Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution

Citation preview

Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution Rural Society and Economy in Southern France, c.1789–1820

Noelle Plack

COMMON LAND, WINE AND THE FRENcH REVOlUTION

For Alex

Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution Rural Society and Economy in Southern France, c.1789–1820

NOEllE PlAcK Newman University College, UK

© Noelle Plack 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Noelle Plack has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Wey Court East Suite 420 Union Road 101 Cherry Street Farnham Burlington Surrey, GU9 7PT VT 05401-4405 England USA www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Plack, Noelle Common land, wine and the French Revolution : rural society and economy in southern France, c.1789–1820 1. Commons – France – Gard – History – 18th century 2. Commons – France – Gard – History – 19th century 3. Land reform – France – History – 18th century 4. Land reform – France – History – 19th century 5. France – History – Revolution, 1789– 1799 6. France – Social conditions – 18th century 7. France – Social conditions – 19th century I. Title 944’.04 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Plack, Noelle. Common land, wine, and the French Revolution : rural society and economy in southern France, c.1789–1820 / Noelle Plack. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7546-6728-5 (alk. paper) – ISBN 978-0-7546-9462-5 (ebook) 1. Land tenure–France, Southern–History–19th century. 2. Public lands–France, Southern– History–19th century. 3. France, Southern–Social conditions–19th century. 4. France, Southern– Economic conditions–19th century. 5. Commons–France, Southern–History–19th century. 6. France–History–Revolution, 1789–1799–Economic aspects. 7. France–History–Revolution, 1789–1799–Confiscations and contributions. I. Title. HD649.S68P55 2009 333.3’144809034–dc22 2008052513 ISBN 978 0 7546 6728 5 (HBk) EISBN 978 0 7546 9462 5 (EBk.V)

Contents

List of Figures   List of Maps   List of Tables   Acknowledgements   List of Abbreviations   Introduction The French Revolution, the Peasantry and Village Common Land  

vii ix xi xiii xv

1

1

Mise en Scène – the Department of the Gard  

15

2

From Liberal to Radical Revolution, 1789–1792  

35

3 The Jacobin Revolution, 1793  

55

4

85

Post-1793: Backlash and Regularization  

5 The Empire and Beyond  

105

6 The Socio-economic Impact of Common Land Reform  

133

Conclusion  

153

Appendix I Application of the Law of 9 Ventôse XII in the Gard  

161

Appendix II Sales by Commune under the Law of 20 March 1813 in the Gard  

185

Bibliography   Index  

191 209

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List of Figures

5.1

20 March 1813 land sales by plot size (Gard)  

117

5.2

20 March 1813 sales by occupation (Gard)  

117

6.1 Decree sanctioning the requisition of wine in the Gard  

140

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List of Maps

1 The Department of the Gard, c.1800  

16

2 Villages in the Gard affected by the law of 10 June 1793  

77

3 Villages in the Gard affected by the law of 9 Ventôse XII  

96

4 Villages in the Gard affected by the law of 20 March 1813  

112

5 Villages in the Gard affected by the Royal Ordinance of 23 June 1819  

128

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List of Tables

3.1 The impact of the 10 June 1793 decree in France  

67

3.2 Application of the 10 June 1793 decree in the Gard  

74

5.1

Sales by month (in francs) in the Gard under the law of 20 March 1813  

114

5.2 Annual rents received in the Gard after land sales under the law of 20 March 1813  

122

5.3 Application of the 23 June 1819 Royal Ordinance in the Gard  

127

6.1 Declarations made under the law of 9 Ventôse XII in the Gard with type of production   

143

6.2

Privatization of common land under the 23 June 1819 Royal Ordinance in the Gard with percentages devoted to viticulture    145

6.3

Wine production in the Gard, 1812–1854  

147

6.4

Changes in the relative importance of viticulture in the Gard, 1790–1842  

149

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Acknowledgements

This book has taken many years to write and is the result of interaction with many people. First and foremost, I owe sincere thanks to Peter Jones, my doctoral supervisor. Peter’s unrivalled knowledge of rural France, thoughtful encouragement and wise counsel has proved invaluable. In recent years, Nadine Vivier and Peter McPhee have also given their time and expertise to read and comment on my work. As this book began its life as a PhD thesis at the University of Birmingham, there are many individuals whom I need to thank for their support and friendship over the years: Francesca Carnevali, Nicholas Crowson, Elaine Fulton, Matthew Hilton, Jonathan Reinarz, Corey Ross and Leonard Schwarz. The examiners of my PhD thesis, Chris Wickham and John Dunne, provided insightful comments and suggestions for improvement. Since moving to Newman University College, Stephen Bulman, Ian Cawood, Yahya Al-Nakeeb and Pamela Taylor have all made sure that I have had the time to continue researching and writing, while Louise Hickman, Esther Eidinow, Sue Docherty, David McLoughlin, Julian McDougall, Jenni Ramone, Dave Trotman, Stan Tucker, Chris Upton and Senga Whiteman have become trusted colleagues and good friends. At various stages of this project, financial support has been provided by the British Academy, the Research Committee of Newman University College, the School of Historical Studies (as it was then) at the University of Birmingham, the Royal Historical Society and the Economic History Society. The research for this book was carried out in libraries and archives both in Europe and the United States. In the UK, the libraries of the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford were indispensable throughout, while the French history collections held at UCLA and UC Berkeley were helpful in the early stages of my research. In France, I am grateful to the staff at the Bibliothèque nationale de France; the Bibliothèque municipale de Nîmes; the Archives Nationales and the Archives départementales du Gard and especially to Christian Limantour, who always made me feel welcome in Nîmes. Turning a doctoral thesis into a book is an arduous task, but the editorial staff at Ashgate, especially Emily Yates, has made the publication process enjoyable. Some of the material in this book has appeared in previously published articles. None of these appears as a chapter, but supporting evidence and some extended passages have appeared in European History Quarterly 35 (2005) published by Sage and European Review of History/Revue Européenne d’Histoire, 13 (2006) published by Taylor & Francis. I am grateful for permission to reproduce this material here. Final thanks must go to my family. I left my native California ten years ago to pursue a PhD in England. My mother Lois Plack and my sisters Donna Plack

xiv

Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution

and Heather Plack-Plyler have always loved and supported me, even though the miles between us are many. It deeply saddens me that my father Don Plack and my grandparents Bertha and Bill Hamersma are not alive to see this book – they would have been so very proud. My greatest debt, however, is to my partner Alex Mold, who has lived with this project almost as long as I have. She is a constant source of inspiration, advice and support. This book is dedicated to her as a fellow scholar and beloved companion. NLP Birmingham December 2008

List of Abbreviations

A.D.G.

Archives Départementales du Gard

A.N.

Archives Nationales

Annales ESC

Annales Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations

Ann. his. Rév. fran.

Annales historiques de la Révolution française

FHS

French Historical Studies

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Introduction

The French Revolution, the Peasantry and Village Common Land

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 Jaurès and Albert Mathiez focused on the struggle between the allegedly rising bourgeoisie and the declining nobility. 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. The revisionist offensive reached its height during the bicentenary celebrations in 1989. This interpretation, led by William Doyle, François 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. Indeed, Doyle ends his Oxford history of the French Revolution with the assertion that it was ‘in every sense a tragedy’. 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 Schama’s 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. This has led many historians, such as William Sewell,

   J. Jaurès, Histoire socialiste de la Révolution française, 8 vols. (Paris, 1923–39) and A. Mathiez, La Révolution française, 3 vols. (Paris, 1932–33).   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).   To trace the history of the bicentennial commemoration see S.L. Kaplan, Farewell, Revolution: The Historians’ Feud: France, 1789/1989 (Ithaca, NY, 1995).    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).    W. Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution (Oxford, 1989), p. 425.    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. Rebecca Spang is concerned that revisionists have concentrated too heavily on ‘the discourse of revolution’ and have overlooked ‘the question of how people’s lives were changed by their experiences of the revolutionary period itself’. 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. 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

   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 Abbè 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, ‘What’s after Political Culture? Recent French Revolutionary Historiography’ FHS 23:1 (2000), pp. 163–96.   R. Spang, ‘Paradigms and Paranoia: How Modern Is the French Revolution’ American Historical Review 108:1 (2003), pp. 119–47.    G. Kates, ‘Introduction’ in The French Revolution: Recent Debates and New Controversies (London, 1998), pp. 1–20 and J.D. Popkin, ‘Not Over After All: The French Revolution’s Third Century’, Journal of Modern History 74 (2002), pp. 801–21. 10   P.M. Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution (Cambridge, 1988) and Liberty and Locality in Revolutionary France: Six Villages Compared, 1760–1820 (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 Corbières, 1780–1830 (Oxford, 1999) and Living the French Revolution, 1789–99 (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 Revolution’s 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 peasantry’s 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 (1874–1959).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. 400–402. 13  D. Sutherland, France, 1789–1815: 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 1789–1820 (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 Hufton’s “Poor”, Richard Cobb’s “People” and the Notions of the longue durée in French Revolutionary Historiography’, Past and Present (2006), Supplement 1, pp. 178–203. 16  Homage is paid to Lefebvre by E. Labrousse, Annales ESC XV (1960), pp. 1–8 and R. Cobb, Past and Present 18 (1960), pp. 52–67. 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 Lefebvre’s œuvre 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 Lefebvre’s 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 Révolution française (Paris, 1924), reprinted without notes (Bari, 1959). 18   G. Lefebvre, ‘La Révolution française et les paysans’ in Etudes sur la Révolution française (Paris, 1963), p. 343. 19   Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 125. 20   Lefebvre, ‘La Révolution française 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 peasantry’s 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 mentalité. 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 Lefebvre’s 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 peasantry’s relation to agrarian capitalism that the challenges to the master’s work begin. The Russian historian Anatoli Ado has put forth, in his impressive Paysans en Révolution, the major critical alternative to the Lefebvrian perspective.28 Ado’s premise is that another interpretation of the peasantry’s relationship to the Revolution is possible. At the heart of his thesis is the reversal of Lefebvre’s characterization of the peasant revolution as anti-capitalist; for Ado, the peasants   G. Lefebvre, Les paysans du Nord pendant la Révolution française (Bari, 1959), p. 90. 24   Lefebvre, ‘La Révolution française et les paysans’, p. 349. 25  Ibid., p. 348. 26  Ibid., p. 348. 27   G. Lefebvre, Questions agraires au temps de la terreur (La Roche-Sur-Yon, 1954), p. 129. 28  A. Ado, Paysans en Révolution: Terre, pouvoir et jacquerie 1789–1794 (Paris, 1996). 23



Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution

were above all small-scale agrarian capitalists. By focusing on the egalitarian nature of the peasantry’s desire for land, Ado developed an interpretation that stresses the capitalist nature of peasant demands during the Revolution. The peasantry’s 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 Ado’s 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 métayage.32 Thus, Ado resolves the dilemma of Lefebvre’s 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 Ado’s 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 Soboul’s doctoral seminar at the time, has used Ado’s 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 peasantry’s 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 problème de l’égalité (1789–1794)’ in A. Soboul (ed.), Contributions à l’histoire paysanne de la Révolution française (Paris, 1977), p. 126. 30  Ado, Paysans en Révolution, p. 430. 31  Ado, ‘Le mouvement paysan’, pp. 136–7. 32  Ado, Paysans en Révolution, p. 453 and A. Soboul, ‘A propos d’une thèse récente sur la mouvement paysan dans la Révolution française’, Ann. his. Rév. fran. 45 (1973), p. 101. 33   F. Gauthier, La voie paysanne dans la Révolution française: l’exemple 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 Soboul’s students, presents a similar argument in his article, ‘Recherches sur la propriété foncière’.36 Like Ado, Ikni recalls Lenin’s 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 McPhee’s work and particularly his study of the Corbières region in Languedoc-Roussillon also conform to Ado’s 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 défrichements. What he discovered was a shift in the agricultural production on the newly cleared plots of the poorer peasantry. These recently-fashioned micro-propriétaires concentrated their energy on commercial wine production for an ever-expanding market. This evidence certainly corroborates Ado’s 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 Corbières region.40 35

 Ibid., pp. 212–13.   G.-R. Ikni, ‘Recherches sur la propriété foncière, Problèmes théoriques et de méthode (fin XVIIIe-début XIXe siècle)’ Ann. his. Rév. fran. 52 (1980), pp. 390–424. 37  Ibid., p. 421. 38  Ibid., p. 422. 39   P. McPhee, ‘The French Revolution, Peasants and Capitalism’, American Historical Review 94 (5) (1989), pp. 1265–80 and Revolution and Environment. 40  McPhee, Revolution and Environment, p. 199. 36



Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution

Although Ado’s 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 Ado’s 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 Ado’s theory. Vivier maintains that Ado’s 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, McPhee’s study of the small wine growers in the Corbières 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 Encyclopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert, 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, Propriété collective et identité communale: les biens communaux en France 1750–1914 (Paris, 1998), p. 176. 44   See M. Bourjol, Les biens communaux, voyage au centre de la propriété collective (Paris, 1989). 45  Diderot and d’Alembert, Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire rasonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (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 régime, 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 village’s 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 46

  Y. Rinaudo, ‘Des prés et des bois. Repères pour une étude des biens communaux dans la France méditerranéenne’, 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, Propriété collective, pp. 42–4 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.1500–1850 (Turnhout, 2002), pp. 143–70. 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 Régime: Land Clearance, Peasants and Viticulture in the Province of Languedoc’, French History 19:2 (2005), pp. 189–210.

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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 Ventôse 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 land’s worth. These laws, then, form the core legislation regarding common land from 1789–1819, 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, Sociétés, Civilisations (Baltimore and London, 1977), p. 36.

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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, Lefebvre’s 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 nobody’s 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 1750–1914. The period 1789–1800 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.1750–1880 (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 44–8. 54  Ado, Paysans en Révolution, p. 374. 55  Ibid., pp. 373–9. 56   G.R. Ikni, ‘Sur les biens communaux pendant la Révolution française’, Ann. his Rév. fran. 54 (1982), pp. 71–94. 51

52

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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 Lefebvre’s conservative view of peasants holding onto their collective lands and rights and Ado’s 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 peasantry’s 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 Nîmes, 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 (1791–1800) 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, François Rouvière penned a general survey of the department during the Revolution, which was updated in 1989 with a new

57  Vivier, Propriété collective, see pp. 175–8 for a succinct discussion of her conclusions.

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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 department’s 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 Napoleon’s 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. Napoleon’s 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. Rouvière, La Révolution française dans le département du Gard 4 vols. (Nîmes, 1889 reprint Marseilles, 1974) and A. M. Duport and M. Péronnet, La Révolution dans le Gard, 1789–1799 (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. 245–75 and ‘Patterns of Popular Protest in the French Revolution: The Conceptual Contribution of the Gard’, Journal of Modern History 48 (1976), pp. 259–93; G. Lewis, The Second Vendée: the Continuity of Counter-revolution in the Department of the Gard, 1789–1815 (Oxford, 1978); B. Fitzpatrick, Catholic royalism in the department of the Gard 1814–1852 (Cambridge, 1983). 58

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Chapter 1

Mise en Scène – the Department of the Gard

Environment and Topography The Department of the Gard was created in February 1790 when the National Constituent Assembly refashioned the internal administrative boundaries of France. The Gard was formed along with eight other departments from the old province of Languedoc, and took its name, like so many other new departments, from a principal river, the Gardon, which transects the region flowing east to west (see Map 1). The total surface area of the department is some 5,800 square kilometres – roughly 120 kilometres from east to west and 108 kilometres from north to south. The Gard is bordered to the north by the departments of the Ardèche and Lozère and to the east by the Aveyron and Hérault; the mighty Rhône river forms the western boundary, while the Mediterranean coast delineates its southern extreme for 20 kilometres. The chef-lieu of the Gard is Nîmes, which was founded by the Phoenicians, but really developed as an administrative centre during the Roman Occupation. Indeed, it is impossible to ignore the Gard’s classical heritage, not only did this territory form a significant part of Roman Gaul, but was also at the heart of the route from Italy to Spain. Nîmes itself is called the ‘Rome of France’ with its incredibly well-preserved amphitheatre and Maison Carrée; while the Pont-du-Gard, the aqueduct built by the Romans to bring water to Nîmes, thus solving one of its basic problems, remains one of the greatest architectural engineering feats of western civilization.

Map 1 The Department of the Gard, c.1800

Mise en Scène – the Department of the Gard

17

The environment and topography of the Gard are extremely diverse. The region is made up of three parallel zones: the Mediterranean coastal plain, the garrigue hillsides, and the Cévennes Mountains. A tour of the physical terrain begins along the narrow coastline which is made up primarily of sand-bars and salt marshes and forms part of the Camargue. This area, which is the mouth of the Rhône delta, is marked on the west by the Vidourle River, while the Petit Rhône forms its eastern border in the Gard. The Camargue is an expanse of marshes, lakes and ponds, with various étangs (lagoons) at its heart. In the twentieth century the area experienced much land reclamation, especially in the north, where vines and rice-fields have been planted. Some of the Camargue is a designated nature reserve, home to halfwild cattle and horses, herons and flamingos. The Camargue then gives way to the Mediterranean coastal plain, which is a belt of highly fertile alluvial land. This fertile coastal plain sweeps across the entire region of Lower Languedoc from the Hérault in the west to the Rhône in the east, but only has a width of 15–20 kilometres. Mineral springs are common in this area. The most famous spring is the one at Vergèze in the Gard’s coastal plain, which produces an aerated water sold under the name of Perrier. The Camargue and fertile coastal plain soon give way to the garrigue. The garrigues, from the Catalan garric, represent the most common landscape in the Mediterranean world and are the by product of burning and grazing forests. The vegetation is made up of low scrub, usually no more than a half a metre tall, which grows in calcareous (derived from limestone) as opposed to silicacious (sandy or silica-based) soil. There are hundreds of plants which flourish in the garrigue, including aromatic ones like lavender, sage, rosemary and thyme. Because they were created over the centuries by shepherds, who burned woodland to produce the vegetation they needed to pasture their flocks, the garrigues themselves are symbol of human-induced ecological change throughout the millennia. Within the Gard, there are several distinct garrigue zones, each one separated from the others by fertile river valleys or bassins. Hence, the Vistre, Gardon and Cèze rivers are flanked by distinct sections of garrigue. One of them, the Garrigue de Nîmes,

   See N. Marty, Perrier, c’est nous!: histoire de la source Perrier et de son personnel (Paris, 2005).    See J.R. McNeill’s impressive study of mountainous areas in Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain and Morocco, The Mountains of the Mediterranean World: An Environmental History (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 16–19.   Napoleon claimed that he could recognize blindfolded his native Corsica by scent, although McNeill doubts if Sardinia or Cyprus smell any different from the Emperor’s homeland, The Mountains of the Mediterranean World, p. 17.   I.G. Simmons, Environmental History: A Concise Introduction (Cambridge, MA, 1993), pp. 110–12.

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is an ensemble of calcified hills and a plateau, reaching a summit of 200m and forming a band 40km long to the north of the chef-lieu. In the west and north-western sections of the department, the Cévennes Mountains begin. The harsh, rugged, steep hills intermixed with damp and narrow valleys stretch from Le Vigan in the west to Privas in the department of the Ardèche in the north. Many important rivers begin in the Cévennes, among them are the Loire, Allier, Tarn, Aveyron, Gardon and Hérault. The rugged, jagged rock of the Cévennes is generally igneous granite, metamorphic rocks or the products of volcanic activity such as lava. The climate in the Cévennes is the most severe in the department. The winters, which are extremely harsh, begin in November and are at their worst in January and February. Frost and snow are unpredictable during the winter months and might occur at any time. From March onwards, clouds, mist and rain are not uncommon, but there is also hot sunshine in summer months. Coming down from the Cévennes and into the garrigues and coastal plain the weather rapidly improves. However, the whole region is subject to the ferocious wind, known as the mistral, which is a strong dry cold wind that blows down the Rhône valley. Most of the annual rainfall in the garrigues and coastal plain occurs from the autumn through the spring, with the winter months being fresh, but not particularly cold – the average temperature in January is between 5˚–6.5˚C. Given this harsh and diverse landscape, it is unsurprising that at least half of the Gard’s land is unsuitable for arable cultivation being dominated either by the marshes of the Camargue, the garrigues or the Cévennes. Several contemporaries have commented on this infertility. Arthur Young, the great English agronomist, travelled through the region in the summer of 1787 and remarked that The vast province of Languedoc, in productions one of the richest in the kingdom, does not rank high in the scale of soil; it is by far too stony. I take seven-eighths of it to be mountainous. The productive vale from Narbonne to Nîmes is generally but a few miles in breadth, and considerable wastes are seen in most parts. In travelling from Narbonne to Béziers, Pézenas, Montpellier and Nîmes, everyone I conversed with represented that vale as the most fruitful in France. Olives and mulberries, as well as vines, render it very productive, but in point of soil much the greater part of it is inferior… 

 A. Billange, ‘La garrigue de Nîmes’ Société Languedocienne de géographie, bulletin (1942), p. 72.    For an overview see, P. Joutard (ed.), Les Cévennes de la montagne à l’homme (Toulouse, 1979).    J. Valarché, Recherches sur la modernisation agricole au Languedoc et en Vénétie (Fribourg, 1963), p. 14.   A. Young, Travels in France during the years 1787, 1788 & 1789 (Cambridge, 1950), pp. 271–2. 

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While in 1800 S.V. Grangent, the Gard’s chief engineer, estimated that Almost half of the surface area is covered by sterile mountains, unproductive woods…uncultivated marshes and many garrigues which hardly produce any feed for the herds (of livestock).

How this inhospitable landscape with its ‘inferior’ soil constrained and shaped the contours of the regional economy is the next topic of investigation.

The Regional Economy Like much of France during this period, the Gard’s economy was dominated by agriculture. The department was part of a larger agricultural region where the practice of petite culture dominated.10 This system was characterized by peasantowned smallholdings, which were cultivated with neither horses nor heavy ploughs. On the whole, from the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, a general reduction of grain and olive cultivation and rise in viticultural production may be detected. But in spite of this and the unforgiving, rocky, infertile soil, the peasants of the Gard were still able to produce one-third of the grain needed for consumption.11 The rest was either imported from northern departments (Côted’Or, Ain, Saône et Loire) or from the Haute-Garonne or the Aude. Of the grain that was produced within departmental boundaries, that of Saint-Gilles in the fertile coastal plain was the most esteemed. While wheat was the primary crop, it was not the only type of grain produced, for rye, oats, barley and millet were also cultivated. Various types of legumes (peas, beans, and lentils) were grown, but again not enough to meet subsistence needs so they were often imported from the neighbouring Ardèche. Corn does not seem to have been cultivated on a large scale, but the potato was successfully grown and proved to be a staple foodstuff of poorer peasants. In the Cévennes, because the steep slopes and wet climate were unsuitable for growing wheat, rye and barley were cultivated, while chestnut trees were extensively planted and used in remarkably diverse ways, earning them the nickname l’arbre à pain. If grain cultivation did not dominate the agricultural landscape as it did in other regions of France it was because Lower Languedoc had always been dominated by polyculture. The originality of southern polyculture was that it ensured a better-balanced diet with bread, wine, olive oil, chestnuts, garden vegetables and dried fruits.12 In July 1787, Arthur Young noted that ‘every man has an olive,   S.V. Grangent, Description abrégé du département du Gard (Nîmes, 1800), p. 12.   See A. Fel, ‘Petite Culture, 1750–1850’ in H. Clout (ed.), Themes in the Historical Geography of France (London, 1977), pp. 215–45. 11   Grangent, Description, p. 11. 12   Fel, ‘Petite Culture’, p. 222. 

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a mulberry, an almond, or a peach-tree, and vines scattered among them’.13 Within this very succinct observation, Young had described the major components of polyculture in the Gard. According to the Gard’s chief engineer during the Consulate, S.V. Grangent, wine was the principal agricultural product of this department by 1800.14 Vines were grown everywhere and seemed the natural crop for the environment, especially in the garrigues as the highly calcified soil aided vine cultivation and the wild herbs, such as rosemary and thyme, added distinct properties to the grapes. The only place that they did not grow was in the higher mountain regions of the Cévennes around Le Vigan and Saint-Jean-du-Gard. Although wine grapes had been grown in this region since at least the Roman Occupation, from the late sixteenth century viticulture had been slowly on the rise in the Gard, transforming the focus of cultivation from grain to vines.15 The real boom came in the mid-eighteenth century when the legal impediments were removed and more land became available after the clearance edict of 1770.16 In fact, after the edict of 1731, which prohibited the planting of vines, was lifted in the 1759, the vignerons of the Côte-du-Rhône reported a six-fold increase in the cultivation of wine grapes.17 More land, improved techniques, such as the cultivation of new Spanish cépages and more organized planting of vineyards, supported a rise in production from 2 million hectolitres in 1770 to 2.5 million in 1788 for the province of Languedoc as a whole.18 This rise in production also coincided with a meteoric rise in wine prices; in Pont-St. Esprit the price rose an astonishing 88 per cent over the course of the eighteenth century.19 Generally the wine produced was of mediocre quality, but the higher-quality crus originating from the villages on the eastern side of the Rhône (Chusclan, Orsan, Laudan, Saint-Laurent-desArbres, Roquemaure, Lirac, and Tavel) already had an international reputation and had been celebrated throughout the kingdom since the sixteenth century.20 The Préfet would single out these communes in 1806 when he published a notice on the quality of their red wines, which had been identified as the Côte-du-Rhône

  Young, Travels in France, p. 46.   Grangent, Description, p. 12. 15   S. Savey, ‘Essai de reconstruction de la structure agraire des villages de Sardan et d’Aspères(Gard) sous l’Ancien Régime à l’aide des compoix’, Annales du Midi 81 (1969), pp. 41–54. 16   L. Dermingy, ‘Grains du Vignoble’ in P. Wolff (ed.), Histoire du Languedoc (Toulouse, 1967), p. 397. 17  R. Dion, Histoire de la vigne et du vin en France des origines au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1959), p. 601. 18  Dermigny, ‘Grains du Vignoble’, p. 397. 19   L. Dermigny, ‘Le prix du vin en Languedoc au XVIIIe siècle’, Annales du Midi 76 (1964), p. 512. 20   Grangent, Description, p. 12 and A. Berger and F. Maurel, La viticulture et l’économie du Languedoc du XVIIIe siècle à nos jours (Montpellier, 1980), p. 5. 13 14

Mise en Scène – the Department of the Gard

21

since at least 1737.21 The total surface area devoted to grape vines in Gard rose from 51,151 ha in 1788 to 71,583 ha in 1808.22 It will be argued that this rise in viticulture was due, in part, to the freshly cleared plots of common garrigue being planted in grape vines. Wine grapes were the crop of choice for newly prepared plots of communal garrigue, as these dry, rocky, calcified hillsides would not support long-term grain cultivation.23 These dry hillsides covered in scrubby brush had been traditionally used for pasture, but some of these areas were increasingly being turned into vineyards during the second half of the eighteenth century and early part of the nineteenth century. The fundamental question regarding wine production is whether vines on this newly cultivated land were merely part of the local subsistence economy or was the wine produced for commercial sale; i.e. did any petits peasants begin to shift the emphasis of their efforts, slowly moving away from subsistence polyculture to more lucrative, but higher risk commercial viticulture? Louis Dermigny has characterized the second half of the eighteenth century as the period when ‘the subsistence economy gave way to the market economy’.24 The famous ‘viticultural revolution’ in Languedoc did not occur until the mid-nineteenth century, but it seems to have had its incipience on plots of appropriated common land. This advance in viticulture was perhaps related to a decline in one of the other key elements of the rural economy: animal husbandry. During the period under investigation, there was a decrease in animal husbandry which was linked to a collapse in the textile industry. There has been much work highlighting the decline of the textile industry, and consequently pastoralism, in eighteenthcentury Languedoc.25 Essentially the argument is that Languedoc was in a cycle of de-industrialization in this period due to the decline of the textile industry, especially post-1765 when the Levant trade collapsed due to the Russian-Turkish War. This once dynamic proto-industry would be replaced by regional specialization. In Lower Languedoc the concentration would be agricultural as more and more land was turned over to the vine. Animal husbandry also declined as a result of the loss of common pastures due to pre-Revolutionary and Revolutionary clearances

 M. Lachiver, Par les champs et par les vignes (Fayard, 1998), p. 324.  M. Lachiver, Vins, vignes et vignerons: histoire du vignoble français (Paris, 1988), p. 594. 23  H. Lombard, Monoculture de la vigne et évolution rurale dans la vallée de la Cèze (Montpellier, 1951), p. 22 and Bilange, ‘La garrigue de Nîmes’, pp. 72–107. 24  Dermigny, ‘Gains du Vignoble ’, p. 398. 25   C. Fohlen, ‘En Languedoc: vigne contre draperie’, Annales ESC IV (1949), pp. 293–4; J.K.J. Thomson, Clermont-de-Lodève 1633–1789: Fluctuations in the prosperity of a Languedocian cloth-making town (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 439 and 447–8; C.H. Johnson, The life and death of industrial Languedoc, 1700–1920 (Oxford, 1995), although Johnson sees the struggle between industrial and viticultural Languedoc occurring between 1815 and 1860. 21

22

22

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and partitions.26 Indeed, Peter McPhee claims that the increase of vines in the Corbières was contingent on a decline in the number of flocks.27 This complex relationship between viticulture, the textile industry and animal husbandry and the tensions which arose between large-flock owners and smallholding vignerons will be explored through the prism of common land privatization. Olive cultivation was another important component of the local economy, as olive oil formed one part, along with grain and wine, of the Mediterranean alimentation trilogy. However, great risk came with growing olive trees, for they could be severely damaged or even killed by the onset of frost. Although there were numerous cold snaps throughout the eighteenth century (1709, 1745, 1755, 1766, 1776), the frigid winter of 1789 proved disastrous for olive trees in the Gard. Over two million olive trees, which represented the majority in the department, were destroyed by the snow and ice of 1788–89.28 Significantly, at least seven villages make reference to their loss of olive trees in their cahiers de doléances drawn up for the Estates General in the spring of 1789.29 While many others reported in 1790 that half, three-quarters or all of their trees were killed during that terrible winter. In Lédenon, 10km north-east of Nîmes, inhabitants reported that their olive crop was only a third of what it once had been and that ‘their loss has caused great misery’.30 Unfortunately, if new trees were planted they did not bear any fruit for at least fifteen to twenty years. Thus it was not until 1811 that olive cultivators in the cantons of Bagnols-sur-Cèze, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon and Pont-Saint-Esprit harvested their ‘first fruit after twenty-two years of care’.31 It is doubtful if the olive industry in the Gard made a complete recovery to its pre-1789 level, for after the terrible loss of trees, many proprietors were not willing to risk olive cultivation again and turned to vines. For example in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon where four-fifths of the olive trees were destroyed during the final winter of the ancien régime, inhabitants reported that much of the land planted in grape vines in 1790 had been covered with oliviers before 1789.32 Furthermore, as the devastation was less severe in other areas of the Midi, such as the Var and Bouches-du-Rhône, Provence became the

26  M. Albert, A. Cabrol, and J.P. Piniès, Bergers et Troupeaux en Languedoc et Catalogne (Carcassonne, 1985), p. 19. 27  McPhee, Revolution and Environment, p. 177. 28  A.D.G. 7 M 197, Tableau contenant l’état et le produit des oliviers, 1807 and Grangent, Description, p. 14. 29  A. Rouquette, Les Cahiers de doléances du Tiers Etat de la Sénéchaussée de Nîmes pour les Etats Généraux de 1789 (Nîmes, 1989), pp. 204–19. 30  A.D.G. L 1101, Lédenon, s.d., réponse à la circulaire du 17 septembre 1790, District de Beaucaire. 31   J. Vidalenc, ‘La vie économique des départements méditerranéens pendant l’Empire’, Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 1 (1954), p. 171. 32  A.D.G. L 1101, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon 26 nov 1790, réponse à la circulaire du 17 septembre 1790, District de Beaucaire.

Mise en Scène – the Department of the Gard

23

primary producer of olive oil in France.33 Still, olive cultivation did not disappear completely in the Gard as over 11,000 hectares were planted with olive trees in 1842.34 The other key component of polyculture in the Gard was tied to the silk industry. Mulberry trees flourished in the countryside around Alès and many hillsides and valleys of the Cévennes in the eighteenth century, when the local silk industry was at its peak. Peasants in these areas would cultivate the trees for their leaves, which were then used to feed silkworms. Moreover, some larger families had a special upper room in their homes called a magnanerie, where they raised the worms to cocoon stage and then went on to produce raw and even spun silk. This silk was then bought by négociants to be used in the numerous soieries in Uzès and Nîmes, the commercial centres for the industry. There were also marchands fabricants, who provided the raw materials to rural households and would later return to collect the finished articles – a kind of proto-industrial métayage.35 Although this enterprise was very lucrative for most of the eighteenth century, problems began in the 1770s when trade with the Levant collapsed. By 1787–88 Nîmes had lost two-thirds of its silk manufacturers.36 This sharp recession did not improve during the Revolution or the Empire. S.V. Grangent blamed the disastrous effects of war, which ‘had totally annihilated the commerce of silk by closing all means of foreign export’.37 For silk manufactures and workers in Nîmes things only got worse. By 1811 only 600 weavers remained in the chef-lieu, provoking the préfet to remark – ‘20,000 individuals condemned to idleness … (are) now reduced to begging’.38 This decline in the silk industry was also mirrored in woollen textile production. This type of textile production took off in the seventeenth century with Languedoc becoming the principal centre for wool manufacture in the kingdom. Because of numerous problems, from the introduction of cotton to the collapse of the market in the Levant and the fact that all of the textiles produced for export were shipped through Marseilles, which fell into bankruptcy in 1774, this industry entered the Revolution in a state of severe depression.39 In fact by 1789, only the towns of Sommières, Anduze, Saint-Jean-du-Gard, and Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort were still producing woollen goods on a substantial scale and overall, the woollen industry was employing a quarter of its 1668 figure.40 Although the external market diminished   Grangent, Description, p. 14 and Vidalenc, ‘La vie économique’, p. 171.   H. Rivoire, Statistique de département du Gard 2 vols. (Nîmes, 1842), II, pp. 238–9. 35   Lewis, The Second Vendée, p. 7. 36  H. Bourderon, ‘La lutte contre la vie chère dans la généralité de Languedoc au dixhuitième siècle’, Annales du Midi 66 (1954), p. 156. 37   Grangent, Description, p. 51. 38  Vidalenc, ‘La vie économique’, p. 180. 39   L. Dermigny, ‘Expansion et decline industriels’ in Wolff, Histoire du Languedoc, pp. 403–6. 40   P. Joutard, ‘Les Cévennes entrent dans l’histoire’ in P. Joutard (ed), Les Cévennes de la montagne à l’homme (Toulouse, 1979), pp. 156–7. 33

34

Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution

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in the late eighteenth century, this may also have been coupled with a decline in animal husbandry. The number of beasts fell by one-third in this period, due in large measure to lack of pasture because of land clearances in the 1770s and the ovine epidemic of 1775.41 In addition, various parish cahiers de doléances complain of the lack of sheep and manure for their fields and request tax concessions to increase their flocks, which corroborates the notion that livestock had diminished in the Gard at the end of the eighteenth century.42 Nevertheless, sheep did play an important role in the local economy, not only providing wool and manure, but also meat and milk. They were especially important in the more mountainous western regions of the department, where vines and olives ceased to grow and mulberries and chestnuts dominated the landscape. There was great transhumance in these areas, with flocks grazing on garrigue hillsides and communal pastures in the eastern half of the department in the winter and then being led up the steep slopes of the Cévennes for the late spring and summer months. Another important proto-industry in the Gard, but one that was expanding during the period was mining. The areas around Alès had a considerable quantity of coal in the hillsides with the largest field located at La Grand-Combe. Because wood was becoming alarmingly scarce in this period, royal officials at Versailles encouraged that coal be used as a substitute.43 But until the late eighteenth century, the extraction methods used were crude, slow and laborious. Local miners, who were often local peasants during the agricultural ‘dead season’, would dig into the earth for 100 feet and extract as much coal as possible before the hole would fill with water and become inaccessible, then they would simply move to another spot and begin again. This was the common practice until Pierre-François Tubeuf, a Norman bourgeois entrepreneur, arrived in the region with the support of H.L. Bertin, the agronome ministre, in 1770. Tubeuf set out to develop and modernize the coal industry in the Cévennes, but encountered much resistance from the local seigneurs and small propriétaires.44 In essence Tubeuf’s modernizing scheme was neither desired nor understood by the majority of residents in the region, for they still lived by the season and the sun and remained passionate for their lopin de terre.45 This battle between the modernizing capitalist Tubeuf and the local population continued well into the nineteenth century, but the tide finally turned in the 1830s and the Cévenol economy, which was once dominated by silk and wool, became one of coal and iron. The geographic location of the Gard played a significant role in the trade and commerce of its economic products. The region itself had long tradition in   L. Dermigny, ‘Progrès des Cultures’ in Wolff, Histoire du Languedoc, p. 396.  Rouquette, Les Cahiers de doléances, pp. 206, 219 and 227. 43  E. Allen, ‘Deforestation and Fuel Crisis in Pre-Revolutionary Languedoc’, FHS 13 (1984), p. 471. 44   G. Lewis, The Advent of Modern Capitalism in France, 1770-1840: the contribution of Pierre-François Tubeuf (Oxford, 1993), p. 24. 45  Ibid., p. 40. 41 42

Mise en Scène – the Department of the Gard

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the circulation of goods, as Nîmes was established on the main highway from Italy to Spain during Roman times. These two countries, accessible by land and by sea, were the region’s natural trading partners. The trade links between Lower Languedoc and its neighbours remained strong during the medieval period as well. The town of Saint-Gilles, established by a charter in 1143, had a thriving Genoese community by that date.46 The commercial life of the region continued to expand in the thirteenth century, when the province of Languedoc was integrated with the French crown. In 1246 Aigues-Mortes was endowed with municipal and fiscal privileges by Louis IX, which made it the principal French port on the Mediterranean. Because the crown wanted to encourage the development of commerce in the region, it guaranteed free and liberal circulation to the inhabitants of Aigues-Mortes and their merchandise in 1350.47 From then on the port became the one of the busiest on the French coast, serving as a primary point of disembarkation for Spanish and Italian merchants travelling to Nîmes, Montpellier or Toulouse. Nîmes itself flourished as a centre for wool, oil, wine and spices as the Comte de Toulouse granted the city in 1151 a tax-free fair held after Easter every year. Merchants and artisans installed themselves around the Roman Arenès on streets which identified their specialities: rue de l’Epicerie, de la Bouquerie, de la Savaterie.48 The important commercial links which had formed between Languedoc and its Spanish and Italian neighbours continued in the eighteenth century. Central to trade and commerce in Languedoc were the various fairs held throughout the year in different cities and towns in the province. None was more successful or more famous than annual foire de Beaucaire. Established in the fifteenth century under Louis XI, the foire de la Sainte-Madeleine took place each year during 22–30 July in the small town of Beaucaire on the Rhône River, 24km east of Nîmes. Over the centuries because of its position on the Rhône, which was still navigable at this point by sea-going ships, the foire de Beaucaire became one of the most important trade fairs in the Mediterranean world. It also measured the industrial and commercial health of the region from Toulouse to Lyon. Products and manufactures from every region in France and much of Europe and the Mediterranean were traded by merchants from all over the world. Silk and wool textiles, jewellery and leather, wine and alcohol, timber and ironware, spices, sugar and salt worth millions of francs were sold each year. In early July barges from Genoa full of lemons, oranges, vermicelli and rice would make their way up the Rhône to the port, while Spanish ships loaded with anchovies, sardines and cork would also reach Beaucaire to exchange their goods. The fair enjoyed its greatest prosperity in the eighteenth century when goods valuing 11.7 million francs were 46  M. and M. Lacave, Bourgeois et Marchands en Provence et en Languedoc (Avignon, 1977), p. 62. 47   Privilèges de la Ville d’Aigues-Mortes, Ordonnances des rois de France (1350) cited in Lacave, Bourgeois et Marchands, p. 71. 48   Lacave, Bourgeois et Marchands, pp. 59 and 61.

