the French revolution, the Peasantry and village Common Land

introduction

Few events have evoked as much passion, rage and debate than the French revolution has for more than two hundred years. historians have disagreed over the origins, causes, outcomes and significance of the Revolution ever since it began in 1789. the social interpretation developed in the early twentieth century by Jean Jaurs and albert mathiez focused on the struggle between the allegedly rising bourgeoisie and the declining nobility.1 this marxist interpretation focused on the class conflict between the bourgeoisie and the nobility, and became the dominant way to view the French revolution until the 1960s when a revisionist attack was launched led by anglo-american scholars.2 the revisionist offensive reached its height during the bicentenary celebrations in 1989.3 this interpretation, led by William doyle, Franois Furet and keith michel Baker, has produced an overwhelmingly negative account of the revolution, largely because, in their view, it failed to produce a political order based on freedom and individual rights.4 indeed, doyle ends his oxford history of the French revolution with the assertion that it was in every sense a tragedy.5 however, the revisionist approach has been increasingly criticized for focusing too much on elite culture and for completing eschewing the social dynamic that was part of the revolutionary experience. For example in Simon Schamas Citizens, arguably the most popular and best-selling book ever written on the French revolution, the common people of France, peasants and artisans, do not even appear in the index yet the entries for marie antoinette run to almost half a page.6 this has led many historians, such as William Sewell,

1 J. Jaurs, Histoire socialiste de la Rvolution franaise, 8 vols. (Paris, 192339) and a. mathiez, La Rvolution franaise, 3 vols. (Paris, 193233). 2 there are many reviews, articles and books charting the classic social and revisionist historiography of the French revolution, for one of the best see t.C.W. Blanning, The French Revolution: Aristocrats versus Bourgeois? (London, 1987). 3 to trace the history of the bicentennial commemoration see S.L. kaplan, Farewell, Revolution: The Historians Feud: France, 1789/1989 (ithaca, nY, 1995). 4 W. doyle, Origins of the French Revolution (oxford, 1980), F. Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution (Cambridge, 1981) and k.m. Baker, Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1990). 5 W. doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution (oxford, 1989), p. 425. 6 S. Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (new York, 1989).

Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution

olwen hufton and Susan desan to prescribe a return to the social because they see it as dangerous to confuse the attitudes of the philosophes, novelists and statesmen (gleaned from their printed works), with the actual experiences of peasants and urban workers.7 rebecca Spang is concerned that revisionists have concentrated too heavily on the discourse of revolution and have overlooked the question of how peoples lives were changed by their experiences of the revolutionary period itself.8 in the last two decades many works have been produced from a post-revisionist perspective, focusing once again on the majority of French people and the impact that the revolution had on their lives. many of these studies have taken the form of a revitalized social history, which has been identified as neo-liberal because it approaches the French revolution from the liberal democratic tradition. this new historiography focuses on the problems of transforming a society of hierarchy to one of civil equality as well as emphasizing the role of free will and human choices in determining the outcome of the French revolution.9 much of this work has also focused on rural France. historians, such as Peter Jones, John markoff and Peter mcPhee deem the peasantry and their engagement with national politics as central to understanding the French revolution in its totality.10 all of this work deals with the tangible and intangible changes that the revolutionary decade wrought in the lives of country dwellers. the abolition of seigneurialism, along with the creation of a new legal and judicial system, the widespread acquisition of land, either through sales of biens nationaux or privatized common lands, had significantly transformed the lives of the majority of people. thanks to the revolutionary decade, there was an extraordinary shift in cultural meanings and social behaviours which forever changed French civic life. For mcPhee, the abolition of privilege

