief to the poor workman and small farmer.
The collection of a direct tax is a surgical operation performed on
the taxpayer, one which removes a piece of his substance: he suffers
on account of this and submits to it only because he is obliged to. If
the operation is performed on him by other hands he submits to it
willingly or not. But that he should do it himself, spontaneously and
with his own hands, it is not to be thought of. On the other hand, the
collection of a direct tax according to the prescriptions of
distributive justice, is a subjection of each taxpayer to an
amputation proportionate to his bulk or, at least, to his surface;
this requires delicate calculation and is not to be entrusted to the
patients themselves, for, not only are they surgical novices and poor
calculators, but, again, they are interested in calculating falsely.
They have been ordered to assess their group with a certain total
weight of human substance, and to apportion to each individual in
their group the lighter or heavier portion he must provide. Everyone
will soon understand that, the more that is cut from the others, the
less will be required of him. And as each is more sensitive to his own
suffering, although moderate, than to another's suffering, even
excessive, each, therefore, be his neighbor little or big, is
inclined, in order to unjustly diminish his own sacrifice by an ounce,
to add a pound unjustly to that of his neighbor.
Up to this time, in the construction of the fiscal machine, nobody
knew or had been disposed to take into account such natural and
powerful sentiments; through negligence or through optimism, the
taxpayer had been introduced into the mechanism in the quality of
first agent; before 1789, in the quality of a responsible and
constrained agent; after 1789, in the quality of a voluntary and
philanthropic agent. Hence, before 1789, the machine had proved
mischievous, and after 1789, impotent; before 1789, its working had
been almost fatal,[15] and after 1789 its returns scarcely amounted to
anything.[16] Finally, Napoleon establishes independent, special and
competent operators, enlightened by local informers, but withdrawn
from local influences. These are appointed, paid and supported by the
central government, forced to act impartially by the appeal of the
taxpayer to the council of the prefecture, and forced to keep correct
accounts by the final auditing of a special court (cour des comptes).
The are kept interested, through the security they have given as well
as by commissions, in the integral recovery of unpaid arrears and in
the prompt returns of collected taxes. All, assessors, auditors,
directors, inspectors and collectors, being good accountants, are
watched by good accountants, kept to their duties by fear, and made
aware that embezzlements, lucrative under the Directory,[17] are
punished under the Consulate.[18] They are soon led to consider
necessity a virtue, to pride themselves inwardly on compulsory
rectitude, to imagine that they have a conscience and hence to
acquiring one, in short, to voluntarily imposing on themselves probity
and exactitude through amour-propre and honorable scruples. - For the
first time in ten years lists of taxes are prepared and their
collection begun at the beginning of the year.[19] Previous to 1789,
the taxpayer was always in arrears, while the treasury received only
three-fifths of that which was due in the current year.[20] After
1800, direct taxes are nearly always fully returned before the end of
the current year, and half a century later, the taxpayers, instead of
being in arrears, are often in advance.[21] To do this work required,
before 1789, about 200,000 collectors, besides the administrative
corps,[22] occupied one half of their time for two successive years in
running from door to door, miserable and detested, ruined by their
ruinous office, fleecers and the fleeced, and always escorted by
bailiffs and constables. Since 1800, from five thousand to six
thousand collectors, and other fiscal agents, honorable and respected,
have only to do their office-work at home and make regular rounds on
given days, in order to collect more than double the amount without
any vexation and using very little constraint. Before 1780, direct
taxation brought in about 170 millions;[23] after the year XI, it
brought in 360 millions.[24] By the same measure, an extraordinary
counter-measure, the taxable party, especially the peasant-proprietor,
the small farmer with nobody to protect him, diametrically opposite to
the privileged class, the drudge of the monarchy, is relieved of
three-fourths of his immemorial burden.[25] At first, through the
abolition of tithes and of feudal privileges, he gets back one-quarter
of his net income, that quarter which he paid to the seignior and to
the clergy; next, through the application of direct taxation to all
lands and to all persons, his quota is reduced one-half. Before 1789,
he paid, on 100 francs net income, 14 to the seignior, 14 to the
clergy, 53 to the State, and kept only 18 or 19 for himself. After
1800, he pays nothing out of 100 francs of income to the seignior or
to the clergy; he pays but little to the State, only 21 francs to the
commune and department, and keeps 79 francs in his pocket.[26]
If each franc insured pays so many centimes insurance premium, each
franc of manual gain and of salary should pay as many centimes as each
franc of industrial or commercial gain, also as each franc of personal
or land revenue; that is to say, more than one-fifth of a franc, or 21
centimes. - At this rate, the workman who lives on his own labor, the
day-laborer, the journeyman who earns 1 franc 15 centimes per day and
who works 300 days of the year, ought to pay out of his 345 francs
wages 69 francs to the public treasury. At this rate; the ordinary
peasant or cultivator of his own field, owner of a cottage and a small
tract of ground which he might rent at 100 francs a year, should pay
into the public treasury, out of his land income and from manual
labor, 89 francs.[27] The deduction, accordingly, on such small
earnings would be enormous; for this gain, earned from day to day, is
just enough to live on, and very poorly, for a man and his family:
were it cut down one-fifth he and his family would be obliged to fast;
he would be nothing but a serf or half-serf, exploited by the
exchequer, his seignior and his proprietor. Because the exchequer, as
formerly the proprietary seigniors, would appropriate to itself 60
days of labor out of the 300. Such was the condition of many millions
of men, the great majority of Frenchmen, under the ancient Régime.