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traded on average from 1724 to 1729. This figure would rise to 36.3 million francs between 1785–90, with a record 47 million francs worth of goods sold in 1788.49 That same year 200 barges (barques) including sixteen from Genoa and fifty-four from Spain deposited their citrus, rice and fish and in exchange for wool, silk and wine.50 Towns neighbouring Beaucaire also benefited as inns and taverns would fill up with merchants who commuted to the fair by road. Arthur Young was one of the travellers who lodged in Nîmes during the summer of 1787: My quarters at Nîmes were at the Louvre, a large, commodious, and excellent inn. The house was almost as much a fair from morning to night as Beaucaire itself could be…We sat down from twenty to forty at every meal, mostly companies of French, Italians, Spaniards, and Germans, with a Greek and Armenian; and I was informed, that there is hardly a nation in Europe or Asia that have not merchants at this great fair, chiefly for raw silk, of which many millions in value are sold in four days; all other commodities of the world are to be found there.51

During the Revolution, the fair, like the rest of the French economy, suffered from political upheaval, inflation, the effects of war and economic regulation under the Terror. Although the amount traded was significantly reduced, the foire de Beaucaire held its own during the first four years of the Revolution. However by 1793–94, because of the international war and price controls, the fair suffered greatly under the Terror, so much so that official statistics of goods sold during these years were not even drawn up.52 There was some recovery under the Directory, but by the Empire, the value of goods sold at Beaucaire diminished from an estimated 31.9 million francs in 1806 to 19.7 million francs in 1811, and sank as low as 17 million in 1814.53 This decline continued throughout the nineteenth century due in large measure to the railways and shift towards the industrialized north-west of Europe; by the 1860s the once great foire was no more than a regional market.

Rural Society The overall population of the Gard increased by around one-third in the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1790, the population was estimated to be around 315,000; by 1801 it had fallen to 300,144. From then on there were steady increases   L. Dermigny, ‘Les Foires’ in Wolff, Histoire du Languedoc, pp. 412–14.  H. Chobaut, ‘La Foire de Beaucaire de 1789 à 1796’, Ann. his. Rév. fran. (1929), p. 361. 51   Young, Travels in France, p. 45. 52   Chobaut, ‘La Foire de Beaucaire’, pp. 365 and 370. 53  Vidalenc, ‘La vie économique’, p. 196 and P. Léon, ‘Vie et mort d’un grand marché international. La foire de Beaucaire, 18ème–19ème siècles’ Revue de Géographie de Lyon (1953), p. 313. 49 50

Mise en Scène – the Department of the Gard

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each time the number of inhabitants was counted. There were more than 322,000 gardois in 1806, and over 334,000 by 1821 – the population of the department topped 400,000 in 1846.54 In 1800, under the Constitution of the Year VIII, the internal administration of all departments in France was reorganized to compose four arrondissements and three sous-préfectures. The four arrondissements of the Gard were Alès, Nîmes, Le Vigan, and Uzès. The prefect lived in the chef-lieu of Nîmes, while his three sub-prefects resided in Alès, Uzès and Le Vigan. The most populous part of the department was the arrondissement of Nîmes, covering the south east. It was divided into eleven cantons, but the most populous of these were Beaucaire, Nîmes 1-2-3, Saint-Gilles and Vauvert. In 1841, the arrondissement of Nîmes contained 134,737 people, representing about 35 per cent of the department’s entire population. The population arrondissement of Alès was 88,370 or about 23 per cent of total. This arrondissement was divided into nine cantons, but was dominated by the town of Alès with a population of 15,884. Likewise, the arrondissement of Uzès contained 87,596 inhabitants or about 23 per cent of the department’s population; most of these inhabitants lived along the Rhône River in the cantons of Bagnols-sur-Cèze, Pont-Saint-Esprit and Roquemaure, while Uzès itself had a population of 7,274. The least populous part of the Gard was the arrondissement of Le Vigan with only 65,359 inhabitants, representing about 17 per cent of the total population.55 Thus, most of the Gard’s inhabitants lived in the eastern half of the department, near Nîmes, along the Rhône River and in the fertile coastal plain. More than two-thirds of the population lived east of a line from the town of Alès to Aigues-Mortes. As we have seen from the key features of the regional economy, apart from woollen and silk manufactures and burgeoning coal industry centred in Alès and Nîmes, the majority of the population were involved in rural agrarian production. Traditionally, the peasantry of the ancien régime France constituted the rural population minus the clergy, nobility and bourgeois proprietors. The term paysan generally denoted such an individual, but there was much differentiation amongst the French peasantry in the eighteenth century. There are a number of terms which mark out the internal hierarchy of the peasantry, although it must be stated that the distinction of ‘landed’ and ‘land-less’ so often used to categorize the peasantry does not apply to the pays de petite culture of Lower Languedoc. In this region, landownership among the peasantry was ‘not a variable, but a constant’.56 At the top of the apex were the ménagers, called laboureurs in other regions; they were relatively, well-to-do farmers who owned ample land and the equipment needed to cultivate it. Travailleurs de terre, brassiers, locataires and manœuvriers were at the other end of the hierarchy. Owning insufficient land on which to live, these individuals would either rent plots to enlarge their holdings or work the land of others for wages to supplement their income. There were also domestiques and  D. Lacroix, Paroisses et communes de France: Gard (Paris, 1986), p. 26.  Rivoire, Statistique du Gard, II, pp. 776–99. 56   Jones, Politics and rural society, p. 89. 54 55

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bergers who were usually employed on the larger farms of the ménagers. During the Revolution however, all of these socially sensitive terms were replaced by the neutral-sounding cultivateur, although brassier and propriétaire were sometimes also used. Indeed, when the Tableau des Citoyens was drawn up in Year IV, most inhabitants of rural communes in the Gard were listed as ‘cultivateur’.57 If the vocabulary of rural hierarchy was obliterated during the Revolution, then another system to identify the heterogeneous peasantry must be used. Because almost everyone in Lower Languedoc owned some land, the following categories will help to differentiate between rural dwellers: 0–1ha (micro), 1–5ha (petit), 5–10ha (moyenne), 10–40ha (grande), +40ha (très grande).58 Albert Soboul has used this typology to great effect and has estimated that travailleurs were generally petit property owners, while ménagers fell into the moyenne and grande categories. Bourgeois proprietors were usually grande or très grande as were most of the nobility. However, it must be said that the socio-economic presence of the nobility in Lower Languedoc compared with other regions in France was rather modest.59 In his study of twelve villages in the diocese of Montpellier, Soboul found that 37.2 per cent of the land was owned by the peasantry, 20.1 per cent by the bourgeoisie, 15.2 per cent by the nobility, 5.8 per cent by the clergy and 21.7 per cent by the community, classified as biens communaux.60 However, in the garrigue regions, the peasantry owned 57.3 per cent of the land. In the coastal plain urban and elite influence was much stronger as the bourgeoisie owned 25.1 per cent of the land, while the privileged orders owned 22.2 per cent collectively (8.7 per cent clergy and 13.5 per cent nobility).61 Suzanne Savey found similar property structures in the department of the Gard.62 That is to say that the garrigues were the home of micro and petit propriety, dominated by peasant smallholders who owned and exploited the land themselves. By contrast, in the Mediterranean coastal plan around Sommières, a larger proportion of land was owned by citadins or bourgeoisie forains, who did not live in the village in which they owned land; instead they were absentee landlords who leased plots out to tenants or sharecroppers. So the distinctions between some of the micro-regions in the Gard

57   For example see the communes of Saint-Victor-la-Coste and Vallerargues in A.D.G. L 461, Tableau des citoyens au dessuss de l’age de 12 ans, dréssé en execution de la loi du 10 ventôse IV, Canton de Connaux. 58  A. Soboul, Les campagnes montpelliéraines à la .n de l’ancien régime: proriété et cultures d’après les compoix (La Roche-sur-Yon, 1958), p. 42. 59   G. Lewis found that noble families represented just 1 per cent of the population in the diocese of Alès in 1736, The Advent of Modern Capitalism in France, p. 13. 60   Soboul, Les campagnes montpelliéraines, p. 23; on average, the peasantry owned 33 per cent of the land in France on the eve of the Revolution, although this varied by region, see Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, pp. 7–15. 61   Soboul, Les campagnes montpelliéraines, pp. 25–36. 62   Savey, ‘Essai de reconstitution de la structure agraire’, p. 41.

Mise en Scène – the Department of the Gard

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can already be seen in terms of land ownership. How these differences played out in terms of common land privatization will be highlighted in coming chapters. Another prominent feature of life in the Gard was the extreme religious divide within the population. The conflict between Catholics and Protestants in this region goes back to the sixteenth century when the remote hills of the Cévennes served as a safe haven for Huguenots during the Catholic Reformation. Despite various waves of repression throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,63 Protestants remained in the region and eventually formed the base and superstructure of the silk industry; the majority of Cévenol peasants were Protestant as were the wealthy merchants in Nîmes. In fact the Protestant population of the Gard formed the largest Protestant community in all of France. They also formed one-third of the Gard’s population in the early nineteenth century. However, the majority lived in the western half of the department, north-west of a line from Alès to Aigues-Mortes. This Calvinist western half of the department with its chestnut and mulberry trees contrasted sharply with the Catholic south and east which was dominated by vines, olives and grain. James N. Hood has argued that these two areas exhibited distinct cultural traditions with Protestants being more frugal, morally austere and open to market specialization, while eastern Catholic peasants were still attached to their traditional polyculture with its collective practices and were unsure about the commercialization of agriculture.64 These two different ways of life met where the hills of the Cévennes tapered off into the garrigue; in the heart of that territory lay Nîmes. It was in the religious melting pot of Nîmes that two of the most violent uprisings of all of the revolutionary period occurred. James N. Hood and Gwynne Lewis have both argued that the barrage de Nîmes in June 1790 was the earliest example of a popular Counter-Revolutionary movement in France.65 In this virtual civil war, angry Catholic peasants attacked Protestants, who had welcomed the Revolution, but in the end, the Protestant dominated National Guard massacred at least 300 Catholic royalists and ‘aristocratic’ sympathizers during that bloody summer.66 The defeated Catholic royalists retreated to the east, formed the camp de Jalès, and waited until Napoleon’s defeat to carry out their revenge. Then with the final defeat of Napoleon, the ‘White Terror’ of 1815 unleashed a wave of brutal violence against ‘Bonapartists’, ‘federalists’, and ‘revolutionaries’; Protestants were the main targets and the harsh retribution was carried out by bands of Catholic thugs.67 It should be noted that the only time during the period 63

  For a discussion of Protestants in the Gard prior to the Revolution see, Hood, ‘Protestant-Catholic Relations and the Roots of the First Popular Counterrevolutionary Movement in France’. 64  Hood, ‘Patterns of Popular Protest in the French Revolution: The Conceptual Contribution of the Gard’, pp. 261–3. 65   See also A. Duport, Journées Révolutionnaires à Nîmes (Nîmes, 1988), pp. 9–40. 66   Lewis, The Second Vendée, pp. 24–5. 67  Ibid., pp. 187–218.

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1789–1815 when religious hatred was superseded by another cause was during 1792–94. It was only during the Terror that Revolutionary political, patriotic, and socio-economic forces triumphed over the historic struggle between Catholic and Protestants in the Gard.

Common Land in the Gard The extent and quality of common land in Gard, as in France as a whole, varied tremendously. Although it was very difficult to estimate the amount of common land that existed during the ancien régime, various royal officials or agronomist theorists tried to put an exact figure on the expanse of ‘wasteland’ in the kingdom. The term ‘wasteland’ is used in this book to encompass the range of uncultivated land, known in Languedoc as landes, terres hermes, terres vaines et vagues, or terres en friche. By far most of this land in Gard was under communal ownership and played an important role in the subsistence-based economy. However the actual amount of this communal wasteland is difficult to judge in our period as the first official statistics measuring common land did not appear until 1846. Even so a sense of the extent of wasteland in the ancien régime can be gleaned from various sources, but all of these figures must be treated with caution and as approximations because of the unreliability of eighteenth century statistics. In the first decade of the century, Louis XIV’s chief military engineer Marshal Vauban estimated that wasteland covered 30 per cent of the kingdom, or about 14.8 million ha.68 The noted agronomist La Maillardière opened his Le produit et le droit des communes, with the estimate that ‘a sixth of the lands of the kingdom are communal waste lands.’69 Another important agronomist, the comte d’Essuiles believed that one-tenth of all cultivatable land could be classified as ‘waste’ in 1770.70 Thus either one-sixth of all land or one-tenth of cultivatable land was considered to be wasteland in the final decades of the ancien régime; in either case the amount is estimated to be around 16 per cent of the kingdom. The first systematic governmental survey of common land was achieved under the July Monarchy. It was the result of collecting data from the cadastres, which by 1836 had been completed for the majority of the country. Despite possible omissions and errors, the Statistique de 1846 is a valuable resource that provides an exact figure of common land in France: 4,718,656 ha or 9 per cent of the entire

68

 K. Sutton, ‘Reclamation of Wasteland during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’ in Clout, Themes in the Historical Geography of France, pp. 251–2. 69   La Maillardière, Le produit et le droit des communes (Paris, 1782). 70  D’Essuiles, Traité politique et économique des communes ou observations sur l’agriculture, sur l’origine, la destination et l’état actuel des biens communs et sur les moyens d’en tirer les secours les plus puissants et le plus durables pour les communautés qui les possèdent et pour l’Etat (Paris, 1770), p. 51.

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territory.71 In this survey les biens communaux consisted of pâtures and terres vaines et vagues (59 per cent), bois (35.8 per cent), and cultivated commons (prés 1.6 per cent, labours 3.2 per cent, and vignes 0.4 per cent).72 In the department of the Gard, there were 77,699 ha of common land reported, which represented about 14 per cent of the department’s entire surface area.73 Thus between the end of the ancien régime (16 per cent) and the Statistique de 1846 (9 per cent), the total extent of communal waste land is estimated to have been diminished by around 7 per cent. This is why the study of common land privatization during the half century which bridges the French Revolution is of prime importance. In most regions of France during the ancien régime communal property was managed according to customary law. However, in southern France, including the province of Languedoc, ‘written’ or Roman law prevailed, which usually tended to favour the communuatés d’habitants. In terms of land ownership, it meant that all landed property in the Midi was subject to the maxim ‘nul seigneur sans titre’, meaning that it was up to the seigneur to prove his ownership with a title or deed.74 Many communities thus reported that they possessed outright their commons and/or had used them since time ‘immemorial’. It was sometimes the case that seigneurs had conceded the rights of usage to communities, but this could have meant that the siegneur simply could not produce a title for the common land.75 Languedoc was also home to a unique system of access rights for common land usage. Use of common land in Languedoc was proportional to property tax (proportionnelle à l’allivrement ou compoix) and usually included a provision to allow the poorest (landless) residents to pasture a few beasts gratuitously.76 This type of access to common land was codified in the arrêt of 27 March 1725, which allowed each inhabitant to pasture one brebis or chèvre for each livre paid on the compoix.77 Both Marc Bloch and Emile Appolis agree that this arrêt favoured the interests of rich laboureurs, who disproportionately enjoyed communal pasture

 A.N. C 913 Statistique de 1846.   See Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 33. 73  A.N. C 913 Statistique de 1846. The total surface area of the Gard was 546,360 ha in 1842, Rivoire, Statistique du département du Gard, vol. II, pp. 776–99. 74  Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 45. 75   See for example A.D.G. C 1348, Mémoire de la visite et de la verification des bois, garrigues, bruyers, terres vaines, vagues et vaccans des communautés du Diocèse d’Uzès, 25 fev 1727 et 21 jan 1728 and C 1261 Procès-verbal de verification de l’état de biens patrimoniaux d’Uzès, s.d.(1740s). 76  Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 49. 77  A. Appolis, ‘La question de vaine pâture en Languedoc au XVIIIe siècle’, Ann. his. Rév. fran, (1939), pp. 98–9 and 102–3 and ‘Les biens communaux en Languedoc au XVIIIe siècle’ in Commission de recherche et de publication des documents relatifs à la vie économique de la Révolution, assemblée générale de 1939, vol. II (Paris, 1945), p. 378 71 72

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and that landless peasants ‘did not gain anything from communal pastures’.78 But there was an option for these poorer inhabitants, who usually owned just a few beasts. They could pay a tax or fee for each beast that they led onto the commons; in Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, in the rugged gorges of the Cévennes, the charge was ‘one sol per animal’.79 But the fact that the rich did seem to dominate the use of communal pastures is significant, for the less fortunate inhabitants tended to be very supportive of any legislation which allowed them access to common land, including the partition of it. The diversity of the Gard’s physical terrain was reflected in the different types of land that were designated as communal. Although a variety of biens communaux existed, most of it, by far, came in the form of rough rocky hillsides covered in scrubby brush and few trees. Officially these lands were classified as vacants or terres en friche, but were known to the locals as hermes or, most commonly, garrigues. These wastelands make up the middle section of the Gard’s topography, stretching from Sommières and Quissac in the west through the arrondissements of Nîmes and Uzès to Villeneuve-lès-Avignon and Pont-Saint-Esprit on the Rhône River in the east. There was also considerable woodland that was common, but these were unlike the great forests of the North; instead, they were woods of greenoaks, known as chêne-vert in French and ilex or holm oak in English, quercus ilex. They form either bushes or trees and can grow in virtually any soil and survive heat, cold and extreme drought. According to J.R. McNeill, these oaks are the most characteristic of Mediterranean plants and their range defines the extent of the Mediterranean world.80 These communal woods of chêne-vert existed in both the garrigue and Cévennes micro-regions. Officials at both the departmental and municipal level would often call for their protection and deplore inhabitants who would enter them to secure wood for their daily needs.81 In the southern extreme of the department in the coastal plain there were also communally owned lands, sometimes in the form of rough wastes, most commonly in form of marshes (palus), which were sometimes drained and cultivated. In Fourques, near Arles in the Camargue, inhabitants reported 1000 salmées of communal palus and noted that it was used to provide forage for cattle, oxen and sheep.82

78  M. Bloch, ‘La lutte pour l’individualisme agraire dans la France du XVIIIe siècle. Première partie. L’œuvre des pouvoirrs d’ancien régime’, Annales d’histoire économique et sociale 2 (1930), p. 348 and Appolis, ‘Les biens communaux en Languedoc’, pp. 377–8. 79  Appolis, ‘Les biens communaux en Languedoc’, p. 378. 80  McNeill, The Mountains of the Mediterranean World, p. 18. 81   See for example, the report on the biens communaux of the commune of Poulx, ‘part of the commons produce scattered bunches of green oaks; the rest are completely bare…having been torn up by the inhabitants for their use’, A.D.G. L 1220, Poulx s.d, réponse à la circulaire du 17 septembre 1790, District de Nîmes. 82  A.D.G. L 1101, Fourques 29 nov 1790, réponse à la circulaire du 17 septembre 1790, District de Beaucaire.

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The common lands of the Gard, as in many parts of France, were essential to the proper functioning of the local economy. As has been noted, they were used above all to pasture animals. Because of the poor soil, large quantities of manure were needed to fertilize the fields; this presupposed many beasts, which required ample amounts of pasture. The challenge of this type of agro-pastoral farming was to keep the right balance between arable and pasture, for there was always an enormous temptation to cultivate common pastures and wastes. For example in the village of Domazan, just west of Avignon, certain inhabitants expressed a desire in 1790 to clear and cultivate 50 salmées of their dry, stony communal land to grow wheat because ‘the other fields do not produce very much’.83 Municipal officials cautioned against such a move as this would have reduced the amount of common land on which to pasture the community’s 1,100 sheep, but the inhabitants would partition a portion of their commons in the following years.84 Besides serving as pasture for the communities’ animals, use of the commons was also rented out to transhumance flocks, especially in the high mountain communes of the Cévennes. This practice generated much revenue for the communal budgets, but also provided the communities with precious manure for their fields. In addition to providing some of the pasture for livestock (vaine pâture on privately held land was the other main source, coming after the harvest or on fallow fields), the commons were also significant as a source of wood, food and revenue for the community’s coffers. Affouage or wood-cutting rights were extended proportionally to every member of the community; the wood was used for heat or construction. Some of the trees would also be cut every 10 to 20 years and sold to pay off the community’s debt or to make improvements in the village.85 Inhabitants were also allowed to gather mushrooms, berries, fruit, herbs, wild honey, acorns, peat, brush, broom and bracken, which were found either in the woods or on the garrigue hillsides. It should also be noted that the commons represented a gender-neutral space within the predominately patriarchal village community. They were open to both sexes equally and although men and women used the commons for different purposes, i.e. men would fell trees and hunt, while women would pasture household beasts and gather food or dead wood, the droit de jouissance was exercised by all.86 This theme of gender equality will be taken up again when the law of 10 June 1793 is examined, for it gave women an equal voice in deciding the fate of the commons. 83  A.D.G. L 1101, Domazan s.d., réponse à la circulaire du 17 septembre 1790, District de Beaucaire. 84  The division was carried out by the poorer members of the community and took place before the law of 10 June 1793 was proclaimed; the plots holders later tried to claim their land under the law of 9 Ventôse XII A.D.G. 2 O 707 Domazan: biens communaux, 1806–1861. 85  A.D.G. C 1261 and C 1348. Most communities in the diocese of Uzès report income from woodcutting. 86   Bourjol, Les biens communaux, p. 17 and Rinaudo, ‘Des prés et des bois’, p. 490.

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Chapter 2

From Liberal to Radical Revolution, 1789–1792

1789 – A Victory for ‘New Agriculture’? With the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, the French Revolution seemed to usher in a new epoch. In the realm of agricultural reform, the stage was set to transform the agrarian economy of France. The possibilities were endless; the piecemeal attempts at reform during the ancien régime would soon be forgotten as the Revolutionaries appeared ready to sweep through grandiose measures which would not only liberate men, but also the landed property of France. The month of August 1789 was particularly poignant. First, there was the dramatic night of 4 August when nobles denounced their privileges and announced their intention of abolishing feudalism. Although the resulting decrees of 4–11 August did abolish serfdom, dovecotes, seigneurial and royal hunting privileges and unpaid labour, it would take well over one hundred decrees and four more years until the siegneurial regime was completely dismantled. Then at the end of August, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen appeared and proclaimed that ‘men are born and remain free’. Running concurrent to this idea about Man was the principle that the territory of France also needed to be emancipated from its old restrictions. The actual fulfilment of this second goal would prove much more difficult as the customary and collective rights that were tied to both private and communal property would survive well into the nineteenth century, despite all of the Revolutionary attempts at their abolition. But in the early days of the Revolution there was the hope that in this new liberal climate, the reform of agricultural practices, so long espoused by the physiocrats and agronomes, would finally be achieved. The National Assembly wasted no time in setting up a special committee to deal with the amelioration of agriculture. On 2 September 1789 the Committee of Agriculture and Commerce was established. It was made up of thirty-five members, met three times a week and elected a President, Vice-President and two Secretaries, who all held their posts for a month at a time. Some of its more prominent members were Dupont de Nemours, Pons de Soulages and Heurtault de Lamerville, who declared that the committee was ‘entrusted to defend the rights

   See M.P. Fitzsimmons, The Night the Old Regime Ended: August 4, 1789 and the French Revolution (University Park, PA, 2003).    Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, pp. 81–123.

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and interests of cultivators’. Although this committee would survive in one form or another until the Year III, the principal work of this first incarnation under the National and Legislative Assemblies was the project to codify all rural practices in France. There were many opinions on how to do this, but most of them expanded upon the agronomic principles developed in the 1760s and 1770s. A deputy to the National Assembly and member of the Committee of Agriculture wrote a report in 1790 entitled, La restauration de l’agriculture en France. In this document, the idea of agricultural freedom was central: ‘liberty in all agricultural domains is the only way to facilitate progress’. In essence the new Committee of Agriculture built upon the work of the Paris Agricultural Society, which was established during the final decades of the ancien régime and counted among its members leading agronomes, dedicated to the principles of ‘new agriculture’. On 26 September 1789 this Society met in the Louvre and produced a memoir on how to improve agriculture throughout the kingdom. This reform programme was adopted by the Committee of Agriculture and presented to the National Assembly on 24 October 1789. The document is important not only because it spelled out the obstacles of the day and how to overcome them, but also because it served as the blueprint for the Rural Code of 1791. The Mémoire sur les abus qui s’opposent aux progrès de l’agriculture et sur les encouragements qu’il est nécessaire d’accorder à ce premier des arts contained twenty articles on various topics, but essentially the tone for rural reform was set out in its first three items. The opening article stated the importance of agrarian freedom and liberty. ‘Every proprietor will have the right to cultivate his land in the manner that he sees fit and to use his property to produce what he wants.’ The next sought to abolish the right of parcours as it curbed the right of enclosure. The third dealt with common land by stating, That no one can oppose the division of common land and that the provincial assemblies will oversee, in places where division has taken place, that the rights of everyone are respected.



 V. Azimi, ‘Un instrument de politique agricole: les Comités d’Agricuilture des Assemblées Révolutionaires’, in La Révolution française et le Monde rurale (Paris, 1989), pp. 483–93.   Hell, Restauration de l’agriculture en France, et moyens de prévenir toute disette, par un cultivateur, député à L’Assemblé Nationale, Paris, 1790, cited in Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 99.    Mémoire présenté à l’Assemblée Nationale par la société royale d’agriculture, le 24 octobre 1789. Reprinted in Archives parlementaires de 1787 à 1860. Recueil complet des débats législatifs et politiques des chambres française (première série, 1787–99), 92 vols., (Paris, 1862–1980), vol. IX, pp. 523–9.   Ibid., p. 524.

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Early in the Revolution then the idea to divide up the commons was discussed in the National Assembly. In the commentary that followed this article the old agronome arguments against the commons were renewed, i.e. that they inhibited agricultural progress, but there was also a new impassioned tone to the debate. According to research carried out under Turgot, the territory of France was believed to measure 120 million arpents of which 8 million were thought to be communal, waste or en friche. The memoir then pleads, Was there ever a conquest more valuable to make, a conquest that, far from costing tears, blood and havoc, opens up new sources of prosperity?

The significance of this memoir from 1789 is that it not only served as a guide for the ‘new agricultural’ reform projects, but it also added an emotional element to the debate over common land which would resurface again during the more radical phases of the Revolution. Meanwhile during the summer of 1789, peasants all across France were involved in sustained and violent rural revolt. This phenomenon is known as ‘The Great Fear’. The character of these revolts was complex; they had elements of ordinary food riots but also expressed frustrations of an agrarian and political nature. Bands of peasants attacked seigneurial châteaux and destroyed hated manorial rolls (terriers), but they also called for the restoration of collective rights over forest, fallow and common lands, which had been subject to ever increasing seigneurial encroachment. It is not surprising then that the National Assembly cautioned communities on 11 December 1789 not to seize any woodland, pasture, or common which they did not have physical possession of on the night of 4 August 1789.10 Thus, the issue of land hungry peasants usurping plots of waste land to cultivate was recognized early on, but this law signalled that a comprehensive reform package for common land was not on the immediate agenda. A few months later the Revolutionaries passed the law of 15 March 1790 which abolished many seigneurial rights without compensation. They tried to put a stop to seigneurial encroachments upon common land by abolishing the right of triage under this 

 Ibid., p. 528.   See G. Lefebvre, The Great Fear of 1789: Rural Panic in Revolutionary France, trans. by J. White (Princeton, 1973).    See Markoff, The Abolition of Feudalism, pp. 436–9; J. Markoff, ‘Peasants and their Grievances’ in P.R. Campbell (ed.), The Origins of the French Revolution (Basingstoke, 2006), pp. 239–67 and Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 74. For the destruction of Terriers, S. Bianchi, ‘Terriers, Plans-Terriers et Révolution’ in G. Brunel, O. Guyotjeannin and J.M. Moriceau (eds), Terriers et Plans-Terriers du XIIe au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 2002), pp. 309–24. 10  Decree of 11 December 1789 reprinted in J. Duvergier, Collection complète des lois, décrets, ordonnances, réglements et avis du conseil d’état, 78 vols. (Paris, 1824–78), vol. 1, p. 61. 

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legislation.11 However while the National Assembly was passing laws freezing any action regarding common land and abolishing triage, the Agricultural Committee was busy putting together a comprehensive rural reform package. The first report on the new project for general agricultural reform was presented to the National Assembly by Heurtault de Lamerville on 29 August 1790.12 By this date the Committee had targeted the issues it felt were important to cover in a universal code. The prevailing liberalism of the day triumphed as the independence of the soil and the freedom of the proprietor were deemed crucial elements of the reform agenda as were the restriction of vaine pâture and the division of common land. In this initial report, Lamerville declared that the partition of the commons was an essential part of agricultural freedom and that this procedure would augment production. He called on the National Assembly to allow for the division of the commons, but did not specify how the partition would be carried out. A more specific plan was outlined when Lamerville delivered the entire project for the rural code on 5 June 1791.13 In this scheme, communities were given more autonomy, as they would have been able to decide if their commons were to be partitioned, sold or rented out. If the commons were to be divided, the Committee of Agriculture introduced a unique proposal as to the method. The land would be split into two equal portions and half of it would be divided equally between all members of the community (par tête d’habitant), while the other half would be given out proportionally according to the amount of property tax paid (au marc la livre de la contribution foncière). But all of these plans for allowing the commons to be divided within the context of the Rural Code were put aside as the Committee decided on 5 September 1791 that the commons ‘would become the object of a specific decree’.14 Even if a universal law for the partition of common land was not included in the final decree adopted by the Assembly on 28 September 1791, the new Rural Code did not really satisfy anyone as it provided ‘the juridical basis for the “historic compromise” between the bourgeoisie and the peasantry’.15 The problem was that large landowners wanted their property rights vindicated; they believed that with the abolition of feudal dues, the long-standing collective and communal rights of the countryside must also be rescinded. In contrast, the peasantry, or at least the majority of small proprietors or the landless, desired two things which were probably incompatible. They wanted private property which was free from servitudes or feudal dues, but at the same time they desired to retain their collective   See Vivier, Propriété collective, pp. 109–10.   Premier rapport sur le code rural, 29 August 1790, reprinted in Archives Parlementaires, vol. XVIII, pp. 410–13. 13   Rapport sur les lois rurales, 5 June 1791, reprinted in Archives Parlementaires, vol. XXVI, pp. 756–65. 14   Discussion du projet de décret sur les lois rurales, 5 September 1791, reprinted in Archives Parlementaires, vol. XXX, p. 223. 15   Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 129. 11

12

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rights, such as vaine pâture, over the lands of their better-off neighbours.16 Thus, because of the impossibility of abolishing these collective rights in the face of mass agrarian revolt, the Assembly passed a law which tried to satisfy competing claims. Despite the fact that the opening article states ‘the territory of France … is free like the people who inhabit it’, the rights of vaine pâture and parcours survived.17 There was even a concession for the poor who did not own any land; they were still allowed to keep up to six sheep and a cow with calf in the troupeau commun. By comparison, the right of enclosure and the right to remove land from the jurisdiction of vaine pâture was vindicated as was the freedom to cultivate any produce desired. There was also a clause abolishing compulsory crop rotation. But far from dismantling the status quo, the Revolutionaries sanctioned it by allowing key institutions of peasant farming to survive.18 The Constituent Assembly did not dare to abolish vaine pâture and the droit de parcours, because of the feared reaction among the vast numbers of petits, whose passions had been inflamed ever since 1789.19 In short, the deputies’ pragmatism overcame their ideological loyalties.20 The task was colossal, however. Not only was it virtually impossible to codify rural practices in a country so diverse, but the task of reconciling the conflicting interests was also infeasible. Essentially, the law was required to do too much: it needed to assure the compromise between the contradictory interests of proprietors, to show the way forward towards evolution and transformation, and to guarantee the free development of agricultural production.21 The reason why the Revolutionaries could not dispose of the collective rights and practices of the peasantry was because these institutions were still indispensable to agriculture. Not only were the petits dependent upon them but large landowners were as well. These gros propriétaires were now able to enclose certain lands to cultivate new crops, but were still guaranteed communal pasture for their beasts.22 Because collective practices and communal rights were essential to the agricultural economy, these issues were at the heart of rural inhabitants’ concerns from the very beginning of the Revolution. In the cahiers de doléances drawn up in the spring of 1789 for the Estates General, issues regarding a community’s 16

 Ibid., p. 125.   Decret sur les biens et usages ruraux et sur la police rurale, 28 September 1791, reprinted in Archives Parlementaires, vol. XXXI, pp. 431–9. 18   For a discussion of the Rural Code and the right of vaine pâture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, see N. Plack, ‘Collective Agricultural Practices and the French State: Aspects of the Rural Code from the 18th to the 20th Century’ in N.Vivier (ed.), The State and Rural Societies: policy and education in Europe 1750–2000 (Turnhout, 2008). 19   J. Godechot, Les Institutions de la France sous la Révolution et l’Empire (Paris, 1968), p. 202. 20   Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 132. 21   F. Fortunet, ‘Le code rural ou l’impossible codification’, Ann. his. Rév. fran. (1982), pp. 95–112. 22  Ibid., p. 97. 17

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collective rights were discussed in 70 per cent of all Third Estate Cahiers.23 Within this sample 39 per cent of the cahiers made mention of rights pertaining to woods, while 26 per cent discuss the issue of common land itself. Thus, communal rights were an important component of the Third Estates’ reform agenda, even though most of the urban notables who penned the cahiers were concerned with issues of economic freedom and development. The most frequent complaints made in the Third Estate Cahiers were linked to the abuses of the seigneurial regime, i.e., the lords’ desire to expand their lands under cultivation and/or their monopolization of wood and common land. In the department of the Gard, most of the cahiers that discuss common land do so in the context of the effects of the land clearance legislation of July 1770. Many complain bitterly of all the damage done to common woods and garrigues because of excessive défrichement. Cornillon, in the sénéchaussée of Nîmes, was one of many villages in the Gard which linked the clearance of local hillsides with environmental damage by stating that not only did Louis XV’s land clearance edicts deprive them of wood and pasture but that rainstorms now carried off the good soil and left only gravel on the freshly cleared plots.24 A significant number of cahiers from the Gard also ask that remaining common land be protected from any further ecological degradation.25 Only one cahier from the village of SaintBénézet called for the partition of common land because it was being monopolized by ‘a few individuals and was not productive for the majority of people’.26 Thus even in 1789, how and to what extent the commons were exploited was an issue for many rural inhabitants; these issues and tensions would become even more acute as the Revolution progressed.

Common Land Reform in the Balance, 1790–1791 Because this issue was so crucial to life in the countryside, the Revolutionary legislators wanted to gain more precise information regarding the biens communaux and gauge opinion concerning their possible division. In October 1790, the Assembly sent out a circular letter asking communities to describe their commons and how they were used. The responses to this initial survey attempt seem to have been thin on the ground. Only two departments replied, the Aube and Jura, and both were hostile to any partition of common land.27 Georges Lefebvre also  Markoff, The Abolition of Feudalism, p. 173.  The Cahier of Cornillon, 12 March 1789, is reprinted in Bligny-Bondurand, Cahiers de doléances de la sénéchaussée de Nîmes, vol. I, 260–68. 25   This concurs with P. McPhee’s findings in ‘“The Misguided Greed of Peasants”? Popular Attitudes to the Environment in the Revolution of 1789’, FHS 24 (2001), pp. 247–70. 26  The Cahier of Saint-Bénézet, 13 March 1789, is reprinted in Bligny-Bondurand, Cahiers de doléances de la sénéchaussée de Nîmes, vol. II, pp. 150–51. 27  A.N. F10 332, cited in Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 102. 23 24

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mentions this circular of 30 October 1790 in his seminal Les paysans du Nord.28 In the villages that did respond within the Nord, there was support for the status quo and for keeping the jouissance of the commons as it had always been. But Lefebvre maintains that these responses were written by the better-off members of the village, the bourgeoisie rurale as he calls them, who were happy to keep things as they were for these gros reaped most of the benefit from the commons. The department of the Gard does not seem to have replied to the national circular of 30 October 1790, but perhaps in preparation for a generic response, administrators issued a similar survey regarding common land within the Gard. In September 1790 departmental officials in Nîmes sent out a questionnaire to the eight districts in the Gard asking each commune to reply to a set of questions about the surface area and nature of their commons and the most beneficial use of these lands. They also sought information about the extent of woods, cultivated areas and the number of sheep. Responses to this questionnaire in the Gard provide us with a valuable portrait of the agricultural systems of the region at the beginning of the Revolution. At least 57 villages in the districts of Beaucaire, Nîmes, St. Hippolyte, PontSaint-Esprit, Uzès and Le Vigan replied to the September 1790 questionnaire.29 The majority of communes which sent a response report that they did possess some common land; the actual amount varied from six registering under 100 salmées or about 6.5 hectares to three recording over 1000 salmées or just over 65 hectares. Most villages indicated surface areas between these two extremes with an average of around 400 salmées or around 24 hectares. The majority of these lands were classified as garrigues or woods of green oaks – the two dominant topographical features of the Gard. The answers to the question regarding the most beneficial use of these lands were unusually the most detailed. As Lefebvre has found in the Nord, most of those responding for their commune in the Gard wished to preserve the present state and usage of their commons. This meant, for many communities, that the commons would continue to serve as pasture for the troupeau commun, especially if the land was rough garrigue heath land. If the commons took the form of woods then it was sometimes prescribed that some of these woods be cut and sold every few years as before. Only two communes reported that they did not possess any common land; Codolet situated next to the Rhône river in the garrigue and Saint-Bonnet-de-Salendrique in the Cévennes.30 Another two responses illustrated that some land had yet to be surveyed and expressed the difficulty of supplying an exact figure for the amount of common land under their   Lefebvre, Les paysans du Nord, pp. 531–41.  A.D.G. L 1101, District de Beaucaire; L 1220, District de Nîmes; L 1350, District de Pont-Saint-Esprit; L 1492, District de Saint Hippolyte; L 1734, District d’Uzès; L 1854, District du Vigan. 30  A.D.G. L 1350, Codolet 22 nov 1790, réponse à la circulaire du 17 septembre 1790, District de Pont-Saint-Esprit and L 1492, Saint-Bonnet-de-Salendrique 8 dec 1790, réponse à la circulaire du 17 septembre 1790, District de Saint Hippolyte. 28 29

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jurisdiction.31 This illustrates just how difficult it is to determine the extent of common land in eighteenth-century France, for if contemporaries did not know, it is very unlikely that twenty-first-century historians ever will. Certain communities however did come up with some rather interesting prescriptions for improving their communal lands in responses to the 17 September 1790 circular in the department of the Gard. A handful of replies called for the défrichement of all or a portion of their commons to increase agricultural production.32 Inhabitants in the large village of Vauvert in the fertile coastal plain that borders the Mediterranean believed that the best way to improve their communal marshes was to drain them and plant forage crops.33 While in Saint-Etienne-des-Sorts in the Côtes-du-Rhône region, residents called for their commons to be cleared, planted in grape vines with the profit from the wine going to the community’s coffers.34 However, most of the respondents indicated support for the status quo in all of the Gard’s ecological micro-regions, possibly because they were the better-off members of the communities and as such monopolized the use of common land. But certain communities, such as Vauvert and SaintEtienne-des-Sorts, already desired to move in more radical directions in regard to their common land. By the summer of 1791 these desires turned to action in the Gard as some communities began to divide up their commons. During August of that year inhabitants in Remoulins, a large village in the garrigue region located between Nîmes and Avignon, began to protest against the lack of action regarding common land reform. They wanted to divide their commons as soon as possible and were pressuring the municipality to allow them to do so. On 10 August 1791 municipal officials wrote to their departmental counterparts in Nîmes describing the situation.35 They claimed that a number of petitions had been sent to Nîmes urging departmental officials to authorize a partition of all common land in the village. No response came and although the municipality had been successful in holding off 31   In Lédenon they could not ‘find any exact measure in the archives or on the land register’, A.D.G. L 1101, Lédenon s.d., réponse à la circulaire du 17 septembre 1790, District de Beaucaire; while in Cornillon the respondent lamented that ‘we can not give an exact measurement in arpents’ and thus did not provide a figure of the amount of common land in the village, A.D.G. L 1350, Cornillon s.d., réponse à la circulaire du 17 septembre 1790, District de Pont-Saint-Esprit. 32  A.D.G. L 1101, Domazan s.d., réponse à la circulaire du 17 septembre 1790, District de Beaucaire and Fourques 29 nov 1790, réponse à la circulaire du 17 septembre 1790, District de Beaucaire. 33  A.D.G. L 1220, Vauvert 12 dec 1790, réponse à la circulaire du 17 septembre 1790, District de Nîmes. 34  A.D.G. L 1350, Saint-Etienne-des-Sorts 30 nov 1790, réponse à la circulaire du 17 septembre 1790, District de Pont-Saint-Esprit. 35  A.D.G. L 515 Commune de Remoulins 10 août 1791, Biens communaux: Défrichements, partages, ventes, usurpations de communaux.