7 W.h. Sewell, Jr. Whatever happened to the Social in Social history? in J.W. Scott and d. keates, eds., Schools of Thought: Twenty-Five Years of Interpretive Social Science (Princeton, nJ, 2001) and the introduction to his A Rhetoric of Bourgeois Revolution: The Abb Sieyes and What is the Third Estate? (durham, nC, 1994); o. hufton, Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the French Revolution (toronto, 1992); S. desan, Whats after Political Culture? recent French revolutionary historiography FHS 23:1 (2000), pp. 16396. 8 r. Spang, Paradigms and Paranoia: how modern is the French revolution American Historical Review 108:1 (2003), pp. 11947. 9 G. kates, introduction in The French Revolution: Recent Debates and New Controversies (London, 1998), pp. 120 and J.d. Popkin, not over after all: the French revolutions third Century, Journal of Modern History 74 (2002), pp. 80121. 10 P.m. Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution (Cambridge, 1988) and Liberty and Locality in Revolutionary France: Six Villages Compared, 17601820 (Cambridge, 2003); J. markoff, The Abolition of Feudalism: Peasants, Lords, and Legislators in the French Revolution (university Park, Pa., 1996); P. mcPhee, Revolution and Environment in Southern France: Peasants, Lords, and Murder in the Corbires, 17801830 (oxford, 1999) and Living the French Revolution, 178999 (Basingstoke, 2006).

Introduction: The French Revolution, the Peasantry and Village Common Land

and the introduction of participatory politics permanently altered the way in which French people made sense of the world around them.11 Yet this view of the revolutions more positive and transformative impact on the lives of country people has also been challenged. tim Le Goff has claimed that if a poll were taken in 1799, a clear majority would have qualified the Revolution simply as a disaster.12 donald Sutherland has argued that the revolution was primarily an urban phenomenon that left many people poorer and more miserable than before it began; moreover, he has insisted that if there was a rural popular movement during the French revolution, then it was counter-revolutionary, Catholic and royalist.13 the sentiments of Le Goff and Sutherland echo what richard Cobb claimed over thirty years ago that the revolution was essentially irrelevant to the lives of most people as they were still just as destitute, poor and hungry before 1789 than a decade later.14 Colin Jones, in a critical appreciation of the work of olwen hufton and richard Cobb, argues that Cobb is part of a larger dickensian paradigm of the French revolution, inspired by A Tale of Two Cities, which is decidedly British and which views the revolutionary decade as a tragedy. the British revisionists doyle and Schama are also part of this tradition, according to Jones.15 indeed, those who believe the French revolution was a disaster, tragedy or irrelevance in the lives of country people seem to have dismissed or are unaware of the peasantrys role in the revolution throughout the 1790s. It is without doubt that the peasantry played a significant part of the French revolution. much of our understanding of this is due to the work of one of the greatest historians of the revolution, Georges Lefebvre (18741959).16 Lefebvre wrote on various aspects of the French revolution, but lamentably only one large-scale volume on the peasantry. Les Paysans du Nord, which is best described as a histoire totale of the peasant experience of revolution in the department of the Nord, was the first work to present the peasantry of 1789 as a conglomeration of widely differing social groups rather than a single
mcPhee, Living the French Revolution, p. 202. t.J.a. Le Goff, review of P.m. Jones The Peasantry in the French Revolution. Journal of Modern History 64:2 (1992), pp. 400402. 13 d. Sutherland, France, 17891815: Revolution and Counterrevolution (oxford, 1986) and The French Revolution and Empire: The Quest for a Civic Order (oxford, 2003). 14 r. Cobb, The Police and People: French Popular Protest 17891820 (oxford, 1970) and Reactions to the French Revolution (oxford, 1972), esp. chapters on the irrelevance of the French revolution and La Vie en Marge: Living on the Fringe of the revolution. 15 C. Jones, olwen huftons Poor, richard Cobbs People and the notions of the longue dure in French revolutionary historiography, Past and Present (2006), Supplement 1, pp. 178203. 16 homage is paid to Lefebvre by e. Labrousse, Annales ESC Xv (1960), pp. 18 and r. Cobb, Past and Present 18 (1960), pp. 5267.
11 12

Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution

undifferentiated class.17 his theories regarding the peasantry and the agrarian history of France and the revolution were then expanded and developed in a series of articles and shorter monographs published between 1924 and 1957. at the centre of Lefebvres uvre is his discovery of an independent peasant revolution, which he believed had an autonomous nature in terms of its origins, its proceedings, its crises, and its tendencies.18 this peasant revolution, which existed alongside the bourgeois revolution, was aimed specifically at the destruction of the seigneurial regime. the peasant and bourgeois revolutions agree on this point of the abolition of feudalism, but according to Lefebvre once this goal was achieved, the peasantry retreated from revolutionary action, because the majority of peasants were anti-capitalist in outlook and hence, in conflict with the liberal-minded bourgeois revolutionaries. However, within his conception of the peasantry Lefebvre differentiated between wealthy tenant farmers and laboureurs, whom he considered to be the rural bourgeoisie and proto-capitalist, and the rest of the more proletarian or petite peasantry.19 Lefebvres contention that this second collectivist peasantry was essentially anti-capitalist is the foundation of his interpretation that while the peasantry abolished feudalism during the revolution, it also consolidated the agrarian structure of France.20 Because the destruction of the seigneurial regime was not then followed by the development of capitalism in the agricultural realm, France was, throughout the nineteenth century, locked into an agrarian structure dominated by small peasant proprietors mainly concerned with subsistencebased production. according to Lefebvre, the peasantry was anti-capitalist for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, French peasants were deeply attached to their collective rights these usage rights, such as grazing, gleaning and cutting wood, applied to both private and common land; they also ensured the survival of many poor peasants and more broadly, the proper functioning of the rural economy.21 Lefebvre stressed that the peasants were:
profoundly attached to their collective rights and to the regulation of pre-capitalist economic and social systems, not only by routine but also because the capitalist transformation of agriculture worsened their conditions of existence.22

17 G. Lefebvre, Les Paysans du Nord pendant la Rvolution franaise (Paris, 1924), reprinted without notes (Bari, 1959). 18 G. Lefebvre, La rvolution franaise et les paysans in Etudes sur la Rvolution franaise (Paris, 1963), p. 343. 19 Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 125. 20 Lefebvre, La rvolution franaise et les paysans, p. 353. 21 ibid., p. 348. 22 ibid., p. 344.

Introduction: The French Revolution, the Peasantry and Village Common Land

related to these collective usage rights was the peasantrys customary conception of property, which would suppress private ownership rights after the hay harvest, usually after the first cutting, thus transforming the field into communal property on which collective rights could then be carried out.23 underlying these collective practices is the idea of le droit social, which was deeply rooted in peasant mentalit. Lefebvre maintains that the peasantry operated under the belief that they had a social right to life and survival which private property could not supersede. rather, it was believed that property must be arranged in such a way as to meet the needs of all members of the collectivity.24 this brings us around to another of Lefebvres contentions regarding the peasantry and capitalism; it is essentially that peasants were not very interested in freehold property. For the peasantry, access to land, in the form of common lands and rights, was much more important than a freehold private plot.
all the thoughts of the poor peasant were to limit individual property rights and to defend collective usage rights, which permitted him to live and which he regarded as a property as scared as others.25

in short, poorer peasants were completely opposed to any capitalist transformation of agriculture.26 moreover, because peasants were not protocapitalists, they were much less concerned with producing for the market than for their own subsistence.27 the theoretical dilemma this interpretation implied, in that an autonomous (anti-capitalist) peasant revolution did not fit within the marxist explanation of the French revolution, did not seem to trouble Lefebvre; he was not dogmatic in his marxism and simply accepted the variation which he had discovered. it did, however, prove to be more problematic for other marxist historians working in the field, namely Albert Soboul and Anatoli Ado, and it is on this point of the peasantrys relation to agrarian capitalism that the challenges to the masters work begin. the russian historian anatoli ado has put forth, in his impressive Paysans en Rvolution, the major critical alternative to the Lefebvrian perspective.28 ados premise is that another interpretation of the peasantrys relationship to the revolution is possible. at the heart of his thesis is the reversal of Lefebvres characterization of the peasant revolution as anti-capitalist; for ado, the peasants
23

p. 90.
24 25 26 27

G. Lefebvre, Les paysans du Nord pendant la Rvolution franaise (Bari, 1959), Lefebvre, La rvolution franaise et les paysans, p. 349. ibid., p. 348. ibid., p. 348. G. Lefebvre, Questions agraires au temps de la terreur (La roche-Sur-Yon, 1954), a. ado, Paysans en Rvolution: Terre, pouvoir et jacquerie 17891794 (Paris,

p. 129.
28

1996).

Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution

were above all small-scale agrarian capitalists. By focusing on the egalitarian nature of the peasantrys desire for land, ado developed an interpretation that stresses the capitalist nature of peasant demands during the revolution. the peasantrys desire for small plots of land signals to ado that perhaps poorer peasants were really more interested in agrarian individualism and small-scale capitalism than Lefebvre realized.29 his interpretation suggests that the peasantry took a different route to capitalism than the standard one, which is usually based on the english model where the peasantry rapidly lost their land and became workers for landlords. in ados model, the French peasantry followed a unique route to rural capitalist development, which is called la voie paysanne. using theories of Lenin regarding the diverse ways in which agrarian capitalism could evolve, ado claims that small peasant proprietorship does not necessary inhibit capitalist development, but instead would produce a larger base for the development of market production.30 in other words, if the peasantry had acquired small plots of land during the revolution, they would have eventually adopted new agricultural techniques and then would have abandoned their old collective use rights and practices.31 the problem according to ado is not what the peasantry imposed on the bourgeois revolutionaries, but what they failed to gain from them, i.e. the destruction of large property owners, their rentier mentality and old systems of fermage and mtayage.32 thus, ado resolves the dilemma of Lefebvres interpretation by suggesting that the bourgeois and peasant revolutions may not have been out of step at all, for they were both aimed at agrarian capitalist development, but failed to produce the conditions conducive to its fruition. anatoli ados reformulation of the relationship between the peasantry and agrarian capitalism was well received in France by the marxist historians at the Sorbonne, specifically Albert Soboul and his students. Florence Gauthier, a student in Sobouls doctoral seminar at the time, has used ados theory of peasantled agrarian capitalism to examine the region of Picardy.33 She found that the peasant movement during the revolution was the bearer of a revolutionary route to the development of capitalism and that the egalitarianism which characterized the peasantrys desire to acquire national and communal land represented the highest stage of the democratic revolution.34 in essence, Gauthier argues for a
29 a. ado, Le mouvement paysan et le problme de lgalit (17891794) in a. Soboul (ed.), Contributions lhistoire paysanne de la Rvolution franaise (Paris, 1977), p. 126. 30 ado, Paysans en Rvolution, p. 430. 31 ado, Le mouvement paysan, pp. 1367. 32 ado, Paysans en Rvolution, p. 453 and a. Soboul, a propos dune thse rcente sur la mouvement paysan dans la rvolution franaise, Ann. his. Rv. fran. 45 (1973), p. 101. 33 F. Gauthier, La voie paysanne dans la Rvolution franaise: lexemple picard (Paris, 1977). 34 ibid., p. 205.