Indeed, the five direct taxes, the taille, its accessories, the road-
tax, the capitatim and the vingtièmes, were a tax on the taxpayer, not
only according to the net revenue of his property, if he had any, but
again and especially "of his faculties" and presumed resources
whatever these might be, comprising his manual earnings or daily
wages. - Consequently, "a poor laborer owning nothing,"[28] who earned
19 sous a day, or 270 livres a year,[29] was taxed 18 or 20 livres.
Out of 300 days' work there were 20 or 22 which belonged beforehand to
the public treasury. - Three-fifths[30] of the French people were in
this situation, and the inevitable consequences of such a fiscal
system have been seen - the excess of extortions and of suffering, the
spoliation, privations and deep-seated resentment of the humble and
the poor. Every government is bound to care for these, if not from
compassion, at least through prudential considerations, and this one
more than any other, since it is founded on the will of the greatest
number, on the repeated votes of majorities counted by heads.
To this end, it establishes two divisions of direct taxation: one, the
real-estate tax, which has no bearing on the taxpayer without any
property; and the other, the personal tax, which does affect him, but
lightly: calculated on the rate of rent, it is insignificant on an
attic, furnished lodging, hut or any other hovel belonging to a
laborer or peasant; again, when very poor or indigent, if the octroi
is burdensome, the exchequer sooner or later relieves them; add to
this the poll-tax which takes from them1 franc and a half up to 4.50
francs per annum, also a very small tax on doors and windows, say 60
centimes per annum in the villages on a tenement with only one door
and one window, and, in the towns, from 60 to 75 centimes per annum
for one room above the second story with but one window.[31] In this
way, the old tax which was crushing becomes light: instead of paying
18 or 20 livres for his taille, capitatim and the rest, the journeyman
or the artisan with no property pays no more than 6 or 7 francs;[32]
instead of paying 53 livres for his vingtièmes for his poll, real and
industrial tax, his capitatim and the rest, the small cultivator and
owner pays no more than 21 francs. Through this reduction of their
fiscal charges (corvée) and through the augmentation of their day
wages, poor people, or those badly off, who depended on the hard and
steady labor of their hands, the plowmen, masons, carpenters, weavers,
blacksmiths, wheelwrights and porters, every hired man and artisan, in
short, all the laborious and tough hands, again became almost free;
these formerly owed, out of their 300 working days, from 20 to 59 to
the exchequer; they now owe only from 6 to 19,[33] and thus gain from
14 to 40 free days during which, instead of working for the exchequer,
they work for themselves. - The reader may estimate the value to a
small household of such an alleviation of the burden of discomfort and
care.
IV. Various Taxes.
Other direct taxes. - Tax on business licenses. - Tax on real-estate
transactions. - The earnings of manual labor almost exempt from direct
taxation. - Compensation on another side. - Indirect taxation. - In
what respect the new machinery is superior to the old. - Summary
effect of the new fiscal régime. - Increased receipts of the public
treasury. - Lighter burdens of the taxpayer. - Change in the condition
of the small taxpayer.