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an illegal division, the tide had turned the previous Sunday when inhabitants had carried out a spontaneous partition. The officials explained that they were fearful to intervene as, in their view, this would have upset the public peace and order. By the end of the month, the partition had been carried out and the inhabitants were in possession of their plots. A report from 31 August 1791 explained that the municipal officials watched the division take place and were reticent about it; ‘the municipality was intimidated by the inhabitants’.36 It seems that this incident in Remoulins was not isolated as inhabitants in other villages were also dividing common land by late summer 1791. Residents in the large village of Bagnols-sur-Cèze also urged officials, this time in Paris, to take action regarding common land reform. In a petition to the National Assembly, drafted on 8 September 1791, the Société des amis de la Constitution laid out a logical argument as to why the poor deserved a plot of communal garrigue.37 Because the commons in this region were nothing but vaccans stériles which the community had never benefited from, the Société reasoned that these lands would be put to better use if they were given to the landless, who could transform them into productive vineyards, olive groves or wheat fields. This scheme would work in the region because large herds of livestock did not exist as the pasture needed to keep them was unavailable and the care of young grape vines, olive and mulberry trees was seen as more important. Moreover, this idea was a good one, because the new proprietors would become attached to la patrie and would therefore want to maintain her laws and defend her borders. The notion that a man would fulfil his potential when he became a property owner was also prominent in the debate. The Société pleaded, ‘a plot of waste land makes a man, who is born to cultivate, honest’. The petition also made clear that the wealth of the nation would be increased not only because production would grow, but because there would be more revenue from property taxes – contributions which the new proprietors would ‘always pay with joy’. All of the arguments presented in this petition represent a sophisticated understanding of agricultural and revolutionary politics from a local Société in the Côtes-du-Rhône region. The petition also demonstrates that the issue of common land privatization was desired on a grass-roots level and that rural dwellers articulated their demands about this issue early on rather than just being instructed and directed from above. On the national stage the decision was made to work on a separate law for the partition of common land in September 1791. As before, the Committee of Agriculture decided that it was necessary to gauge support for the issue in the countryside. But after the weak attempt in October 1790, the Committee made a concerted effort and mounted a national survey in the form of the enquête of  A.D.G. L 515, Commune de Remoulins 31 août 1791, Biens communaux: Défrichements, partages, ventes, usurpations de communaux. 37  A.N. F10 332, De la société des amis de la Constitution senate à Bagnols à l’Assemblée nationale, 8 sept 1791, Comité d’Agricluture et de Commerce, Partage des Communaux, 1790–1792. 36

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23 November 1791.38 Unfortunately, the Committee only received a disappointing 45 responses, just over half of the possible total.39 But from this sample, what stands out is the diversity of opinion regarding the issue.40 Thirteen departments opposed partition altogether. Nine sent in responses that were ambiguous, reaching no firm conclusion to the issue at hand, but 23 departments from regions all over France approved of a project to divide up communally held land. Of those who favoured partition, seven did not have anything to say about the mode de partage, while five preferred a mixed mode where at least half of the land was to be divided amongst proprietors. There were also six departments that favoured a household partition; three of these were located in the south-west where many divisions of this kind had already taken place. Four departments supported an equal partition between all members of the community, but this does not seem to have been the most favoured option. If the amount of common land was insufficient to produce enough plots which were worth cultivating, then ten departments concluded that the land should be sold to benefit the community. The Gard was one of the 45 departments that responded to the Committee’s enquête of 23 November 1791.41 Officials in Nîmes were interested to gauge support of the possibility of dividing the commons in the Gard, so they sent out a letter on 4 December 1791 to all eight districts asking them to provide their thoughts on the issue and also to comment on the quantity and quality of common land in their respective regions.42 It appears that this request went unanswered as the final report submitted to the Agricultural Committee makes mention of the fact that after numerous demands the district officials had not responded. But even if district opinions were not included in the final response to the enquête, the document presents a powerful argument for the partition of common land. From the opening paragraph there is no doubt about how the officials in Nîmes regarded village common land:

  F. Gerbaux and C. Schmidt, Procès-verbaux des comités d’agriculture et de commerce de la Constituante, de la Législative et de la Convention. (Paris, 1906–10) vol. II, p. 461. 39  The full-text reproduction of these documents can be found in G. Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, documents sur la prépatation de la loi du 10 juin 1793. Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire économique de la Révolution française (Paris, 1908). 40   For a more detailed discussion of these responses, see Vivier, Propriété collective, pp. 102–4. 41  A.N. F10 330; F1c III Gard 6, Conseil du Département du Gard, 30 mars 1792 is reprinted in Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, pp. 84–8. 42  An example of this letter is found in A.D.G. L 1350, Pont-Saint-Esprit: biens communaux, 1792–an II. 38

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Common lands owe their existence to the feudal regime; they bare all the vices of their origins; for us, they are the mark of the chain that we have to shake off; it is necessary to efface them completely.

Then the report lists the different types of common land in the Gard: les terrains incultes, les praires et les marais, and les bois. Reasons are given as to why each type of land should be divided and cultivated; the arguments used recall the older agronomists’ reasons presented under Louis XV’s reign. All uncultivated land should be cleared and put under production and prairies should be planted in forage crops, for these would produce 40 times as much fodder than an ordinary pâturage communal. Surprisingly, the cultivation of devastated woodland is also prescribed rather than its reforestation; ‘why limit the people to harvesting scrub on a soil that could produce the purest wheat?’43 The Gard’s departmental response to the enquête of November 1791 strongly supported the partition of common land and put forth an egalitarian mode by prescribing a division between all heads of household (chefs de famille). This seemed the most logical choice rather than a par tête solution, as the feu was the basic unit in rural society. But the report also used more revolutionary ideas for supporting the partition of the commons and thus creating new property owners: The more proprietors there are in a society, the more it acquires the strength and stability to maintain peace and to respect the laws which guarantee property.

These new ideas of attaching property owners to the nation would play a role in securing the final partition legislation in June 1793. But officials in the Gard also listed some exceptions to its support of the division of common land. First, if the resulting plots would be too small for any use, then the land should be sold and the profit should benefit all of members of the community. Second, if the biens communaux were located on hillsides where their clearance and cultivation would prove difficult, then communal usage should be maintained. It seems that the disastrous results of the clearance of hillsides in the decades before the Revolution had tempered the enthusiasm for all out défrichement. The officials cited the damage caused to rivers when their beds were filled with debris and topsoil after a rainstorm. In this circumstance, it would be better to ‘preserve the portions of common land necessary for the pasturing of livestock’.44 Thus, the final report sent to the Agricultural Committee in Paris supported the plan to proceed with legislation authorizing the partition of village common land, albeit with certain exceptions, but more significantly the 1791 report from the Gard prescribed an egalitarian mode of division and justified this suggestion because it would attach petits peasants to the republic.   Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, p. 85.  Ibid., p. 87.

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An analysis of these early reports and petitions regarding common land reform has been made by David Hunt.45 By reading all of the responses to the government’s 1791 enquête, Hunt has been able to tease out the political themes on a national scale rather than simply focusing on certain local or regional issues. What he has found is that during the early legislative discussions, a censitary position emerged which would have proportionally favoured landowners in any division of the commons. This is essentially what Heurtault de Lamerville prescribed in June 1791. However because many of the departmental responses to the November enquête and local petitions urged a more egalitarian mode, legislators had to revise their original intention. Hunt argues that popular movements in the countryside calling for an egalitarian division of the commons spurred the legislators to adopt a more democratic mode of partition.46 It was the debate surrounding the reform of common land, Hunt argues, which formed the bridge between the liberal Revolution of 1789 to ‘its more democratic and social sequel in the year II’.47 This is an astute observation about the nature of the course of agrarian reform during the French Revolution. Significantly, Hunt is able to show that the popular movement did have an impact on the course of legislative development. By analysing the petitions and reports sent to Paris in the midst of the debate over common land reform we are able to see that it was not simply a one-way process, but an interaction between a government and its citizens. Peter McPhee has also stressed this process of negotiation between inhabitants and legislators.48 This relationship would only deepen as the Revolution moved in more radical directions during the summer of 1792.

The Laws of August 1792 In late May 1792 Jean-Baptiste Aveline, the President of the Agricultural Committee, after having received the responses from the 1791 enquête, issued a report on the Committee’s proposal for a law on the partition of common land.49 In this report, Aveline put forth familiar physiocratic arguments about how increased agricultural production would lead to increased national wealth and how common land everywhere carried ‘the emblem of misery’. He also prescribed that ‘a good government should be devoted to property because property prompts industry and industry creates public happiness’. There was, as well, an estimation of the social benefit incurred when the indigent classes were imbued with property; they 45  D. Hunt, ‘Peasant movements and communal property during the French Revolution’, Theory and Society 17 (1988), pp. 255–83. 46  Ibid., p. 266. 47  Ibid., p. 276. 48  McPhee, Living the French Revolution, p. 5. 49   Rapport et projet de décret sur le partage d et le défrichement des biens communaux, par M. Aveline, 28 Mai 1792. (Paris, 1792).

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would, it was argued, ‘learn through their own interests, to respect the property of others’. But taking into consideration all of the different factors involved, the report concluded that the actual division of common land would be optional with communities being able to decide for themselves whether or not to carve up their patrimony. If they did favour partition, the mode was very clearly stated: ‘equally by household between all citizens who have resided in the community for at least a year’. This equal division amongst households was a compromise between a more conservative measure proposing a distribution in accordance with taxation, and the more radical idea of a par tête division. The report was debated in the Assembly over the next two months, but was finally rejected as rapidly occurring events were moving the Revolution in a whole new direction. On 10 August 1792, the people of Paris rose once more, invaded the Tuileries Palace, and pushed the government towards even more radical reforms. The laws that were passed in the following three weeks were some of the most sweeping of the day and marked a significant shift in the legislative attention paid to the common people of France. From now on the Revolution would be judged ‘in terms of what it could offer the poor of town and country’.50 The first measure to be voted through was the law of 14 August 1792, which ordered the mandatory partition of all non-wooded common land. There was much excitement over this decree as it declared, ‘that, in this year, immediately after the harvest, all common land, apart from woods, will be divided between citizens of each commune’.51 The decree was put forth by François de Neufchâteau, but was, in reality, quite inoperative as the fourth article announced that the Committee of Agriculture would work out the mode de partage and would return the finished law within three days. Why would Neufchâteau pass a law that could not be put into effect? David Hunt has argued that the law of 14 August 1792 was passed to defuse the tension surrounding common land, but that the mode was left ambiguous because legislators could not decide between a censitary and an egalitarian division.52 This argument seems convincing as it took more than ten months of legislative debate before the final law authorizing the partition of common land reached the statute book. However, there were other measures passed in the summer of 1792 which also attempted to placate the rural masses. The satisfaction of the poorer peasantry’s desire for land and the abolition of the seigneurial regime were now at the forefront of the Revolutionary legislative agenda. Continued rural unrest and anti-seigneurial protest spurred the legislators in the Assembly towards even more radical agrarian reforms. The decree of 25 August 1792 essentially made good on the promises outlined in August 1789. Unsubstantiated harvest dues and redemption payments ceased – the economic   Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 139.  The journalist, Gorsas, reported in Le courrier des 83 départments, on the night of August 14th that ‘the people have finally began to harvest the fruits of liberty that they have won’, cited in Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 115. 52  Hunt, ‘Peasant movements and communal property’, p. 266. 50 51

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reality of feudalism was dead to all intents and purposes.53 The glaring omission of this legislation, the issue of common land, may have been deliberate as a new law was passed three days later to amend this dimension of seigneurial power. The law of 28 August 1792 broke new ground in terms of a community’s claim to its biens communaux.54 To begin with, the law abolished once and for all the seigneurial right of triage as outlined in the seminal eaux et forêts ordonnance of 1669. It also stood the maxim of nulle terre sans seigneur on its head by requiring all ci-devant seignuers to produce legal titles for their lands. In addition, communities were now able to reintegrate all lands which they had been deprived of by la puissance féodale; all they had to do was to file a petition within five years and the matter would by investigated by a revolutionary tribunal. The law of 28 August 1792 went well beyond the prescriptions laid out in 13 April 1791 decree regarding the abolition of le régime féodal. In the earlier law, the right of seigneurs to appropriate the terres vaines et vagues, hermes, vacans, or garrigues had been annulled since the publication of the decree of 4 August 1789. In the new law, all of these waste lands were now retroactively awarded to the community without question unless the former seigneur could produce a title. Thus, the tone of the August legislation was decidedly altered, instead of just limiting the power of former seigneurs in regard to common land, it was now the community’s rights which were favoured to the demise of seigneurial holdings. Furthermore, if both the community and seigneur produced a title for the land in question, the municipalities’ claim would have been recognized.55 But this authorization for communities to enlarge their communal lands seems to have been in stark contrast to the law ordering their partition. However, as Georges Bourgin has pointed out, the augmentation of communal lands was done in the hope that the individual portions resulting from their division would become larger.56 What were the effects of such a radical law? The movement of reintegration seems to have been the most widespread in the North-East, Normandy, and in the Ile-de-France according to Nadine Vivier.57 Peter Jones claims that the application of this law resulted in thousands of actions to retrieve long-lost assets.58 But unfortunately, only a handful of studies have attempted to investigate the results of this legislation. In the Haute-Marne, J.J. Clère has discovered that many communes invoked this law against their former seigneurs and successfully recovered lost

  See Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, pp. 92–4.   Décret sur la revendication des biens communaux, 28 août 1792, reprinted in Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, pp. 398–402. 55   Godechot, Les Institutions de la France, pp. 201–2. 56   G. Bourgin, ‘Les communaux et la Révolution française’, Nouvelle revue historique de droit française et étranger, 6 (1908), p. 728. 57  Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 157. 58   Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 139. 53

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lands.59 In other regions of France, such as the Centre or the Midi, efforts to restore lost lands seem to have been much more restrained. Evidence of this law being invoked is very difficult to uncover and if any petitions were filed in the department of the Gard, the documents relating to the cases do not survive in any of the L series sub-sections pertaining to common land.60 However, David Solakian has used evidence from a report produced in the Year VIII (1800) and statistics used by Jules Le Berquier in 1859 to compare the number of communes in France possessing communal lands.61 In the Traité de la conservation et l’aménagement des Forêts, du citoyen Perthuis, of the Agricultural Society of the Seine-et-Marne in 1800, 11,000 communes were reported to have common lands. By contrast, in the 1859 article De la commune en France et des biens communaux, Le Berquier reports that 25,000 communes still possessed commons. Solakian accounts for this difference by suggesting that the figures used for the 1800 report may have relied on statistics from before the full effects of the law of 28 August 1792 had come to fruition and that by 1859 the formidable consequences of the reintegration of usurped common land can be seen. This hypothesis seems plausible, as it demonstrates that common land tended to be protected and safeguarded by the nineteenth century. However, the other side of the equation was that large sections of rural society desired a plot of common land to cultivate for themselves and this manifested itself as partition or usurpation throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic decades. Throughout the autumn of 1792, the peasantry were focused on the possibility of receiving a plot of common land and anxiously waited for the mode de partage to be declared. Unfortunately, the debate surrounding this important issue continued without end in the Legislature. On 3 September 1792, a law was passed that ordered the immediate release of any and all criminals imprisoned for trying to partition common land since 14 July 1789.62 Five days later on the 8th, the Assembly officially rejected Aveline’s proposal for a non-mandatory division of common land and instead ordered the Committee of Agriculture to proceed with securing a mode. The discussion that took place on this day showed just how far opinion had come from the censitary position of 1791. Jean-Pierre Cambon, a deputy from the Hérault, called for a par tête division, while another member wanted a partition inverse to property holdings.63 This radicalization of deputies’ opinions regarding common land reform is due to both the more general democratic atmosphere   J. Clère, Les paysans de la Haute-Marne et la Révolution française (Paris, 1988), pp. 217–34. 60  A.D.G. L 512–19, Biens Communaux: Défrichements, partages, ventes, usurpations de communaux, Dossiers par communes, 1790-anIII. 61  D. Solakian, ‘Territoires naturels et communautés: la loi de 14 août 1792–10 juin 1793’ in A. Corvol (ed.), La Nature en Révolution, 1750-1800 (Paris, 1993), pp. 145–55. 62  Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 116. 63   Le Journal des Débats is reprinted in Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, p. 403. 59

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post-August 1792 and to popular actions in the countryside. This complex issue of decreeing the partition mode was not resolved during the summer of 1792 and was handed over to the newly formed Convention on 21 September 1792. Because many communities believed that the mode de partage would be coming at any moment, they did not sow the common fields with an autumn crop as these lands would have been subject to division. The Committee of Agriculture realized that the debate on the mode would be long and began to worry about subsistence levels if common plots were not cultivated and their leases not renewed. On 11 October 1792, a decree was passed which basically suspended the 14 August legislation as it ordered that ‘common lands must continue to be cultivated and planted as they have been in the past up to the time of division’.64 During the same session, Rabaut Pommier, deputy from the Gard, asked that a report on the project for partitioning the commons be made straight away.65 In spite of this plea, the issue seems to have slipped from the forefront of the legislative agenda during the autumn and winter of 1792 as the more pressing matter of Louis XVI’s trial took centre stage. But the idea of receiving of a plot of land would not disappear from the hearts and minds of country dwellers all across the country and during the winter and spring of 1792/3 they sent over 158 petitions to Paris.66 The Gard was a department that experienced much agitation surrounding the issue of common land reform after the decree of 14 August 1792 was announced. The will to divide the commons was strong as can be seen from the 1791 departmental report, which called for an egalitarian division. However when the Gard sent another report to Paris in December 1792, their tone had decidedly changed as officials in Nîmes were steadfast in their respect for the laws and were determined to uphold the desires of the National Convention.67 They pleaded for the inhabitants of the Gard to respect national, communal, and individual properties as well as warning of ‘the terrible poison of anarchy’ which would be unleashed if illegal actions were to go unpunished. The officials went on to remind all citizens that it was in everyone’s interest to wait ‘calmly for the mode de partage’. The accompanying arrêté contained seven articles and again asked members of the Convention to decree the mode as soon as possible. It also proclaimed that the law of 11 October 1792 must be respected – ‘It is prohibited for any citizen to divide common land’. If any illegal divisions had taken place, these lands were to be returned to the communities; the municipal officers and local police were charged with this task. The council also ordered that the arrêté must be publicly posted and read within the communities. While officials in Nîmes were committed to maintaining law and order, the tone of this document suggests that there was much   Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, p. 405.   Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, p. 405, note 4. 66  Vivier, Propriété collective, pp. 118–19 analyses these petitions. 67   Adresse aux citoyens du Gard et arête sur les communaux, Directorie du Département à la Convention, 11 décembre 1792, reprinted in Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, pp. 461–4. 64 65

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tension regarding this issue within the Gard and that inhabitants were, despite warnings from their superiors, carrying out illegal divisions of their commons in certain localities. Seven villages in the Gard sent petitions to the National Convention in Paris during late 1792 and early 1793. Although the number of petitioners varied, ranging from single authors to one petition signed by 58 inhabitants, the tone of these documents reveals the fundamental importance of common land reform. All of them call for the mode to be declared immediately and all of them are quite radical in that they call for that mode to be egalitarian and democratic. Significantly all of the villages which sent a petition to Paris would also either: successfully partition their commons under the law of 10 June 1793, have ‘illegal’ divisions regularized and reintegrated under the 9 Ventôse XII legislation, or have lands that were usurped during the 1790s sold under the laws of 20 March 1813 or 23 June 1819. This demonstrates how determined certain members of the rural community were at securing individual plots of common land throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period. The first petition sent to the Convention was from the village of Bellegardedu-Gard on 15 December 1792.68 Bellegarde is located about 10km south-east of Nîmes in the arid plain between the Mediterranean and the garrigue-dominated landscape further north. In this petition, the inhabitants report that the village rests on a hillside covered in scrubby brush, but that the main section of its territory consists of marshy wasteland on the plain. They admitted to having already cleared some of the garrigues to plant grape vines and a memoir from the ancien régime confirms that 129 salmées or 85 hectares were cleared during 1752.69 The commune was now ready to divide the rest of its common land in the plain under the law of 14 August 1792. So much was their anticipation that they decided to perform a test on the land in question. They were pleased to report that ‘the plough had found fertile soil which gives the promise of a good harvest’. Two weeks later another petition was sent to Paris from the inhabitants of Bellegarde demanding that the mode be fixed. The tone of these petitions is one of impatience. The residents of Bellegarde were restless and agitated perhaps because they wanted to divide up their common in time for a spring sowing of crops? By the time the New Year of 1793 dawned that impatience was turning dangerously towards agitation as many petitions described growing tension or warn of potential conflict. The maire of Cannes, 20km west of Nîmes, reported the trouble in his village between three-quarters of the inhabitants, who would ‘die of hunger’ were it not for the small plots that they had cleared on the commons,

68  A.N. F 10 330, Bellegarde, 15 Décembre 1792, reprinted in Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, pp. 464–5. 69  A.D.G. C 1187, Mémoire touchant les ouvertures faites dans les garrigues de la communauté de Bellegarde.

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and the large stock-owners who wanted to put a stop to this practice.70 Apparently, the better off members of the community called for the law of 11 October 1792 to be enforced and demanded that the poor give up their plots of communal land, but the maire refused to deprive the landless of their subsistence. He claimed that if troupeau could still graze on the communal pastures why shouldn’t the poor benefit from these lands as well? The mayor defiantly asked ‘Should the provision of livestock surpass that of men?’ This democratic stance of the mayor of Cannes was understandable in the face of such widespread desire to partition the commons. Mayors, however, were not the only ones recounting tales of stress and strain in the countryside over common land reform. The self-styled sans-culottes from the village of Connaux in the Côtes-du-Rhône region vehemently denounced agitators, who were encouraging the poor to disregard the law of 11 October 1792 and proceed directly to dividing up common land.71 In characteristically vitriolic prose, the sans-culottes claimed that these troublemakers wanted nothing but anarchy and civil war and that the ‘true friends’ of liberty must respect the laws of the Convention and wait for the mode de partage to be declared. But these sans-culottes were elated at the prospect of dividing up the commons and proclaimed that ‘We will become property owners!’ This petition was signed by 19 inhabitants, but mentions the presence of some 115 souls who were unable to write their names (illettrés). A similar situation was described by the Society of the Friends of Liberty and Equality of Nîmes in its petition to the Convention in March 1793.72 They also warned of potential conflicts arising if the mode was not soon decreed. The Amis proclaimed that it was up to the representatives of the people to put forth laws that would consolidate the union between citizens and thus assure liberty and equality. From the mountainous region surrounding Alès two petitions were sent to the Convention exemplifying the class dimension of this struggle. Both petitions declared that as the monarchy, clergy and nobility had been abolished, only large property owners remained and that they needed to be destroyed as well. Inhabitants in the village of Vallérargues declared that these large landowners are seen ‘walking with the same audacity as former nobles’.73 The villagers of Seyne also claimed that they were not alone in this struggle and that the 30,000

 A.N. F 10 330, Cannes 6 Janvier 1793, reprinted in Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, p. 466. 71  A.N. F 10 330, Connaux, 8 Janvier 1793, reprinted in Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, pp. 467–8. 72  A.N. F 10 329, Nîmes, 7 Mars 1793, reprinted in Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, pp. 469–70. 73  A.N. F 10 329, Vallérargues, s.d., reprinted in Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, pp. 472–5. 70

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other residents in the District of Uzès desired the same thing.74 They called for the equal partition of common land; because then, each citizen could easily secure enough manure to fertilize his crops, producing abundant harvests. The author of the petition from the Vallérargues summed up the general sentiment by stating, ‘I believe that the future will be a golden age with each person in the shade of their fig tree or grape vine living peaceably and content.’ These petitions serve to underline the fact that the debate over the commons usually divided rural communities between petits who longed for a plot of their own and large stock owners/property owners who wanted to monopolize the use of the commons themselves. The more democratic desires of the petits would be fulfilled as legislators finally began to seriously work on fixing the mode de partage for the division of common land in the spring of 1793.

74  A.N. F 10 333, Seyne, s.d., reprinted in Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, pp. 470–72.

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Chapter 3

The Jacobin Revolution, 1793

Genesis of the 10 June 1793 Decree Throughout the autumn of 1792 and spring of 1793 deputies in the National Convention were busy constructing social legislation for the newly founded Republic. Despite the escalating military crisis and the king’s trial and his eventual execution in January, the Agricultural Committee tried to get a handle on the scope and scale of common land reform during this fervid period. On 22 October 1792 the Committee had charged Rabaut Pommier, deputy from the Gard and brother of Rabaut Saint Etienne, to present a project as soon as possible. But because of the polemical nature of the task and the tense atmosphere in general, Rabaut was content to propose only a series of questions which the Committee debated between 29 December 1792 and 12 January 1793. The nature of these queries ranged from: Should the partition of common land be mandatory? to: Should the resulting plots be freehold or should they have some sort of restriction? The Committee was by this time receiving quite a few petitions recounting the growing tensions and problems in the countryside surrounding this issue, and this may have been why they decided to replace the seemingly languid Rabaut with Claude Fabre, deputy from the neighbouring department of the Hérault. It became Fabre’s duty to study all of the petitions from the various regions in France and come up with a project for a universal law. This process took most of the spring of 1793, but although the debates were confined to the Agricultural Committee, the issue of agrarian reform did not disappear from the main floor of the Convention. In late February 1793, the moderate deputy Poullain-Grandprey and the Girondin Buzot demanded the law authorizing the division of common land because ‘poorer peasants wait with impatience’. But there were growing fears that an offensive against all forms of property might take place, so the Convention passed a law on 18 March 1793 which punished with death anyone advocating schemes for land reorganization. It was only two days later that another Girondin, this time Bertrand de la Hosdinière, made a plea for common land reform. He proposed that the commons should be divided equally between ‘people who do not own any property or have less than 100 livres of income’. It is fairly obvious that

   See Gerbaux and Schmidt, Procès-verbaux des comités d’agriculture, vol. III, p. 46.   A.N. C 246, cited in Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 122.    Le Moniteur Universel, 20 mars 1793, cited in Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 122.

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the Girondins favoured some sort of land redistribution scheme to help the poor, but how did the Jacobins feel about this issue? The attempts at social reform carried out by the Mountain have been the focus of much analysis and debate. Georges Lefebvre believed that the Jacobins were essentially bourgeois individualists who were not really committed to helping the poor and were certainly against any radical schemes of land redistribution. For Lefebvre, the Jacobins did not have a clear programme to aid the poor and were only forced into a more egalitarian position by pressure from below. But this view has been updated by contemporary historians. Peter Jones has argued that while the various factions within the Convention may have supported initiatives to help the poor of the countryside, the Jacobins were the only group to pass measures with this end. Jones’s impression is that the Jacobin relish for social-levelling legislation actually increased as Year Two progressed. Peter McPhee has called the 10 June 1793 decree ‘one of the most ambitious attempts of the revolutionary government to meet the needs of the rural poor’. Florence Gauthier is also convinced that the Jacobins led by Saint-Just and Robespierre had a clear objective to initiate a ‘reign of equality’ where property rights were limited and the means of production redistributed. At the crux of this programme was ‘to assure all members of society of the use of land necessary to their existence’. Jean-Pierre Jessenne also believes that the Mountain’s ideology clearly included the desire to help the poor become property owners, but that their own internal contradictions inhibited them from an all out repartition. In an intriguing monograph on the subject of Jacobin social legislation, Jean-Pierre Gross argues that the Mountain did in fact promise fair and equal opportunities for everyone within the new private-market economy and were successful to a certain extent in their legislative measures.10 For example, the Jacobins had some success in securing food at affordable prices and reorganizing communal and national land holdings, but were less effective with attempts concerning progressive taxation and universal compulsory education. Thus, it can be concluded that the Jacobins did have a solid programme to help the poor of town and country, and the law of 10 June 1793 was a cornerstone of this agenda.   G. Lefebvre, La Révolution française (Paris, 1963), pp. 344 and 367.   See P.M. Jones, ‘The “agrarian law”: schemes for land redistribution during the French Revolution’, Past and Present, 133 (1991), pp. 96–133.   McPhee, Living the French Revolution, p. 137.    F. Gauthier, ‘De Mably à Robespierre: un programme économique égalitaire, 1775– 1793’, Ann. his. Rév. fran. 258 (1985), pp. 265–89.   Robespierre, ‘Sur les subsistences’ in Œuvres complètes, vol. IX, (Paris, 1958), p. 113 cited in Gaultier, ‘De Mably à Robespierre’, p. 287.    See J.-P. Jessenne, ‘The Land: Redefinition of Rural Community’ in K.M. Baker (ed.), The French Revolution and the creation of modern political culture, vol. IV, The Terror (Oxford, 1994), pp. 223–48. 10   J.-P. Gross, Fair Shares for All, Jacobin Egalitarianism in Practice (Cambridge, 1997).  

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However, as David Hunt has argued, were it not for the popular movement in the countryside which pushed for the egalitarian mode of partition, the commons would have been divided amongst property owners.11 So the Jacobin partition decree must be seen as a negotiation between citizens and legislators. The text for the decree of 10 June 1793 was debated and formulated within the Agricultural Committee during the spring of 1793. There were, in fact, 23 sessions which dealt exclusively with the creation of this legislation. In total 25 deputies attended one or more of these meetings, but on average the number present was between eight and ten. Significantly, the nine deputies who were most closely involved with the process were representatives from regions that sent the greatest number of petitions to Paris. Three deputies were from the Midi (Fabre de l’Hérault, Rabaut from the Gard, and Pélissier of the Bouches-du-Rhône), while six came from the north (l’Oise, Somme, Aisne, and Nord).12 The geographical origin of the men conceiving of this legislation no doubt played a role in its eventual incarnation. Even though circumstances were very different in the opposite corners of the country, the issue of access to and control over communal resources remained essentially the same. After weeks of debate, an initial project for the decree was agreed on 19 March 1793.13 Fabre presented this proposal to the Convention on 8 April. In this closely reasoned and lengthy document, Fabre argues with a new egalitarianism why the commons should be partitioned whilst also using older agronomist justifications to make his case.14 He first, though, sought to define the precise nature of village common land: ‘common land are lands, to which by their nature and production inhabitants of one or several communes have a common right’. The Jacobin egalitarianism of the day came through when the explanation for the support of the division of these lands was given. Fabre claimed that these lands had been abused by the rich for too long and that it was only just to re-establish the rights of the poor as the commons, in theory, belonged equally to everyone. He also declared that it was in the interest of the Republic and its agricultural production to partition village common land. A familiar idea to those versed in agronomist doctrines of the day was then presented as Fabre claimed that the countryside would take on new life if the vast tracts of uncultivated common land throughout the nation were put under the plough. Fabre recalled that Turgot had estimated the total surface area of the commons in France to be close to eight million arpents; this land represented at least 600 million livres in capital value and could produce 25 million livres ‘if they were in a cultivated state’.15 11

 Hunt, ‘Peasant movements and communal property’, p. 277.   See Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 121. 13   See Gerbaux and Schmidt, Procès-verbaux du comité d’agriculture, vol. III, pp. 94–107. 14   Rapport et projet de décret sur le mode de partage des biens communaux, par Fabre de l’Hérault, 8 Avril 1793, reprinted in Archives Parlementaires, vol. 61, pp. 424–42. 15  Ibid. 12

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The most important issue that Fabre’s report dealt with was, of course, the actual mode de partage. It turns out that the Agricultural Committee had, in fact, debated a number of options. The first was in proportion to the amount of land tax paid (au marc la livre de la contribution foncière), in other words in direct relation to proprietorship, but this notion was unacceptable especially as the popular movement in the countryside pushed for an egalitarian mode of division. Rather, it was argued that since all the inhabitants had an equal right to the commons, then everyone should have an equal share in their division. In the end, an equal partition among individual inhabitants was adopted, but not before serious consideration was given to sharing out the commons in inverse proportion to existing landholdings. This scheme, however, was also abandoned because it went against the basic principle that ‘all men are equal in rights’ and also because to carry out such a division would be far too difficult in a country as diverse as France, where levels of landed wealth varied considerably.16 The fundamental aim of the law was to increase property holdings. Not only would this action attach citizens to the nation, it would also improve agricultural production because ‘small properties are always better cultivated than large ones’. But there were a few exceptions that Fabre raised in the face of such passionate support for this legislation. First, he insisted that the partition of common land was not obligatory and that each commune had the right to decide the fate of their commons for themselves. Second, and perhaps more significantly, Fabre signalled out the type of common land that was to be protected against partition. Under no circumstance could wooded or forested common land be divided; they must be protected and if at all possible extended with replanting. Fabre criticized the past clearings of these areas which only produced ‘arid and uncultivated landscapes’. He asked ‘what has become of the immense forests which covered our mountains?’ It is not surprising that Fabre was concerned about this issue as his department, the Hérault, was located in the heart of the ancien régime province of Languedoc, where some of the most extensive pre-Revolutionary clearings of waste and woodlands had occurred.17 Mountains and hillsides were also to be protected against any partitions because when these areas were cultivated, it did not always improve agricultural production – ‘in some places their clearing could be harmful to agriculture’ because more often then not the soil was sandy or thin and was washed away after a heavy rainstorm.18 Thus, as a Jacobin, Fabre wanted 16  There was a formal request from Marin, deputy from Mont-Blanc, to strike Fabre’s proposal and pass his own, which called for only indigent families to receive plots of partitioned common land, Opinion et projet de décret de citoyen Marin, sur le mode de partage des biens communaux, 8 Avril 1793. Imprimés par ordre de la Convention Nationale, Juin 1793. 17   See Plack, ‘Agrarian Reform and Ecological Change during the Ancien Régime’ pp. 198–200. 18  The Gard’s response to the November 1791 enquête raised this very same concern.

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to fulfil the desires of the poor for a plot of land, but he was also concerned with the ecological damage which could be caused by too much land clearance. In general, the Convention approved of Fabre’s project and passed the first two articles of the decree the very same day it was presented. But then the crisis erupted between the Girondins and the Mountain, so the final law did not reach the statue book until after the popular uprising of 31 May–2 June 1793. The only change that was granted before the final law was approved on 10 June 1793 was the inclusion of women in the voting procedure to divide up the commons. This concession was admitted because of the significant role that women had played in securing the Mountain’s victory over the Girondins.19 While there may have been some in the assembly who disagreed with the mode prescribed in the new law, there was really only one deputy who openly contested the idea in principle. Julien Souhait, deputy from the Vosges and son of an official in the state Water and Forest Authority, presented a Discours sur le partage des biens communaux to the Convention on 27 April 1793.20 In this emotional plea to retain France’s communal heritage, Souhait insisted that the commons were the patrimony of the poor and questioned ‘since when have we had the right to dispose of land belonging to future generations?’ It appears that Souhait did not have much support as the majority of deputies in the Convention and many country dwellers across France felt that the division of common land would be beneficial. The legislative will to satisfy the desires of rural masses had clearly survived from the summer of 1792. Not only was the authorization given to partition the commons, laws granting the final abolition of seigneurial dues without indemnity (17 July) and the sale of émigré lands in small plots (3 June/25 July) were also sanctioned during the summer of 1793.21 This latter decree relates to common land because if a village did not have any commons to partition, but did posses émigré lands, these were to be divided up into one arpent plots and distributed to landless families. Thus, it is evident the Jacobins attempted to pass legislation which sought to help the rural poor become property owners. Proprietorship was, of course, one of the cornerstones of the Republic and by attempting to create new landowners, the Jacobins were seeking to adhere more citizens to the Revolution’s cause. The actual text of the 10 June 1793 law is quite long and uninspiring, but the implications were immense. Containing 99 articles within five sections, the law was an impressive improvement on previous legislative initiatives.22 The basic principles of the decree were laid out in the first three sections. All common land,   See Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 123 and D. Godineau, Les femmes du peuple à Paris pendant la Révolution française (Aix, 1988), p. 139. 20  Reprinted in Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, p. 706. 21   Peter McPhee has described the law of 17 July 1793 which completely abolished feudalism as ‘the most significant change in the lives of French people during the Revolution’ Living the French Revolution, p. 135. 22  A full-text reprint of this legislation is provided in Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, pp. 728–39. 19

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except woods, mines and public areas, was subject to partition between each inhabitant of a community, regardless of age or sex, provided that one third of the residents were in favour of such a division. All members of the community over the age of 21, including women, had the right to cast their vote in a special meeting of the municipality. The beneficiaries would each receive plots of common land which they would acquire freehold; parents would hold the land of their children until they reached 14 years of age. The resulting plots could not be sold for ten years. Only residents of a commune had a droit de partage, which meant that no one had the right to a plot of common land in two communities. Former seigneurs could not stake a claim in any partition as they had benefited from the right of triage since the 1669 Eaux et Forêts Ordonnace. Guidelines were also provided for the convocation of the municipal general assembly and the nomination of experts, who were to be paid to survey the land and carry out the plot allocation. Section III also laid out provisions for communities which did not want to divide their commons. If it was decided that the lands would better serve the community under communal tenure then new usage rules were to be drawn up. If the land in question was unsuitable for partition then the community could decide to rent or sell it, but only after approval was given by the district and departmental authorities. But despite the relative straightforwardness of the text, confusion and queries arose in the provinces. Although relatively few petitions were sent to the Convention in Paris from the provinces regarding the execution of the law of 10 June 1793 (around 100 in all), there was an increase of them during the month of November 1793.23 It was during this time that many communities across France began to ponder the new legislation as the harvest period ended. If villagers had an eye to divide their commons they would have wanted to do so before the sowing of spring crops. Most of the petitions sent to Paris during this period were seeking advice on how to implement the law. Two-thirds of the questions related to residence qualifications, i.e. who would qualify for a plot of common land, while other queries corresponded to the form which the village assemblies should take and how to handle prior clearings that had taken place on common land. A third of the petitions came directly from the communes, a third from the district or departmental administrators involved and 20 per cent were from individuals who sought advice. The diverse geographic origin of these petitions does testify to the overall interest in this law. Communities in the North, North-East, Centre and South were all concerned with the application of 10 June 1793. Although no petitions are known to have been sent to Paris from the Gard, a similar type of question/answer formula existed between villages who were attempting to implement the law and district/departmental officials. An example of this dialogue comes from the village of Cassagnoles, south of Alès. Inhabitants in this village did not waste any time in drawing up a procès verbal for the 23  The petitions are preserved in A.N. F10 333A and B, D III*49. See Vivier, Propriété collective, pp. 124–7.

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partition of their common land, but they ran into problems when they wanted to actually share out the plots. In Ventôse Year II (February 1794), the inhabitants of Cassagnoles called on their district administrators for help in the matter.24 All six questions posed by the inhabitants concerned the necessary qualifications for receiving a plot of partitioned common land. Three of the inquiries refer to the birth date of children and if they qualified for a plot; the other questions involved sons who no longer lived in the village, the status of the resident curé and whether or not those who died after the decision was taken to partition could bequeath their, as yet undistributed, plots to their offspring. In each case the administrator responded according to the criteria set out by the legislation and provided the clause and section of the text for reference. So in this instance and perhaps many of the other petitions that were sent to Paris, it was only a matter of interpreting the text and applying it to unforeseen circumstances. But there were also concerns which the Convention in Paris or the local officials could not satisfy, for they were fundamentally linked to the principles of the law. It has been said the law of 10 June 1793 was ‘a source of frustration rather than inspiration’25 because the terms set out in the legislation proved difficult to amalgamate with realities in the countryside. First and foremost, it proved very difficult to precisely define which common lands would actually be available for division. The law could only be applied to non-wooded commons or to drainable marshland, both of which tended to be in short supply in the regions of greatest social pressure. This matter became even more complex if the land in question had been usurped and was subsequently in the process of arbitration or if more than one commune/section had a claim to a particular common. Second, the financial requirements laid out in the law caused problems on various fronts. If the community was in debt, it could not proceed with partition until the books were in order. If plots on the common fields were rented or leased out, the tenants would have to be indemnified. And if the estimated fees to be charged by the experts for carrying out the partition were too high many communities would be unable to proceed. Another obstacle which was mentioned in the petitions sent to Paris was the problem of defining those who had a droit de partage. Temporary labourers and domestics caused the most anxiety, but the Ministry of the Interior was clear on the matter, for it declared that everyone who lived in the village for more than a year had a right to a plot.26 This caused much resentment in some communities for these people were often thought of as étrangers. The actual mode de partage which stipulated an individual division was also the source of much confusion, because most rural dwellers thought in terms of the household. In certain regions the par tête mode seems to have been respected (Seine-et-Oise), but in others the 24  A.D.G. L 1023, Questionnaire des Habitants de Cassagnoles aux Citoyens adminstrateurs du district d’Alais, 5 Ventôse II. 25   Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 148. 26  A.N. F10 333B, Réponse à la commune de Boullerat (Cher), Brumaire II, cited in Vivier, Propriété collective, 159.