Introduction: The French Revolution, the Peasantry and Village Common Land

re-conceptualization of the Revolution; she insists that the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the mass of the peasantry was not over capitalism, but rather it was over the differing ways that the two groups wanted to move towards capitalism. For the peasantry, they wanted a more democratic transition with each peasant receiving a freehold plot; in contrast, the liberal bourgeoisie, who began the revolution, held on to the notion of capitalism developing from large modernizing landowners.35 Guy-robert ikni, another of Sobouls students, presents a similar argument in his article, recherches sur la proprit foncire.36 Like ado, ikni recalls Lenins ideas on the diverse paths which the transformation from feudalism to capitalism could take. For France at the time of the Revolution, Ikni identifies two distinct possible voies; the first corresponds to the pays de petite culture, where the peasantry would take the economic initiative; while in the second route, large property owners in the pays de grande culture, who had been imbued with physiocratic and agronomic ideas of agricultural improvement, would lead the way towards capitalist development.37 ikni argues that these two seemingly contradictory situations could be rectified if the large property owners served as guardians for the smaller ones, but the problem was that the gros were put off by the petits egalitarian demands for land reform.38 Peter mcPhees work and particularly his study of the Corbires region in Languedoc-roussillon also conform to ados voie paysanne thesis.39 mcPhee traces the extensive land clearance in this region, which began in Languedoc under the agronomist inspired edict of 1770, but really reached its peak between 1790 and 1800. Not only does McPhee examine the significant ecological changes brought on by the massive clearance of the garrigues, but he also investigates the transformation of the local economy in the aftermath of these dfrichements. What he discovered was a shift in the agricultural production on the newly cleared plots of the poorer peasantry. these recently-fashioned micro-propritaires concentrated their energy on commercial wine production for an ever-expanding market. this evidence certainly corroborates ados theory, as it was the small landowning peasants who were becoming petit entrepreneurs, at the forefront of a shift towards market-oriented viticulture. thus, for mcPhee, the French revolution marks the transition from an ancient subsistence economy underpinned by pastoralism to a mixed economy in which viticulture was forming increasingly important links with the world outside the Corbires region.40
ibid., pp. 21213. G.-r. ikni, recherches sur la proprit foncire, Problmes thoriques et de mthode (fin XVIIIe-dbut XIXe sicle) Ann. his. Rv. fran. 52 (1980), pp. 390424. 37 ibid., p. 421. 38 ibid., p. 422. 39 P. mcPhee, the French revolution, Peasants and Capitalism, American Historical Review 94 (5) (1989), pp. 126580 and Revolution and Environment. 40 mcPhee, Revolution and Environment, p. 199.
36 35

Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution

although ados voie paysanne thesis has been strongly supported in mainly marxist academic circles, there are a number of non-marxist historians both French and anglophone who have been critical of this new approach. Peter Jones has warned that ados theory is based on too many ifs and buts, and that it tends to make all small and middling peasants into budding agrarian capitalists, which was simply not the case.41 Jones maintains that Lefebvre was more flexible in regard to possible differentiations within the peasantry, while ado seems to be more dogmatic. he also raises the crucial issue of the regional diversity in France and claims that no typology could ever do it justice.42 nadine vivier in her extensive study of common land in France has also focused on this potential limitation in ados theory. vivier maintains that ados voie paysanne only works in the vast cereal plains in Picardy, where modernization was well on its way and the peasantry was more progressive.43 however, mcPhees study of the small wine growers in the Corbires demonstrates that it was not only in grain-dominated regions where petit peasants could lead the way in the commercialization of agriculture. all of the issues discussed above have direct bearing on one of the most contentious aspects of French agrarian life during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: village common land. village common land has existed in France since at least the roman occupation and in popular consciousness since time immemorial. these lands have always played an important role in rural life. Peasant polyculture, the dominant form of agriculture in the pre-industrial world, was dependent upon the exploitation of common wastes and pastures. Common land also reinforced, and at the same time exemplified, the collective nature of rural existence. French agrarian historians have long acknowledged the role that collectively exploited land played in giving shape to communal life. essentially, these lands are areas in and around villages which were owned and exploited collectively.44 in the Encyclopdie of diderot and dalembert, common land is defined as the property of the commune belonging to the entire community, by which each inhabitant can not dispose of or set out their individual right within that property.45 This definition of common land includes the actual property held in common and its produce as well as the idea of collective usage (jouissance des habitants). the notion that both the ownership and the use of this land were
41 Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 127 and P.m. Jones, Georges Lefebvre and the Peasant Revolution fifty years on reprinted in P. Jones (ed.), The French Revolution in Social and Political Perspective (London, 1996), p. 68. 42 Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 126. 43 n. vivier, Proprit collective et identit communale: les biens communaux en France 17501914 (Paris, 1998), p. 176. 44 See m. Bourjol, Les biens communaux, voyage au centre de la proprit collective (Paris, 1989). 45 diderot and dalembert, Encyclopdie ou dictionnaire rasonn des sciences, des arts et des mtiers (Paris, 1753) vol. 3, p. 725.