This infraction of the principle of distributive justice is in favor
of the poor. Through the almost complete exemption of those who have
no property the burden of direct taxation falls almost entirely on
those who own property. If they are manufacturers, or in commerce,
they support still another burden, that of the license tax, which is a
supplementary impost proportioned to their probable gains.[34]
Finally, to all these annual and extra taxes, levied on the probable
or certain income derived from invested or floating capital, the
exchequer adds an eventual tax on capital itself, consisting of the
mutation tax, assessed on property every time it changes hands through
gift, inheritance or by contract, obtaining its title under free
donation or by sale, and which tax, aggravated by the timbre,[35] is
enormous[36] since, in most cases, it takes 5, 7, 9, and up to 10 1/2
% on the capital transmitted, that is to say, in the case of real-
estate, 2, 3 and even 4 years' income from it. Thus, in the first
shearing of the sheep the exchequer cuts deep, as deep as possible;
but it has sheared only the sheep whose fleece is more or less ample;
its scissors have scarcely touched the others, much more numerous,
whose wool, short, thin and scant, is maintained only by day-wages,
the petty gains of manual labor. - Compensation is to come when the
exchequer, resuming its scissors, shears the second time: it is the
indirect tax which, although properly levied and properly collected,
is, in its nature, more burdensome for the poor than for the rich and
well-off.
Through this tax, and through to the previous action of customs-
duties, tolls, octrois or monopolies, the State collects a certain
percentage on the price of various kinds of merchandise sold. In this
way it participates in trade and commerce and itself becomes a
merchant. It knows, therefore, like all able merchants, that, to
obtain large profits, it must sell large quantities, that it must have
a very large body of customers, that the largest body is that which
ensures to it and embraces all its subjects, in short, that its
customers must consist not only of the rich, who number merely tens of
thousands, not only the well-to-do, who number merely hundreds of
thousands, but likewise the poor and the half-poor, who number
millions and tens of millions. Hence, in the merchandise by the sale
of which it is to profit, it takes care to include staple articles
which everybody needs, for example, salt, sugar, tobacco and beverages
in universal and popular use. This accomplished, let us follow out the
consequences, and look in at the shops over the whole surface of the
territory, in the towns or in the villages, where these articles are
disposed of. Daily and all day long, consumers abound; their large
coppers and small change constantly rattle on the counter; and out of
every large copper and every small piece of silver the national
treasury gets so many centimes: that is its share, and it is very sure
of it, for it is already in hand, having received it in advance. At
the end of the year, these countless centimes fill its cash-box with
millions, as many and more millions than it gathers through direct
taxation.
And this second crop causes less trouble than the first one for the
taxpayer who is subject to it has less trouble and like-wise the State
which collects it. - In the first place, the tax-payer suffers less.
In relation to the exchequer, he is no longer a mere debtor, obliged
to pay over a particular sum at a particular date; his payments are
optional; neither the date nor the sum are fixed; he pays on buying
and in proportion to what he buys, that is to say, when he pleases and
as little as he wants. He is free to choose his time, to wait until
his purse is not so empty; there is nothing to hinder him from
thinking before he enters the shop, from counting his coppers and
small change, from giving the preference to more urgent expenditure,
from reducing his consumption. If he is not a frequenter of the
cabaret, his quota, in the hundreds of millions of francs obtained
from beverages, is almost nothing; if he does not smoke or snuff, his
quota, in the hundreds of millions derived from the tax on tobacco, is
nothing at all; because he is economical, prudent, a good provider for
his family and capable of self-sacrifice for those belonging to him,
he escapes the shearing of the exchequer. Moreover, when he does come
under the scissors, these hardly graze his skin; so long as tariff
regulations and monopolies levy nothing on articles which are
physically indispensable to him, as on bread in France, indirect
taxation does not touch his flesh. In general, fiscal or protective
duties, especially those which increase the price of tobacco, coffee,
sugar, and beverages, do not affect his daily life, but merely deprive
him of some of its pleasures and comforts. - And, on the other hand,
in the collection of these duties, the exchequer may not show its
hand; if it does its business properly, the anterior and partial
operation is lost sight of in the total operation which completes and
covers this up; it screens itself behind the merchant. The shears are
invisible to the buyer who presents himself to be sheared; in any
event, he has no distinct sensation of them. Now, with the man of the
people, the common run of sheep, it is the positive, actual, animal
sensation which is the cause of his cries, his convulsive shudders,
and contagious alarms and panics. As long as he is not being excited
he can be manipulated; at the utmost, he grumbles at the hard times;
the high prices from which he suffers are not imputed to the
government; he does not know how to reckon, check off and consider for
himself the surplus price which the fiscal impost extorts from him.