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plots were consolidated into family holdings.27 Once the plot allocation had been drawn up, many communities realized that the resulting parcels would have been too small to serve any useful purpose, so the partition may not have been carried out. But the whole tone of the legislation posed a wider problem, for it revealed a selfish individualism absent hitherto. The permanent division of common land was seen by some as a direct affront to the customary conception of property, for this new law ‘sacrificed the interests of future generations for the short-term advantage of the present beneficiaries’.28 Nadine Vivier claims that the actual reception of this law depended somewhat on how the community viewed its common land, i.e. belonging to the present generation, to posterity or to the commune.29 But despite all of these difficulties and concerns, the law of 10 June 1793 was applied with limited success throughout France.

Application of the 10 June 1793 Decree in France Contemporary Jacobins claimed that the law of 10 June 1793 had given two million individuals the chance of owning property.30 This sentiment was further enhanced by representatives of the day proclaiming, Oh common lands…by your division you have been a powerful supporter of the Revolution. Thanks to you the honest and hardworking indigent has been pacified. Our doors are no longer haunted by the poor and everyone eats bread which has been grown by their own hands.31

This idea that the partition of common land satisfied the poorer members of society was reinforced when local sans-culottes, vignerons and autres cultivateurs in the Gironde trumpeted, ‘The day of 10 June! A day of glory and prosperity for the countryside, a day that will never be forgotten by those who possess little...’32 Thus, a myth took shape surrounding the law of 10 June 1793. Its central premise was that millions of poor peasants became property owners by receiving plots of partitioned common land. But how close was this to reality? The first historian to 27  In the Moselle, for example, 107 communes partitioned by head, while 579 divided the land between families. Vivier, Ibid. and the communes of Aramon and St.-Laurent-desArbres in the Gard that also divided up their commons into household plots. 28   Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 149. 29  N. Vivier, ‘Une question délaissé: les biens communaux aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles’, Revue historique 1 (1993), p. 151. 30  A.N. F10 329, cited in Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 147. 31   Opinion de Cunier, Député du Bas-Rhin, 3 pluviôse VII, p. 8. 32   Les sans-culottes, manouvriers, vignerons et autres cultivateurs, habitant les chaumières de Virelade, Arbanats et Portets (Bec d’Ambès), reprinted in Archives Parlementaires, vol. XCVI, p. 415.

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seriously study the law, Georges Bourgin, concluded at the turn of the twentieth century that large-scale results were for the most part unknown, but that it was unlikely the law had a great effect for it was so quickly followed by legislation suspending it.33 Jacques Godechot believed that the law was not very successful and that for the most part, the poor were hostile to it.34 Albert Soboul came to a similar conclusion in 1976; ‘In fact, one can write that the division of common land did not take place.’35 Peter Jones has also expressed doubts that ‘the public domain contracted to any appreciable degree’ due to the partition of village common land.36 Guy Lemarchand also tends to concur with this view, for despite all of the legislation, ‘common land had been consolidated by the Revolution’.37 But there are other historians who view of the impact and results of 10 June 1793 as more profound. In his classic study of French rural society, Marc Bloch was convinced of the positive impact of the Revolutionary legislation. ‘There can be no doubt that while it lasted partitioning of the commons provided many poorer people with the chance they had long been waiting for, the chance to acquire land for themselves.’38 But much of the positive attention this law has received in recent decades has been due in large measure to the work of the Russian historian Anatoli Ado. It seems that Ado was influenced by Eugène Petrow, a fellow Russian, who published two books on the topic of French common land in the eighteenth century during the 1930s. Petrow concludes that above all ‘the majority of the poor were in favour of the division of common land and by the most democratic means’.39 In his Paysans en Révolution, Ado has seized upon this idea of the poor desiring the partition of common land and claims that ‘many communes took the decision to divide their commons and … in certain places carried out (that decision)’.40 But while the success of the application of this law is stressed, Ado does admit to the difficulties that many communes had in actually carrying out a partition and that many which were achieved either lapsed or were overturned in time. What is central for Ado, of course, is the fact that the opportunity for poorer peasants to receive a plot of land existed. This is central to his voie paysanne thesis, which focuses on the poorer peasantry and their role in the development of agrarian capitalism. The most in-depth examination of this law and its effects has come from the French historian Nadine Vivier. While she affirms the fact that ‘many divisions 33

  Bourgin, ‘Les Communaux et la Révolution française’, p. 738.   Godechot, Les Institutions de la France, p. 518. 35  A. Soboul, Problèmes paysans de la révolution, 1789–1848. (Paris, 1976), p. 206. 36   Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 148. 37   G. Lemarchand, ‘Biens Communax’ in Dictionnaire Historique de la Révolution française, ed. A. Soboul (Paris, 1989), p. 119. 38   Bloch, French Rural History, p. 244. 39  E. Petrow, ‘Les Communaux et les servitudes rurales au XVIIIe siècle’, Ann. his. Rév. fran, XV (1938), pp. 459–62. 40  Ado, Paysans en Révolution, p. 374. 34

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which were voted, were never executed’, the overall effect of the legislation was considerable. If the intended results of the law were not fulfilled on a grand scale, it did have other effects. For example, it made communities reflect upon their collective practices and spurred them to act either in their defence or their abolition.41 In large measure it also confirmed the fact that common land gave rural communities shape and became a symbol of defiant unity in the face of Napoleonic spoliation for many municipalities.42 The 10 June 1793 decree was one of many legislative assaults upon les biens communaux and what Vivier stresses is that it should not be examined in isolation. Too many studies of this law end with its suspension in Prairial IV, while the real effects only begin to surface after the Napoleonic decree of 9 Ventôse XII. It is possible, of course, to study the short-term effects of 10 June 1793, i.e. how many communities were successful in dividing up their commons under this law. But ‘it is necessary to adopt a longer-term view’,43 for only then does a more complete picture emerge. This is the intention of the present inquiry in the Gard as subsequent chapters will consider Napoleon’s contribution to common land legislation, but for now our focus will continue to be the effects of the 1793 partition decree. It has been observed that this legislation was ‘well-received, but scarcely applied’,44 but who in the countryside welcomed the law and who opposed its implementation? There has been great historiographical debate surrounding this issue. George Lefebvre’s view of the peasantry has dominated the field of French agrarian history for more than fifty years. For him, the peasantry’s collective uses and practices were inextricably linked to their existence. Common land stood at the centre of this matrix, for it provided the poor with pasture for livestock, food, wood and even perhaps a small arable plot. In short, the commons were a safety net for many, and ‘once they lost this resource, they had nothing’.45 Another characteristic of the poorer peasantry, according to Lefebvre, was their anti-capitalist tendencies. In the same manner, Lefebvre viewed the richer peasants, whom he called ‘the rural bourgeoisie’, as the capitalist force in the countryside. From this it can be deduced that the poor should have been opposed to common land partition and the rich should have favoured it, for it represented the next step on the road to agrarian capitalism. But was this really the case? According to Nadine Vivier it was not. The desire for a plot of land was manifested across all social lines and emanated directly from the poor. She takes Lefebvre’s notion of the peasantry to task and states that ‘I do not think that there was deliberate collective instinct among the

 Vivier, Propriété collective, pp. 168 and 176.  Vivier, ‘Communaux et vitalité communautaire’, pp. 80–81. 43  Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 152. 44  M. Clavel, P. Lévêque, G. Lemarchand, and M.T. Lorcin, Les campagnes françaises (Paris, 1984), pp. 214–15. 45   Lefebvre, ‘The Place of the Revolution in the Agrarian history of France’, p. 36. 41 42

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peasantry, but more a desire to act in their best interests.’46 This is an important and astute observation. If the poor wanted a plot of partitioned common land and they needed only onethird of the votes to succeed, why were the overall results of the implementation of this law been so meagre? Some historians have viewed this situation and suggested that a concerted effort to block the legislation took place and that class conflict was at its source. Ado claims that in all of the fragmentary evidence ‘we have never found any opposition to division from the poor’. Rather it was the desires of the rich, the labourers and ménagers, which won the day for they monopolized the commons and did not want their partition.47 Soboul is also convinced that a deeper conflict is at the root of this issue, for in an address to the Convention written by vignerons from the Gironde, they protest that the non-application of the law was due to ‘large property owners and all of the bourgeoisie …(they were) the most forceful enemies of the law of 10 June 1793’.48 The resistance of richer inhabitants in the countryside may be explained by the specific mode de partage set out in the 1793 legislation. While the egalitarian prescription was abhorrent to many of them because it meant that servants would receive as much common land as their employers, the gros may have been more open to a partition which favoured their land-owning stature. Guy Lemarchand has also confirmed that ‘the operation clashed with resistance from large property owners’, but adds that the success of the law was also affected by ‘the bad will from authorities who saw it as a kind of agrarian law’.49 Despite this ardent historiographical debate, were the interests of the poor manœuvres so contrary to the rich laboureurs that the outcome of such monumental legislation could be so tainted? Peter Jones claims that the reality of the situation is ‘altogether less complicated’, and that ‘by and large the commons were not partitioned because it suited nobody’s interests to do so’.50 The commons were central to the proper functioning and agricultural balance in much of the countryside. If they were divided on a large scale then the equilibrium between pasture and arable would have been upset. Furthermore, the diversity of France and all its regional differentiation defies the imposition of a grand theory. There are many examples which will support Lefebvre’s contention that the peasantry was on the whole attached to its collective property and also cases which will confirm Ado’s voie paysanne thesis. The attempts to create an overarching theory explaining the outcomes of the legislation of 10 June 1793 should be avoided. Rather, it is only through regional studies that a better understanding of this complex situation will arise.

 Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 167.  Ado, Paysans en Révolution, pp. 377–9. 48   Soboul, Problèms paysans, p. 207. 49   Lemarchand, ‘Communaux’, p. 119. 50   Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 148. 46 47

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Fortunately there have been quite a number of regional investigations of the impact of 10 June 1793 (see Table 3.1). What emerges are distinct zones where the law was successfully implemented and areas where it seems to have had no effect at all. First and foremost it is easy to identify the regions where the law had little or no impact (or where it has not been purposefully studied). Brittany, other provinces of the West, and the high mountains are areas where there does not seem to have been very many Revolutionary partitions. In Brittany, the chouannerie, which began in the spring of 1793 and was ravaging the countryside by the summer was the issue of the day and did not allow the luxury to debate the best usage of common pastures. In Poitou, Orléanais, Touraine and Périgord there was little common land and hence its possible division was not a question. Along France’s eastern border, the mountain communities of the Alps and Jura tended to preserve their communal pastures as élevage was central to the rural economy. In the department of the Léman, which existed from 1798–1814 and encompassed the ancien régime province of Savoy, Paul Guichonnet has outlined the partition process in one village, Bonneville. But he concludes that while a few communes may have implemented the 10 June 1793 legislation, the vast majority preferred to leave their commons under la jouissance collective.51 The situation in the Massif Central is more complex as decisions regarding common land depended upon the natural environment and variable economic circumstances. The law seems to have been implemented with some success in certain areas. In the Creuse, P. Saillol found that 30 partitions took place in the department under 10 June 1793, but that the ideals enshrined in the law were more profound and continued to have an impact well into the nineteenth century as an egalitarian division of all common land took place in 1868.52 Peter Jones has found that in the southern Massif Central only a small number of communes sought to implement the law, but this was ‘less an indication of the general satisfaction concerning the way in which the commons were managed, than an acknowledgment of the pivotal position they occupied in the rural economy of the region’.53 While there may have been quite a few illegal clearings of common land by the poor during the period, Nadine Vivier concludes that in the Massif Central ‘the collective patrimony was hardly affected’ by the Revolutionary legislation.54

51

  P. Guichonnet, ‘Biens communaux et partages révolutionnaires dans l’ancien département du Léman’, Études ruales 36 (1969), pp. 7–36. 52   P. Saillol, ‘Les biens communaux dans le Creuse sous la Révolution’, in La Révolution française et le monde rurale (Paris, 1989), pp. 301–15. 53   P.M. Jones, ‘Common rights and agrarian individualism in the southern Massif Central, 1750–1880’ in Beyond the Terror: Essays in French Regional and Social History, 1794-1815 (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 121–51. 54  Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 164.

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Table 3.1 The impact of the 10 June 1793 decree in France

Department Ardèche Aube Aube Côte-d’Or Côte-d’Or Côte-d’Or Côte-d’Or

District

Bar-sur-Seine Bar-sur-Aube Beaune Châtillon St. Jean-deLosne

Communes Total no. Voting For Communes Partition

29 15

31 10

5 3 5 50(?) 29(?) 15(?)

69

6

6

6(?)

292 356

Gard Haute-Garonne Haute-Garonne Haute-Garonne Haute-Garonne Haute-Garonne Léman Lot Haute-Marne Haute-Marne Haute-Marne Haute-Marne Meurthe Meurthe Moselle Nord Nord Nord Nord Nord Nord Nord

385 601 120 73 77 53 275 73 549 70

St. Céré Bourmont Chaumont Joinville Nancy

713 79 930 665

25 15 4 16 5

102 87 88 130 63

79 9 7 15 18 18 22

Oise

734

220

Pas-de-Calais

927

Avesnes Cambrai Le Quesnoy Valenciennes Lille Douai

Total no. Partitions Executed

334 64 92 728 87 107

Creuse Drôme

Toulouse Muret Grenade Villefranche

Communes Voting Against Partition

6

30 11(1791–92) 14 (After 1793) 18(?) 7 3 0 1 3 3 4 At least 35 20 9 6 505(?) 12 567(?) 69(?) 2 4 12 17 12 22(?) 40 Before 1793 109 After 1793 35

68

Department Haute-Saône Seine-et-Marne Seine-et-Marne Seine-et-Marne Seine-et-Marne Seine-et-Marne Seine-et-Oise Seine-et-Oise Seine-et-Oise Seine-et-Oise Seine-et-Oise Seine-et-Oise Somme Somme Somme Haute-Vienne Vosges Total for France

Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution

District

Communes Total no. Voting For Communes Partition

Communes Voting Against Partition

Total no. Partitions Executed

5

169(?) 45 27 8 9 1 51 31 12 6 2 1 31 11 17 1 270(?)

Meaux Melun Provins Nemours Pontoise Corbeil Versailles Etampes Dourdan Montdidier Péronne St. Junien

76 78 54 958 150 182 32

70 39 16 7 8 4

2

22 43

712

60

1908(?)

Sources: P. Bozon, La Vie rurale en Vivarais: étude géographique (Valence, 1963), p. 152 J.-J. Clère, Les paysans de la Haute-Marne et la Révolution française (Paris, 1988), pp. 239–40 P. Guichonnet, ‘Les Biens communaux et les partages révolutionnaires dans l’ancien département du Léman’, Etudes Rurales, 36 (1969), p. 28 F. Gauthier, La voie paysanne dans la Révolution française (Paris, 1977), pp. 62 and 194 G.-R. Ikni, ‘Sur les biens communaux pendant la Révolution française,’ Ann. his. Rév. fran., 247 (1982), pp. 89–91 P.M. Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 150–51 G. Lefebvre, Les Paysans du Nord pendant la Révolution française (Bari, 1959), pp. 544–6, 551 N.L. Plack, ‘Agrarian Individualism, Collective Practices and the French Revolution: the Law of 10 June 1793 and the Partition of Common Land in the Department of the Gard’, European History Quarterly, 35:1 (2005), pp. 39–62 G. Richert, ‘Biens communaux et droits d’usage en Haute-Garonne pendant la Réaction thermidorienne et sous le Directoire,’ Ann. his. Rév. fran. 23 (1951), pp. 274–88 J.-P. Rothiot, ‘La question des communaux dans les Vosges (1770–1816): triage, partage et appropriation privée’, Annales de l’Est 1(1999), pp. 211–45 P. Saillol, ‘Les Biens communaux dans la Creuse sous la Révolution’, La Révolution française et le monde rurale (Paris, 1989), p. 307

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N. Vivier, Propriété collective et identité communale, Les Biens Communaux en France, 1750–1914 (Paris, 1998), pp. 169–74

While the West, Centre, and Alps tended to be areas where the partition of common land was not a wide-spread practice, the departments north of Paris, NorthEast and South were zones where the law of 10 June 1793 was implemented with greater success. The first regional study to examine the effects of this legislation was carried out by Georges Lefebvre in the department of the Nord in the 1920s.55 Despite the fact that the prefect of the department was opposed to partition, Lefebvre found that the division of common land was desired and executed in the Nord on a small scale, but that many of the partitions were later annulled under Napoleon. In the neighbouring department of the Pas-de-Calais, there was also a strong interest in the partition of the commons judging by the petitions sent to Paris. J.M. Sallmann found that out of the 326 communes possessing common land, 35 executed their partition.56 For the Somme, Florence Gauthier reports that only 31 partitions were executed and maintained, but that behind these disappointing results lay a troubling class conflict. ‘The strong opposition from well-off peasants succeeded to break the partition movement.’57 Gauthier claims that despite this conflict an egalitarian movement for partition of common land did exist and that this campaign was but one step on the revolutionary path towards the peasant-led development of agrarian capitalism. G.R. Ikni’s work on the Oise also supports this voie paysanne thesis. Here there were 40 partitions which took place before 10 June 1793, and 109 were executed after the legislation was decreed.58 Ikni estimates that almost 30,000 individuals received land from these endeavours; a number which far outweighs those who benefited from the sale of biens nationaux in the region.59 The resulting plots were often trivial and only really constituted large gardens, but the supplemental légumes permitted many families to survive the various subsistence crises of the Revolution, notably the one in the Year III. Ikni also claims that while the social pressures within many communities prevented partitions from being executed, poorer inhabitants were often able to re-negotiate the usage terms of common land on a more egalitarian basis. Thus, the application of the 10 June 1793 law in departments of the North has received much attention, but there are other regions which saw the partition of common land as well.

  Lefebvre, Les paysans du Nord, pp. 544–50.   J.-M. Sallmann, Étude sur l’Ancien Régime agraire. La question des biens communaux en Artois de la fin du XVIIe au début du XIXe siècle, non-publiée (Paris, 1974), cited in Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 173. 57   Gauthier, La voie paysanne, p. 198. 58   G.-R. Ikni, ‘Sur les biens communaux pendant la Révolution française’, pp. 89–90. 59   G.-R. Ikni, Crise agraire et révolution paysanne, le mouvement populaire dans les campagnes de l’Oise de la decennie physiocratique à l’an II (Lille, 1993), vol. 3, p. 39. 55

56

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It seems that in the departments surrounding Paris, there was a good deal of agitation over the fate of common land. In the Seine-et-Marne and the Seineet-Oise, there were pre-1793 movements to divide up the commons in many communities. The Seine-et-Marne saw a total of 45 partitions take place after the law was declared, while 51 communes in the Seine-et-Oise executed divisions under this legislation.60 But it appears that the region of Lorraine 250km east of Paris experienced the greatest incidence of common land partition under 10 June 1793. According to the Statistique du préfet of the Meurthe for the Year XII, 4/5th of all non-wooded common land had been divided, representing more than 8000 ha.61 In the Moselle, only 17 per cent of all communes did not implement the partition legislation.62 A more in-depth study has been carried out for the department of the Vosges.63 Here at least half of all communes proceeded to partition all or part of their common lands. Characteristically, the law was most successful in communes located in the plain, because much of the communal pasture could be transformed into arable. Partitions took place in three-quarters of all communities in the districts of Mirecourt, Lamarche, Neufchâteau, while only a total of 12 divisions took place in the three mountain districts of Saint-Dié, Senones and Remiremont. Rothiot concludes that while the 10 June 1793 legislation was widely implemented in the low-lying districts of the Vosges, he also discovered that many of these partitions were ‘annulled’ under the law of 9 Ventôse XII. But regardless of these modifications (most of the holders were able to retain their plots by paying an annual rent), the changes brought on by partitioning, renting and selling communal land during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods demonstrates a sharp rise in agrarian individualism. Although the shared use of common land survived, especially in mountainous areas, the trend of economic individualism encroaching upon communal structures began during this period in the Vosges. In Champagne and Burgundy there were also a significant number of partitions carried out. In the Haute-Marne, there were at least 35 partitions executed, but many more were annulled in the Year XII. On the whole, J.J. Clère concludes that the mass of the peasantry remained indifferent to partition, because although the rural poor may have desired an individual plot, it could not come at the expense of their communal holdings.64 The situation is similar in the Côte-d’Or where N. Vivier claims that the issue was of great importance and that at least onequarter of all common land was partitioned.65 Peter Jones has found a much smaller number of actual partitions – perhaps only 50 communities divided their commons out of a total of 728 communes in the department. But Marcel Henriot  Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 174.  Ibid., p. 165. 62  Ibid. 63   J.P. Rothiot, ‘La question des communaux dans les Vosges (1770–1816): triage, partage et appropriation privée’, Annales de L’Est 1 (1999), pp. 211–45. 64   Clère, Les paysans de la Haute-Marne, pp. 242–3. 65  Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 165. 60

61

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adds that the majority of inhabitants in the district of Arnay-sur-Arroux desired partition. However, Henriot implies that the Jacobin partition decree did not have a profound effect on ‘the rural world of the arnétois’ because there were too many obstacles preventing its execution.66 In the Midi, where there was extensive common land during the eighteenth century, what was the impact of 10 June 1793? Unfortunately this region has not been the focus of as many studies as departments to the North, but there are a few exceptions. The department of the Var in Provence has been the subject of recent work on the impact of Revolutionary common land legislation. Here, the mountainous biens communaux, covered with pine and holm oak trees, were classified as ‘bois’ and thus were not available for partition under 10 June 1793.67 Even in areas where there was common waste or pasture land that was subject to division, most inhabitants realized that as the collective practice of vaine pâture was weak in the region, communal pastures were indispensable.68 Hence, there were few partitions of non-wooded common land in the Var, as the district of Draguignan confirmed, ‘to our knowledge few communes proceeded to divide their common land and that we believe that the execution of the law was neglected in our arrondissement’.69 Moving west along the Mediterranean coast, Peter McPhee has found similar paltry results for the implementation of 10 June 1793 within the Corbières region in the department of the Aude.70 On the whole, the communes in this area did not respond favourably to this law. In the district of Carcassonne, only ten communes desired to partition their commons, four were opposed, five stated that they did not have any, while the other 76 did not even reply to a letter requesting their views on the matter. In the district of Narbonne, most communes decided to keep their garrigues together for their livestock. While one village, Ornaisons, appears to have used the law to divide up a section of its common land, the rest did not. McPhee concludes that what seems to have happened was that the large flockowners decided to accept the illegal clearing of small arable plots on the garrigues by the poor, in return for keeping what remained as pasture.

  Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, pp. 150–51 and M. Henriot, ‘Le partage des biens communaux en Côte-d’Or sous la Révolution. L’exemple du district d’Arnay-sur-Arroux’, Annales du Bourgogne 19 (1947), pp. 262–73. 67  D. Solakian, ‘Pratiques partaguses et communaux en Provence orientale au XVIIIe siècle’, in La Révolution française et le monde rural (Paris, 1989), pp. 443–55. 68   Y. Rinaudo, ‘La révolution conservatrice: les bois communaux varois au XIXe siècle’, in Révolution et espaces forestiers (Paris, 1989), pp. 175–90. 69  D. Solakian, Recherches sur les troubles agraires de la région de Draguignan: usages, partages et troubles dans les terres communes de dix villages de la montagne, particulièrement au terrior de Pourguet, à travers 250 documents (1676–1819) (Paris, 1979), p. 369. 70  McPhee, Revolution and Environment, pp. 130–31. 66

72

Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution

In like manner, G. Richert has studied the application of 10 June 1793 in the Haute-Garonne and found that only a minority of communes favoured the law and fewer still actually executed it.71 While the will to divide was stronger in the plains, there was less common land in these areas. In the majority of the mountain communes where they were more extensive, the pasturing of livestock on communal land was essential. In a few of these mountain communes clearance and cultivation of some common plots had been attempted, but with unsatisfactory results. In total only seven legal partitions took place in the entire department. Thus, in the Haute-Garonne, most peasants refused the partition of common land because they were an obligatory component of eighteenth-century subsistencebased agriculture. They were primarily used to pasture livestock in this region because their poor soils could not support long-term grain cultivation. Richert concludes for the Revolutionary period as Henri Sée did for the ancien régime that the partition of common land was ‘conditioned by economic life in the countryside’ and that in the Haute-Garonne this meant preserving the ancestral usage of the soil. If the vast tracts of common land in Haut-Languedoc were extensively used to pasture livestock what of the lower half of the old regime province in which the Gard can be found? Unfortunately, only fragmentary evidence exists, but the same sparse results of the implementation of the 10 June 1793 legislation seem to persist despite the various efforts by administrators in Paris. On 27 October 1793, the Subsistence Commission was created to oversee war requisitions and to stimulate agricultural production. This Commission, along with the Committee of Public Safety, was charged with the task of encouraging rural France to divide up its common land. On 5 Frimaire II (26 November 1793), the Committee of Public Safety sent out a nationwide circular which asked, rather prematurely, the results of the 10 June 1793 legislation. Similarly in Nivôse II (December 1793), the Subsistence Commission urged the departments to implement the law because ‘this law should be dear to every good patriot because it tends to increase the resources of the entire nation and to bring land, which egotism and greed had condemned to eternal sterility, back to life’.72 In the department of the Ardèche responses to these appeals proved difficult to extract. After numerous requests the district of Tanargue finally replied that This law was not executed in the district; a few communes had proceeded to divide their commons in virtue of the law of 14 August 1792 but because

71   G. Richert, ‘Biens communaux et droits d’usage en Haute-Garonne pendant la Réaction thermidorienne et sous le Directoire’, Ann. his. Rév. fran., 23 (1951), pp. 274–88. 72   Circulaire du 7 Nivôse II aux administrations de départment, reprinted in P. Carron, La Commission des Subsistences de l’An II, procès verbaux et acts (Paris, 1925), pp. 157–8.

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they did not follow the mode prescribed by the 1793 decree, the division was declared invalid.73

Thus, it seems that the law of 10 June 1793 was not applied on a large scale in the Ardèche. P. Bozon confirms that only five communes out of a total of 334 carried out a partition of their common land.74 A similarly thin result seems to have been likely for the nearby department of the Hérault as the district of Montpellier reported in Pluviôse II (January 1794) that ‘we have not yet begun the first operations relative to dividing up the commons’.75 Thus from these relatively few sources, the overall effects of the revolutionary partition legislation seem to have been quite minimal in the south of France. Let us now turn our attention to the application of the 10 June 1793 law in the department of the Gard.

Results in the Ecological Micro-regions of the Gard To begin, the sources used in this study should not be taken for granted and thus need careful consideration. It must be acknowledged that many gaps exist in the documents that have survived and hence it is rare for a complete record of the partition process, including municipal minutes, procès verbaux, plot allocations, maps of divided lands, etc., to have remained together. The administrative procedure laid out in the law was quite complicated, i.e. making double originals, and was not always respected by the municipal officials. In addition, during the Year III the districts were dissolved and in many areas the preservation of their archives was not a high priority. Hence, the documents that do survive can only give us a partial view of what actually occurred. But despite these obstacles, the documents in the Gard’s departmental archives regarding the partition of common land are quite numerous. Most of the correspondence between Nîmes, the districts and the communes are found in the L series, which is where nearly all of the Revolutionary documents are classified. More specific information about individual communes is usually found in the O series under the sub-heading of biens communaux. Although this series officially contains material dating from the Year VIII, there are often copies of municipal minutes, procès verbaux and other information regarding 10 June 1793 partitions as these documents were frequently requested by the subprefects during the implementation of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. That being said, we can estimate that 25 partitions were voted under the 10 June 1793 legislation in the department of the Gard and that at least 18 of these were

73  A.N. D III 14, Lettre de l’administration du départment au Comité de salut public, 3 Floréal II (22 Avril 1794), cited in Ado, Paysans en Révolution, p. 376. 74   P. Bozon, La vie rurale en Vivarais: étude géographique (Valence, 1963), p. 152. 75  A.N. F7 3678, Réponses du district de Montpellier aux questions de Comité de salut public, cited in Ado, Paysans en Révolution, p. 377.

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actually carried out (see Table 3.2).76 However, even when they were successful, it was unusual for villagers to partition their entire stock of common land; it was most likely just a portion of it. Furthermore, it seems that of the 18 successful partitions at least three of these were annulled within a decade. The majority of partitions took place in the garrigues micro-region which dominates the middle and eastern half of the department (See Map 2). Most of the legal division were carried out in two distinct areas. The first was the territory between Nîmes and Alès and the second was along the eastern boarder of the department in the Côtes-du-Rhône. Both of these areas have similar topographical features, that is to say they are typical garrigue landscapes with some arable lowlands offset by dry hillsides covered in scrubby brush. There was only one legal partition made in the coastal plain between Nîmes and the Mediterranean in the village of Saint-Laurent d’Aigouze and none in the northern and western corners of the department which are dominated by the Cévennes mountains. Almost all of communes which voted for partition did so within about a year of the law’s promulgation. Unfortunately, for the five villages of Bagard, Cassagnoles, Tornac, Gajan and Massillargues-Attuech, only the assembly minutes authorizing the partition or the procès verbal survive, so it is almost impossible to confirm if the partition was actually carried out. In Vauvert, a large village in the Mediterranean coastal plain, a partition was voted but never executed because the inhabitants decided that the cost of implementing it was too high and the resulting plots would be too small.77 The other partitions were confirmed when municipal officials responded to the enquête of the Committee of Public Safety in Frimaire II or later by the sub-prefect or prefect when the communes were asked to submit proof of the legality of their partitions in accordance with the law of 9 Ventôse XII. Table 3.2 Application of the 10 June 1793 decree in the Gard Voted Partition

Executed Partition

District d’Alès Bagard

X

?

Cassagnoles

X

?

Castelnau-Valence

X

X

76

Partition Annulled

X

Observations Voted 4 August 1793 Procès verbal 4 August 1793 Annulled 17 April 1806 because of fabricated procès verbal

 These results were originally published in N.L. Plack, ‘Agrarian Individualism, Collective Practices and the French Revolution: the Law of 10 June 1793 and the Partition of Common Land in the Department of the Gard’, European History Quarterly, 35:1 (2005), pp. 39–62. 77  A.D.G. L 519 Vauvert, Lettre du 9 Fructidor II.

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Voted Partition

Executed Partition

Partition Annulled

Domessargues

X

X

X

Martignargues

X

X

Maruéjols-lésGardon

X

X

Ners

X

X

X

X

X

?

Annulled 4 Pluviôse X because land was wooded Confirmed by sub-prefect 18 February 1808 Possible annulment under 9 Ventôse XII because land was wooded in 1793(?) Confirmed by prefect 28 Fructidor X Confirmed by sub-prefect 19 March 1808 Voted 10 November 1793

X

X

Confirmed 1 Germinal III

X

X

Confirmed 9 Fructidor II

X

X

Confirmed 15 Fructidor II

St. Jean-deCeyrargues Tornac District de Beaucaire Aramon District de Nîmes Nîmes St. Laurentd’Aigouze Vauvert

?

Observations

Voted 9 Fructidor II, but never executed

X

District de Pont-Saint-Esprit Lirac

X

X

Orsan

X

X

Pouzilhac

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

St. Étienne-desSorts St. Laurent-desArbres St. Laurent-desCarnols Tavel

X

Occupiers claim under 9 Ventôse XII Verbal partition; occupiers claim under 9 Ventôse XII Confirmed by sub-prefect 27 May 1806 Confirmed by prefect 10 Messidor XIII Partition annulled 16 Brumaire IX Occupiers claim under 9 Ventôse XII Voted 11 August 1793

District de Sommières Cannes-et-Clairan

Confirmed by prefect 10 August 1809

76

Gajan

Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution Voted Partition

Executed Partition

X

?

Procès verbal 22 Fructidor III

?

Procès verbal 8 Brumaire IV

District de St. Hippolyte MassillarguesX Attuech

Partition Annulled

Observations

District d’Uzès Dions

X

Vallérargues

X

Total

25

Confirmed 27 February 1807 Occupiers ordered to abandon land under 9 Ventôse XII

X

18(?)

3(?)

Sources: Archives Départementales du Gard L 512 Biens communaux: dossiers par commune - Aramon L 514 Biens communaux: dossiers par commune - Nîmes L 517 Biens communaux: dossiers par commune - Saint-Laurent d’Aigouze L 519 Biems communaux: dossiers par commune - Vauvert L 1023 District d’Alès: biens communaux, partage - Bagnard, Cassagnoles, Maruéjols-lèsGardon, Tornac L 1101 District de Beaucaire: biens communaux, partage - Aramon, Lirac, Vallérarques L 1220 District de Nîmes: biens communaux, partage - Vauvert L 1350 District de Pont-Saint-Esprit, biens communaux - St.-Étienne-des-Sorts, St.-Laurentdes-Carnol, St.-Laurent-des-Arbres 2 O 163 Aramon: biens communaux, an XII-1940 2 O 244 Bagnard: biens et revenu communaux, an IX-1936 2 0 514 Cannes-et-Clairan: biens communaux, 1809-1936 2 O 546 Castelnau-Valence: biens communaux, an VIII-1890 2 0 700 Dions: biens et revenus commuanaux, an X-1929 2 O 713 Domessargues: biens et revenus communaux, 1806-1913 2 O 800 Gajan: biens et revenus communaux, an XII-1936 2 O 961 Lirac: biens et revenus communaux, an XI-1939 2 O 1008 Martignargues: biens et revenus communaux, 1808-1891 2 O 1020 Maruéjols-lès-Gardon: biens et revenus communaux, 1806-1911 2 O 1028 Massillargues-Attuech: biens communaux, an IV-1934 2 O 1176 Ners: biens communaux, an XI-1940 2 O 1269 Nîmes: biens communaux, an X-1937 2 O 1300 Orsan: biens et revenus communaux, 1807-1937 2 O 1376 Pouzilhac: biens et revenus communaux, 1810-1937 2 O 1574 Saint-Étienne-des-Sorts: biens et revenus communaux, 1808-1939 2 O 1668 Saint-Jean-de-Ceyrargues: biens et revenus communaux, 1808-1912 2 0 1740 Saint-Laurent-des-Arbres: biens et revenus communaux, 1808-1931

Map 2 Villages in the Gard affected by the law of 10 June 1793

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2 O 1989 Tavel: biens et revenus communaux, an XIII-1939 2 O 2059 Vallérargues: biens et revenus communaux, an XIII-1916 2 O 2083 Vauvert: biens communaux, an X-1930

It has been observed that the department of the Gard was a hotbed of both religious and political fervour. The success of the 10 June 1793 legislation however seems to cut across both Protestant and Catholic regions, as Huguenot villages south of Alès had as high of an implementation rate as their Catholic counterparts in the east of the department. In addition it seems that the Revolutionary political culture had successfully permeated rural society in the Gard as the presence of a political club affected the implementation of the partition law. Ten of the 25 villages which voted for partition had a société politique in 1793.78 It is also clear that the majority of the villages which implemented the partition legislation were not far from a major city or town which had a political club, most likely of Jacobin incarnation. Furthermore, areas which were close to Nîmes, Alès, Bagnols-surCèze or Roquemaure (each of these had a Jacobin club by 1791) were more aware of national legislation and were also more likely to respond to departmental enquêtes.79 The thorny question of who supported/opposed these partitions in the Gard is very difficult to answer from the source documents. In most of the municipal assembly minutes or procès verbaux it is stated that the decision was taken unanimously, unaniment à la haute voix, but this can be misleading. It is possible that not everyone in the commune attended these Sunday assemblies and that those who stayed away had good reasons to do so. It could have been that the decision was made unanimously because the middling or poorer members of the community who would have benefited the most from this legislation attended in large numbers. But because of the egalitarian prescriptions laid out by the law, large stockowners or rich laboureurs may not have been so keen to divide up the commons between all members of the community.80 Thus, they may not have attended the assembly meetings. But a more likely scenario, given the rather weak results of successful implementation of the law, is that these economic elite did attend and were able to block a successful vote for partition.81 In the 25 villages  The communes with a société politique were Aramon, Lirac, Ners, Nîmes, Orsan, St.-Étienne-des-Sorts, St.-Laurent-d’Aigouze, St.-Laurent-des-Arbres, Tavel,and Vauvert. J. Boutier and P. Boutry, Atlas de la Révolution française, VI: les sociétés politiques (Paris, 1992), pp. 28–9 and 85–6. 79  Most of the correspondence between Nîmes and the municipalities regarding the issue of common land comes from a 30km radius. 80  It was, of course, the rich who monopolized common pastures and therefore wanted to preserve these lands for their large herds. See P.T. Hoffman, Growth in a Traditional Society: the French Countryside, 1450–1815 (Princeton, 1996), p. 27. 81  The strongest case for elite (fermier) domination across the Revolution is found in J.P Jessenne, Pouvoir au village et Révolution en Artois, 1760–1848 (Lille, 1987). 78

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that did vote to divide, unanimity may have simply been a procedural device once the balance of opinions had been ascertained. Another perplexing issue regarding the voting procedure for the partition decree is to determine if women were actually included in the process. Article 5, section III of the law authorized every individual de tout sexe over the age of twenty to participate and vote in the decision-taking proceeding. But were women really given an equal voice in the matter? Traditionally only widows, as chefs de feu, were allowed to participate in l’assemblée de communautés d’habitants.82 For deciding the fate of village common lands in 1793, Nadine Vivier believes that women were rarely allowed to vote in the municipal assemblies, even if they were present.83 However Serge Aberdam argues that women’s role in the procedures was far from negligible and has criticized historians because they have not actually looked for it or analysed it any specific way.84 For example, Paul Guichonnet in his article on the partitions in the Haute-Savoie does not mention the participation of women yet reproduces a document which clearly lists widows who had received plots when the allocation was made in the village of Bonneville.85 In the Gard, most of the procès verbaux from municipal assemblies do not make mention of the presence of women. Could this be because they were not allowed to attend or, if they were there, did they simply defer to the husbands on this matter? In the commune of Vallérargues, however, located 20km east of Alès, women were not only present at the municipal assembly meeting, but also cast their votes in favour of partition in August 1793.86 Although this partition was never executed, 33 of the total 74 votes calling for division were registered by females. Most of them were wives or daughters of men who were supporting the partition campaign, but some were widows and thus perhaps made their decisions more independently. While this inclusion of women in the voting process seems rare, it does demonstrate that some communities tried to follow the letter of the law even if their partitions were, in the end, never executed. While only a handful of legal partitions under the 10 June 1793 decree were ever made in the Gard, many of these were not ‘regularized’ until a decade or more after the original division was made. Because of this fact, the landmark local government law of 28 Pluviôse VIII (17 February 1800) which reorganized departmental administration affected the outcome of the Revolutionary partition process. Instead of the original three-tired system of departmental, district and communal officials, appointed prefects, sub-prefects and mayors controlled local   J.P. Gutton, La sociabilité villageoise dans la France d’Ancien Régime (Paris, 1979), pp. 75–6. 83  Vivier, Propriété collective, pp. 148–9. 84   S. Aberdam, ‘Deux occasions de participation feminine en 1793: le vote sur la constitution et le partage des biens communuax’, Ann. his. Rév. fran. 339 (2005), pp. 17–34. 85   P. Guichonnet, ‘Biens communaux et partages révoutionnaires’, p. 21. 86  A.D.G. 2 O 2059 Vallérargues, Déliberation des cioyens qui ont convenu le partage des biens communuax du lieu du Vallératgues, 11 Août 1793. 82

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affairs after 1800.87 A newly appointed mayor would have most likely been a landowning peasant with modest income and they may have been able in some cases to influence the final outcome of the partition process.88 Sometimes the mayors, along with the municipal council, acted to confirm a legal partition, oversee an unresolved problem, or actively pursue an annulment. Because much of the correspondence survives between mayors, municipal councils, sub-prefects and prefects, we can see how this new administrative system functioned and how these officials had to manage the effects of quite radical Jacobin social legislation. The commune of Ners, located 10 km south of Alès in one of the two main areas in the Gard to experience legal divisions under the 10 June 1793 decree, underwent a partition of its common land, but there were many problems surrounding this procedure. It all began when the first law ordering the division of common land was passed on 14 August 1792. Although this legislation was inoperable, the native-born inhabitants of Ners carried out a partition of common land under the August 1792 law all the same. We know this because a petition was sent to the Committee of Agriculture in November 1792 by an inhabitant of Ners who was excluded from the partition.89 It seems that all non-native inhabitants were denied a plot of common land in this pre-1793 division. When the law of 10 June 1793 finally appeared, the inhabitants carried out a new partition, but it still contained many errors, irregularities, and injustices. Three sections of common land were divided on 24 Frimaire II, but no written record of the plot allocation was ever made. In this second partition, fifty individuals, allegedly non-native residents, never received a plot. Thirty of them who were desperate for land cleared plots for themselves on the portion of common land which the community had set aside for pasture. All of this came to the attention of the Minister of the Interior as the municipal council sent a memoir to Paris sometime in the Year IX.90 They lamented that those left out of the Year II partition were treated like ‘illegitimate children’ and proposed that a new partition be made. The Gard’s prefect responded with an arrêté on 28 Fructidor X stating that the partition made during the Year II should stand and that a tax list was to be drawn up and payment of the tax was to be considered as title for the properties.91 The prefect also instructed the mayor to convoke a special meeting of the municipal council to debate whether the usurpers who were left out of the Year II partition should be made to give up their lands or be able to keep them. On 17 January 1808 the municipal council   See I. Woloch, The New Regime, Transformations of the French Civic Order, 1789–1820s (New York, 1994), pp. 127–33. 88  Ibid., p. 129. See as well J. Dunne, ‘Napoleon’s “mayoral problem”: aspects of state-community relations in post-revolutionary France’, Modern and Contemporary France 8:4 (2000), pp. 479–91. 89  A.N. F10 330, Pétition d’un habitant au Comité d’agriculture, 3 novembre 1792, cited in Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, pp. 468–9. 90  A.D.G. 2 O 1176 Ners, Mémoire du Conseil Municipal, s.d (an IX?). 91  A.D.G. 2 O 1176 Ners, Extrait de registre des arrêtés du Gard, 28 Fructidor X. 87

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of Ners deliberated this matter and concluded that because the clearances were made in the spirit of 10 June 1793 and that they had occurred before 21 Prairial IV, the inhabitants should be able to keep their lands.92 The sub-prefect approved this decision in March 1808.93 Thus, this example illustrates how long and complicated the process of legally sanctioning a partition made in the Year II could become and how fully the post-1800 administrators were involved in these actions. The village of Saint-Laurent-des-Arbres in the Côtes-du-Rhône region, the other area in the Gard to see many divisions, also experienced two partitions of its common land. In responding to the Committee of Public Safety’s enquête of Frimaire Year II, the municipal council confirmed in the previous Fructidor that a partition of the commons which surrounded the village had taken place three months earlier and that there had been ‘no problems’.94 But for some reason this partition was abandoned and another perhaps more inclusive one was carried out par la voie de la pluralité des habitants in the Year VIII.95 In Thermidor of that year a larger section of the same common land was divided between 879 individuals but grouped within 202 family plots.96 Because this second partition took place after the law of 21 Prairial IV which suspended any action under the law of 10 June 1793, the prefect issued an arrêté which annulled this division on 16 Brumaire IX. But this annulment seems to have been ignored by the majority of plot holders. A month later the sub-prefect urged the mayor to recover these usurped lands, some of which many have been covered in green oaks, and reminded him that ‘under no circumstance could the portion planted with woods be separated from the communal patrimony’.97 But 49 of these détenteurs made submissions under the law of 9 Ventôse XII because they wanted to keep the lands which they had held since Year VIII. The municipal council held a special session in Pluvôise XIII to determine whether or not the usurpers should be able to retain their lands. During this deliberation it was revealed that the mayor and most members of the council had always regarded these undertakings as illegal seizures of communal property and that the ‘joyous revolution of 18 Brumaire’ was welcomed as it forced a change in the local administration which eventually brought about the

92  A.D.G. 2 O 1176 Ners, Déliberation du Conseil de la Commune de Ners, 17 janvier 1808. 93  A.D.G. 2 O 1176 Ners, Extrait des Registres de la Sous-Préfet du 1er Arrondissement du Gard,19 Mars 1808. 94  A.D.G. L 1350, Saint-Laurent-des-Arbres, 1er Fructidor II. 95  A.D.G. 2 O 1740 St. Laurent-des-Arbres, Partage des Biens Communaux de SaintLaurent-des-Arbres, 11 Thermidor VIII. 96  The total population of St. Laurent-des-Arbres was 1000 in the Year VIII; Lacroix, Paroisses et Communes en France: Gard, p. 388. 97  A.D.G. 2 O 1740 St. Laurent-des-Arbres, Le Sous-Prefet du 2ème Arrondissement du Gard au Maire, 15 Floréal IX.