Introduction: The French Revolution, the Peasantry and Village Common Land

collective is tied to its origins. the commons were formed out of two parts of the ancient agrarian trilogy of Ager, Saltus, Silva. they came from the union of the Saltus (uncultivated pasture) and Silva (forests or woods), which had always been conceived of as wild, untameable places and as such could not lawfully be appropriated by any individual.46 thus, both the land itself and its usage had always been regarded as collective and communal. Although most common land had its official recognition during the Roman empire, when many rural communes were formed and consolidated, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, their origins became the focus of a judicial debate with heavy political overtones. two distinct lines of argument developed.47 First, juriconsultes argued that the commons were the heritage of antiquity and that communities rarely possessed titles for them because these lands had always been in their possession since time immemorial. they maintained that during the middle ages, seigneurs seized these lands and granted usage rights in order to persuade inhabitants to settle on their seigneuries. in contrast, the feudistes believed that when the Franks invaded Gaul, they divided up the land that they had conquered conceding the commons to the villages, so that initially they were possessions of the seigneurs. during the ancien rgime, the conception of the commons as a seigneurial concession prevailed with legislation passed in 1669. the Water and Forest Code restored the ancestral right of triage, which allowed seigneurs to secure ownership of a third of a villages common land provided that the remaining two-thirds were sufficient to meet the needs of the community. this right was widely used throughout the eighteenth century as land hungry seigneurs annexed portions of common land regardless of the consequences for village communities.48 Yet royal edicts did allow for the clearance and cultivation of common land by members of the third estate. during the 1760s the monarchy passed various edicts encouraging the improvement of common land; on 5 July 1770, Louis XV granted a fifteen year tax concession for all land that was cleared and cultivated in the province of Languedoc.49 the tide turned however in 1789 when the juriconsultant view of the commons belonging to the village community prevailed as the revolutionaries wished to undermine all sources of seigneurial power. however, this conception of
Y. rinaudo, des prs et des bois. repres pour une tude des biens communaux dans la France mditerranenne, Annales du Midi 95 (1983), p. 483 and m. Bloch, French Rural History: an Essay on Its Basic Characteristics (Berkeley, 1966), p. 182. 47 For a fuller discussion of these two judicial theories, see vivier, Proprit collective, pp. 424 and the management and use of the commons in France during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in m. de moor, L. Shaw-taylor and P. Warde (eds), The Management of Common Land in North West Europe, c.15001850 (turnhout, 2002), pp. 14370. 48 Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 137. 49 For a recent analysis of this edict see, n. Plack, agrarian reform and ecological Change during the ancien rgime: Land Clearance, Peasants and viticulture in the Province of Languedoc, French History 19:2 (2005), pp. 189210.
46

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Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution

communally held property seemed to contradict the idea of a nation founded upon individual rights and private property. as a result, successive legislative bodies throughout the revolution attempted to deal with this problem of communally held land (and also with collective practices). in fact, it was during the French revolution that legislative attention paid to the commons reached its peak. three key laws sought to change the tenure of common land during the revolution: 14 august 1792, which ordered the partition of all common land; 28 august 1792, which abolished the seigneurial right of triage and permitted communes to re-integrate any commons seized by the seigneur as well as any waste lands; 10 June 1793, which specified the mode de partage for the law of 14 august 1792 and made partition optional while also allowing communities to recover usurped lands. in sum, these laws represent the summit of revolutionary activity regarding the commons and all subsequent legislation, even into the nineteenth century, was a reaction to them. the backlash began on 21 Prairial iv (9 June 1796) when a law was passed suspending any action pertaining to common land, including partition, authorized by the law of 10 June 1793. during the Consulate, napoleon, seeking to restore order and calm in the countryside, consolidated and legally recognized existing partitions which had adhered to the 10 June 1793 legislation, but outlawed any further divisions with the law of 9 ventse Xii (29 February 1804). then in 1813, because he desperately needed money to finance his failing military campaign, napoleon ordered the sale of all common land which was being leased out through the municipalities with the law of 20 march 1813. this law was repealed by Louis Xviii in 1816, but the troublesome issue of the common lands was not resolved under the Bourbon restoration. on 23 June 1819 a royal ordinance was passed which attempted to penalize usurpers who had taken possession of common land since 1793; they were ordered to declare their holdings and to either purchase the land for 4/5th of its value or to pay an annual rent equivalent to 1/20th of the lands worth. these laws, then, form the core legislation regarding common land from 17891819, and each decree along with its socio-economic impact will be examined in the following pages. many of the aforementioned historians have written about the issue of common land privatization, and especially the renowned 10 June 1793 decree, which authorized equal partition of the commons between all members of the village community. For Georges Lefebvre common lands and rights were a central feature of rural life.
it is a fact that the very existence of most peasants depended on them. those who worked only a small plot of land, were able to raise a cow, a pig, or a few sheep thanks to communal pastures. once they lost this resource, they had nothing.50
50 G. Lefebvre, the Place of the revolution in the agrarian history of France reprinted in r. Forster and o. ranum (eds), Rural Society in France: Selections from the Annales, Economies, Socits, Civilisations (Baltimore and London, 1977), p. 36.

