Abolition of feudalism in France

thumb|300px|Meeting of the night of 4 August 1789 by [[Charles Monnet, (Musée de la Révolution française).]]

One of the central events of the French Revolution was the abolition of feudalism, and the old rules, taxes, and privileges left over from the ancien régime. The National Constituent Assembly, after deliberating on the night of 4 August 1789, announced, "The National Assembly abolishes the feudal system entirely." It abolished both the seigneurial rights of the Second Estate (the nobility) and the tithes gathered by the First Estate (the Catholic clergy). The old judicial system, founded on the 13 regional parlements, was suspended in November 1789 and finally abolished in 1790.

Background

The fall of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 was followed by a mass uproar spreading from Paris to the countryside. Noble families were attacked, and many aristocratic manors were burned. Abbeys and castles were also attacked and destroyed. The season of La Grande Peur – the Great Fear – was characterised by social hysteria and anxiety over who was going to be the next victim. In many cases, the violence was begun not by homeless people or hunger-driven peasants but by settled countrymen who took this opportunity to further their own cause.

The Great Fear opened up the vulnerability of the French government – there was a lack of authority at the very center of it. The prolonged riots and massacres led to a general anxiety that things might get out of control, and they did. It was an experience that the country had never undergone before. By late July 1789, as the peasant revolt reports poured into Paris from every part of the country, the National Constituent Assembly decided to reform the social pattern of the country in order to pacify the outraged peasants and encourage them towards peace and harmony.

Debates at the time

On 4 August the Duke of Aiguillon proposed in the Club Breton the abolition of feudal rights and the suppression of personal servitude. On the evening of 4 August, the Viscount de Noailles proposed to abolish the privileges of the nobility to restore calm in French provinces. Members of the First Estate were at first reluctant to enter into the patriotic fervour of the night, but eventually Anne Louis Henri de La Fare (Bishop of Nancy) and the Bishop of Chartres sacrificed their titles.

Article 1 – The Assembly declared the feudal system abolished thereafter. Within the "existing rights and dues, both feudal and censuel (this refers to the cens, a perpetual due similar to the payments made by English copyholders), all those originating in or representing real or personal serfdom shall be abolished without indemnification".

In the course of a few hours, France abolished game-laws, manorial courts, venal offices (especially judgeships), the purchase and sale of pecuniary immunities, favoritism in taxation, of surplice money, first-fruits, pluralities, and unmerited pensions. Towns, provinces, companies, and cities also sacrificed their special privileges. A medal was struck to commemorate the day, and the Assembly declared Louis XVI the "Restorer of French Liberty". François Furet emphasizes that the decisions of August 1789 survived and became an integral part of the founding texts of modern France.

This "Saint Bartholomew of abuses", as François Mignet calls it, has often been the subject of hyperbole in the analyses of contemporaries and historians. The atmosphere inside the Assembly was so heady that confusion reigned in the provinces for months afterwards as to the true meaning of the laws. The real product of the night was not formalised until the Feudal Committee reported back on 5 March 1790. The Committee reintroduced the mainmorte (explicitly outlawed by the original decrees) and set a rate of redemption for rights related to land that was impossible for the majority of peasants to pay (30 times the annual rent).

The Russian anarchist Prince Peter Kropotkin writes:

Kropotkin concludes "The Feudal rights remain" and scorns the other historians: "The historic legend is lovingly used to embellish this night, and the majority of historians, copying the story as it has been given by a few contemporaries, represent it as a night full of enthusiasm and saintly abnegation."

Impact

The August Decrees were declared with the idea of calming the populace and encouraging them towards civility. However, the August Decrees were revised numerous times over the next two years. King Louis XVI, in a letter, on the one hand expressed deep satisfaction with "the noble and generous demarche of the first two orders of the state" who, according to him had "made great sacrifices for the general reconciliation, for their patrie and for their king". On the other hand, he went on to say that though the "sacrifices were fine, I cannot admire it; I will never consent to the despoliation of my clergy and my nobility ... I will never give my sanction to the decrees that despoil them, for then the French people one day could accuse me of injustice or weakness". What Louis was concerned with was not with the loss of position of the French nobility and clergy, but with adequate reparation for this loss. Meanwhile, the August Decrees paved the way for the Assembly to make the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

Originally, the peasants were supposed to pay for the release of seigneurial dues; these dues affected more than a quarter of the farmland in France and provided most of the income of the large landowners. The majority refused to pay, and in 1793 the obligation was cancelled. Thus the peasants were awarded the land for free and also no longer paid the tithe to the church.

D. M. G. Sutherland has examined the results for peasants and landlords. The peasants no longer had to pay the tithe to the Church. The landowners, however, were allowed to raise rents by the same amount as the former tithe. The national government then taxed away the income to owners by raising land taxes. Sutherland concludes that the peasants effectively paid twice, in terms of higher rents and heavier taxes. Many tried to evade the burden. In the long run, however, the burdens on the tenants and landlords were largely offset by major gains in productivity, which made everyone richer.

Notes

References

Markoff, John. Abolition of Feudalism: Peasants, Lords, and Legislators in the French Revolution (Penn State Press, 2010)
Stewart, John Hall, ed. A Documentary Survey of the French Revolution (1951) pp. 106–12
Thompson, J. M. The French Revolution (1943), pp. 90–111