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prefect’s annulment of the second partition in the Year IX.98 The end result in Saint-Laurent-des-Arbres is difficult to know because although the sub-prefect ordered the holders to give up their lands in 1806 and the prefect called for their eviction in 1820, the matter was still unresolved a year later as the mayor needed an official état nomimatif de détenteurs to finally put the matter to rest.99 From this long and drawn out affair it is clear that both the mayor and the municipal council were determined to punish the usurpers who had cleared communal garrigue and planted it with grape vines. But what is also evident is that once possession of a plot of land had taken place it was very difficult to evict a holder no matter how many official decrees were sent forth. There were at least two further annulments of partitions executed under 10 June 1793 which took place in the Gard during the Revolutionary decade. In CastelnauValence, located in the garrigue region between Nîmes and Alès, a partition of common land into 60 plots was allegedly made under the terms of 10 June 1793, but no evidence of this division was ever written down. In Messidor XIII a copy of the procès verbal was submitted to the prefect, but he suspected that this ‘copy’ was actually a manufactured document fabricated at a later date only to give holders title to the land. This affair seems to have gone all the way to Paris as it was the Minister of the Interior who finally ruled in April 1806 that the annulment of the partition by the prefect of the Gard was confirmed.100 In the nearby village of Domessargues inhabitants voted through a partition 30 Fructidor III and executed it 7 Prairial IV. Their original procès verbal survived, but the problem was that the land was wooded and thus protected from partition under 10 June 1793. Accordingly, the partition was annulled by the prefect on 4 Pluviôse X.101 A visit from the forest administration confirmed that the area partitioned in Year IV had been 150 hectares of woodland of which seven hectares had already been cleared. Again the usurpers of common woods proved difficult to evict as the subprefect ordered the mayor to appeal to the tribunal courts to have them removed from the lands.102 While at least three of the partitions carried out under the June 1793 legislation were annulled, it must be remembered that on the whole this law was not widely applied.

  A.D.G. 2 O 1740 St. Laurent-des-Arbres, Extrait des Registres des Délibérations du Conseil Municipal de St.-Laurent-des-Abres, 18 Pluviôse XIII. 99   A.D.G. 2 O 1740 St. Laurent-des-Arbres, Le Sous-Prefet au Prefet, 8 fevrier 1821. 100  A.D.G. 2 O 546 Castelnau-Valence, Séance du Conseil du Precture du Gard, 14 Frimaire XIV and Ministre de L’Intérieur, 17 Avril 1806. 101  A.D.G. 2 O 713 Domessargues, Rapport de 1er Ventôse XIII. 102  A.D.G. 2 O 713 Domessargues, Extrait des Registres de Sous-Prefet, 12 Juillet 1810. 98

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Because only 18 communes out of 361103 successfully implemented the 10 June 1793 law, a hypothetical guess must be made as to why most rural dwellers in the Gard did not partition their common lands. The most reasonable answer to this perplexing question is that most inhabitants retained la jouissance commune because it was in their best interests to do so. The commons were vital components of the rural economy in the Gard as they served not only as pasture for livestock but also as a resource for the poor to collect wood, fruit and herbs or even to clear a small arable plot. As we shall see many more rural communities experienced illicit clearing of their commons during the Revolutionary decade than the number of communes which legally divided their biens communaux. But it is difficult to speculate as to why the law was not implemented because the majority of communes which retained their commons did not write to officials explaining their actions, or in this case inaction. However, there are a few examples which illustrate the central role that common land played in the Gard and why their total abolition would have proved disastrous. It has been noted that in the Cévennes mountains, where soil erosion was a perennial concern, there does not seem to have been any partitions of the vast common lands under the 10 June 1793 decree. The district of Le Vigan reported in Germinal II that residents in only four villages assembled to consider the legislation and that of these, three voted for la jouissance en commun, while the other was deterred from partition because its debt was too high.104 This issue of debt also deterred other communes from enacting the 1793 decree as the villages of Logrian and Vestic lamented the fact that they could proceed with partition because their community’s books were not in order.105 In the cévennol commune of Alzon, it was unanimously decided that the commons were not of a nature to be divided and that their best usage remained collective.106 The results in the Cévennes are not surprising as the harsh topography dictated the best use of the land. Because of the steep slopes and thin, poor soils the terraced plots required extra fertilizer, and in the eighteenth century, the manure of livestock provided this. These animals needed a place to pasture and the rough, rocky communal hillsides were ideal. But it was not only in the Cévennes that the agricultural balance was kept in alignment by common pastures. In the commune 103

 This was the number of communes at the turn of the nineteenth century. J. Peuchet and P.G. Chanlaire, Description topographique et statistique de la France cited in I. Woloch, ‘The state and the villages in Revolutionary France’, in A. Forrest and & P.M. Jones (eds), Reshaping France: Town, country and region during the French Revolution (Manchester, 1991), pp. 221–42. 104  A.D.G. L 513, District du Vigan, 2 Germinal II. 105  A.D.G. L 1492, Logrian, 11 Ventôse II and L 519, Vestric, 17 Fructidor II. Hilton Root contends that the 10 June 1793 law was not widely applied because many communities were in debt, but he fails to elaborate this point with concrete examples, Peasants and King in Burgundy, Agrarian Foundations of French Absolutism (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987), p. 239. 106  A.D.G. L 512, Extrait des Registres de la Commune d’Alzon, 2 Germinal II.

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of Saze at the opposite end of the department near the Rhône river, inhabitants also decided against partitioning their common land. They responded to the departmental circular by stating that they did not possess any commons, ‘only garrigues to pasture our livestock’.107 Thus, it was unthinkable for the residents of Saze to give up such a precious resource. In fact in Year XI (1803), the municipal council drew up a tax roll of ‘all inhabitants of the commune of Saze who possessed large and small beasts’.108 This list established the amount that each resident was to pay for keeping their animals on the communal pasture; most of the inhabitants had only one or two mules, or a few cows and only ten, assumedly the richest, had one hundred or more sheep. Thus, this most ancient use of the commons survived in many communities in the Gard well into the nineteenth century. Although the overall results of the partition legislation in Gard were relatively weak and legal divisions took place on a very small scale, the principles of the law were to have a more profound effect. Because the abolition of communal tenure had been given legal sanction by the law of 10 June 1793, this sentiment fostered many poorer members of the Gard’s rural society to divide and clear plots of common land during the Revolutionary decade even though an official act of partition was never voted. Many of these actions were checked under the law of 9 Ventôse XII and it is only by examining the submissions made under this latter legislation that the global effects of the 10 June 1793 will become known.

 A.D.G. L1101, Saze, 16 Germinal III.  A.D.G. 2 O 1929 Saze, Déliberation du Conseil Municipal, 27 Pluviôse XI.

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Chapter 4

Post-1793: Backlash and Regularization

Backlash: Attempts to Modify the 10 June 1793 Decree The Revolutionary common land partition legislation which was enacted on 10 June 1793 has been the source of heated contention and debate ever since. Not long after its passage, the law began to generate impassioned opinions on both sides of the political divide. Jacobins praised it not only as a way to create new proprietors and attach them to the Republican cause, but also as a means of increasing the nation’s agricultural production; whereas more moderate and conservative citoyens condemned the decree as a veritable loi agraire. Soon after Robespierre’s fall, more vitriolic complaints about the law began to surface as the Thermidorians were more sympathetic to landowning interests. During the Years III and IV (1794–96) the alleged shortcomings of the partition legislation began to be expressed in national debates. First and foremost, opponents complained that the decree of 10 June 1793 was nothing more than a radical agrarian law which sought to overturn existing property arrangements. During the PostThermidorian and Directory periods there was constant concern about schemes which tried to implement ‘the Agrarian Law’. For much of the 1790s the French seem to have been transfixed by a conception of the agrarian law which fused two classical antecedents: a Roman variant which singled out waste and public land for distribution among the landless and a Spartan version which called for a state-sponsored, egalitarian re-division of both private and public property. Social conservatives linked the Jacobin partition legislation to the principles of an agrarian law because the 10 June 1793 legislation ‘destroyed the right of property’. That is to say that the 1793 decree did not respect the status of the land-owning classes because under this law they were treated in the same manner as their indigent, landless neighbours. Rich proprietors felt insulted by the egalitarian principles enshrined in the Jacobin decree and finally, after the fall of Robespierre, they were able to voice their opposition free from fears of recrimination.



  See for example the Conspiracy of Equals and the trial of Gracchus Babeuf, R.B. Rose, Gracchus Babeuf, The First Revolutionary Communist (Stanford, CA, 1978).    See R.B. Rose, ‘The “Red Scare” of the 1790s: The French Revolution and the “Agrarian Law”’, Past and Present, 103 (1984), pp. 113–30 and Jones, ‘The “Agrarian Law”: Schemes for Land Redistribution during the French Revolution’, pp. 96–133.   A.N. F10 334, Reaction of Aveline, who was serving as the juge de paix in Caumont (Calvados), Thermidor IV, cited in Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 129.

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There are many reasons why the partition legislation of 1793 fell into disfavour after Thermidor. A significant factor was that the law caused much social tension in the countryside. The egalitarian nature of the mode de partage put off many large land-owners who might otherwise have been in favour of common land division if it had been according to proprietorship. Many gros objected to the fact that their servants and day-labourers would receive an equal share of the commons and that the law ‘stripped true proprietors of their own lands’. They also feared that their day-labouring workforce would be threatened if many poorer members of rural society became property owners. A petition from the department of the Averyon sent to the Comité de Législation in Pluviôse III makes this point clear: ‘the arms that help the rich proprietor to work his fields have quit to cultivate the pitiful portion (of common land) that they have received … the lands of the proprietors are left uncultivated and a subsistance shortage will follow’. Another problem cited by the opposition was that the law was difficult to apply and that many in the countryside were dismayed, or at best confused, by the terms of the legislation. It seems that upon reflection, many in rural society did not understand the voting procedure and the inclusion of women in the process was viewed as an abnormality. Judging by the intensity of the opinions expressed post-Thermidor regarding the 1793 legislation it would seem that much of the common land in France had been divided. The reality of the situation, as we have seen, is that only small amounts of common land were actually affected by this law, but this fact did not deter legislators from attempting to reform this infamous decree on numerous occasions. The tenor of this revision process shifted dramatically and reflected either the ideals of the conservative or Jacobin deputies who alternated in power between 1795–99. The first official report expressing doubts about the law came from Isoré, deputy from the Oise and member of the Agricultural and Arts Committee, during Fructidor Year III. While Isoré admitted that the law was sound in principle and that it had had a ‘very beneficial’ effect, there were some significant problems. His main objection was the push to divide all of France’s common lands. ‘Why the need to divide all common land without distinction?’ The one-third voting procedure was criticized by Isoré, who proposed that the law be revised to adhere to a straightforward majority system. Isoré also seems to have understood the central role that the commons played in much of the countryside for the pasturing of livestock. But his position did not exclusively favour the rich, for he wanted a new tax to be levied in proportion to the number of animals pastured on communal

  A.N. D III 75, d. 91, Prairial IV, Petition from the Creuse, name of commune is not given, cited in Ado, Paysans en Révolution, pp. 442–3.   A.N. D III 27, d. 28, 27 Pluviôse III, Petition from the Aveyron, cited in Ado, Ibid.   Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 130.   A.N. AD X 13, Motion d’Ordre faite à la Convention Nationale, séance du 4 Fructidor III, par Isoré.

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lands. In reaction to this report a commission was set up the following day and charged with the task of revising the 10 June 1793 law. This commission was led by Garran, deputy from the Loiret, and it issued a report a month later in Vendémiaire IV. This appraisal marked the beginning of the official conservative backlash against the Jacobin partition legislation. The tone that this report would take was readily apparent: The laws on the division of common land which had the goal to improve agriculture, increase property owners and purify the judicial system…have produced all the opposite effects.

Garran claimed that the law was passed too quickly and without proper examination during the ‘most violent storms of our revolution’. The attack launched by the commission against the law of 10 June 1793 was severe. It was alleged that this legislation served only as a pretext for anarchists to deprive proprietors of their ‘oldest possessions’ and that the law harmed agricultural production because it caused devastation of ‘immense pastures’. The report concludes with the advice to maintain all partitions made since August 1792, but not to allow any further divisions unless the majority of inhabitants approved of such a measure. Unfortunately this proposal was never debated in the National Convention as this assembly was dissolved a month after its publication in Brumaire IV. Instead, the Directory, which convened a week later, took over the task of revising the partition legislation. After months of stagnation, a decision was taken on 19 Prairial IV in the lower chamber, the Conseil des Cinq-Cents. Two days later after approval from the Conseil des Anciens, the law of 21 Prairial IV was passed. This legislation was a feeble statement, designed only to suspend any action regarding the partition of common land under 10 June 1793, but it did not resolve the principal dilemma. The text of the law explained that Considering that the execution of the law of 10 June 1793 has given rise to numerous reclamations and that many difficulties have come from this law… It is decreed that 1st, all actions surrounding the execution of the law of 10 June 1793 are provisionally suspended and 2nd, holders of lands which have already been divided are provisionally maintained in their possession.

Thus, this law essentially maintained partitions which had taken place before its promulgation, but froze any and all undertakings which sought to divide any more common land. It seems that this new law had its desired effect as it interrupted and prevented further partitions from taking place. Eighteen letters were sent to   A.N. AD X 13, Rapport sur les biens communaux, fait au nom de Comité de Législation, par J. Ph. Garran, député du Loiret, réimprimé par ordre du Conseil des Cinqcents, séance du 20 Prairial IV.    Loi du 21 Prairial IV (9 juin 1796), Duvergier, Collection des lois, vol. 9, pp. 109–10.

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the Directory from the provinces complaining of this new legislation and that it ‘discouraged those who have cleared’.10 In the Gard, inhabitants in a number of communes complained of the negative influences of this law. As late as the Year X, the municipal council of Ners lamented that the law of 21 Prairial IV continued to ‘put up an obstacle to the re-establishment of order and peace in the commune’.11 But while the law of 21 Prairial IV effectively suspended the Jacobin partition legislation on the national level, the debate as to how best to deal with the issue of common land division continued. During the session of 26 Fructidor IV within the Conseil des Cinq-Cents, the issue of common land partition once again became the focus of national attention. Garran, whose report the previous vendémiaire was never discussed, was now able to present his ideas to all of the deputies in the lower chamber. He began by denouncing the speed with which the law was promulgated and then moved on to a critique of some of the terms of the decree, but he still remained convinced of the benefits of dividing common land in France. But as the discussion was thrown open to the floor, the full force of conservative disdain for the 10 June 1793 partition legislation became apparent.12 Deputies attacked the mode de partage and considered it ridiculous to include women, children and the landless in those having a right to a plot. There was much contempt for the admission of nonproprietors, especially domestics and day-labourers, to both the voting procedure and the sharing out of plots. One deputy suggested that partage par tête was the incorrect mode and that everyone would be better served if the division took place by household. Others asked if the principle of the law itself was just, i.e. was it beneficial to partition common land? All of these opinions were noted and the decision was reached that another commission would be set up to determine if the partition of common land was beneficial and if it was, to decide the most useful way of sharing out the plots. The new commission was made up of mostly unknown deputies, but their conservative ideology was unmistakable. Their report was completed 15 Prairial V and began with a long discussion of the origin of common land in France.13 They, of course, believed that les biens communaux, were originally concessions from seigneurs and thus should remain with property owners. The crux of their proposal was a renunciation of the Jacobin partition decree and called for the revocation of all partitions made under 10 June 1793. If there were to be any new divisions they would be made by departmental administrators and favour the land-owning classes. This conservative position reflected the fact that Royalist deputies had  A.N. F10 334, Les officiers municipaux d’Argences (Calvados), cited in Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 131. 11  A.D.G. 2 0 1176, Extrait de la Deliberation du Conseil Muncipal de Ners, 24 Pluviôse X. 12  A.N. AD X 13, Procès-Verbal du Conseil des Cinq-Cents, 26 Fructidor IV. 13  A.N. AD X 13, Procès-verbaux du Conseil des Cinq-Cents, 15 Prairial V; the deputies of the commission were: Couhey, Boursin, Dalby, Sainthorent and Saladin. 10

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just achieved overwhelming success in the Germinal V elections. Their project can thus be viewed as an attempt by proprietors to exact retribution for all of their sufferings during the Terror.14 The new proposal was coupled with a law passed 2 Prairial V which forbad communes to sell any of their common lands without specific approval from the legislative body. This law effectively blocked the final implementation of 10 June 1793 as article 2 section III of the partition legislation allowed sections of common land to be divided and sold. But the commission’s socially conservative proposal to revoke every partition executed under 10 June 1793 was never adopted as the coup of 18 Fructidor V purged the Royalist deputies from the legislative councils. As la politique de bascule turned back towards the more radical forces, another commission was set up, but this time with deputies who were more sympathetic to the principles of the Jacobin partition decree. The new commission, led by Delpierre, deputy from the Vosges, issued a report entitled, Sur les avantages qui résulteront de la conversion des biens communaux en propriétés privées, pour l’amélioration du sort des indigens, la tranquillité des communes et la moralité de leurs habitans; pour le perfectionnement de de l’agriculture, la diminution de l’impôt foncier, l’extinction du vagabondage et de la mendicité, on 29 Prairial VI.15 Despite the lofty goals espoused in its title, the report’s main proposal was very straightforward: ‘all common land not yet divided will be by household between all members of the community’. By Frimaire VII, the Conseil des Cinq-Cents had formally adopted these ideas and printed up a Nouvelle Rédaction d’un Projet de Résolution sur les biens communaux, which was debated in the lower chamber throughout the following Nivôse and Pluviôse. Although this new project included Delpierre’s prescription for a mandatory household division for all remaining common land, it also suggested that all partitions executed under 10 June 1793 be declared irrevocable and that the law of 21 Prairial IV be repealed. During the next two months, twelve major speeches were presented to the legislative body regarding this new project for common land partition. The majority of these reports supported the principle of common land partition, but few called for a mandatory division. It seems that most deputies felt the way Cunier from the Bas-Rhin did. They believed that the division of common land was a sound and beneficial endeavour, but that to force this undertaking was ‘truly contrary to public interest and to the interest of the communes’.16 Only three deputies were openly hostile to the ideals of the law of 10 June 1793: Armand of the Cantal wanted to privilege property owners, Darracq from the Landes did not favour giving land to the poor, and Maugenest of the Allier believed that the preservation of collective usage was still the best solution.17 Only one deputy submitted a report which completely and unequivocally supported Delpierre’s new proposal for a mandatory   Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 153.  A.N. AD X 13. 16  A.N. AD X 13, Opinion de Cunier, 3 Pluviôse VII. 17   See Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 133. 14 15

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division of all remaining common land and his name was Heurtault de Lamerville. This skilful agronomist had been involved in the debate surrounding common land legislation from the beginning of the Revolution and even proposed a measure in 1791 which called for half of the commons to be divided between proprietors and the other half between households. Now in 1799 Lamerville professed that ‘the perfect mode seems to me to be obligatory household division’.18 This change in opinion can be accounted for, according to Nadine Vivier,19 because of Lamerville’s strong agronomic belief that common land was detrimental to agriculture. These ideas still remained central to his argument as he lamented that Almost everywhere the common are the despair of agriculture and individual property owners; almost everywhere these lands are sterile pastures, forever condemned to devastation.20

However, this support from Heurtault de Lamerville proved insufficient. Delpierre’s proposal was never adopted because the majority of deputies were uncomfortable with its compulsory nature as they believed that an obligatory partition infringed upon individual liberty. During this period, 151 petitions were sent to the Conseil des Cinq-Cents from the provinces and most of them expressed opinions very close to those of the majority of deputies. Thirty-two of these petitions expressed the desire to maintain the law of 10 June 1793 not only because it attached the population to the Republic and created new proprietors, but also because it was seen as a way to ‘suppress the vices of beggary’.21 Five communities in the Gard sent petitions, all of them favourable to partition, to the Conseil des Cinq-Cents in Paris. Four of the petitions came from a cluster of neighbouring communities south of Alès. It seems that all of these villages wanted to carry out partitions of their commons, but were stopped by the law of 21 Prairial IV.22 All of the petitioners praised the law of 10 June 1793 and lamented that the one of Prairial IV suspended their partitions. The municipal officials of Monteils begged the Conseil to pass another law authorizing partition, for this was the only way to bring ‘calm and tranquillity to our commune and many others’. In Saint-Laurent-d’Aigouze, where a successful partition had taken place in the Year II, 56 inhabitants wrote to the Conseil urging them to maintain the law of 10 June 1793. They explained that

 A.N. AD X 13, Opinion de Heurtault-Lamerville, Député du Cher, 3 Pluviôse VII.   See Vivier, Propriété collective, pp. 133–4. 20  A.N. AD X 13, Opinion de Heurtault-Lamerville, Député du Cher, 3 Pluviôse VII. 21  A.N. F10 334, Habitants d’Ecourt, Pas-de-Calais, Prairial VI and Administration du canton de Roussillon, Isère, Nivôse VI, cited in Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 134. 22  A.N. F 10 334, Petitions from Deaux, 7 Frimaire VI; Mejanne, 20 Vendémiaire VI; Monteils, 14 Fructidor VI; St. Etienne-de-l’Olm, s.d. 18 19

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It has been four years since our commons have been divided and each one of us has cleared and planted their plots. Before 1793 (these lands) hardly produced anything, now there are abundant harvests, we have found subsistence and the state has gained (tax) contributions.23

Nadine Vivier has reviewed all of these petitions from the provinces and found that an extraordinary evolution had taken place since 1791–92.24 During the earlier period it seems that only individuals, usually more notable members of a rural community, wrote to the legislative assemblies in Paris, but that during the Directory the petitions were more likely to come from groups of individuals or even whole communities.25 Could this attest to greater, more egalitarian involvement in local politics by more members of the rural community and thus reinforce the idea that the Revolution politicized much of the population? The inhabitants of St. Laurent d’Aigouze certainly seem to have been aware of the larger social and political consequences of partitioning common land. However, quite a few of these petitions reveal an uncertainty which many rural dwellers felt because of the legislative corps’ inability to propose an acceptable solution. This ambiguity over the status of common land partition persisted as another change in regime occurred in the national government.

Regularization: The Law of 9 Ventôse XII Because the law of 10 June 1793 was but one of a series of legislative measures regarding common land during the decades which bridge the Revolution, it should not be viewed in isolation. Too many studies of the law end with its suspension of 21 Prairial IV, while the real effects only begin to surface after the Napoleonic decree of 9 Ventôse XII, which was designed to defuse tensions surrounding the 1793 legislation and the issue of partitioning common land. As we have seen this infamous legislation was still causing controversy throughout the Directory, but with Napoleon’s coup d’état 18–19 Brumaire VIII the nation’s entire political situation changed.26 One of the goals of the new regime was to solidify the gains of the Revolution, but also, perhaps more importantly, social stability was desperately 23

 A.N. F 10 334, St. Laurent d’Aigouze, 28 Frimaire VI.   See Vivier, Propriété collective, pp. 134–5. 25   See A.N. F10 333B and 334, petitions from Mirande (Gers), Nivôse an 6 and Maîche (Doubs) with five pages of signatures. 26  Napoleon also refashioned the internal administration of the country in February 1800 by abolishing the revolutionary cantons and replacing them with arrondissements or subprefectures, of which the Gard had four: Alès, Nîmes, Le Vigan and Uzès. These arrondissements were each run by an appointed sub-prefect with a hand-picked prefect responsible for the overall administration of the department. See Woloch, The New Regime, pp. 127–8. 24

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needed. Because of Napoleon’s will to reconcile the nation and restore order, the debate over les biens communaux, their origins and their best use was constrained. Instead, the government realized that it needed to rectify the tension with a clear legislative statement regarding village common land. Portiez de l’Oise was the deputy charged with drafting a new law and he presented his report on 7 Ventôse XII.27 To begin, this draft for the new legislation did not pass judgement on the controversial law of 10 June 1793. It did not even consider whether common land partition was desirable or what positive effects it could offer. What Portiez did admit was that the project was a compromise between two extremes. The challenge was to produce a legislative measure that would sanction partitions which had been legally carried out under 10 June 1793 while also creating a uniform policy to deal both with partitions which did not follow the 1793 law and with the many usurpations which had been made during the 1790s. The report presented by Portiez revealed the disdain with which the government viewed these problematic partitions and illegal seizures. It was recommended that local and departmental authorities be given the power to deal with these matters. The proposed solution, at least for usurped lands, was clear, ‘the project of the law charges mayors, municipal councils, sub-prefects and prefects to make every effort to reinstate the communes with possession (of usurped lands)’.28 Thus, this project and the subsequent law confirmed the government’s policy regarding village common land: to prevent any further partitions and also to preserve any remaining lands. The actual legislation, which was sanctioned two days later on 9 Ventôse XII (29 February 1804), finally provided a distinct solution to the problems engendered by the 10 June 1793 partition decree.29 The text of the law was relatively straightforward and was laid out in ten articles. Under Article I, partitions which were legally carried out under 10 June 1793 and could be proven by the original documents were regularized and the holders were recognized as propriétaires incommutables. Unfortunately, however, many of the revolutionary partitions only followed the prescriptions of the 1793 law in a very loose fashion. For example, many divisions often took place with only verbal agreement thus no official acts were ever drawn up.30 Article III of the new law stipulated that partitions of this second type could be regularized provided that the holders declared their lands to the sub-prefect within three months and submitted to paying the commune an annual tax/rent (redevance) on the land. Another problem, which this legislation   Rapport sur le partage des biens communaux fait par Portiez de l’Oise, 7 Ventôse XII, reprinted in Archives parlementaires, 2nd series, vol. V, pp. 684–7. 28  Ibid., p. 686. 29   Law of 9 Ventôse XII reprinted in Duvergier, Collection des Lois, vol. XIV, pp. 321–4. 30  The village of Orsan, in the Côtes-du-Rhône, verbally divided some of its common land in 1793 and this partition was regularized under Article III of the 9 Ventôse XII legislation. 27

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tried to address, was that much common land was never subject to any partition but had simply been usurped by individuals during the Revolution. Article V of the 9 Ventôse XII law announced that tous les biens communaux possédés sans acte de partage would be returned to the commune. Local officials as well as sub-prefects and prefects were charged with the task of returning these illegal usurpations to the communal domain. As we shall see, this proved a colossal assignment for some departmental administrators, for many inhabitants had seized a plot of common land, or indeed any land perceived as ‘waste’, in the spirit of the Revolutionary partition decree. Almost immediately after its passage, prefects encountered difficulties when they tried to implement the law of 9 Ventôse XII. The problem lay in the interpretation of an ambiguous term in the first article of the decree. Article I of the new law proclaimed, ‘The divisions of common land carried out in virtue of the law of 10 June 1793 and with acte dressé are (recognized as legally) executed’.31 To what did this term, acte dressé, refer? It had never appeared in any legislation regarding common land partition before. The law of 10 June 1793 stipulated that only the procès-verbaux of the village assembly, experts and plot allocation needed to be preserved in the communal archives. Unfortunately, the ambiguity of this term caused much confusion and allowed prefects to sanction or annul partitions which had taken place under the 10 June 1793 law almost at will. Nadine Vivier presents an example from the Haute-Saône, where the prefect pronounced at least 159 arrêtés of annulment.32 The reasons for the annulments were as follows: many partitions did not correspond chronologically to the law, that is to say that six took place before 10 June 1793 and eight after 21 Prairial IV; in 25 cases the acte de partage was incomplete or took the incorrect form; and for 108 partitions, there was never any official act drawn up, i.e., these divisions may have taken place with only verbal affirmation. But the Haute-Saône was not the only department which experienced massive annulments under the law 9 Ventôse XII. Most of the annulments took place in the north and north-east of France where there had been many partitions made during the Revolution. In the Pas-de-Calais, J.-M. Sallmann has established that of the 35 partitions which had taken place in the department under 10 June 1793, 12 were annulled in the Year XII.33 In the department of the Nord, Georges Lefebvre found that 38 of the 69 partitions which had occurred were revoked by the prefecture under the law of 9 Ventôse XII.34 Lefebvre deplored this expropriation:

 Duvergier, Collection des Lois, vol. XIV, p. 321.   See Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 191. 33   J.-M. Sallman, Étude sur L’Ancien Régime agraire. La question des biens communaux en Artios de la fin du XVIIe siècle au début du XIXe siècle, thèse de l’école des Chartes, cited in Vivier, Propriété collective. 34   Lefebvre, Les paysans du Nord, pp. 550–51. 31 32

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Of all the propreitors created by the Revolution, they were the only ones who were deprieved; poor people who had cleared land with their own hands, while the government of Bonaparte left alone the bourgeois families who had acquired immense lands under scandalous conditions during the Directory.35

But in Lorraine, there was an even more substantial movement to overturn partitions made under the 10 June 1793 decree. In the Meurthe, 493 annulments were proclaimed because the partitions were made in 1791–92, thus well before the official legislation was sanctioned.36 In the Moselle, where at least 567 villages had divided their commons, many of these were overturned because the partitions were made by household and not by the prescribed par tête mode.37 In the Vosges, between Fructidor XII and September 1812, 209 partitions were annulled, while only 61 were confirmed.38 As with other cases, the most prevalent reason for annulment in the Vosges was the absence or the imperfection of official documents. Rothiot argues that many communes regretted that they had divided up their common lands without charge to the recipients and thus sought a way to recover some of this loss. Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII provided a way for communities to collect a tax/rent from the holders of common land if the partition had not been legally documented. They were ordered to declare their plots, and could become propriétaires incommutables if they submitted to an annual payment. Thus, did this tendency to ‘annul’ problematic partitions, particularly in the east and north-east, literally mean that the lands returned to their former state of collective usage? In most cases, it did not, for the holders remained in possession of the land and signed up to some kind of scheme which allowed them to retain their plots.39 But what of the far more prevalent case of inhabitants usurping lands without any type of partition? Regardless of the application of the 10 June 1793 decree, it seems that the incidence of individual appropriation of common land did not slow during the Revolution. This trend, which was encouraged during the ancien régime by the monarchy through its land clearance edicts, continued throughout the Revolutionary decade. Nowhere was this clearance and cultivation of common land greater than in the Midi. Peter McPhee has found that while the law of 10 June 1793 was not generally implemented in the Corbières (Aude), the poor of the region did clear substantial amounts of communal garrigue during the 1790s.40 When the law of 9 Ventôse XII was declared, Trouvé, the prefect of the Aude, was finally able to censure ‘the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of individuals who had illegally

35

 Ibid.   See Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 192. 37  Ibid. 38  Rothiot, ‘La question des communuax dans les Vosges’, pp. 234–7. 39  Vivier, Propriété collective, pp. 192–3. 40  McPhee, Revolution and Environment, 130–31. 36

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seized and cleared plots on the commons’.41 Trouvé ordered the municipal councils to provide lists of ‘usurpations’ and then issued hundreds of prefectoral decrees identifying which plots would return to communal pasture and which ones could be rented out to the holders. From December 1806 to November 1808, 379 out of the 545 communes in the Aude received such guidelines.42 Thus, this case shows how the Ventôse legislation was used to admonish usurpers of common land. The example of how this decree was applied in the Gard will further illustrate the different ways which this law was used.

Results in the Ecological Micro-regions of the Gard Departmental officials in the Gard were undoubtedly pleased when the 9 Ventôse XII legislation was finally declared as they now had some guidelines on how to deal with the dubious state of so much of the common land under their jurisdiction. Hence, this law was widely applied in the department of the Gard. The implementation encompassed all three types of changes to common land tenure, that is to say, lands that had been partitioned with an act, those divided but without written evidence and lands that had simply been usurped. At least 67 communes in the Gard were in some way affected by the law of 9 Ventôse XII (see Map 3).43 Many communes located near the chef-lieu of Nîmes were affected by the Ventôse legislation. This could be because they were closer to the watchful eye of the prefecture and/or because these communes had actually experienced the most change in common land usage due to socio-economic tensions. Many communes in the Arrondissement de Nîmes received arrêtés from the prefecture ordering holders to relinquish their usurped plots. In the Arrondissement d’Uzès, the other main area of implementation, most of the responses to communal queries came from the sub-prefect who usually advised the municipal councils to admonish common land usurpers. A mix of prefectoral arrêtés and sub-prefect recommendations were handed out in the Arrondissements of Alès and Vigan, albeit on a much smaller scale. This implementation of the law of 9 Ventôse XII corresponds to the areas in the Gard where individuals were affecting the most change in common land usage and tenure. That is to say that these alterations took place in the garrigues territories in the east of the department and south of Nîmes in the Mediterranean coastal plain.