Introduction: The French Revolution, the Peasantry and Village Common Land

11

according to Lefebvre the partition of common land was neither desired nor executed on a large scale in the nord, because both poor and well-off peasants benefited more from their collective exploitation of these lands than from a single freehold plot.51 once again, Lefebvres perspective on the issue of the commons and the law of 10 June 1793 has become the standard interpretation and has been subject to constant trial and revision. in his large-scale study of the peasantry, Peter Jones asserts that while petits may have called for the division of common land, in the end, very little land was actually divided because it suited nobodys interests to do so.52 the case for small and middling peasants attached to their common lands and rights is made even more apparent in the southern massif Central, where the agro-pastoral economy was inextricably linked to common land pasture.53 there has been, however, much emphasis on the positive tangible results of the law of 10 June 1793, and the work of anatoli ado provides the principal support for this new interpretation. Ado was one of the first to focus on the two-fold nature of this law; it had always been known that the commons could be partitioned, but another part of the law, regarding the restitution of usurped lands, was not widely recognized. although he does not cite any primary source material, ado claims that this section of the law was widely applied and that numerous villages profited by increasing their communal properties.54 ado does however focus most of his attention on the success of the many partitions carried out. But regardless of how much common land was actually divided, for Ado does admit to the difficulties of partition and that many either lapsed or were overturned, the fact that the poorer peasantry was galvanized by the possibility of equal partition of the commons is momentous.55 the fact that poorer peasants all across France called for the equal division of common land into freehold plots is used by ado as evidence for his thesis; i.e., these very same peasants would have led the way to agrarian capitalist development if only they had received a plot of land. G.r. ikni has also studied the law of 10 June 1793 and argued that the division of common land under this legislation was most successful in regions of petite culture. in addition, he contends that as it expanded the basis of small-scale property, the Jacobin partition decree accelerated the peasant route to capitalist development.56 The law of 10 June 1793 has received its most thorough demystification by nadine vivier in her recent survey of common land in France 17501914. the period 17891800 represents the only time when the desire to partition common land was held and pursued by both legislators and the peasantry, and the law of
Lefebvre, Les paysans du Nord, p. 549. Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 148. 53 P.m. Jones, Politics and Rural Society: the southern Massif Central c.17501880 (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 448. 54 ado, Paysans en Rvolution, p. 374. 55 ibid., pp. 3739. 56 G.r. ikni, Sur les biens communaux pendant la rvolution franaise, Ann. his Rv. fran. 54 (1982), pp. 7194.
51 52

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Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution

