Why the French Revolution was so radical has been debated, the "oppressed position" of the French peasantry since the Middle Ages has often been overlooked. For example, the famous French painting "The Woman Who Collects the Ears of Wheat" depicts the picture of labor at the lowest level as a peaceful idyllic poem. But where is the reality of idyllic poetry? When an individual's basic life is repeatedly in trouble, he has to protest against the status quo. France developed on the basis of long-term oppression and neglect of peasant rights, and she paid a terrible price for it.
Jules Braun, France, "The Woman Who Picks the Ears of Wheat"
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the hierarchical distribution of French peasants</h1>
P. Jones once said: "The third estate in France includes all commoners, whether poor or rich. But if you use a more standard word to describe them, the most satisfying thing is 'farmer'. The term "peasant" now used by man may be more inclined to the professional state of the class. In the context of medieval France, the term "peasant" was more used to indicate a cruel state of life that was exploited. Because most third-class life is more like that of a peasant who has been bullied all the time, the term "commoner" can no longer fully describe its suffering.
Although serfdom had long since been abolished, the French peasantry was still controlled by various social forces. Very different from the "free and dignified" image of the English peasantry, the French peasant was subjected to a triple exploitation of the king, the feudal lord and the church in his lifetime. If there were any more natural and man-made disasters, the French peasants would probably lose their lives.
Smallholder farmers with tough lives
Before the Revolution, the "peasant class" as a whole could be divided into three parts. First, land contractors and farmers who are good at participating in market speculation and land buying and selling; second, ordinary peasants who are fixed on the land and sometimes rely on the exchange of small commodities for income; third, poor peasants who obtain wealth by selling their physical strength and selling handicrafts, etc., may not even have a place to live.
These agricultural producers, who are more or less associated with the commodity market, will find it difficult to achieve "class transcendence" if they do not obtain "partial tax exemptions" from kings or lords, or "bet successfully" on a speculative activity. That is to say, the above-mentioned farmers have largely not enjoyed the benefits of "leaving the land" for them. "Dependent on the land" and "lazy to enter the market" are not only the long-term thinking habits of the French peasants, but also an important factor for France to lag behind Britain, the United States and other countries in the industrial revolution for a long time.
French farmers who love country life
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > second, the brutal exploitation of the French peasantry</h1>
The French scholar La bruce once said: "The Great Revolution was a revolution of the unfortunate, and the origin of this misfortune lies in taxation." From the 18th century onwards, France entered the "climax" of local uprisings, and this repeated disappointment and provocation of the royal power led to the final "Great Revolution".
In the early modern period, the heaviest tax burden on French peasants came from their kings. From the 15th century onwards, the French royal family gained the power to tax "special trades such as grain, commerce, and salt and wine." During the black death, the western and central parts of France suffered the most severe population losses. In order to consolidate his rule, his king granted unowned land to different lords several times. This seemingly fortunate acquisition of land has brought "tax disasters" to the migrants. According to statistics, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the lords of the Gattenés region in northern France received a tax of 12 sus per hectare, 30 sus in the eastern Lorraine region, and 60 sus in the central Auvergne region. The number of taxes in the Central France region is shown as the highest.
Hand-painted version of "Freedom Guides the People"
In order to support the many wars waged by the French royal family, the imperial court once again distributed military expenses to poor peasants. The truth that "the rich are tax-free and the poor suffer" has been proven time and again in France. Evidence shows that French peasants began to bear double taxes from the mid-16th century, reaching a peak in the 17th and 18th centuries. Historical facts are sufficient to support the above conclusions. The French royal family, which began in the Thirty Years' War and remained in the quagmire of war for almost 200 years until the eve of the Revolution. Since then, the poll tax, the land extraction tax, and the tax on the sale of aristocratic status have been successively established, which have been continuously increased by the royal family to make up for the use.
Let's look again at the burden that feudal lords brought to the peasants. The feudal taxes and fees of the peasants were basically inherited from ancient times. Unlike the situation of the English peasantry, the exploitation of the peasantry by the French lords was constantly adjusted according to the "laws of the market". British farmers could live happily under the tax burden of 500 years ago, but French farmers were not so lucky.
Peasants participated in the work of the workshop in the British enclosure movement
One of the main reasons for the enclosure movement in Britain was that the lords voluntarily transferred land to contractors under the condition that the traditional taxes and fees were not profitable, in order to obtain more profits by expanding production. The French lords, on the other hand, were able to raise the standard of oppression of the peasants in a timely manner according to the price level. The main means used by the lords to squeeze the peasants were: rent, annuities, land resale tax, rent adjustment tax, and labor. Among the above-mentioned burdens, the only one that is really "justified" is "ground rent".
The peasants cultivated the land provided by the lord, not only to provide labor for the lord, responsible for sowing, turning and harvesting the lord's land, but also to provide the lord with a certain amount of in-kind remuneration when using the lord's mill, oven and cellar, such as free eggs, collected hay, etc. Sometimes the lord's family would marry, and the peasants would "follow the bands." In Burgundy, farmers also had to take on special tasks such as helping the lords repair castles and maintain forest hunting grounds.
Country manor life
Finally, the church also has strict requirements for the "tithes" of the peasants. The Bible Leviticus records, "One-tenth of all that is on earth, whether it is the seed on the earth or the fruit of the tree, belongs to the Lord." As early as 779, the privilege of the French church to tax the people was established in the form of law, and western European countries also implemented this provision around the 10th century.
This is not the case with the French church tax. In the countryside, many parishes charge only 1/30 of the tax. Even in France in the 16th and 17th centuries, the church received most of the consecrations between 6% and 8%. Much of the dissatisfaction with the church was over issues such as the "proportion of taxes paid in the new territories" and the profits made from commerce.
French farmers selling surplus produce at the market
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Wen Shijun said</h1>
More intuitively, in the 15th and 18th centuries, the tax burden of French peasants rose almost 4 times. Take, for example, farm data in brittany, where at the end of the 15th century the overall tax burden of farmers accounted for only 30% of the harvest. Leaving aside household consumption, farmers can still save about half of their income as savings. In the mid-17th century, farmers in the area paid only 1/3 of the total harvest when paying the royal assessed taxes. During times of famine or natural disasters, French farmers increasingly lose the ability to withstand risks and ensure their survival. As the Cambridge Economic History of Europe put it: "The living conditions of the peasants at that time could basically be divided into 'those who could eat and those who could not eat'. "More and more small people are struggling to escape the fate of debt, and more and more poor people are rebelling because they cannot survive. The long-ignored French "peasant question" found the possibility of uniting the radically transformed third estate during the Revolution.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > resources</h1>
P. Jones, "The French Peasant Before the French Revolution," Social Sciences Abroad, No. 1, 1991.
Xiong Fangfang, "The Difficult Smallholder Economy: A Historical Survey of French Peasants' Taxes", Review of Economic and Social History, No. 00, 2009.
(Author: Haoran Wenshi Porcelain Country Garbage Dump)
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