41

 Ibid., 152.  Ibid., 153. 43  The application of the law of 9 Ventôse XII by commune is found in Appendix I. 42

Map 3 Villages in the Gard affected by the law of 9 Ventôse XII

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Communes which had executed a successful partition under 10 June 1793 only needed to supply the documents proving this situation. Article I of the law of 9 Ventôse XII required communes to produce the original acte dressé in order for the holders to be maintained in possession and become propriétaires incommutables. Because only eighteen communes successfully partitioned their common lands under the 10 June 1793 law, only a limited number of cases actually applied to this part of the Ventôse decree. Only two examples were found of mayors or municipal councils taking the time to respond to the prefect’s request and supply the necessary documents to prove that a legal partition had taken place in their community. Aramon, a large village located on the banks of the Rhône river, had successfully executed a partition of two sections of its common land in December 1793.44 On 24 Floréal XII, the mayor of Aramon responded to the prefect’s circular of the previous month.45 In this letter, he testified that the partition was legal and believed that the procès verbal of the experts and the délibération of the municipal council were ‘sufficient enough to maintain the inhabitants in incommutable possession’. There is no other evidence from the prefect regarding this example, but we can assume that this partition was regularized under 9 Ventôse XII as the plots divided in 1793 can clearly be seen on the 1813 cadastral map and the recipients are the registered tax-payers.46 The Côtes-du-Rhône village of SaintÉtienne-des-Sorts also experienced a successful partition of some of its common land under 10 June 1793. In Year XIII, the municipal council reported to the prefect that the partition had conformed to the 1793 law and that each inhabitant had been paying the contribution foncière for their plot.47 In 1808, Napoleon issued a decree confirming an arrêté from the Gard’s prefecture which sanctioned the partition that had taken place in Saint-Étienne-des-Sorts under the 10 June 1793 legislation. This imperial sanction and gap of several years were caused by the passage of new laws that required central approval of most matters relating to the implementation of 9 Ventôse XII. The law of 9 Brumaire XIII (31 October 1804) was passed to give central administrators more control over the usage of common land in the countryside. This law required that any change in the mode de jouissance of a community’s commons had to be approved not only by the respective sub-prefect and prefect, but also had to be sanctioned by an imperial decree. Thus, individual communes now needed approval from Paris if they wanted to sell, partition, lease or tax any

 A.D.G. L 512, Procès verbal des citoyens d’Aramon domiciles, 11 août 1793 and 2 O 163 Aramon, Procès verbal des experts, s.d (December, 1793). 45  A.D.G. 2 O 163 Aramon, Le Maire de la ville d’Aramon au Préfet du Départment du Gard, 24 Floréal XII. 46  A.D.G. Aramon 1164 W 3, Cadastre, 7 avril 1813 and 3 P 279, État des Sections. 47  A.D.G. 2 O 1578 St. Etienne-des-Sorts, Au Préfet des Conseil Municipal de SaintÉtienne-des-Sorts, 10 Messidor XIII. 44

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or all of their communal holdings.48 Almost a year later, another law was passed which required that any annulment of a partition by the prefecture of a department must also be centrally confirmed.49 The government’s desire to increase its control is clear because it seems that some prefects did not follow or were unaware of these laws and had to be reminded by the Conseil d’Etat in May 1806. The Conseil circulated an avis which reiterated the prescriptions set out in these new laws.50 But of all the actions taken by the central government in Paris, the one which had the most profound effect was a set of instructions issued by the Minister of the Interior in 1805.51 Although it had been unspoken until then, the Imperial government not only wanted to preserve remaining common lands, but it also wanted to make them productive and to increase communal revenues. Thus, these instructions suggested that usurpers be given the opportunity to either purchase or lease (d’acquérir ou de prendre à bail) their plots under Article V of the 9 Ventôse law instead of complete expropriation. Thus, these instructions greatly improved the situation for many individuals who had usurped a plot of common land during the previous decade. Armed with these new Instructions, the prefecture of the Gard began to check the many illegal seizures of common land in the department by implementing Article V of the 9 Ventôse XII legislation, but by allowing the holders the option to ‘acquerir ou prendre à bail’ their plots. But first the prefect and sub-prefects had to determine which of the many submissions made to them actually applied to partitions that had been loosely carried out under 10 June 1793. In this situation, Article III of the Ventôse law would be employed as some communities had verbally divided their commons without any written evidence. For example, inhabitants in the village of Orsan in the Côtes-du-Rhône region made a partition of their common land under 10 June 1793, although an official acte de partage was never drawn up. In Messidor Year XII, the mayor informed the prefect that inhabitants in his village had partitioned 11 ha 41 ares under the Revolutionary legislation, but that this division was verbally executed.52 The commune still possessed 127 ha of communal land which included 86 ares of ‘woods, heath land and garrigues which serve the communal oven and the needs of the inhabitants’. In this same report, the mayor admitted that the commune still paid the taxes for the partitioned land, but that he felt that these holders could benefit from the Ventôse legislation. In November 1808, the prefecture was able to confirm, after Napoleon had given his approval, that the co-partitioners could enjoy the benefit of Article III of the   Law of 9 Brumaire XIII, reprinted in C.-M. Galisset, Corps du Droit Français vol. 2 (Paris, 1833). 49   Law of 4ème Jour Complémentaire XIII (21 Sept 1805), reprinted in Bulletin des Lois de l’Empire française. 4th series, vol. 3 (Paris, 1805). 50  A.N. F3 I 3, Avis du Conseil d’Etat, 7 May 1806. 51  A.N. F1 a 25, Instructions Ministerielles, 8 Brumaire XIV (31 October 1805). 52  A.D.G. 2 O 1300 Orsan, Maire au sous-préfet répondant à la Circulaire du préfet 20 Germinal, 2 Messidor XII. 48

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Ventôse law as long as they submitted to the annual redevance.53 While the case in Orsan was relatively straightforward, there were others that were more complex as the prefect had to distinguish between various types of détenteurs of communal plots. Bellegarde, located 15km south-east of Nîmes, is a village with a history of individual common land appropriation. During the middle of the eighteenth century, 81 inhabitants reported that they had cleared plots on the communal garrigue.54 The inhabitants also sent two petitions to the Convention during the Revolution urging it to declare the mode de partage for the law of 14 August 1792.55 In Floréal XII, the mayor of Bellegarde responded to the prefect’s circular of the preceding Germinal by stating that no official partition had taken place under 10 June 1793, but rather that a verbal division had been made in 1790.56 Intermittently throughout the Revolution, there also had been individuals who simply cleared plots on the communal garrigues to cultivate either grains or vines. It seems that the prefect believed that the 1790 partition was invalid. When he issued an arrêté in 1806, he declared all holders of common land subject to Article V of the 9 Ventôse XII law and thus liable to surrender the land, at least, in title.57 According to the legislation passed on 9 Brumaire XIII, Napoleon had to approve all prefectoral decisions regarding common land. In 1808 the secretary of state issued a decree which approved of the prefect’s original arrêté but with the modification that the holders of plots from the 1790 verbal partition be allowed to benefit under Article III of the 9 Ventôse XII legislation.58 It is difficult to know why the state authorized this incorrect interpretation of the Ventôse law, for in truth the prefect had gotten it right the first time as the 1790 partition was categorically illegal because it had taken place before 1793. Perhaps there was pressure or insistence from the mayor of Bellegarde that the expropriation of these holders would engender too much conflict, so it seemed better to allow them to retain their plots and pay the commune an annual redevance. A few months after the Imperial decree, the prefect issued an amended arrêté which conceded the benefit of Article III to the 1790 co-partitioners, but still condemned all other détenteurs to relinquish the title of their lands to the commune under Article V.59 53  A.D.G. 2 O 1300 Orsan, Préfet du Gard après le décret de Napoléon, 12 November 1808. 54  A.D.G. C 1187, Mémoire touchant les ouvertures faites dans les garrigues de la communauté de Bellegarde, 2 Juillet 1753. 55  A.N. F10 330 and 333, reprinted in Bourgin, Le partage des biens communaux, pp. 464–5. 56  A.D.G. 2 O 324 Bellegarde, Le Maire de la commune de Bellegarde au Citoyen Préfet, 28 Floréal XII. 57  A.D.G. 2 O 324 Bellegarde, Arrêté du préfecture du Gard, 27 Mars 1806. 58  A.D.G. 2 O 324 Bellegarde, Extrait des minutes de la Secrétairie d’État, 10 Septembre 1808. 59  A.D.G. 2 O 324 Bellegarde, Arrêté du préfecture du Gard, 14 Novembre 1808.

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Although this example of the prefect distinguishing different types of holders of common land is telling, it does not represent the norm, for most often the prefecture simply ruled that the many usurpers of communal plots be condemned to relinquish their plots under Article V of the Ventôse law. But because of the Minister of the Interior’s Instructions of November 1805, most of these holders were given the opportunity to either purchase (acquerir) or take a lease out on their plots (prendre à bail). Perhaps because of his residual agronomic loyalties, the prefect of the Gard, François Alphonse, must have believed that this was a good solution to the problem of the acres of common land which had been illegally seized by individuals throughout the Revolution. There are numerous examples of his arrêtés dating from 1806, which prescribed this moderate solution instead of the actual expropriation of individual holders. Indeed, at least 52 communes which implemented the law of 9 Ventôse XII experienced the application of Article V. One of the more interesting examples of how all of these legislative directives intersected occurred in the large village of Saint-Gilles on the Mediterranean coastal plain. The residents of the commune of Saint-Gilles took advantage of the land clearance edict of 1770, with 47 individuals clearing over 37 ha of communal garrigue by 1775. These clearings were legally recognized by a sentence of Sénéchal de Nîmes on 27 May 1775.60 However between 1784 and 1789 over 500 inhabitants cleared at least 400 ha of communal land. But these later défrichments were never declared under the terms set out by the 5 July 1770 legislation. Instead, these individuals tried to claim their plots under Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. The commune of Saint-Gilles printed up special declaration forms to allow for more efficient processing of the over 500 détenteurs.61 It appears that this misuse of the Ventôse legislation went undetected for several months, but the prefect finally took notice and acted in 1806. In an Arrêt issued on the 13th of February 1806, the Préfet decided that because an official act of partage was not made under 10 June 1793, the declarations made under the 9 Ventôse XII law in Saint-Gilles were invalid.62 Hence, the title of the land was to be returned to the community, but the détenteurs would still be allowed to use their plots by either purchasing them or leasing them back from the commune. It was determined that the 401 hectares, 3 ares and 6 centaires that were originally cleared in the 1780s would now bring 4,877 francs into the community’s coffers annually through leases. In addition the prefect discovered that the original 47 défricheurs had never paid any tax on their plots resulting from the 1775 clearings. In order for them to become propriétaires incommutables, they would have to pay a fixed sum for the years 1791 through 1809; this took into account the original tax exemption of 15 years offered by the 1770 legislation.63

 A.D.G. B 3483, Sénéchaussée présidiale de Nîmes, sentence du 27 Mai 1782.  Most of these declarations survive in A.D.G. 2 O 1624. 62  A.D.G. 2 0 1625 St.Gilles, Arrêté du Préfeture du Gard, 13 Fevrier 1806. 63  A.D.G. 2 O 1625 St. Gilles, Arrêté du Préfeture du Gard, 7 Juin 1810. 60 61

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While the example of the inhabitants of Saint-Gilles trying to declare land that they had cleared under the 5 July 1770 legislation under the Ventôse law is engaging, it also demonstrates that the prefecture was trying to encourage the purchase or leasing out of common lands which had been usurped at some point in the past. Often the solution proposed by the prefect was in accordance with the proposals of municipal councils. For example, in Saint-Quentin-la-Poterie, just north of Uzès, the municipal council decided that because there had never been a written or verbal partition in their community, the 33 individuals who made submissions under Article III of 9 Ventôse XII should not be allowed to benefit from this article of the law. Instead, the council proposed that the usurped lands be returned to the commune in name, but leased back to the holders ‘with the profit going to the commune to help pay its debts’.64 The sub-prefect approved of this solution and invoked a standardized departmental response which included the provision to allow usurpers to purchase the lands or lease them back from the commune.65 The members of the municipal council in Saint-Paulet-de-Caisson, located next to Pont-Saint-Esprit in the Côtes-du-Rhône region, also wanted the sixty individuals who had cleared plots on the communal garrigue to submit to leasing the land on nine year contracts.66 The sub-prefect agreed considering that no written or verbal partition had occurred in the commune, the détenteurs of the plots should be condemned to losing the title to the land, but they could lease or purchase their holdings under Article V.67 Most of the applications under the Ventôse legislation followed this formula in the Gard. That is to say that some of the seizures of communal lands which had occurred throughout the Revolutionary decade were finally caught and systematically dealt with. The policy of the Minister of the Interior which allowed the usurpers to lease or purchase their plots appears to have been widely applied in the Gard. This is consistent with findings from the north of France, where instead of outright appropriation, usurpers were allowed to retain possession of their plots through leasing.68 Once the prefecture issued its arrêté and Napoleon confirmed this ruling with a separate decree, the détenteurs of usurped plots had three months to declare their intentions to either lease, purchase or relinquish their lands. Most of the time this is where our story ends as it is difficult to tell if these second declarations

 A.D.G. 2 O 1817 St. Quentin-la-Poterie, Déliberation du Conseil Municipal, 11 Frimaire XIII. 65  A.D.G. 2 O 1817 St. Quentin-la-Poterie, Extrait des Registres de la Sous-Préfet, 11 Juin 1806. 66  A.D.G. 2 O 1795 St. Paulet-de-Caisson, Déliberation du Conseil Municipal, 18 Fevrier 1805. 67  A.D.G. 2 O 1795 St. Paulet-de-Caisson, Extrait des Registres de la Sous-Préfet, 17 Juin 1806 68  Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 193. 64

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were ever made because very few examples survive.69 In fact, Baron Rolland, prefect of the Gard, explained in 1814 that the majority of occupiers of usurped common land had not fulfilled the requirements of the law of 9 Ventôse XII by drawing up leases.70 But if the holders of usurped lands chose to lease their lands and had actually drawn up the leases, there would have been a rise in communal revenues. One way to discover if communal incomes rose by the leasing out of plots of common land is to examine the prefectoral reports of property revenues which began to be produced in 1807. These États des revenus fonciers des communes were submitted because a tenth of the income was to be withdrawn by the government and placed in the Caisse d’Amortissement. Nadine Vivier has produced a study of these reports for all 89 departments in France.71 She has found that although the reports included figures for both rented houses and wood cuttings, the majority of the income came from leased out plots of common land. There was a distinctive rise in these revenues between 1808 and 1812, thus the exact period when many of the leases for usurped common lands should have been drawn up. In 1808, the amount collected by the government was 963,840 francs; by 1812 it had risen to 1,160,835 francs. This is a 21 per cent rise over four years. What is also significant about this augmentation of communal revenues is that it was not equally distributed around the country. The departments in the north and east of France had the highest level of incomes from communal assets, while the communes west and south-west of the country barely produced any income from leased out lands at all. According to Vivier, the departments in the north-east generated such large proceeds for the Caisse d’Amortissement because many of the Revolutionary partitions which were annulled under 9 Ventôse XII had been transformed into leasehold properties. The departments of south-eastern France also produced much revenue for the government. In the Gard, a tenth of the income from communal property which the government collected in 1812 was at least 20,000 francs.72 This rise in communal income is important because it strongly suggests that at least some of the leases for plots of usurped common land were actually drawn up. In addition, it demonstrates that the government’s objective to make common land productive while also increasing communal revenues was in some measure successful. Communes desperately needed this extra revenue for they were experiencing ever-increasing outlays. Under the Empire almost half a dozen expenditures had become compulsory.73 They were required to have a subscription to the Bulletin des Lois as well as registers for the état civil. Many communes may also have 69  A notable exception is in the village of Fontanès, in the Arrondissement de Nîmes, where 41 individuals stated their desire to lease their declared plots, while 6 wanted to purchase them, A.D.G. 2 O 763. 70  A.N. F 3 I Gard I, Préfet du Gard au Ministre de l’Intérieur, 5 avril 1814. 71   See Vivier, Propriété collective, pp. 194–5. 72  A.N. F4 2030 cited in Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 196. 73   See Woloch, The New Regime, pp. 149–51.

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been compelled to hire and lodge a schoolmaster or provide accommodation for the local priest if they did not have a rectory. More significant commitments were necessary if schools needed to be built or presbyteries repurchased. Thus, income from leased out plots of common land would have been a precious resource. The law of 9 Ventôse XII, which facilitated this source of revenue, had a very significant impact on common land in the Gard. Not only did it regularize the legal partitions which occurred under 10 June 1793, but it also systematically dealt with the thousands of individuals who had cleared a plot of common land in the spirit of that Revolutionary law. In the second instance the Napoleonic law had a much larger impact than its predecessor as many more usurpations took place in the Gard than legal partitions. The Ventôse legislation was also successful in increasing the revenues of communes because instead of usurped lands being returned to communal usage they were often leased back to the holders. Thus, the individual appropriation of common land through leases continued at the turn of nineteenth century, albeit in a less dramatic form than partition. Inhabitants of Imperial France were still able to utilize this collective institution for their individual benefit, just as agronomic and Revolutionary reformers had previously envisaged. Perhaps this is because many of the administrators in Napoleon’s regime were ex-Revolutionaries who worked hard to keep some of the more progressive achievements of the preceding decade alive even as the first Consul declared himself Emperor.74 The next chapter will investigate how Napoleon’s position changed once again as common land was seized and sold to benefit the Emperor’s empty coffers in 1813.

74  It is Napoleon’s ex-Revolutionary collaborators who should receive credit for maintaining the ‘Gains of the Revolution’ during the Empire. See I. Woloch, Napoleon and His Collaborators: The Making of a Dictatorship (New York, 2001).

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Chapter 5

The Empire and Beyond

The Spoils of War: Napoleon’s Seizure and Sale of Common Land in 1813 On 20 March 1813 a law was passed to sell leased out plots of common land. This relatively obscure legislation was significant because it affected communal budgets across France with many communes losing significant amounts of land. Yet the immediate circumstances which led to the passage of this law are well-known. It is no coincidence that the law appeared a few months after the disastrous retreat from Moscow. France’s financial affairs were deteriorating as more and more funds were being consumed by military spending. It is estimated that 462 million francs or 60 per cent of the 1807 budget was spent on financing Napoleon’s military campaigns; by 1813 the figure had risen to 817 million or 80 per cent of the budget. According to Mollien, the Minster of Finance, the war in Spain cost 70 million francs a year, while the Russian campaign had a price of 700 million francs. With this tremendous strain on the Imperial finances it is not surprising that the national deficit increased each year. In 1811 the deficit was estimated at a modest 6.5 million francs, by 1812 it had risen to 77 million francs, and by 1813 France was experiencing a 149 million franc shortfall. Against this bleak financial background, the law of 20 March 1813 came into being. Because Napoleon needed to raise vast amounts of cash relatively quickly and because he refused to borrow funds or print paper money, the idea to sell off leased plots of common land developed. This operation would not only help the nation’s growing deficit, but would also place the land in the theoretically neutral sphere of the market as the plots would be sold at auction, thus defusing the contentious issue of egalitarian common land partition. This push to sell off plots of common land, however, was a complete rupture with governmental policy of the preceding century and a half. Beginning in 1660s the monarchy developed a programme ‘of forbidding communities to sell communal properties or to use those properties as surety for loans’. Although the government did at various times in the 1760s and during the Revolution authorize the partition of common land they never prescribed the actual sale of it. This legislation even contradicted Napoleon’s own policy of preservation and leasing   L. Bergeron, France under Napoleon (Princeton, 1981), p. 40.  Ibid.    N. Vivier, ‘La loi du 20 mars 1813: une loi mal connue qui a affecté les finances communales’, Études et Documents CHEFF-VII (1995), p. 198.    See Root, Peasants and King in Burgundy, p. 133.  

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common land developed ten years earlier with the law of 9 Ventôse XII. Thus because the law of 20 March 1813 was in complete contrast to former policy regarding the commons, it is clear that this desperate measure was motivated exclusively by financial considerations. But the legislation could not be presented in those terms. Both of the reports given in front of the legislative corps gave solid reasons why this was not only the best solution for the nation’s financial crises, but for the administration of the commons as well. On 11 March 1813, the comte Molé, presented his report on the new law to help generate revenue for the budget of 1813. Molé tried to reassure legislators that this was a good idea because these lands were very poorly administered as well as being unproductive; he asserted that they would be much better cared for if they were moved into the private domain. This claim must have struck the corps as peculiar because the government had been trying to preserve these lands ever since the law of 9 Ventôse XII. It also echoes the modern ‘tragedy of the commons’ debate in which it is argued that property held communally leads to mismanagement. When the vote was finally taken on the law of 20 March 1813 in the legislative corps, which never engaged in open debate but simply voted laws up or down, the outcome was an overwhelming 303 in favour and 26 against. Even though this was an impressive margin of success, the dissenting voices were more numerous than in previous decisions, thus perhaps pointing towards the growing discontent that some were feeling towards Napoleon and his endless military spending. Moreover, some deputies may have sensed that this operation could cause problems. Just a week after the law’s passage, Lezurier de la Martel, President of the Commission of Finances, responded to the potential uneasiness by giving his unequivocal support of this measure. He was convinced that the sale of the commons would profit individual communes because they would receive annual payments from the state. Lezurier admitted that perhaps some of the communes would be disadvantaged and tried to justify this by arguing that some sacrifices would have to be made. This admission, however, underlies the fact that even early on, some were uncomfortable with the whole principle of the legislation. The actual text of the law, contained in only six articles, explained how the procedure would work.10 The first article declared that all communally held ‘rural lands, houses and buildings’ would be seized by the Caisse d’Amortissement. Wooded lands, pastures and biens communaux proprement dits, would be exempted from the seizure as would any building that was collectively used by the inhabitants (Art. 2). Once the state had possession of the prescribed lands they would be sold 

 Vivier, ‘La Loi du 20 Mars 1813’, p. 173.   Archives Parlementaires, 2eme Série, vol. XI, pp. 370–75.    For discussion of the ‘tragedy of the commons’ debate in a historical context see, The Management of Common Land in North West Europe, c. 1500–1850, pp. 20–22.   Vivier, ‘La loi de 20 Mars 1813’, p. 174.    Archives Parlementaires, 2eme Série, vol. XI, pp. 555–6. 10   Law of 20 March 1813, Duvergier, Collection des Lois, vol. 18, pp. 260–61. 

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at auction with the profits going into the Caisse d’Amortissement.11 In theory, the lands were to be put up for auction with a guide price of twenty times their current annual revenue, while buildings would have a guide price of fifteen times their revenue (Art. 4). But because the individual communes which had received this revenue from the leased out lands would now be deprived of it, the Caisse d’Amortissement would pay the communities a fixed annual sum of 5 per cent of the ceded lands’ value (Art. 3). However, this deceptively simple system of ceding lands, selling them and then paying the communes a fixed sum was not as clear cut as it appeared. Louis Bergeron has argued that through the Sinking Fund, the government was ‘able to conduct a disguised policy of paper money’.12 The paper money in question was the 131 million francs worth of bonds that were issued and theoretically secured by the sale of village common land. The idea was that wealthy investors would buy the bonds and exchange them at auction for plots of common land. How the operation worked in reality was quite different to this ideal as we shall see. The effects of Napoleon’s seizure and sale of common land are not very well known. Historians of the Napoleonic Regime admit that the results of this law are difficult to trace. Few books on the period mention the law at all and if they do, only examine the legislation in general terms. For example, Isser Woloch devotes only two pages to this legislation in The New Regime and only one page in Napoleon and his Collaborators; Jacques Godechot in Les Institutions de la France sous la Révolution et l’Empire, discusses the law in one paragraph as does Louis Bergeron in France under Napoleon; Albert Soboul mentions the 1813 law in passing in ‘La Révolution Française, 1789–1815’ in Histoire Économique et Sociale de la France.13 While general histories only mention this legislation in broad terms, the specialist on French common land Nadine Vivier has carried out the most extensive research on this law to date.14 She has also offered insight as to why so little is known about this law. First, the law was only in effect for a relatively short period, 20 March 1813 until 26 April 1816. Once the law was repealed under the Bourbons, officials well into the nineteenth century tried to erase this unsavoury operation from the collective memory because of the harm and resentment it had caused. Another reason why there has not been much archival research on the law is that the documents pertaining to it are scattered and incomplete. 11  This Sinking Fund came into being by the law of 6 Frimaire VIII and was placed under the direction of Mollien, who worked in the office of the controller-general in the last years of the ancien régime and had been responsible for sales of biens nationaux in the Eure during the Revolution; Bergeron, France under Napoleon, p. 44. 12  Ibid., p. 46. 13  I. Woloch, The New Regime, pp. 152–3 and Napoleon and his Collaborators, p. 216; J. Godechot, Les Institutions de la France sous la Révolution et l’Empire, p. 663; L. Bergeron, France under Napoleon, p. 46; A. Soboul, ‘La Révolution Française, 1789– 1815’, in Histoire Économique et Sociale de la France, Vol. III, pp. 114–15. 14   See Vivier, ‘La loi du 20 Mars 1813’ and Propriété collective, pp. 197–212.

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Theoretically the prefects were supposed to send monthly reports to the Minister of Finance outlining the sales in their departments. Unfortunately these monthly reports were burned in the Ministry of Finance’s archives during the Paris Commune of 1871. And as we shall see many of the documents preserved in the departmental archives are found in the Q series normally devoted to the sales of biens nationaux. Finally, the views of rural historians during the first half of the twentieth century have also played a role in our ignorance. These historians believed that most petit peasants were fundamentally attached to collective practices and thus did not lease plots of communally held land on a significant scale, so there would not have been much leased out common land to sell in 1813. For example, Henri Sée believed that the results of this law were mediocre at best.15 So these are some of the reasons why the law is historically obscure, but how was it actually applied? The implementation of this law was very traumatic, not only for the petits who may not have had the capital to buy their plots, but also for the communities themselves who were unjustly expropriated. There was also much confusion caused by the actual terms of the law regarding which lands would be ceded to the state. On the 24 March 1813, the Administration de l’Enregistrement et des Domaines sent out a circular to more clearly define which lands would actually be effected, The lands concerned are: arable, vines, gardens, prairies, houses, factories and other buildings which are leased, rented or managed by the commune so that the revenues go to the community and play a part of their budget.16

This definition was important because it set apart those lands that were being exploited by individuals to the benefit of the commune from those lands that were collectively used by everyone. Selling a portion of leased out common land was not really harming collective usage per se as this land was already being exploited individually. According to the government, these lands should not really be classified as common for they considered them to be more a part of the patrimonial domain. In August 1814, the Finance Minister issued a circular that enlarged the concept of biens patrimoniaux. No longer should there have been any confusion as all ‘lands rented, leased, managed, harvested, usurped in land or in production or illegally divided between all or several inhabitants and charged with taxes or dues’ were considered patrimonial.17 Thus, there was no doubt in the government’s mind that all of the common lands which had been preserved and leased out by the communes under the 9 Ventôse XII legislation were now subject to sale under the 20 March 1813 law.  H. Sée, Histoire éonomique de la France, t. II, Les temps modernes (1789–1914) (Paris, 1942), p. 75. 16  A.N. F 3I3, Administration de l’Enregistrement des Domaines, Instruction relative à la Cession faite à la Caisse d’amortissement, par la Loi du 20 Mars 1813, des Biens ruraux, Maisons et Usines possédés par les Communes, 24 mars 1813. 17  Recueil Sirey, 1814, t.II, 439, cited in Vivier, ‘La loi de 20 Mars 1813’, p. 179. 15

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The government was so confident that these lands would be sold that it advertised projected proceeds, which would ease the nation’s deficit. In his 11 March 1813 report on the law, the comte Molé declared that selling these lands could produce a profit of 370 million francs.18 But in reality the profits from land that was sold seems to have been much less than this inflated figure. According to Vivier, there were three distinct phases of the cession and selling of common under the law of 20 March 1813. Many of the sales took place during the spring of 1813 within the first few months after the law’s passage. In May 1813 sales had generated 4,648,000 F and in June that figure rose to 10,725,000 F.19 During the summer of 1813 sales began to slow, but the government still believed that this course of action would secure funds and authorized a 20 per cent reduction on the price of all lands yet to be sold. This aided sales as reports were given that 12 million francs worth of land was sold in July, 14 million in August and another 12 million in September 1813.20 In the autumn of 1813 sales began to slow as the bonds issued for the sales began to lose value – in September 1813 they had fallen to 81 per cent of their value and by November to 77 per cent.21 Then as sales really began to taper off, another 20 per cent reduction was given in January 1814, but to no avail. This may be explained by the retreat of Napoleon’s Grande Armée and the entrance of foreign armies into France. Despite the first Bourbon Restoration and Napoleon’s hundred days, the law remained on the books, and some sales slowly trickled in. But by the spring of 1815, most of the transactions had ceased as all of the best land had been sold. As early as April 1814 the government declared the operation a success and announced that of the 124 million francs worth of land that had been ceded, 64 million had been sold. Louis Bergeron claims that of the 64 million francs worth of land sold, only 22 million was actually paid for.22 Almost two years later, M. Dudon, the commissaire du Roi, proclaimed that the government had received 130 million francs worth of ceded common land and that 90 million of it had been sold.23 There is debate as to how much land was sold under the law of 20 March 1813 as two nineteenth-century studies cite 58 million francs, but Nadine Vivier believes the figure is between 60 and 90 million.24

  Archives Parlementaires, 2eme Série, vol. XI, p. 372.  Mollien, Observations sur la vente des communaux, 24 octobre 1813, cited in Vivier, ‘La loi du 20 mars 1813’, p. 196. 20  Ibid. 21  Ibid., p. 197. 22   Bergeron, France under Napoleon, p. 46. 23   Archives Parlementaires, 2eme série, vol. XVI, pp. 636–7. 24   J. Le Berquier, ‘De la commune en France et des biens communaux’, Revue des Deux Mondes, 15 (1859), pp. 373–411; P. Boiteau, Fortune publique et finances de la France (Paris, 1886) 2 vols., vol. I, p. 427; Jean Tessier also cites 58 million francs in La valeur sociale des biens communaux en France (Paris, 1906), p. 140; Vivier, ‘La loi du 20 mars 1813’, p. 200. 18 19

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Regardless of whether it was 58, 64 or 90 million francs worth of land that was actually sold, these losses would have still been significant for the communities involved. However, not all communes in France were affected by this law in equal measure; certain regions were more profoundly affected than others. The pattern of application closely resembles previous legislation regarding common land as the north-east and the south of the country had the most land seized under this operation. Departments west of an imaginary line running from Cherbourg to Lyon to Pau barely ceded any land at all to the Caisse d’Amortissement. This presents a dichotomy of essentially two Frances: a western zone where inhabitants were deeply attached to the collective usage of their commons, compared with the North, East and Midi where collective dependence upon common land was less profound and thus leasing of individual plots was more widespread. The departments of the north-east experienced massive seizures and sales of common land under the law of 20 March 1813. Not only did the departments of the Nord, Marne, and Meuse have some of the largest amounts of land ceded, but the proportion of lands actually sold was also very high.25 In the Moselle over 3 million francs were produced from sales of ceded lands; 300 individuals purchased more than six hundred plots of land, and in one village, Briey, communal holdings diminished from 80 ha to 12 ha because of this law.26 In the southern departments of Hautes-Pyrénées, HauteGaronne and the Aude, many communes were touched by the seizure and sale of common land. Almost all (98 per cent) of the seized lands were sold in the HautesPyrénées, while the Haute-Garonne saw 73 per cent of its ceded lands purchased.27 In the Aude, the value of the ceded lands exceeded 495,000 F, but when these plots were put up for auction produced more than 652,000 F for the state.28 Nadine Vivier has produced a table listing the estimation of the values of lands ceded and sales for 59 departments in France, so we have an idea of the general impact of this law in the majority of regions affected.29 But what this broad-brush portrait does not illuminate is the detail of how the sales worked, what types of lands were seized and perhaps most importantly, who the purchasers were. According to Mollien, the man overseeing the sales, ‘the principal inhabitants of each commune were the highest bidders’.30 Georges Lefebvre believed that it was the bourgeoisie who profited the most from these sales, although his claim is not based on any cited archival evidence.31 A detailed study of the sales of common land under the 1813 law   See Vivier, Propriété collective, pp. 210–11.   Godechot, Les Institutions de la France, p. 663. 27  Ibid. 28  McPhee, Revolution and Environment, p. 162. 29   For the departmental breakdown see, Vivier, Propriété collective, pp. 205–6. 30   Comte Mollien, Mémoires d’un minister du Trésor public, 1780–1815 (Paris, 1898), t. III, pp. 257–8, cited in Vivier, ‘La Loi du 20 Mars 1813’, p. 201. 31   G. Lefebvre, ‘La vente des biens nationaux’ in Études sur la Révolution française (Paris, 1954), p. 240; unfortunately Lefebvre does not analyse the 20 March 1813 law in his Les paysans du Nord. 25 26

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has been made by Vivier for the departments of the Seine-et-Oise and the Indre-etLoire. From these in-depth case studies, there is evidence that the urban bourgeoisie did purchase significant amounts of the land put up for auction, 78.12 per cent of the land sold in the Seine-et-Oise and 46.15 per cent in the Indre-et-Loire.32 The sales of common land under 20 March 1813 have been compared to the sales of the biens nationaux, not only because of the way the lands were nationalized and sold at auction, but also because the urban bourgeoisie seem to have acquired much land from this operation. However, there is other evidence that suggests petits peasants benefited from land sales under the 1813 legislation. Vivier claims that in certain auctions, ‘that petit farmers purchased considerably’ especially when the plots were small, numerous and relatively inexpensive.33 This certainly could have been the case as day labourers profited from the shortage of hands due to conscription and saw their wages rise by 20 per cent between 1789–1815.34 Tulard also argues that because of this extra capital, some petits may have been able to purchase small plots of land during the last sales of biens nationaux. Bodinier and Teyssier estimate the peasantry as a whole managed to secure 28.7 per cent of the ecclesiastical (première origine) and 32.9 per cent of the émigré (deuxième origine) properties; however, petit, micro, or landless peasants were usually excluded from the auctions by their betteroff fermier or laboureur neighbours.35 So the results of the law of 20 March 1813 will be able to answer some important questions regarding bourgeois and peasant land acquisition in the wake of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic cataclysms. Let us now turn to our case study of the department of the Gard.36 In the Gard at least 76 communes had land seized and sold under the law of 20 March 1813.37 In comparison with the other attempts to privatize common land, these sales were the most evenly spread between the micro-regions of the Gard (see Map 4).

32  Vivier, ‘La Loi du 20 mars 1813’, p. 201 and the Annexe, pp. 214–27, which details these case studies. 33  Ibid., pp. 201–2. 34   J. Tulard, Napoleon: The myth of the saviour (Cambridge, 1977), p. 187. 35   B. Bodinier and E. Teyssier, L’événement le plus important de la Révolution: la vente des biens nationaux (Paris, 2000), pp. 216–28. 36  Evidence for the law of 20 March 1813 comes from the Gard’s Departmental Archives and specifically from the Q series, dedicated to the sales of biens nationaux. F. Rouvière, L’Aliénation des biens nationaux dans le Gard (Nîmes, 1900) also list the sales of biens communaux under the 1813 law, but provides no total or analysis of the findings. 37  Although 86 communes are listed in the Grand Livre, there are only processverbaux for sales in 76 communes in the Gard’s Departmental Archives. This lower figure will be used and it represents 21 per cent of all communes in the Gard and is comparable to other known case studies – 31 communes in the Aude, 44 communes in the Indre-et-Loire and 94 communes in the Seine-et-Oise – P. McPhee, Revolution and Environment, p. 162 and N. Vivier, ‘La loi du 20 Mars 1813’, p. 227.

Map 4 Villages in the Gard affected by the law of 20 March 1813

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An estimated 963,230 F were raised from sales of leased out common land in the Gard from April 1813 until May 1815. The breakdown of the sales can be seen in Table 5.1. These transactions mirror the national situation in that they were healthy during the spring 1813 when the government pushed for sales after the publication of the law. Then during the summer of 1813, when sales began to taper off, the government announced that the price of the land would be reduced by 20 per cent if it did not sell during the first auction.38 In the Gard this price reduction seems to have had an effect as some of the most robust sales occurred during the summer and autumn of 1813. Another reduction of 20 per cent was announced in January 1814, but this does not seem to have had the same result as sales continued in the Gard, but at a much reduced rate. Although sales in the Gard were impressive, the majority of the lands that were seized were left unsold. For while over 1,940,879 F of land were seized, over 1,123,275 F worth of land was left unsold on 30 May 1815, the date of the last auction in the Gard. Most of the land that remained was either unsellable or purchasers had been dissuaded by the mauvais gré of local inhabitants. For example, lands in the three communes of Barjac, Montpezat and Villeneuve-lèsAvignon had been put up for sale four times without success, so the Minister of the Interior decided in August 1815 to reduce their price to 3/5 of their original value.39 As the final auction in the Gard had taken place on 30 May 1815 these lands were never sold and remained in the communal domain. For the lands that were sold in the Gard, selling the lands at auction, produced an extra 151,989 F, as the lands which were valued at 810,649 F brought in 963,230 F, indicating that desire for at least some of these lands was strong.

38

 Vivier, ‘La loi du 20 Mars 1813’, p. 196.  A.N. F 3 II Gard 25, Préfet du Gard au Ministre de l’Intérieur, 28 septembre 1815. 39

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Table 5.1

Sales by month (in francs) in the Gard under the law of 20 March 1813

Month/Year April–July 1813 August 1813 September 1813 October 1813 November 1813 December 1813 March 1814 July 1814 August 1814 October 1814 November 1814 February 1815 May 1815 Total

Value of Lands Value of Up for Sale Unsold Lands 370,712.10 241,412.10 152,543.70 220,525.50 162,384.40 103,683.80 189,865.40 22,480.40 340,384.20 257,509.20 40,070.40 122,716.60 146,677.80 180,794.60 127,762 81,048 55,846.20 20,819.70 60,909.40 17,233.80 4,468.24 17,917.69 44,769.95 17,993.35 46,291.69 17,334.60 1,940,879.73 1,123,275.09

Estimated Sales Price 129,300 67,981.80 51,740.60 167,385 82,875 82,646.20 34,116.80 46,714 35,026.50 43,679.60 13,449.41 26,776.60 28,957.09 810,649

Actual Price of Lands Sold 150,650 68,999 77,811 227,930 98,830 89,141 34,257 47,024 35,675 54,215 14,056 33,585 31,056 963,229

Source: A.D.G. Q 307, État des mises en vente des biens communaux faits devant M. le Préfet du Département du Gard.

When the sales under the law of 20 March 1813 in the Gard are broken down and analysed, distinct patterns emerge.40 Beyond doubt most of the lands sold in the Gard were biens ruraux. While the total amount of land sold is impossible to calculate as the data is incomplete, at least 3,699 ha were sold in the Gard. This was a small percentage of all common land in the department as 77,699 ha were registered in 1846.41 It is clear that of the lands which were sold, the majority were classified as marias, pre, palus and pature. An estimated 1,301ha of marshland were sold in the Gard under the 1813 law. But these lands were in villages located in the Mediterranean costal plain where communal marshland was plentiful. The average price per ha for marshes was 156 F.42 Arable lands were also sold and these sales were more evenly distributed throughout the department. Over 432h of terres, jardins and vignes were sold in the Gard. An estimated sample reveals that terre labourables had a price of 535 F per ha; this is considerably less than the price per ha in the departments in the North where arable land was

40  Results of the 20 March 1813 land sales in Gard by commune are summarized in Appendix 2. 41  A.N. C 913 Statistique de 1846. 42   Calculated from 1,301 ha of marais sold for 203,504 F.

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of better quality and much more expensive.43 In total 96 per cent of the sales in the Gard were for rural lands and only 4 per cent concerned houses or buildings. Six houses, four olive oil presses and two bread ovens were among the maisons or usines sold in the department. This conclusive total of buildings removed from the communal domain clears up a murky situation. Nadine Vivier believed that over 21 per cent of the lands ceded in the Gard were communal bread ovens, based on the prefect’s reports in F 3 II series in the National Archives.44 However, documents in the Gard’s Departmental Archives show that although at least 70 communal bread ovens were ceded, only two were actually sold (in the communes of Aimargues and Aramon). This is because the prefect, Baron Rolland, exempted the communal ovens with prefectoral arrêtés in May 1813.45 The reason given by the prefect was that the bread ovens were collectively used and thus should be defined as des biens communuax proprement dits and not as biens patrimoniaux cessibles.46 This is one of the few times that the prefect of the Gard took action against the seizures of the Caisse d’Amortissement. Although there is much evidence of individual communes protesting against their lands being ceded to the government,47 the intervention to exempt communal bread ovens was the only instance when Baron Rolland stepped in. Perhaps it was because the prefect knew that the bread ovens would not raise large amounts of cash and that the hostility which the expropriation might have caused would not have been worth the paltry sums raised by their sales.48 Of the 96 per cent of the rural lands that were sold in the Gard, by far most of it was in the form of very small plots. The sales of plots by size are summarized in Figure 5.1. There were a total of 475 sales in the department and 83 per cent of these transactions were for plots under 1ha. Seven per cent of the sales were for plots between 1ha–5ha, while 6 per cent of the sales were for plots between 5ha– 50ha. Only 4 per cent of the sales were for plots over 50ha. These figures show that the majority of sales in the Gard under the 20 March 1813 law were for very small 43  In the Indre-et-Loire the price per ha was 1,734 F and in the Seine-et-Oise, 1,211 francs, Vivier, ‘La loi du 20 mars 1813’, p. 219; the sample price in the Gard was calculated from 186 ha of terre sold for 99,667 F. 44  A.N. F 3 II Gard 25, Administration Communale, doissiers collectifs, an XIII-1835 and Vivier, ‘La loi du 20 mars 1813’, pp. 180–81. 45  A.D.G. Q 300, Biens communaux cedes à la caisse d’amortissement par la loi du 20 mars 1813. 46  A.N. F 3 I Gard I, Préfet du Gard au Ministre de l’Intérieur, 5 avril 1814. 47   See for example, A.D.G. Q 315, Opposition des certains communes à la prise de possession de leurs biens par la caisse d’amortissement, 1813. Not much came of these protests however as the lands were still ceded but not necessarily sold. 48  This reasoning makes sense as the only two bread ovens sold raised very small amounts: Aimargues, 740 F and Aramon, 600 F. A.D.G. Q 301, Registre des processverbaux de 1er enchère et d’abjudication definitive des maisons et usines 20 mai 1813–18 août 1814.

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plots of land indeed. But this fact only makes sense when the purchasers of the land are analysed alongside the size of the plots. For 68 per cent of the purchasers their occupation is unknown. Bodinier and Teyssier have found that ‘inconnus’ were for the most part paysans in their analysis of the sales of biens nationaux.49 This is not surprising as most of these people were probably micros or petits landowners who were simply adding to their existing holdings by purchasing the plot(s) of land which they leased from the commune. This scenario is developed with specific evidence from the village of Fourques discussed below. For the purchasers whose occupation is listed, that of propriétaire is the most numerous as 70 proprietors purchased plots of common land under the 1813 law in the Gard. Unsurprisingly, these proprietors tended to purchase the larger plots of land, usually more than 5ha. For example, in Aigues-Mortes, the port town in the Camargue, 8 out of 10 of the purchasers were listed as propriétaires and their plots of marais, pacages and herbages ranged in size from 46ha to over 377ha.50 Notaire, négociant and avoué (notary, merchant and solicitor) and other suitably bourgeois occupations are listed among the purchasers. As a whole though the bourgeoisie accounted for no more than 22 per cent of the purchasers of common lands in the Gard, but these purchases were the largest in terms of value and surface area, which does correspond to Vivier’s findings in the Indre-et-Loire and Seine-et-Oise. However not all of the listed purchasers were bourgeois, some of them were named members of rural agrarian society, such as ménager, cultivateur, agriculteur and berger. Their purchases were usually more modest ones of arable lands or small sections of bois tallis ranging in size from under 1ha to 10ha. The occupations of the purchasers of common land are summarized in Figure 5.2.