10 June 1793 marks the culmination of this process.57 vivier stresses poorer peasants aspiration for a plot of common land, but also recognizes the fact that middling and larger proprietors also desired land. therefore during this period, the crucial question was not whether the commons should be divided, but what the mode de partage would be. vivier also acknowledges the intense historiographical debate that the issue of partitioning the commons has generated. While she concedes that both Lefebvres conservative view of peasants holding onto their collective lands and rights and ados interpretation of poorer peasants as protoagrarian capitalists do have their merits for explanation, vivier concludes that essentially the success or failure of common land partition depended upon a whole host of regional factors which must be taken into consideration for each particular case. For example, the will to divide the commons was strongest in regions where there was sufficient land hunger and/or the state of agriculture was advanced enough to benefit partition; but in mountainous regions where every member of the collectivity depended on the commons, they remained intact. Still, vivier does insist that the total effect of all revolutionary legislation regarding the commons, from the abolition of seigneurial rights upon them and the integration of usurped lands, to the authorization of partition, did have a considerable impact on these lands the full extent of which will only be discovered with the completion of many more regional studies. this book aims to discover how revolutionary, napoleonic and restoration legislation in the long term fostered the privatization of common land in one region of southern France. it also takes into account the peasantrys agency and actions involved in the privatization process. the village common lands in the department of the Gard will be the focus of investigation, as they were numerous and variously in the form of communal marshes, pastures, heathlands and woods. the departmental archives, located in nmes, are full of documentary evidence regarding the changes to common land tenure during the period and also the socioeconomic transformations brought about by the privatization of these lands. the two main series used for the implementation of legislation regarding common land are the L series, which contains documents from the revolutionary Period (17911800) and the o series, which chronicles the administrative activity of the communes from napoleon until 1940. evidence for the implementation of the napoleonic law of 20 march 1813 is found in the Q series in which the sales of biens nationaux are also classified. Additional information on the economy and environment of the Gard was gleaned from the m Series relating to the general administration of the department. although the common lands of the Gard have not been systematically studied until now, the department has been examined before. in the late nineteenth century, Franois rouvire penned a general survey of the department during the revolution, which was updated in 1989 with a new

57 vivier, Proprit collective, see pp. 1758 for a succinct discussion of her conclusions.

Introduction: The French Revolution, the Peasantry and Village Common Land

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examination by duport and Peronnet.58 in addition, the Gard has also been the focus of investigation as a centre of Counter-revolutionary reaction, revolt and religious unrest.59 this departments diversity in terms of mountain/garrigue/plain topography, agricultural/pastoral/transhumance practices, commercial and protoindustrial production, makes it an excellent locale to examine the issue of common land privatization. these socio-economic and environmental features will be examined in more detail in the first chapter of the book which describes life in the Gard at the end of the eighteenth century. then a chronological approach is adopted as Chapters 2 and 3 analyze the legislative changes to common land during the revolution and reveal how these laws were applied in the Gard. Chapter 4 bridges the revolutionary period and napoleons early years as First Consul. First, during the directory attempts were made to modify the 1793 Jacobin decree and second, napoleon sought regularize the revolutionary partitions with a law in the year Xii how these developments impacted the commons of the Gard is of central importance. napoleons seizure and sale of common land during the late empire is the focus of Chapter 5, along with the Restored Bourbons attempt to finally put to rest the Jacobin partition decree of 1793 with the royal ordinance of 1819. Chapter 6 attempts to discover the impact that privatizing common land had on the rural society and economy of the Gard. there is a brief conclusion which sums up the results of this investigation and grapples with some of the historiographical questions outlined in this introduction.

F. rouvire, La Rvolution franaise dans le dpartement du Gard 4 vols. (nmes, 1889 reprint marseilles, 1974) and a. m. duport and m. Pronnet, La Rvolution dans le Gard, 17891799 (roanne, 1989). 59 See J.n. hood, Protestant-Catholic relations and the roots of the First Popular Counterrevolutionary movement in France, Journal of Modern History 43 (1971), pp. 24575 and Patterns of Popular Protest in the French revolution: the Conceptual Contribution of the Gard, Journal of Modern History 48 (1976), pp. 25993; G. Lewis, The Second Vende: the Continuity of Counter-revolution in the Department of the Gard, 17891815 (oxford, 1978); B. Fitzpatrick, Catholic royalism in the department of the Gard 18141852 (Cambridge, 1983).
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