Even at the present day, one might tell a peasant in vain that the
State takes fifteen out of the forty sous which he pays for a pound of
coffee, and five centimes out of every two sous he pays for a pound of
salt; for him, this is simply a barren notion, a vague calculation at
random; the impression on his mind would be very different if,
standing before the grocer who weighs out his coffee and salt, he saw
with his own eyes, right before him, the clerk of the customs and of
the salt-tax actually taking the fifteen sous and the five centimes
off the counter.
Such are the good indirect taxes: in order that they may be correct,
that is to say, tolerable and tolerated, three conditions, as we see,
are requisite. In the first place, the taxpayer, in his own interest,
must be free to buy or not to buy the merchandise taxed. Next, in the
interest of the taxpayer and of the exchequer, the merchandise must
not be so taxed as to be rendered too dear. After that, in the
interest of the exchequer, its interference must not be perceptible.
Owing to these precautions, indirect taxes can be levied, even on the
smaller taxpayers, without either fleecing or irritating them. It is
for lack of these precautions before 1789, when people were fleeced in
such a clumsy way,[37] that, in 1789, they first rebelled against
indirect taxation,[38] against the meal-tax, the salt-tax, the tax on
liquors, the internal tariffs, and the town octrois, against fiscal
officers, bureaux and registries, by murdering, pillaging, and
burning, beginning in the month of March in Provence and after the
13th of July in Paris, and then throughout France, with such a
universal, determined and persistent hostility that the National
Assembly, after having vainly attempted to restore the suspended tax-
levies and enforce the law on the populace, ended in subjecting the
law to the populace and in decreeing the suppression of indirect
taxation entirely.[39]
Such, in the matter of taxation, is the work of the Revolution. Of the
two sources which, through their regular afflux, fill the public
Treasury, and of which the ancient Régime took possession and managed
badly, violently, through loose and bungling measures, it has nearly
dried up the first one, direct taxation, and completely exhausted the
second one, indirect taxation. At present, as the empty Treasury must
be filled, the latter must be taken in hand the same as the former,
its waters newly gathered in and gently conducted without loss. The
new government sets about this, not like the old one, in a rude,
conventional manner, but as an engineer and calculator who knows the
ground, its inclination and other obstacles, in short, who comprehends
human sensibility and the popular imagination.[40] - And, first of
all, there is to be no more farming-out (of the collection of the
revenues): the State no longer sells its duties on salt or on
beverages to a company of speculators, mere contractors, who care for
nothing but their temporary lease and annual incomes, solely concerned
with coming dividends, bleeding the tax-payer like so many leeches and
invited to suck him freely, interested in multiplying affidavits by
the fines they get, and creating infractions, authorized by a needy
government which, supporting itself on their advances, places the
public force at their disposal and surrenders the people to their
exactions. Henceforth, the exchequer collects for itself and for its
own account. It is the same as a proprietor who, instead of leasing or
renting out, improves his property and becomes his own farmer. The
State, therefore, considers the future in its own interest; it limits
the receipts of the current year so as not to compromise the receipts
of coming years; it avoids ruining the present tax-payer who is also
the future taxpayer; it does not indulge in gratuitous chicanery, in
expensive lawsuits, in warrants of execution and imprisonment; it is
averse to converting a profitable laborer into a beggar who brings in
nothing, or into a prisoner for debt who costs it something. Through
this course, the relief is immense; ten years previous to the
Revolution,[41] it was estimated that, in principal and in
accessories, especially in costs of collection and in fines, indirect
taxation cost the nation twice as much the king derived from it, that
it paid 371 millions to enable him to receive 184 millions, that the
salt-tax alone took out of the pockets of the taxpayer 100 millions
for 45 millions deposited in his coffers. Under the new government,
fines became rarer; seizures, executions and sales of personal
property still rarer, while the costs of collection, reduced by
increasing consumption, are not to exceed one-twentieth in-stead of