  Bodinier and Teyssier, La vente des beins nationaux, p. 217.  A.D.G. Q 299, Aigues-Mortes, Registre des process-verbaux de 1er enchère et d’abjudication definitive des biens communaux, 23 août 1813 and 10 juin 1813. 49 50

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 K KK KK !K

 Figure 5.1

20 March 1813 land sales by plot size (Gard)

&LYLO6HUYDQW  6ROLFLWRU  1RWDU\  )DUPHU 

7UDGHVPDQ &ORJPDNHU 6KHSKHUG    2WKHU

0HUFKDQW 



3URSULHWRU 

8QNQRZQ  Figure 5.2

20 March 1813 sales by occupation (Gard)

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The purchasers of the 475 plots of land may be broken down in other ways as well. Eighty-four of the purchasers or 17.6 per cent were non-residents in the commune in which they purchased land. Most often they were urban bourgeoisie (citadins) who lived in Nîmes, Alès, Saint Gilles or Beaucaire and used the opportunity to invest in marshes, pastures or arable land. Of these 84 non-resident purchasers, 12 lived in Paris, including the Senateur, Boissy d’Anglas, who purchased 41ha 7a of marshland in the commune of Aimargues for 2900 F on 29 October 1813.51 This means that over 82 per cent of the purchasers were resident in the commune in which they purchased land. These findings are different from those in the Seine-et-Oise where over 40 per cent of the purchasers were nonresidents and thus citadins according to Vivier.52 Sometimes purchases would be made by one or more people and these group purchases accounted for 11.5 per cent of the total. The group purchases were generally of two types. First, groups of wealthy bourgeois would pool their money to buy significant amounts of arable, pasture or marshland as was the case in the villages of Bellegarde, Bouillargues, Dions, Le Cailar and Lussan. Second, micros or petits peasants would come together usually in groups of two (father and son, brothers) to purchase small plots of arable as in Fourques. However not all of the purchasers were male as just over 10 per cent of the buyers were women. All but one of the women purchasers were residents in Fourques and most were widows. However it appears that some women purchased lands on their own, such as Anne Rebuffat in Fourques, who bought 22 ares of land in May 1815 for 65 F.53 Although the Napoleonic Code did not allow married women to own land, widows or orphans could be independent landowners and as such some women were proprietors. The village of Fourques, located on the Rhône river across from Arles provides an interesting case study in the implementation of the law of 20 March 1813.54 Georges Lefebvre believed that the bourgeoisie were the ones who benefited from land sales under this law, presumably because he did not think that the peasantry leased individual plots of common land on a significant scale. But as we have seen with the law of 9 Ventôse XII this was far from the reality in the Gard. In Fourques the majority of the 317 plots sold were purchased by the occupiers of  A.D.G. Q 299, Aimargues, Registre des process-verbaux de 1er enchère et d’abjudication definitive des biens communaux, 29 octobre 1813. Boissy d’Anglas was a Protestant and native of the Ardèche; he lived for ten years in Nîmes with his friend RabautSaint-Etienne before the Revolution. After 1789 he was elected as a deputy to the National Assembly and the National Convention and was a Senator under the Empire, see E. Hindie Lemay, Dictionnaire des Constituants (Paris, 1991) vol. I, pp. 110–12. 52  Vivier, ‘La loi du 20 mars 1813’, p. 224. 53   Jacques Rebuffat, ménager, also purchased lands in 1814 and 1815, A.D.G. Q 300, Fourques, Registre des process-verbaux de 1er enchère et d’abjudication definitive des biens communaux, 30 mai 1815. 54  In 1806, Fourques had 1105 inhabitants, or roughly 300 households. Lacroix, Paroisses et Communes, p. 203. 51

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the land, as the process-verbaux list both the lessees and the purchasers of the plots.55 This is unique in the implementation of this law in the Gard, as it provides clear evidence that plots which were declared under the law of 9 Ventôse XII were actually purchased under the law of 20 March 1813 by the détenteurs.56 As we shall see most of the occupiers of the land in other villages were outbid by others higher up on the social scale. In Fourques however all but 16 plots were purchased by residents of the commune and the majority of these purchasers do not have a named occupation.57 The plots of arable ranged in size from 8 ares bought by François Matheron for 28 F to 4ha 65a purchased by Pierre Roche for 1,236 F, both during the final auction in May 1815. This later purchase was unusual as the majority of plots were under 1ha. There were two auctions which were held in Fourques, one on 15 November 1814 and the second on 30 May 1815. In total over 121ha 8a of arable common land were sold producing 33,991 F for the Caisse d’Amortissement, which is quite significant and falls within the highest ten sales in terms of value in the department. If this operation in Fourques was so successful it is puzzling why there were not more villages where the occupiers actually purchased their lands under the 1813 law. The reality may be very simple in fact. Just because the law of 9 Ventôse XII prescribed that leases were to be drawn up for all land that was declared, does not necessarily mean that the leases were actually drawn up. Baron Rolland explained to the Minister of the Interior that the majority occupiers had not fulfilled the requirements of the law of 9 Ventôse XII and that ‘the majority of these lands were neither sold nor leased’.58 Thus the leases which should have been taken out for up to nine years were not. Peter McPhee has discovered a similar situation in the Corbières, where not only were leases not drawn up, but ‘huge numbers of peasants had simply had their cleared plots declared as pastures in the Year XII to avoid paying rent’.59 The case of Fourques illustrates how the laws of 9 Ventôse XII and 20 March 1813 could work together to privatize plots of common land which were usurped during the Revolutionary decade. But this example also highlights how many occupiers of usurped common land in other villages may not have taken out leases for their plots, thus avoiding the 20 March 1813 legislation altogether. As we shall see however, the occupiers of common land usurped during the Revolution would have one final chance to come clean and either buy or lease their plots under the Bourbon Restoration.  A.D.G. Q 300, Fourques, Registre des process-verbaux de 1er enchère et d’abjudication definitive des biens communaux, 15 novembre 1814 & 30 mai 1815. 56   45 of the 65 inhabitants who declared plots of common land under the law of 9 Ventôse XII also purchased plots under the 20 March 1813 legislation. A.D.G. 2 O 780, Fourques: biens communaux, an X-1929. 57  The only purchasers in Fourques with named occupations were J. Rebuffat, ménager, J. Roche, sabotier, J. Matheron, berger and J. Fontanier, berger. 58  A.N. F 3 I Gard I, Préfet du Gard au Ministre de l’Intérieur, 5 avril 1814. 59  McPhee, Revolution and Environment, p. 160. 55

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If we look beyond the unique example in Fourques of occupiers actually purchasing the plots they leased, then another portrait of common land privatization emerges in the other 75 communes affected by the law of 20 March 1813 in the Gard. Far more common were petits occupiers being expropriated by this law if they leased small plots of land from their commune. This was the case in the village of Orsan in the Côtes-du-Rhône.60 Here Guillaume Guigue, resident proprietor, purchased two plots of land which had been leased to two other inhabitants. In the first instance, Benoit Delaye had leased verbally 88 ares of vines from the commune for 35 F a year. A guide price for the land was set at 700 F, which was 20 times the rent as the law stated. Guigue was the only one to bid and bought the land for 710 F. In his second transaction of the day, Guigue purchased 32 ares of vines and hermes for 65 F. This land had been leased verbally to Etienne Vigaroux for 3 F per year. In both cases the occupiers did not bid and thus we can assume that they did not have the capital to purchase the lands they leased. Another way in which small plots were privatized without the occupiers able to purchase them was if the plots were grouped together as lots and sold in one block. This was a common practice during the sales of biens nationaux and seems to have happened in certain villages in the Gard under the 1813 law. Saint-Gilles, a large town in the Mediterranean costal plain, had much common land usurped under the 1770 edict and then regularized under 9 Ventôse XII. In total over 500 individuals cleared 416 ha between 1784–89 and then finally declared these lands in 1804.61 Another large group of usurpers declared their small plots together totalling over 207 ha 27 ares in 1806 and agreed to pay the commune an annual rent totalling 2,811 F a year.62 During 1813–14 there were a total of seven sales in the village producing more than 101,592 F for the government.63 First of all, many small plots were grouped together into articles or lots and then sold as one large block. For example during the first auction in Saint-Gilles on 25 November 1813, 28 articles consisting of 133 plots of land totalling 287 ha19 a was sold for 30,905 F. These plots were leased by micros and petits peasants in the commune, such as the 11 ares leased by Louis Dubert for 1.39 F a year. But by grouping the small plots together into lots the petits could not afford to buy the lands which they occupied. It appears that the petits may have tried to group together to buy the first lot, but were outbid by Stanislas-Privat Garilhe, avoué à Nîmes. It is difficult to trace if the plots declared under the law of 9 Ventôse XII were the ones actually sold in 1813, but it appears likely as the quality and quantity of common lands leased by petits

 A.D.G. Q 299, Orsan, Registre des process-verbaux de 1er enchère et d’abjudication definitive des biens communaux, 21 juin 1813. 61  A.D.G. 2 O 1624, Saint-Gilles: biens communaux, an XII. 62  A.D.G. 2 O 1625, Saint-Gilles: biens communaux, an XII–1812. 63  A.D.G. Q 300, Saint-Gilles, Registre des process-verbaux de 1er enchère et d’abjudication definitive des biens communaux, 25 novembre 1813, 7 decembre 1813, 21 decembre 1813, 31 decembre 1813, 14 juillet 1814. 60

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in 1804–1806 and the hundreds of small leased plots seized and then grouped together and sold in 1813 would not have been a coincidence. The other remarkable thing about the common land sales in Saint-Gilles is that some of them were used to build what is today the Canal du Rhône à Sète. Work began on the canal in 1780 but it was not completely finished until the 1820s.64 Some of the communal marshes which were leased out in villages throughout the Mediterranean costal plain were privatized under the 1813 law then used to construct the canal which links the Rhône river to the Mediterrean port of Sète. A key player in this operation was Stanislas-Privat Garilhe, avoué from Nîmes. Garilhe served as the solicitor for the Société de l’entreprise de l’achèvement du canal d’Aiguemortes à Beauciare. He appeared at auctions in three villages in the Mediterranean costal plain to secure large amounts of land for his clients.65 On 29 October 1813 Garilhe was in Bellegarde and purchased 12 ha of the marais de la Correge for 7,000 F. He also bought 76 ha 95 ares of marais and palus for 8,150 F in the village of Saint-Laurent-d’Aigouze on the same day. Garilhe was then in Saint-Gilles on 25 November 1813 were he outbid locals and successfully secured 287 ha 19 ares of terre, herbage, marias for 30,905 F. Garilhe also served as the solicitor for some urban bourgeoisie from Montpellier who purchased lands in the Gard under the law of 20 March 1813. However, the extraordinary example of Garilhe purchasing lands for the Société de l’entreprise de l’achèvement du canal d’Aiguemortes à Beauciare highlights how small plots of communal lands leased out to individuals became privatized and used for a larger entrepreneurial project in the region.66 The universal outcome of these various land sales in the Gard, regardless of who purchased the plots, was that common lands were privatized and communes lost important assets. The disappearance of annual revenue produced by leased out plots of common land was very damaging to a community’s budget. In theory the government was supposed to pay the communes a fixed annual sum of 5 per cent of the ceded lands’ value. The amount that each commune in the Gard would receive was indeed recorded in the Grand Livre de la Dette publique in Paris, but in reality many communes never saw a cent. The communes of the Gard were supposed to receive a total of 31,425 F annually from the government to supplement the   J. Dutens, Histoire de la navigation intérieure de la France, 2 vols. (Paris, 1829) vol. I, p. 150. 65  A.D.G. Q 299, Bellegarde, Registre des process-verbaux de 1er enchère et d’abjudication definitive des biens communaux, 29 octobre 1813; Q 299 Saint-Laurentd’Aigouze, Registre des process-verbaux de 1er enchère et d’abjudication definitive des biens communaux, 29 octobre 1813; Q 300, Saint-Gilles, Registre des process-verbaux de 1er enchère et d’abjudication definitive des biens communaux, 25 novembre 1813. 66  This compagnie was given a contract on 17 Prairial IX (6 June 1801) to finish the canal within three years at a cost of 2.5 million francs; however by 1820 the canal was still not completely finished and had cost over 6 million francs, Dutens, Histoire de la navigation intérieure, pp. 145 and 150. 64

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loss of the revenues from the sold common lands. However, the amount that the communes actually received each year was far less. The documentation for these figures is patchy and thus they must be taken as approximations, but the shortfalls are certainly significant. The results are summarized in Table 5.2. Table 5.2 Annual rents received in the Gard after land sales under the law of 20 March 1813 5% Annual fixed sum due (francs)

Received in 1814

Received in 1815

Received in 1818

Received in 1820

31,425

5,023.90

8,684

6,965

0?

Sources: A.N. F 3 II Gard 25 Extrait du Registre du Grand Livre, 14 juin 1814; A.D.G. Q 312 Instructions relatives à cette liquidation et états présentant pour les communes le revenue annuel des biens vendus, ainsi que le montant des inscriptions de rentes sur le Grand Livre, à déliver à chaque commune en remplacement de ce revenue; Vivier, Propriété collective, 205

The amount received annually for the years 1814–15, 1818, 1820 fell far short of what was due, but when these funds did arrive, they were not evenly distributed throughout the department. In 1818 for example, the majority of the communes in the Arrondissement of Nîmes were paid their fixed annual sum, but only four communes in the Arrondissement of Uzès were paid, and none in the Arrondissements of Alès and Le Vigan.67 In other words some communes received the annual sum promised by the government or part of it, but others did not. The port community of Aigues-Mortes in the Camargue claimed that their revenues had been ‘very much diminished by the effects of the law 20 March 1813’.68 The actual budget for this town which totalled 16,476 F in 1813 was reduced to 11,977 F in 1814 due to the loss of revenue from their leased out plots of common land. Aigues-Mortes was one of the hardest hit communes in the Gard under the 1813 law, losing some 1040 ha 64 ares which were sold for 51,205 F.69 There is no record of Aigues-Mortes receiving any annual payments from the government. In the long term then the loss of land hurt communal budgets tremendously. Many communes received no compensation from the government and when the

 A.D.G. Q 312, Le Receveur Général des Finances du Gard au Préfet du Gard, 18 octobre 1818. 68  A.N. F 3 II Gard 25, Observation de Préfet sur le budget de 1814 de la ville d’Aigues-Mortes, 29 août 1813. 69  A.D.G. Q 299, Aigues-Morts, Registre des process-verbaux de 1er enchère et d’abjudication definitive des biens communaux, 23 août 1813 and 10 juin 1813. 67

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5 per cent annual sum was paid, it paled in comparison to the potential the communes could have earned from leasing their lands on the market.70 When the global results of the law of 20 March 1813 are analysed a complex conclusion emerges. Nadine Vivier has argued that the sales under the 1813 law completed the process of moving substantial amounts of common land from the public to the private domain, which began with the 1793 Revolutionary partition law.71 However, the way in which the 1813 law disregarded the social dimension behind the 1793 legislation and sold the lands in the ‘neutral’ sphere of the market, a very different outcome to the Jacobin decree emerged. While some micros and petits peasants were able to secure the plots that they occupied under the 1813 law, this seems to be an exception and not the rule. By placing land on market and grouping plots into lots, many petits occupiers were expropriated and their lands were purchased by those higher up on the social scale. Even in the Gard, the 317 unknown purchasers in Fourques skew the results, for in the other 75 villages it seems that the rural elite propriétaires or urban bourgeoisie took the lion’s share of the land. Vivier has called this the aspect of the law ‘the most unjust’ because the petits who cleared common land during the Revolutionary decade and (may have) had it regularized under the law of 9 Ventôse XII were then expropriated by the law of 20 March 1813.72 The non-resident urban bourgeoisie and rural elite seem to have benefited most from this law as they were able to secure large tracts of pasture, arable and marshland in the Gard and other regions of France. These purchases were made for several reasons – not only to invest any extra capital in land, but also to show support of a regime on the brink of financial ruin. Thus these Napoleonic sales of biens communaux mirror the sales of Revolutionary biens nationaux in more ways than one. Not only did they increase the land ownership of the bourgeoisie, they also attached them to regime in desperate need of legitimacy.

The Bourbon Restoration and Common Land Louis XVIII, restored Bourbon monarch, signed two pieces of legislation pertaining to common land during his reign. The Royal Ordinances of 7 October 1818 and 23 June 1819 seem to maintain the principles adopted by Napoleon during the Consulate and early Empire, in that they fostered the leasing and/or selling of communal plots to the occupiers. Another purpose of the legislation, however, was to help municipal budgets which had been devastated by years of war and seizure of common land revenues.73 The first ordinance of 7 October 1818 simplified the procedure for leasing out plots of common land as it allowed municipal councils to

70

 Vivier, ‘La loi du 20 mars 1813’, p. 208.  Vivier, Propriété collective, pp. 211–13. 72  Ibid., p. 213. 73  Vivier, Propriété collective, pp. 224 and 233. 71

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lease lands themselves and forgo the previously mandatory approval of the crown.74 As long as the land was not ‘necessary to the pasturing of animals’, the councils could decide to draw up contracts for nine years and lease out the plots. The effects of this legislation do not appear to have been very significant. Perhaps the memory of leased out lands being seized by the state was too fresh in councillors’ minds. In the Gard, it seems that only a few communes drew up leases for communal plots due to this ordinance. In the community of Saint-Théodorit, located 25km northwest of Nîmes, some 45 occupiers of communal plots submitted to leasing out these parcels on nine-year contracts. In January 1819, the sub-prefect proclaimed ‘considering that the situation benefited the communal funds, the leasing of common land not necessary for pasture’ was commended.75 Actions like these however seem to be thin on the ground in the Gard, but the second ordinance passed by the Bourbons was much more widely applied. The Royal Ordinance of 23 June 1819 proved much more successful in achieving results than the one of the previous October. This legislation was also designed, of course, to help augment municipal budgets, but was much more radical as it allowed for the outright sale of occupied plots of common land. But unlike Napoleon’s sale of common lands several years earlier, the profits from these transactions would go directly to the communes involved and the land would only be sold to those who occupied it. This law was devised to regularize the many usurpations of communal plots which had taken place since the partition legislation of 10 June 1793. In many ways the ordinance was similar to the law of 9 Ventõse XII as occupiers of plots had to declare their holdings, but then they had to agree to either purchase the lands involved or pay an annual rent for them. If they did not want to or could not afford to either rent or purchase the usurped lands, then they would be expropriated and the lands would be returned to the commune. It is clear that the Restoration Monarchy wanted to make one last effort to apprehend Revolutionary usurpers before the thirty-year statute of limitation ran out. Unsurprisingly, the Bourbons viewed the law of 10 June 1793 very negatively and wanted to either return usurped lands to the commune or make the usurpers pay for the lands they occupied. The terms of the law were simple, but the preamble to the articles revealed the indignation that the widespread usurpations had caused. The monarchy accused the usurpers of ‘redoubling their efforts to conceal their encroachments from the administration’.76 The first article of the ordinance charged local administrators to search for communal lands that had usurped since the publication of the law of 10 June 1793. This included lands that had not been regularized under the law of 9 Ventôse XII or lands that were still in an ambiguous  Ordonnance du Roi, Nº5112, 7 Octobre 1818, Bulletin des Lois, 7e Série, vol. VII, 1818. 75  A.D.G. 2 O 1839, Sous-Préfet au Maire de la commune de Saint-Théodorit, 28 Janvier 1819. 76  Ordonnance du Roi, Nº6842, 23 Juin 1819, Duvergier, Collection des Lois, vol. XXII, pp. 177–9. 74

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status after the application of this law, which in the Gard at least seem to have been numerous. As soon as these usurped lands had been identified, the occupiers would be forced to declare their holdings ‘which they use without right or authorization’ within three months. Once the détenteurs had satisfied this condition they would have then been allowed to either purchase their plots for 4/5 of their value or pay an annual rent equal to a 1/20 of the land’s worth. If however, the occupiers did not fulfil all of these requirements they would be ordered to relinquish their holdings and pay a restitution charge to the commune. The mayor could pursue the eviction of the occupiers, if necessary, with the prefecture. Although the legislation was straightforward, there were problems in its implementation. The Royal Ordinance of 23 June 1819 was difficult to implement for many reasons. Because of the scale of the usurpations, some members of municipal councils may have been liable to submit to purchase or rent occupied parcels of common land themselves or to enforce this law upon their friends and relatives. The prefect of the Doubs reported that ‘we see everywhere municipal officials among the usurpers. They write to me themselves and declare that they can not speak out against their parents and friends’ (or each other).77 In addition to this awkward situation, even if councillors or their friends and relatives were not involved, there was still the possibility that large numbers of poorer inhabitants would have been expropriated if the law had been enforced. In the Cantal, the prefect, Locard, explained that this law ‘has brought alarm and distress among thousands of families who have possessed and used lands for twenty years; most of these holders do not have the means to pay for them however modest the sums are’.78 The third obstacle which presented itself concerned the cost which could have been involved in this operation if the occupiers refused to declare their lands. While the procedure to take a case before the council of the prefecture did not require any fees, the commune had to nonetheless serve each détenteur with a summons, and this would cost 2.50 F for each individual action. Thus if a commune had many occupiers who refused to submit to the law, the expenditure to summon these holders may not have been worth the trouble. In the Ariège, for example, the prefecture estimated that in many communes there were over 300 individuals to cite.79 There were some communes in the Gard where the number of individuals submitting to this law was well over 100. Thus, while the benefits of implementing this law could be very high, the potential conflict and cost that this would have caused was surely taken into consideration. Even though the implementation of the ordinance may have been difficult, the law was applied with some success. Unfortunately however, the national results of this legislation are not very well known. This is mainly due to the fact that for each communal implementation, a special ordinance from the king authorizing the sale 77  A.N. F 3 I 3, Doubs, préfet de Villiers du Terrage, février, 1819, cited in Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 231. 78  A.N. F 3 II Cantal I, cited in Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 231. 79  A.N. F 3 II Ariège I, cited in Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 231.

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or renting of lands was issued. Thus there were thousands, if not tens of thousands, of individual ordinances issued, but the Conseil d’Etat does not appear to have a collection of all of these authoritative orders.80 Examples of the ordinances survive in the communal dossiers of the National Archives, but the overall results of this legislation are still largely obscure. What is certain is that particular regions, once again, seem to have implemented the ordinance with more success than others. From the evidence we have seen so far, it is safe to say that many usurpations took place in the Midi. In many southern departments strong desires to divide communal lands were never fulfilled and may have transformed themselves during the Revolution and Empire into illegal usurpations. Examples of this type of situation abound, not only in the Hautes and Basses Pyrénées, Pyrénées-Orientales but also in the Haute-Garonne and the Aude.81 In the Gard, there were at least eighteen successful partitions carried out during the Revolution. But as we have seen, the law of 10 June 1793 also unleashed a massive wave of common land usurpation and clearance in this department. Many of these activities were registered under the 9 Ventôse XII legislation, but the leases required many not always have been drawn up. So when the ordinance of 1819 was issued, holders of usurped plots now had the opportunity to lease their lands or purchase them outright. The Royal Ordinance of 23 June 1819 was widely applied in the department of the Gard. At least 48 communes had lands sold or rented under this law. The results by Arrondissement are summarized in Table 5.3.82 In total over 834 ha of land were sold for 98,172 F and over 184 ha were to be leased for 884 F a year. The average price for a hectare of land was over 117 F, but this depended greatly on the type of land and its quality.83 Surprisingly the majority of transactions were sales; 81.8 per cent of declared lands were sold, while only 18.2 per cent were rented. But the sales and leases differed between the micro regions. For example in the Arronndissement of Nîmes there was only one village, Bellegarde, which was to have 3 ha 11 ares of its common land rented out, while the other 13 villages had their lands sold. But in the more remote Arrondissements of Alès and Vigan, a greater quantity of the lands declared were to be leased by the occupiers rather than purchased.

80

  See Vivier, Ibid., p. 232, note 61.   See Vivier, Ibid.: Richert ‘Biens communaux et droits d’usage en Haute-Garonne’ and McPhee, Environment and Revolution, Chp. 6, ‘Social Reaction and the War on the Clearers, 1800–1830’, pp. 148–74. 82   These results were first published in N. Plack, ‘Drinking the Fruits of Revolution: Common Land Privatisation and the Expansion of Vititculture in Languedoc, c.1789–1820’, European Review of History – Revue europénne d’Histoire 13:2 (2006), pp. 175–202, but the figures presented here are more complete. 83  This average price per ha under the 1819 ordinance is less than average price per ha under the 1813 law, because the latter was based on a market value of twenty times the lease and sold at auction, while the former was sold under market rates at 4/5 of the land’s value. 81

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Table 5.3 Application of the 23 June 1819 Royal Ordinance in the Gard

Arrond. d’Alès Arrond. de Nîmes Arrond. d’Uzès Arrond. du Vigan Total Lands Sold Total Lands Rented

Surface Area (ha, ares) 10,85 26,04 408,41 3,11 364,51 70,67 50,46 85,12 834,23 184,94

Value of Lands Sold (francs) 1882.22

Value of Annual Rent (francs) 81.02

35950.06 32.99 58841.31 635.35 1499.17 135.23 98172.76 884.59

Sources: A.D.G. 2 O 119, Alès: biens et revenus communaux, an XII–1921; 2 O 208, Aubord: biens communaux, an XII–1871; 2 O 221, Aujargues: biens communaux, 1806– 1939; 2 O 257, Bagnols: biens communaux, 1807–1933; 2 O 324, Bellegarde biens communaux, an XII–1930; 2 O 413, Bouillargues: biens communaux, 1806–1930; 2 O 416, Bouquet: biens et revenus communaux, an XII–1937; 2 O 467, Cabrières: biens et revenus communaux, 1809–1923; 2 O 514, Cannes-et-Clairan: biens communaux, 1809–1936; 2 O 569, Cavillargues: biens et revenus communaux, 1807–1931; 2 O 753, Fons: biens et revenus communaux, 1827–1940; 2 O 763, Fontanès: biens et revenus communaux, an XIII–1927; 2 O 773, Fournès: biens communaux, 1807–1940; 2 O 780, Fourques: biens communaux, An X–1929; 2 O 1087, Mons: biens et revenus communaux, 1806–1936; 2 O 1134, Montmirat: biens et revenus communaux, 1811–1940; 2 O 1146, Moulézan-et-Montagnac: biens et revenus communaux, an XII–1937; 2 O 1152, Moussac: biens et revenus communaux, 1821–1921; 2 O 1176, Ners: biens communaux, an XI–1940; 2 O 1363, Pougnadoresse: biens et revenus communaux, an XII–1937; 2 O 1376, Pouzilhac: biens et revenus communaux, 1810–1937; 2 O 1383, Pujaut: biens et revenus communaux, an XIII–1940; 2 0 1463, Rouvière: biens et revenus communaux, 1819–1936; 2 O 1795, Saint-Paulet-de-Caisson: biens et revenus communaux, an XIII– 1939; 2 O 1802, Saint-Pons-la-Calm: biens et revenus communaux, an XIII–1933; 2 O 1817, Saint-Quentin-la-Poterie: biens et revenus communaux, an XIII–1938; 2 O 1856, Saint-Victor-la-Coste: biens et revenus communaux, an XIII–1938; 2 O 1882, Salinelles: biens et revenus communaux, 1809–1935; 2 O 1919, Sauzet: biens et revenus communaux, 1827–1932; 2 O 1989, Tavel: biens et revenues communaux, an XIII–1939; 2 O 2011, Tresques: biens et revenus communaux, an X-1936.

Regardless of whether the lands were leased or sold, the areas surrounding Nîmes and Uzès had the highest levels of implementation of the 23 June 1819 ordinance (see Map 5). This is mostly likely due to the fact that these garrigue hinterlands were subject to widespread usurpation. They are also the areas where the desires to partition lands during the Revolution were the strongest, and most of the legal partitions which took place in Gard occurred in these two Arrondissements.

Map 5 Villages in the Gard affected by the Royal Ordinance of 23 June 1819

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Even the communes which were affected by this legislation in the Arrondissement of Alès are located in the garrigue areas to the south of the region and not in the Cévennes mountains. And both of the communes in the Arrondissement of Vigan are much closer to Nîmes than Vigan and are still in the garrigue hinterland of the chef-lieu. Thus, the implementation of this ordinance seems to follow the patterns that we have already seen. In the eastern half of the department desire to clear a plot of common land was strong, while in the western zones, the Cévennes mountains in particular, collective usage of common land remained the norm throughout the nineteenth century.84 Implementation of the Royal Ordinance of 1819 was due to the efforts of the prefect and sub-prefects as well as to the mayors who were needed to persuade occupiers of usurped lands to declare their holdings. The department had special letters printed that instructed mayors about how to register occupiers of usurped lands.85 These instructions may have helped in legalizing some usurpations, but the overall impression is that the majority remained unchecked. Just as when the execution of 20 March 1813 revealed that many détenteurs may not have fulfilled the requirements of the 9 Ventôse XII law by taking out leases, the implementation the Royal Ordinance of 1819 threw light on just how many usurpations there had been and just how much common land was being illegally occupied. Some of the registers for the 1819 ordinance state that the number of submissions made was miniscule to the actual number of usurpations.86 Nevertheless, the legislation was successful in augmenting some communal budgets either through the outright sale of lands or by renting out of usurped plots. Even though the total value of land sold was only 1/10 of the amount sold under the 1813 law, these profits went directly into the communal coffers. Most of the royal ordinances issued to authorize these transactions were done so in the early 1820s.87 These authorizing ordinances would also sometimes list sales for more than one commune. For example, the ordinance sanctioning the sale of land in the commune of Cannes also approved of transactions in Meynes, Sernhac, and Pompignan even though the other communes were in different arrondissements.88 Regardless of whether these ordinances listed

84

 This was also the case in the Southern Massif Central, the area which boarders the Cévennes to the north, see Jones, ‘Common Rights and Agrarian Individualism in the Southern Massif Central, 1750–1880’, in Lewis and Lucas (eds), Beyond the Terror. 85  An example of this letter is preserved in A.D.G 2 O 416, Bouquet: biens et revenues communaux, an XII–1937. 86   ‘We observe that the number of declarations does not come to the total amount of land usurped’, A.D.G 2 O 1989 Tavel, Registre des Déclarations et Soumissions 30 Août 1819. 87  Two notable examples of later authorizations are A.D.G. 2 O 753 Fons, Ordonannce du Roi, 29 Août 1827 and A.D.G. 2 O 1045 Mons, 16 Avril 1836, where Louis-Philippe, Roi des Français gave his approval. 88  A.D.G. 2 O 2054, Ordonannce du Roi, 29 Juin 1821.

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one or several communes, they only tended to record the total amount of land to be sold or rented. As with the lands seized and sold during the Napoleonic Empire, many of the communes which implemented the 23 June 1819 ordinance had also experienced usurpations which were declared under the law of 9 Ventôse XII. Seventeen of the 48 communes which carried out the 1819 legislation also had declarations made under the law of 9 Ventôse XII. It is interesting to note that many of the inhabitants who declared lands in the Year XII also made a claim under the 1819 law. While it is almost impossible to prove that these submissions were for the same plots of land, it is plausible that this could have been the case. For example in Saint-Ponsla-Calm, in the Côtes-du-Rhône region, 32 holders of communal plots declared their lands in Year XII; all of these inhabitants made submissions for plots in 1819, along with 41 other residents.89 Twenty-five kilometres to the south in Meynes, the mayor declared in the Year XII that around 8 ha of communal land had been cleared by inhabitants who did not pay any charges for their plots. In 1821, 4 ha 45 ares of occupied common land was sold under the 23 June 1819 ordinance.90 It is most likely that this was some of the same land that was declared in Year XII, as most of the clearances registered under the 1819 ordinance had taken place during the Revolution and Empire. Thus it is probable that some of the land that was declared under 9 Ventôse XII was sold either in 1813 or, if they communes had survived Napoleon’s assault on the commons, under the 1819 Royal Ordinance. In one village, Bellegarde, the commons were diminished under both pieces of legislation. Not only was 100,575 F worth of common land sold in 1813, but the commune also sold 8,940 F worth of land under the 1819 legislation.91 It should be noted however that the privatization of common land in this village had a long history. Some 85 ha of communal garrigue was cleared by inhabitants and planted with grape vines in 1752, thus the sales in the early nineteenth century simply carried on the privatization of common land in Bellegarde.92 Although not as extensive as the sale of land under 20 March 1813, the Royal Ordinance of 23 June 1819 continued the privatization of common land in the department of the Gard. However, the 1819 legislation does not seem to have stopped the clearing of small plots on the commons. In 1836 one of the first extensive surveys of common land in the nation was launched. The Minister of Commerce and Public Works sent out a circular to each department asking them to provide information about their commons; this survey was to be used 89

 A.D.G. 2 O 1802 St. Pons-la-Calm, 20 Germinal an XII and 6 Juin 1822.  A.D.G. 2 O 1045 Meynes, 15 Floréal XII and 2 O 514 Cannes, Ordonnance du Roi, 29 Juin 1821, the sale of land in Meynes was authorized on this ordinance. 91  A.D.G. Q 299, Bellegarde, Registre des process-verbaux de 1er enchère et d’abjudication definitive des biens communaux, 29 octobre 1813 and 2 0 324 Bellegarde: biens communaux, an XII–1930. 92  A.D.G. C 1187, Mémoire touchant les ouvertures faites dans les garrigues de la communauté de Bellegarde, 1752. 90

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for yet another project to reform the rural code.93 This circular not only requested opinions on the type of commons, their usage, etc, but it also provided some commentary on the more pressing issues regarding these lands. Above all the Minister of Commerce expressed an extreme disdain for the law of 10 June 1793 and called for its immediate and formal repeal. Because this infamous law was never officially revoked, ‘It is not rare to see inhabitants or municipal councils invoke the law of 1793 to ask for the authorization to proceed with new divisions.’94 Many departments responded to this enquête and the prefecture of the Gard replied that their most important concern was ‘to finally put an end to the ever-growing abuse of usurping common land’.95 So the wave of usurpation had continued in the department, but the question is, were these actions really increasing or were successive nineteenth-century governments only beginning to track and normalize these occurrences? Nadine Vivier has astutely observed that it was during the nineteenth century that a new policy of regularization of these clearances either through leasing or sales had developed.96 It is undeniable that the initiatives of the ancien régime Monarchy and the Revolutionaries accentuated the tendency for villagers to seize a plot of common land for themselves because these measures seemed to endorse the private appropriation of collective lands. The law of 9 Ventôse XII tried to check these activities and encourage the leasing of usurped plots, not only to regularize these activities, but also to produce revenue for the communes. However it was the legislation of the Empire and Restoration which moved some of these lands permanently into the private domain by their sale.

93  A.N. F 10 1578, Circulaire du Ministre du Commerce et des travaux publics, 6 Août 1836. 94  Ibid. 95  A.N. F 10 1578, Préfecture du Gard, s.d. (Janvier 1837?) 96  Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 232.

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Chapter 6

The Socio-economic Impact of Common Land Reform

So far this book has been concerned with examining laws authorizing common land privatization in France and their application in the department of the Gard. But what was the social and economic impact of all this legislation? To be sure the majority of communities in the Gard did not divide, lease or sell any of their commons during this period, c.1789–1820. These lands continued to form an essential component of the rural economy and the agricultural practices of the day still relied on the exploitation of common wastes and pastures. However, the combined impact of these laws was significant. The legislation that appeared during the half-century which bridges the Revolution signalled that the collective nature of rural life was not immune to structural change. In the late eighteenth century legislators launched an attack on these collectively owned lands because they were viewed as unproductive and in opposition to a new bourgeois conception of property. When Napoleon and the restored Bourbons came to power their goal was not to return the commons to collective usage, but to make them financially viable for either the nation or the communities involved. This was best achieved by allowing individual holders to continue cultivating their plots but requiring them to either lease or purchase the land. Before the agronomic assault on the commons, they were viewed as positive assets to rural communities, but from the 1790s to the 1820s individual appropriation of collective lands was encouraged and then tolerated as long as these actions produced some sort of revenue. Thus, as a whole these laws do represent a victory for agrarian individualism, for once inhabitants began to cultivate communal plots for their individual benefit, the collective ties which bound rural life were weakened. Furthermore, the actions of clearance, partition and sale did contribute to an overall decline in the amount of property owned collectively, not only in the Gard, but in other regions of France as well. According to the Comte d’Essuiles, common land covered 16 per cent of France’s territory at the end of the ancien régime, but by 1846 it was 9 per cent. The dramatic removal of common land from the public domain eased when the Forest Code was proclaimed in 1827, thus protecting communal woods, and when the July Monarchy established municipal authority over the administration of village common land. The surviving lands often became symbols of communal

  See Vivier, Propriété collective, p. 297 and A.N. C 913, Statistique de 1846.  Ibid., pp. 217–24.

 

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identity and local authorities worked hard throughout the nineteenth century to preserve these remaining assets. Thus, one of the greatest periods of removal of common land from the collective domain occurred c.1789–1820. In the Gard, at least 153 communes were affected by one or more of the legislative measures under investigation. As this department contained 361 communes at the turn of the nineteenth century, about 42 per cent of them were touched by at least one of these laws. These 153 villages are almost exclusively located in the centre and eastern half of the department. Only 10 villages were affected by the laws in the Arrondissement of Le Vigan; the majority of them had land forcefully seized and sold under the law of 20 March 1813. Unsurprisingly, the majority of the communities in the Cévennes Mountains did not experience any changes to the tenure of their commons during this period. This is because a delicate balance between tiny plots of arable and substantial communal pastures had been struck and any change to this fragile situation would have spelt disaster. This does challenge the traditional view that peasants were reckless land clearers who damaged the rural environment. But of the communes that did change the tenure of their collective lands, many are clustered: south of Alès in the fertile bassin de Lédignan; in the arid Mediterranean plain south of Nîmes, including the Costières-de-Gard and the Petite Camargue; and in the entire Arrondissement of Uzès which is predominately made up of garrigue landscape, including the Côtes-du-Rhône.

The Revolutionary Regional Economy Another purpose of this study is to analyse whether the changes in common land tenure had any impact on agricultural production. In villages that did experience changes in the tenure of their commons, what were the economic ramifications of this redistribution? One way to discover if there were any shifts in production is to examine what the new plot holders did with their land. There is much evidence to provide us with a general tableau of what the new proprietors did with their parcels. Declaration forms from the laws of 9 Ventôse XII and 23 June 1819 not only list the occupier’s name and the value of the land, but also the amount of land held and what was cultivated upon it. A sample of 56 of these declaration forms made in accordance with the law of 9 Ventôse XII not only shows that the majority of plots were small (averaging about 1/3 of a hectare) but that there was a mix of arable and vineyards planted on these newly cleared parcels of common land. Thirty-two of these declaration forms recorded a mix between terre labourable and vignes. For example in Théziers, located in the Arrondissement of Uzès, over 100 inhabitants declared plots under the law of 9 Ventôse XII which they had  A similar argument is made by Peter Jones in Poltics and rural society, pp. 47–8.   See McPhee’s article ‘The Misguided Greed of Peasants?’ which questions the légende noire of peasant environment destruction during the French Revolution.  

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cleared during the Revolution. Although the plots ranged from 10 to 100 ares, the average holding was around 30 ares (1/3 of a hectare). Forty-six of these petits proprietors declared that they had planted their parcels with grape vines, while 13 had created arable plots. However, 43 of the holders reported that they had planted both vines and grains. In some villages this balance was even more evenly distributed. Under the 23 June 1819 ordinance there were 61 submissions made in the village of Carnes – 60 per cent of the plots were arable, while 40 per cent were vineyards; in La Calmette, where 24 inhabitants declared their parcels, 58 per cent were vineyards and 42 per cent were arable. While a balanced mixed of grain and grapes were planted on the majority of the new plots, 17 communities reported that the holders of common land were using it exclusively for grain crops. Wheat, of course, was the most popular type of grain, but rye was also grown. On the other hand, five villages reported that grape vines were the only crop planted on appropriated plots of common land. But grape vines and grain crops were not the only things that were planted on the newly cleared plots of common land. Olive, almond, fig, chestnut and mulberry trees were all reported as well as luzerne (alfalfa), proving that at least a few proprietors followed the agronomic schemes for agricultural improvement. However in truth, it must be said that these diverse crops were only planted on a very small percentage (perhaps 5 per cent) of the new land. What rural dwellers did with their new plots is not surprising, for wheat and wine were two fundamental parts of the Mediterranean alimentary trilogy (olives were the other component), but these results need to be put into context nonetheless. The partition legislation of 10 June 1793, which fostered so much individual appropriation of common land, came at time of a severe subsistence crisis and just before the official sanctioning of the Maximum. It must be remembered, of course, that grain shortages were nothing new in France during the eighteenth century. Before the Revolution, the ‘Flour War’ engulfed northern France during the spring of 1775. Hungary agitators did not steal grain, but rioted to force it to be sold at a ‘just’ price. The disastrous harvest of 1788–89 caused the price of bread to soar once again, thus provoking riots across the country during the late spring/early summer. In Nîmes, rising unemployment due in large measure to the collapse of the textile industry made this situation even more dangerous. An association patriotique was founded in 1789 to aid the poor who had begun to attack the Roman amphitheatre, les Arènes, and to destroy its ramparts.  A.D.G. 2 0 1998, Théziers, État des individus de la commune de Théziers, possesseurs de biens communaux, 23 Frimaire XIII.   A.D.G. 2 0 569, Carnes and La Calmette.   This practice was known as taxation populaire, see C.A. Bouton, The Flour War: Gender, Class and Community in late Ancien Régime French Society (University Park, PA, 1993).    G. Laurent and G. Gavignaud, La Révolution française dans le Languedoc Méditerranéen (Toulouse, 1987), p. 35. 