one-fifth of the receipts.[42] - In the second place, the consumer
becomes free again, in law as in fact, not to purchase taxed goods. He
is no longer constrained, as formerly, in the provinces subject to
high salt-tax, to accept, consume, and pay for duty-salt, 7 pounds per
head at 13 sous the pound. Provincial, town or seignorial taxes on
Bread, a commodity which he cannot do without, no longer exist; there
is no piquet, or duty on flour, as in Provence,[43] no duties on the
sale or of grinding wheat, no impediments to the circulation or
commerce of grain. And, on the other hand, through the lowering of
fiscal charges, in the suppression of internal duties, and the
abolition of multitudinous tolls, other commodities, apart from bread
reached by a different tax, now becomes affordable for those of small
means. Salt, instead of costing thirteen sous and over, no longer
costs more than two sous the pound. A cask of Bordeaux wine no longer
pays two hundred livres before it is retailed by the tavern-keeper at
Rennes.[44] Except in Paris, and even at Paris, so long as the
extravagance of municipal expenditure does not increase the octroi the
total tax on wine, cider and beer does not add, even at retail, more
than 18 % to their selling price,[45] while, throughout France, the
vine-grower, or the wine-maker, who gathers in and manufactures his
own wine, drinks this and even his brandy, without paying one cent of
tax under this heading.[46] - Consequently, consumption increases,
and, as there are no longer any exempt or half-exempt provinces, no
more free salt (franc salé),[47] no more privileges arising from
birth, condition, profession or residence, the Treasury, with fewer
duties, collected or gained as much as before the Revolution: In 1809
and 1810, 20 millions on tobacco, 54 millions on salt, 100 millions on
liquors, and then, as the taxpayer became richer and spent more, still
larger and larger sums: in 1884, 305 millions on tobacco: in 1885, 429
millions on liquors,[48] without counting another 100 millions again
raised on liquors through town octrois. - And lastly, the exchequer,
with extreme prudence, keeps out of sight and succeeds in almost
saving the taxpayer from contact with, or the presence of, its agents.
There is an end to a domestic inquisition. The excise man no longer
pounces in on the housewife to taste the pickle, to find out whether
the ham has been cured with bogus salt, to certify that all the
dutiable salt has been used in "the pot and the salt-cellar." The
wine-inspector no longer comes suddenly on the wine-grower, or even on
the consumer, to gauge his casks, to demand an account of what he
drinks, to make an affidavit in case of deficit or over-consumption,
to impose a fine should a bottle have been given to a sick person or
to a poor one. The 50,000 customs officers or clerks of the ferme, the
23,000 soldiers without a uniform who, posted in the interior along a
line of 1200 leagues, guarded the heavily taxed salt districts against
the provinces which were less taxed, redeemed or free, the innumerable
employees at the barriers, forming a confused and complicated band
around each province, town, district or canton, levying on twenty or
thirty different sorts of merchandise forty-five principal duties,
general, provincial, or municipal, and nearly sixteen hundred tolls,
in short, the entire body of officials of the old system of indirect
taxation has almost wholly disappeared. Save at the entrance of towns,
and for the octroi the eye no longer encounters an official clerk. The
carters who, from Roussillon or Languedoc, transport a cask of wine to
Paris, are no longer subject to his levies, humiliations and moods in
twenty different places, nor to ascribe to him the dozen or fifteen
days' useless extension of their trip due to his predecessor, and
during which they had to wait in his office until he wrote a receipt
or a permit. There is scarcely any one now but the inn-keeper who sees
his green uniform on his premises. After the abolition of the house-
inventory, nearly two millions of proprietors and wine métayers are
forever free of his visits;[49] from now on, for consumers, especially
for the people, he seems absent and non existent. In effect, he has
been transferred one or two hundred leagues off, to the salt-
establishments in the interior and on the coasts, and on the frontier.
There only is the system at fault, nakedly exposing its vice, - a war
against exchanges, the proscription of international commerce,
prohibition pushed to extreme, the continental blockade, an
inquisition of 20,000 customs officials, the hostility of 100,000
defrauders, the brutal destruction of seized goods, an augmentation in
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