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Even though relative calm was restored in 1790 and persisted through 1791, the depreciation of the assignat provoked inflation and rising prices over the course of 1792. After the declaration of war in April 1792 and the ‘second revolution’ of 10 August 1792, the inhabitants of the Midi found themselves in increasingly tense times. People began once again to worry about grain supplies. To make matters worse, the harvest of 1793 was far less abundant than the previous year and by the summer a full crise de subsistances had swept across France. In addition to the food shortage, the levée en masse of almost 300,000 men during the summer of 1793 meant that the burgeoning army also needed to be fed, clothed, housed and armed. The continued devaluation of the assignat did not help the situation; by August 1793, a 100 livre note was worth only 35 livres in Montpellier. To try to placate the sans-culottes and regain control over the nation, the Convention passed legislation on 11 and 29 September instituting the Le Maximum Général, which set standard uniform prices for all basic commodities.10 In the Gard the enforcement of the Maximum began during October 1793 and focused on maintaining the official bread price of 2 sols 6 deniers and to root out the now ‘suspect’ hoarders of grain. It was also during October 1793 that the Convention set up the Commission des Subsistances to oversee all matters relating to prices and the food supply. As the Commission needed to increase production by any available means, ‘it bombarded the local authorities with circulars urging the partition, leasing or even sale of common land’.11 One such circular was sent out 7 Nivôse II (27 December 1793); it urged departmental officials to ‘work without delay’ to implement the 10 June 1793 legislation and proclaimed that ‘this law should be dear to every good patriot because it tends to increase the resources of the entire nation and to bring land, which egotism and greed had condemned to eternal sterility, back to life’.12 Thus, the cultivation of the commons was seen as a crucial component of the new Commission’s drive to supply France’s subsistence needs. By the spring of 1794, the administrators of the Gard took direct action in trying to encourage a rise in production. In an arrête from Ventôse II (February 1794), the Department decreed that ‘no land will remain uncultivated’ and that the districts, municipalities and sociétés populaires should denounce anyone who had left land, which would have augmented production, unplanted.13 A few days 

  Ibid., p. 212.  The classic work on this period is A. Mathiez, La vie chère et le mouvement social sous la Terreur (Paris, 1927); for a more modern interpretation see R.L. Spang, ‘What is Rum? The Politics of Consumption in the French Revolution’ in M. Dauton and M. Hilton (eds), The Politics of Consumption: Material Culture and Citizenship in Europe and America (Oxford, 2001). 11   Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 153. 12   Circulaire du 7 Nivôse II reprinted in Caron, La Commission des Subsistances de l’an II, Procès-Verbaux et Actes, pp. 157–8. 13  A.D.G. L 1095, Extrait des Régistres du Directoire du Département du Gard, 8 Ventôse II. 10

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later, the Subsistence Commission sent out a circular, which provided advice to cultivateurs and principally, les classes indigentes, regarding which légumes would benefit the development of agriculture.14 The circular clearly states that ‘bread is not the only part of man’s diet’ and then lists the vegetables, including carrots, peas, cabbage and beans, that would improve diets. But these efforts still did not tackle the crux of the problem. As we have seen, the Gard only produced around a third of the total grain needed for its population.15 The deficit was made up through trade with other regions within France (Burgundy, Franche-Comté and Haut-Languedoc) and from abroad. Unfortunately, because of the agitation that the war caused and worries over grain supplies, this provisioning of the Gard slowed. Trade along the Canal du Midi, which had been so successful during the ancien régime, was interrupted during the summer of 1792. Residents in Carcassonne stopped thirty shipments of wheat that was destined for the Gard and the Hérault, claiming that they did not want their grain to leave their department.16 By the summer of 1793, the Gard’s inhabitants required 1,375,814 quintaux of wheat.17 Unfortunately, they only produced about 652,000 quintaux within the department; this left a deficit of over 723,800 quintaux.18 The shortfall was made up by trying to increase production on newly cleared plots of common land. It is clear that some of the plots from partitions made under the 10 June 1793 decree were used to augment grain production. In the village of Aramon, located beside the Rhône river near Beaucaire, two sections of common land were partitioned in 1793. Tracing these plots on the cadastral land maps that were made in 1813 has shown that 42 ha 84ares were converted into terres labourables, while only 9 ha 9 ares were planted with vineyards.19 Similarly in Ners, located south of Alès, 85 ha of partitioned common land was transformed into arable and 35 ha were turned in prairies, either artificial or natural.20 While these new plots helped the internal supply of wheat, the Gard also received grain from two other sources. First, there was requisitioned grain arriving from other departments. The second source took the form of government approved foreign trade with neutral countries. Under the direction of the Subsistence Commission (subsequently renamed the Commission for Commerce 14  A.D.G. L 1202, La Commission des Subsistances et Approvisionnemens de la République Aux Citoyens Administrateurs des Districts, et au Sociétés Populaires, 13 Ventôse II. This circulaire is also reprinted in Caron, La Commission des Subsistances de l’an II, Procès-Verbaux et Actes, pp. 440–41. 15   See Chapter 1. 16  Rouvière, Histoire de la Révolution française dans le département du Gard, vol. II, p. 451. 17  One quintal (quintaux is the plural) is equal to 100 kilograms. 18  Rouvière, Histoire de la Révolution, vol. II, p. 453. 19  A.D.G. 3 P 279, État des Sections and 1164 W 3, Cadastre, Aramon, 7 Avril 1813. 20  A.D.G. 3 P 3546, État des Sections and 1110 W 649, Cadastre, Ners, 29 Decembre 1830

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and Provisioning), France succeeded in securing much needed supplies from Genoa, Switzerland, Hamburg, Copenhagen and the United States.21 To assure the payment of these purchases, the Commission requisitioned the wine, brandy, silks and cloths that were demanded by the neutral countries. The wine market in Languedoc, which had been expanding in the half-century before the Revolution, slumped in the decade before the cataclysm. It did, however, regain it former buoyancy during the early 1790s.22 By 1791, the market had slipped into a period of under-production once again, as the wine harvest was poor, and this caused prices to rise. In a departmental report on the harvest of 1791, all of the districts reported a reduced yield in the vendange. By December of that year, the departmental officials (had) noted that ‘there is no longer any wine, because it has been sold at a very good price which has helped vine owners’.23 But this situation did not last long as the government took measures in the summer of 1793 to protect the nation’s resources. On 13 August, they sanctioned a decree which prohibited the export of basic necessities, including bread, meat, oil, salt, sugar, soap and wine.24 The measure was not very well received in the Gard as wine from this department was frequently exported abroad through the port of Sète. Once the grape harvest had taken place in 1793, inhabitants of ten villages in the Côtes-du-Rhône came together to protest against this prohibition. In a petition to departmental officials, the vignerons declared that A large quantity of our wines is exported by sea and the best ones go to Paris to blend with rough wines. The law that prohibits the exportation of this product destroys the vines of this region, brings great misery to ten communes which only have this resource, deprives France of a branch of lucrative commerce … and stifles the liberty established in the Rights of Man, articles 16 and 17.25

Articles 16 and 17 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, proclaim the protection of individual rights, including the sacred and inviolable right of property. But the precarious times required extreme measures and the Jacobins suppressed the bourgeois values of 1789 during 1793–94 to secure the young Republic.

  Lefebvre, The French Revolution, vol. II, p. 105.   See E. Labrousse, La crise de l’économie française à la fin de l’ancien régime et au début de la revolution (Paris, 1944), pp. 207–533. 23  A.D.G. L 477, Etat du produit des récoltes en septembre 1791. reprinted in A.M. Duport and A. Cosson, Subsistances et Révolution and le Gard, 1789–1795 (Nîmes, 1988), pp. 27–31. 24  Decree of 13 August 1793 reprinted in Archives Parlementaires, vol. 72, p. 190. 25  A.D.G. L 474, Pétition des communes de la Côte-du-Rhône au district de Pont-St.Esprit, Département du Gard, 12 Frimaire II. 21 22

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All was not lost, however, as the Committee of Public Safety allowed merchants to export wine from ports in Ventôse II (March 1794) and the Commerce Commission permitted and encouraged the exchange of wine for grain in Thermidor Year II (August 1794).26 This enterprise was to have important consequences in the Gard. The departmental représentant en mission, Borie, began to oversee the exchange of wine for gain and olive oil in the spring of 1794. In May of that year, two local merchants traveled to Nice to exchange wine from the Gard for grains and olive oil from Provence.27 In the Autumn of 1794 the department seized upon the opportunity to requisition wine ‘very abundant this year’ and exchange it for foreign grain, mostly from Genoa. An arrêté was issued (see Figure 6.1) and called for the requisitioning of wine ‘fit for transport’; the decree also threatened to confiscate wines that were not handed over to the authorities and to condemn the hoarders as ‘suspects’.28 In Frimaire of Year III (December 1794) the departmental authorities set the amount to be requisitioned (25,000 muids or 171,250 hl) and how much each district would have to contribute: 15,000 muids from the district of Nîmes, 4,500 muids from the district of Beaucaire and 4,000 muids from the district of Pont-St.-Esprit.29 The requisitioned wine would have been bought by the government at the price set by the Maximum (10 sous a pot), but this was not as much as the wine could have been sold for on the open market.30 This demand for wine was probably met by the new vineyards that had been created during the ancien régime when the 5 July 1770 edict was promulgated,31 but the fact that the viticulture was still viable during the Revolutionary decade spurred many inhabitants to plant some of their newly divided plots with grape vines.

  See Mathiez, La vie chère et le mouvement social sous la Terreur, p. 566.  Rouvière, Histoire de la Révolution, vol. IV, pp. 122–3 and Duport and Cosson, Subsistence et Révolution, p. 53. 28  A.D.G. L 1342, Arrêté du Directoire du Département du Gard, 17 Vendémiaire III. For centuries Genoa had been a destination for wine produced in Languedoc; Le Roy Ladurie claims that viticulture was stimulated in the province between 1250 and 1350 because of demand from the Genovese, The Peasants of Languedoc (Urbana, IL, 1976), p. 15. 29  A.D.G. L 1342, Extrait des Registres du Directoire du Département du Gard, 14 Frimaire III. 30  A.D.G. L 473, Tableau du Maximum des denées et des salaries dans les districts d’Uzès et de Nîmes, reprinted in Duport and Cosson, Subsistances et Révolution dans le Gard, pp. 43–7. 31   See Plack, ‘Agrarian reform and ecological change during the Ancien Régime’. 26 27

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Figure 6.1 Decree sanctioning the requisition of wine in the Gard

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Growth in Viticulture and the Wine Market There is no doubt that commercial viticulture and the wine market continued to expand over the Revolutionary and Napoleonic decades and was one of the few sectors of the economy to experience growth during this period.32 Production as well as the total surface area under vines rose during the Revolutionary generation. On the eve of the Revolution, French vineyards produced 27.2 million hectolitres of wine, by 1805–12 that figure had reached 36.8 million hectolitres.33 The surface area devoted to grape vines also grew during the period from 1.58 million hectares in 1788 to 1.68 million by 1808; the amount of land under wine grapes would continue to rise to 1.74 million hectares by 1824.34 The price of wine also rose during this period. Albert Soboul estimates that from 1798–1802 to 1817–1820 prices increased by 20 per cent.35 The reasons for this growth are multi-fold. First, there were both military and civilian requisitions; it was during the Revolution that every French solider began to be provided with wine in his daily ration.36 One historian has even claimed that ‘the Napoleonic army marched on its liver rather than its stomach’ and this facilitated an increase in production of vins communs.37 In February 1791 the National Assembly passed legislation which abolished the hated municipal excise taxes (octrois) throughout the nation.38 Thus from 1791 wines could circulate freely throughout the country. And even though these city entrance tolls were reinstated by Napoleon in 1804 as droits réunis, their rate was eight times less than during the ancien régime.39 It was also during the Empire that the international wine trade continued to expand, despite the Continental Blockade. Allied countries became important trading partners and wine from Languedoc was sold in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain.40 During the Blockade, the valley of Rhône became the central trading axis and vignerons in the Midi sought to improve the quality of their wines so that they could withstand long distance transport. Improvements in vinification 32   See T.J.A. Le Goff and D.M.G. Sutherland, ‘The Revolution and the rural economy’ in Reshaping France: Town, country and region during the French Revolution, pp. 62–3. 33  Ibid. 34  Ibid. 35  A. Soboul, ‘Reprise Économique et Stabilisation Sociale, 1797–1815’ in Histoire économique et sociale de la France, vol. III, p. 79. 36   G. Postal-Vinay, ‘A la recherché de la revolution économique dans les campagnes (1789–1815)’, Revue économique 6 (1989), p. 1028. 37   Quote from Lewis, The advent of modern capitalism in France, 1770–1840, p. 230; Lachiver, Vins, vignes et vignerons, p. 393. 38  Decree of 19 February 1791. 39  The tax on drink was reintroduced at 2–3 per cent in 1804 see G. Garrier, Histoire sociale et culturelle du vin (Paris, 1995), pp. 194–9. 40   See Berger and Maurel, La viticulture et l’économie du Languedoc du XVIIIe siècle à nos jours, pp. 18–19.

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techniques made these goals more attainable. Throughout the eighteenth century there had been increasing experimentation with adding sugar to the must of wine grapes before fermentation to help bring the wine into balance and raise its alcoholic content.41 Although Jean-Antoine-Claude Chaptal, noted chemist and Minister of the Interior from 1801–1804, did not ‘invent’ this process, he did assemble, synthesize and propagate the ideas of leading vintners, agronomists and chemists of late eighteenth-century France.42 In 1803 the government distributed to all prefects a small brochure entitled L’art de faire le vin d’après la doctrine de Chaptal.43 They were instructed to distribute this brochure to sub-prefects/ mayors in regions of significant viticultural production. When Chaptal published the second edition of his treatise in 1819, he claimed that had been a ‘felicitous revolution’ in all winegrowing countries. ‘Sugaring the grape musts, he reported, had been widely adopted, not only to bring wines into better balance but to preserve them against premature acidification so they could acquire the pleasant bouquet that comes only with age.’44 This process became known as ‘Chaptalization’ and helped to preserve wines for long distance transport because a higher alcoholic content usually produces a more stable cru.45 In the department of the Gard the improved techniques and buoyant wine market is reflected in the fact the surface area devoted to vineyards rose significantly during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic decades. At the end of ancien regime, 51,151 hectares were under vines in the Gard; thirty years later in 1808 that figure had risen to 71,583.46 By the Empire, wine was the principal crop in the department.47 Historians have recognized the frenetic vine planting in the decades after the French Revolution in Languedoc and have associated some of it with the clearing of communal lands in the garrigues.48 There is much qualitative evidence to suggest that many of the plots of common land cleared during the Revolutionary decade were planted with grape vines in the Gard. Under the law of 9 Ventôse XII usurpers of communal lands were ordered to declare their lands and in some cases what the lands were planted with was also 41   See J.B. Gough, ‘Winecraft and Chemistry in 18th-Century France: Chaptal and the Invention of Chaptalization’, Technology and Culture 39 (1998), pp. 74–104. 42   Chaptal published his L’art de faire, de gouverner, et perfectionnner les vins in 1801; second and third editions appeared in 1819 and 1839. 43   Gough, ‘Winecraft and Chemistry in 18th-Century France’, p. 102. 44  Ibid., p.103. 45   For example by 1811 quality wines from the Côtes-du-Rhône would be aged anywhere from 5 to 12 years, with the best ones being caved for 20 to 25 years. M. Martin, ‘Mémoire sur l’état de l’agriculture dans le deuxième arrondissement du Gard’, Mémores de l’Academie de Nîmes (Nîmes, 1811), p. 87. 46   Lachiver, Vins, vignes, et vignerons, pp. 592–603. 47   Grangent, Description abrégé du department du Gard, p. 12. 48   G. Gavignaud-Fontaine and G. Larguier, Le Vin en Languedoc et en Roussillon: de la tradition aux mondialisations XVIe-XXIe siècle (Canet, 2007), p. 135.

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recorded. Although this practice of declaring the type of cultivation was far from consistent, it is clear that some of the lands declared under the law of 9 Ventôse XII were planted with grape vines. In several villages, plots that had been usurped in the 1790s in the spirit of 1793 partition decree were almost exclusively planted in wine grapes. The results for the villages which did record the type of crop listed on the declaration forms is summarized in Table 6.1. Table 6.1 Declarations made under the law of 9 Ventôse XII in the Gard with type of production Commune Aubord Beaucaire Cabrières Caveirac Connaux Grand-Gallargues Montclus Orsan Pin (Le) Poulx Redessan Sabran St. Laurent de Carnols St. Pons la Calm St. Victor la Coste Théziers

Date 28 Pluviôse XIII 6 March 1806 29 Pluviôse XIII 15 Pluviôse XIII 28 Brumaire XIII Year XIII 11 Frimaire XIII 5 Fructidor XII 29 Brumaire XIII s.d. 30 Pluviôse XIII 29 Brumaire XIII 29 Brumaire XIII 20 Germinal XII 5 Fructidor XII 23 Frimaire XIII

# of Plot Holders 36 126 1 38 60 18 56 51 30 33 73 54 36 32 16 123

Type of Production Vines & Grains 100% Vines 100% Vines 100% Vines Vines & Grains Vines & Grains 100% Vines Majority Vines Vines & Grains Vines & Grains 100% Vines Vines & Grains Vines & Grains Vines & Grains Vines & Grains Majority Vines

Sources: Archives Départementales du Gard – Série O (Adminstration et comptabilité communales) 2 O 208, Aubord: Biens communaux, an XII–1871 2 O 297, Beaucaire: Biens communaux, 1806–1935 2 O 467, Cabrières: Biens et revenues communaux, 1809–1923 2 O 563, Caveirac: Biens et revenues communaux, an XIII–1937 2 O 656, Connaux: Biens communaux, 1807–1940 2 O 864, Grand-Gallargues: Biens et revenues communaux, an X–1941 2 O 1101, Montclus: Biens et revenues communaux: an XII–1935 2 O 1300, Orsan: Biens et revenues communaux, 1807–1937 2 O 1319, Pin (Le): Biens et revenues communaux, an X–1923 2 O 1369, Poulx: Biens et revenues communaux, an XIII–1940 2 O 1397, Redessan: Biens communuax, an XII–1939 2 O 1467, Sabran: Biens et revenues communaux, 1806–1938 2 O 1735, St. Laurent–de–Carnols: Biens et revenues communaux, 1807–1912

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2 O 1802, St. Pons–la–Calm: Biens et revenues communaux, an XIII–1933 2 O 1856, St. Victor–la–Coste: Biens et revenues communaux, an XIII–1938 2 O 1998, Théziers: Biens et revenues communaux, 1806–1940

Although this evidence is qualitative it does demonstrate that in the majority of cases a substantial number of inhabitants were involved in clearing and cultivating common land. In the village of Lussan, 20km north of Uzès, 94 inhabitants declared plots of land under the law of 9 Ventôse XII. While there is no type of production or surface area recorded, the profession of the declarants is listed; 46 cultivateurs, 22 journaliers, 10 travailleurs and 1 charbonnier all stated that they had usurped land since the Jacobin decree of 1793.49 These are certainly categories associated with poorer members of the peasantry and these types of people were the majority of the population in the garrigues hinterlands of the Gard. However, there is further evidence that the number of people declaring their lands under the Ventôse legislation was less than the actual number of individuals who had usurped a plot. The mayor of Montfrin, 10km north of Beaucaire on the Rhône river, complained that only 24 of the estimated 96 individuals who had usurped land had actually declared it.50 The declarations from the law of 9 Ventôse XII demonstrate that a significant number of inhabitants of the Gard were involved in clearing and cultivating common land. Evidence from the Royal Ordinance of 23 June 1819 shows that as well, but also exhibits just how much privatized common land was devoted to viticulture. Although not every declaration made under this ordinance recorded what was planted on the privatized plots, the majority did and within that majority, 53 per cent of the privatized land was devoted to viticulture. The results of the available evidence from the Royal Ordinance of 23 June 1819 are contained in Table 6.2.

 A.D.G. 2 O 973, Lussan, Délibération du Conseil Municipal, 11 Frimaire an 13.  A.D.G. 2 O 1122, Montfrin, Maire au Préfet, 28 Floréal an 12.

49 50

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Table 6.2

145

Privatization of common land under the 23 June 1819 Royal Ordinance in the Gard with percentages devoted to viticulture

Date

Arrond. d’Alès CastelnauValence Mons Arrond. de Nîmes Aubord Aujargues Fontanès Meynes Montmirat Moulézan-etMontagnac Salinelles Sernhac Arrond. d’Uzès Calmette (la) Cavillargues Fournès Pougnadoresse Pujaut Rochefort

Surface Total Percentage Area Surface Planted No. devoted to Area Submissions with grape viticulture (ha, ares) vines (ha, ares)

20/6/1821

17,92

39

50%

8,96

16/4/1836

8,45

73

30%

2.53

27/12/1826 17/12/1828 31/9/1822 29/6/1821 29/3/1824

64,96 29,80 43,45 4,45 8,81

87 108 59 plots 12 25

95% 70% 50% 90% 50%

61,71 20,86 21,72 4,00 4,40

13/1/1826

27,14

58

50%

13,57

20/2/1821 29/6/1821

28,06 10,13

114 15

90% 100%

25,25 10,13

28/3/1822 28/3/1822 29/6/1821 6/6/1822 29/6/1821

17,46 38,30 45,11 12,16 5,51 1,35 5,56

24 89 231 plots 30 46 40

60% 30% 30% 30% 100% 100% 70%

10,47 11,49 13,53 3,64 5,51 1,35 6,26

14,31

81

5%

0 ,71

80%

1,48

Rouvière (la) 30/5/1822 Saint-Cristol-de30/5/1822 Rodières Saint-Laurent-la29/6/1821 Vernède Saint-Pons-la-Calm 6/6/1822 Saint-Quentin-la9/5/1829 Poterie Saint-Victor-la-Coste 30/6/1819 Sauzet 16/4/1827 Saze 30/5/1822 Tavel 29/3/1820 & 4/5/1820 Tresques 30/5/1822

1,86 27,87

73

50%

13,93

49,10

171

40%

19,64

6,11 1,20 10,52

25 15 55

70% 60% 40%

4,27 0,72 4,20

34,14

205

95%

32,43

32.99

52

30%

9,89

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Date

Arrond. du Vigan Cannes-et-Clairan Carnas Total

29/6/1821 28/3/1822

Surface Total Percentage Area Surface Planted No. devoted to Area Submissions with grape viticulture (ha, ares) vines (ha, ares) 31,25 100.54 678.51

60 61

20% 40% 53%

6,25 40,21 359.11

Sources: Archives Départementales du Gard – Série O (Adminstration et comptabilité communales) 2 O 208 Aubord: biens communaux, an XII–1871 2 O 221 Aujargues: biens communaux, 1806–1939 2 O 413 Bouillargues: biens communaux, 1806–1930 2 O 416 Bouquet: biens et revenus communaux, an XII–1937 2 O 514 Cannes–et–Clairan: biens communaux, 1809–1936 2 O 569 Cavillargues: biens et revenus communaux, 1807–1931 2 O 763 Fontanès: biens et revenus communaux, an XIII–1927 2 O 773 Fournès: biens communaux, 1807–1940 2 O 1134 Montmirat: biens et revenus communaux, 1811–1940 2 O 1146 Moulézan-et-Montagnac: biens et revenus communaux, an XII–1937 2 O 1363 Pougnadoresse: biens et revenus communaux, an XII–1937 2 O 1383 Pujaut: biens et revenus communaux, an XIII–1940 2 0 1463 Rouvière: biens et revenus communaux, 1819–1936 2 O 1802 Saint-Pons-la-Calm: biens et revenus communaux, an XIII–1933 2 O 1817 Saint-Quentin-la-Poterie: biens et revenus communaux, an XIII–1938 2 O 1856 Saint-Victor-la-Coste: biens et revenus communaux, an XIII–1938 2 O 1882 Salinelles: biens et revenus communaux, 1809–1935 2 O 1919 Sauzet: biens et revenus communaux, 1827–1932 2 O 1989 Tavel: biens et revenues communaux, an XIII–1939 2 O 2011 Tresques: biens et revenus communaux, an X–1936 N.B. One Royal Ordinance may list the privatizations of land in one or more communes.

In the Côtes-du-Rhône, evidence from the implementation of the Royal Ordinance of 23 June 1819 clearly illustrates that individuals used their newly privatized plots of common land to increase the size of their prestigious vineyards. In Tavel, over 130 individuals agreed to purchase the plots which they had held since 1793 under the Royal Ordinance of 23 June 1819; 95 per cent of this land was planted in grape vines.51 Similar situations occurred in Pujat, Rochefort and Saint-Victor-la-Coste. All of these communes experienced either partitions or usurpations of their commons during the Revolutionary decade and at least  A.D.G. 2 0 1989, Registre des Déclarations et Soumissions, 20 Août 1819.

51

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70 per cent and sometimes as high as 100 per cent of the new plots were devoted to viticulture.52 But this phenomenon did not occur in every region in the Gard in equal measure. Le Goff and Sutherland have argued that much of the growth in viticulture during the 1790s was due to the investments made in this industry by pre-Revolutionary generations.53 This certainly seems to be the case in the Gard as areas of previous viticultural success, such as the Arrondissement of Uzès, including the Côtes-duRhône and the Arrondissement of Nîmes, including the Costières-de-Nîmes, kept expanding during the early decades of the nineteenth century. These two regions played the largest role in the department’s wine production during the early nineteenth century (see Table 6.3). Table 6.3

Wine production in the Gard, 1812–1854

Arrondissement

Area in Vines (Ha)

Quantity Quantity Total Sent to HL/Ha Consumed by Production Distilleries Production Inhabitants (HL) in 1812 in 1812 (HL) (HL)

Alais 1812 1854 Nîmes 1812 1854 Uzès 1812 1854

11,069 13,481

5.95 6.40

65,950 86,400

39,144

468

34,967 45,686

13.04 25.00

456,200 1,142,150

120,000

200,000

18,680 14,236

7.33 12.00

137,000 170,832

98,000

300

Vigan 1812 1854

8,200 4,673

3.65 5.78

30,000 27,038

40,000

150

Sources: A.N. F 11 1171, Tableau sur produite en vin pendant l’année 1812; A.D.G 7 M 253, Tableau des produits des vins, 1812; 7 M 254, Récoltes du vin par arrondissement, 1854.

From this evidence it is clear that production methods improved during these decades as more wine was made from less grape vines. It is also evident that changes in the wine market, which split into high quality wines and cheap vins communs for the mass market, are also reflected in the Gard’s production.54 While much of the wine in 1812 was consumed locally by the inhabitants, 52

 A.D.G. 2 0 1383 Pujat, 2 0 1431 Rochefort and 2 0 1856 St. Victor-la-Coste.   Le Goff and Sutherland, ‘The Revolution and the rural economy’, p. 63. 54   For an overview of the polarization of the wine market see T. Unwin, Wine and the vine; an historical geography of viticulture and the wine trade (London, 1996), pp. 271–4. 53

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in the Arrondissements of Nîmes and Uzès, there are differences in what the excess production was used for. In the area south of Nîmes, much of the wine, some 200,000 hl, was sent to distilleries for the production of eau-de-vie. But in the Arrondissement of Uzès, wine of superior quality was exported.55 Indeed some 191,000 hl of higher quality wine was exported from the Gard in 1812, much of it from the Côtes-du-Rhône. The best of these wines, such as ones from Tavel, Chusclan and Lirac, were sent to Paris; the rest were sent to Lyon where they were mixed with wine from Beaujolais.56 Thus, the production of higher quality wines in Gard had developed during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic decades, but this was also part of a larger trend. There has been much historical attention given to the viticultural boom of the mid-nineteenth century in Languedoc.57 Central to this expansion was population growth and urbanization coupled with the introduction of the rail network in the region between 1847 and 1857, which resulted in the creation of a truly national market. This fostered the rapid extension of grape vines between the 1840s, when 275,000 ha of vines were recorded in Pyrénées-Orientales, Hérault, Aude and Gard, and 1862 when 393,000 ha were reported.58 And while there is no denying that the ‘golden age of wine’ in Languedoc occurred after the introduction of the railroads, not enough attention has been given to the period which preceded this ‘viticultual revolution’. It was during the half-century which bridges the Revolution when the seeds were sown for the viticultural explosion of the mid-nineteenth century in lower Languedoc. As we have seen the wine market in the region expanded during the first decades of the nineteenth century as well as the surface area devoted to vines. Some of this development was due in part to Revolutionary and Napoleonic agrarian reforms which sought to privatize village common land. This argument has been made by Peter McPhee for the Corbières region where Revolutionary land clearances helped to foster growth in the viticultural economy.59 A comparable situation occurred in the  A.N. F 11 1171, Observations sur le tableau sur produite en vin pendant l’année 1812. 56   Lachiver, Vins, vignes et vignerons, p. 323; M. Martin, ‘Mémoire sur l’état de l’agriculture dans le deuxième arrondissement du Gard’, pp. 87–9; A.N. F 11 1171, Réponse aux demandes à l’exportation des vins de ce départenment, Nîmes 12 juin 1813. 57   See for example R. Laurent, ‘Les Quatre Âges du Vignoble du Bas-Languedoc et du Roussillon’ in Économie et Société en Languedoc-Rousillon de 1789 à nos jours (Montpellier, 1978) and G. Gavignaud-Fontaine, Le Languedoc viticole, La Méditerranée et l’Europe au siècle dernier (XXe) (Montpellier, 2000), pp. 18–42, L. Frader, Peasants and Protest: Agricultural Workers, Politics, and Unions in the Aude, 1850–1914 (Berkeley, 1991), as well as Eugene Weber’s brief comments in Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–1914 (Stanford, 1976), pp. 216–17. 58   Laurent, ‘Les Quatre Âges du Vignoble’, p. 15. 59   P. McPhee, ‘Peasant Revolution, Winegrowing and the Environment: The Corbières Region of Langudoc, 1780–1830’, Australian Journal of French Studies XXIX (1992), pp. 153–69 and Revolution and the Environment, pp. 175–204. 55

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Gard as Revolutionary, Napoleonic and Restoration land reforms allowed many petits vignerons in the region to secure plots of land on which to grow grape vines. Following McPhee’s examination of the change in the relative importance of wine-growing in the Corbières,60 an analysis of the place of vine-growing in eleven communes of the Gard reveals similar results (see Table 6.4).61 Data from two Revolutionary surveys of agriculture in the Gard, one from 1790 and the other from 1796, is compared to the percentage of grape vines recorded on the cadastral maps ordered by Napoleon in 1807, but completed years later. The results are a striking example of just how much viticulture expanded in the region in the decades after 1789. Table 6.4

Changes in the relative importance of viticulture in the Gard, 1790– 1842

Date of Data (1) / (2) Bellegarde + 1796/1813 Chusclan* 1790/1825 Domazan* 1790/1842 Jonquires St. Vincent + 1796/1830 Lédenon + 1790/1842 1790/1842 Marguerittes Montfaucon 1796/1812 Orsan* 1796/1834 Poulx 1790/1842 St. Géniès deComolas* 1796/1825 St. Laurent des Arbres* 1796/1825 Commune

% Value of Vines (1) 20.8 27.6 23.4 15.7 17.2 31.7 17.1 18.3 2.5 22.9 17.4

% Value of Vines (2) 24.1 24.4 25.4 48.4 20.6 28.8 24.3 38.9 4.5 51.6 33.0

% Change +190 –9 +108 +308 +120 –9 +142 +213 +180 +225 +190

Sources: A.D.G. L 477, État du nombre et de la qualité de terres, an IV (1796); L 1101, Biens communaux, District de Beaucaire, 1790; L 1220, Biens communaux, District de Nîmes, 1790; L 1350, Biens communaux, District de Pont-Saint-Esprit, 1790; 3 P 545, État de sections, Bellegarde, 1813; 3 P 887, État de sections, Chusclan, 1825; 3 P 1324, État de sections, Jonquires St. Vincent, 1830; 3 P 1608, État de sections, Montfaucon, 1812; 3 P 2006, État de sections, Orsan, 1834; 3 P 2441, État de sections, St. Géniès de Comolas, 1825; 3 P 2626, État de sections, St.Laurent des Arbres, 1825; H. Rivoire, Statistique du département du Gard (Nîmes, 1842). N.B. Communes marked with + are located in the Costières de Nîmes; communes marked with * are located in the Côtes-du-Rhône.  McPhee, Revolution and the Environment, pp. 181–2.  Eight of the 11 villages had some of their commons privatized during the period under investigation, while only three of the villages in this table (Lédenon, Montfaucon and St. Géniès de Comolas) did not have any common land privatized under legislation analysed in this study. 60 61

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While the overall impression is one of substantial growth, it must be said that arable land, used for grain cultivation, also expanded during this period as subsistence crops were still a requisite part of the local economy. Even in the Côtes-du-Rhône some communes, such as Chusclan, saw the surface area devoted to grape vines actually fall, if only by 9 per cent. Globally, however, viticulture expanded in the Gard in the decades which followed the Revolution and at least some of this growth occurred on plots of privatized common land. Thus, the types of cultivation that developed on appropriated plots of common land made sense considering the economic circumstances of the day. Both grain crops and wine grapes were needed in the Gard due to the subsistence crisis and war but also because the wine trade was one area of the rural economy that seemed to hold its own during this chaotic period. The reputation of certain products may have also influenced what rural dwellers did with their parcels of common land. As we have seen, wine from the Côtes-du-Rhône enjoyed a good reputation, but wheat from Saint-Gilles near the Mediterranean was also highly acclaimed, and holders of plots of communal wastes that were cleared under the 1770 edict and finally declared under 9 Ventôse XII had used their plots to grow this esteemed blé.62 A balanced polyculture still dominated most villages in the Gard during the early nineteenth century and traditional forms of exploitation were carried out on the new plots. Agronomic goals were partially fulfilled because these waste lands were now being cultivated, but the micros and petits proprietors who worked the plots did not switch their methods of cultivation, nor the type of crops that they grew. For example, fodder crops or sown meadows did not develop on a largescale in the Gard.63 However, the fact that grape vines played such a significant part in the new production built on the trends that had developed in the eighteenth century, but also pointed the way towards the future. The petits proprietors who cleared plots of communal garrigue and planted them with grape vines in the eastern Gard during the Revolution and Empire began gradually to transform the rural economy. Viticulture was tied to the garrigue hinterlands of Montpellier and Nîmes because these areas are well suited to vine growing. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, petits proprietors had the highest concentration of land owning in these garrigue landscapes.64 Thus, the origins of the ‘viticultural revolution’ that occurred in the mid-nineteenth century in southern   For the reputable status of Saint-Gilles’s wheat, see Grangent, Description abrégé du département du Gard, 11; over 500 individuals cleared over 400 ha of communal marshland to cultivate grain between 1784–89, see A.D.G. 2 0 1624, Déclarations fournie en execution de l’article 3 de la loi du 9 Ventôse XII relative aux biens communaux. 63   Festy Octave claims that these types of pastures did increase during this period, but mostly in northern France, see ‘Les progrès de l’agriculture française durant le premier Empire’, Revue d’histoire économique et sociale XXXV (1957), pp. 266–92. 64  A. Soboul, Les campagnes montpelliéraines, pp. 23–9 and E. Pélaquier, De la maison du père de la maison commune, Saint-Victor-de-la-Coste en Languedoc-rhodanien (1661–1799) (Montpellier, 1996), pp. 113–25. 62

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France can be traced back to the Revolution of 1789 and its legislation to privatize common land.

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Conclusion

In 1819 noted chemist and former Minister of the Interior Jean-Antoine-Claude Chaptal published a treatise which sought to describe the agricultural and industrial production of France. Although the goal of De l’industrie française was to demonstrate growth in these sectors since the Revolution, Chaptal did make some interesting observations in regard to viticulture. While Chaptal emphasized the increase in wine production and consumption and the expanding market for wine, he also recognized that the surface areas devoted to grape vine had expanded. Chaptal tied much of this expansion to the land clearances and partitions of the Revolutionary decade. The division of properties, and above all the clearance of lands which proprietors would have previously left uncultivated and which are today planted with grape vines, has prodigiously increased viticulture since 1789.

This observation is a succinct statement of what took place in the department of the Gard from c.1789–1820. In areas such as the Côtes-du-Rhône and the Costières-de-Nîmes, wine grapes were planted by smallholding peasants who cleared and cultivated communal garrigues throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic decades. This study has sought to provide evidence of how the growth of viticulture on ‘uncultivated’ lands described by Chaptal occurred. As we have seen in the last chapter, at least 42 per cent of communities in the Gard had common land privatized from the French Revolution to the Bourbon Restoration and that in some of those communities there were substantial increases in the surface areas devoted to grape vines. Although the ancien régime monarchy encouraged the clearance and cultivation of wasteland in the province of Languedoc, the idea of aiding the individual appropriation of the commons expanded during the Revolution as the principle of egalitarian partition was sanctioned by the controversial 10 June 1793 decree. This law, which was heavily influenced by the agronomist and republican theories of the day, unleashed a fervour of common land clearance and cultivation in the Gard and in other regions across France. The next three legislative measures were in many ways a reaction to the ‘problems’ that this widespread appropriation of the commons had engendered. Both the Napoleonic regime and the Bourbon Restoration tried to check these actions by requiring holders to declare the lands that they had seized and submit to either leasing or purchasing them. The law of 9 Ventôse XII was designed to regularize both legal and illegal partitions as   J.A.C. Chaptal, De l’industire française, 1819 (reprinted Paris, 1993), p. 185.



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well as the unauthorized usurpations that were made during the Revolution. In the Gard this law was widely applied; many illegally partitioned or usurped lands were returned to the communes in freehold title, but the occupiers remained in possession if they agreed to a leasehold contract. Some of these lands which had been leased back to the holders were sold under the law of 20 March 1813 when Napoleon desperately needed cash to finance his faltering military campaigns. Other plots were finally removed from the communal domain by the Bourbon ordinance of 23 June 1819. While the Revolutionary Convention encouraged the individual appropriation of common land for agrarian and political reasons, the actions of Napoleon and the restored Bourbons seem to have been in reaction to the growing financial pressures of the modern state. That is to say that during the first two decades of the nineteenth century usurped plots of common land began to be viewed as a way to increase the community’s or the nation’s resources. Leasing or selling these lands met agronomic goals as the plots were put under cultivation, but the needs of the modern nation state were also realized, as these lands were able to produce fiscal revenue. It is now time to explore how these results fit in with the larger historiographical debates among French rural historians. It will be recalled that Georges Lefebvre developed the classic interpretation of the peasantry’s participation in the French Revolution. Essentially he conceptualized the peasant revolution as an independent phenomenon, outside of the bourgeois cataclysm. This peasant revolution was fundamentally anti-capitalist in outlook, in his view, as it tried to resist the encroachments of agrarian individualism. For Lefebvre, the majority of peasants were primarily concerned with collective rights and practices and less interested in producing for the market than for their own subsistence. In this classic view, because the destruction of the seigneurial regime was not 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 subsistence-based production. The Russian historian Anatoli Ado has attempted to reverse Lefebvre’s characterization of the peasant revolution as anti-capitalist; for Ado, peasants were above all small-scale agrarian capitalists. In Ado’s model, which draws on theories of Lenin regarding the diverse ways in which agrarian capitalism could evolve, the French peasantry followed a unique route to rural capitalist development; this route has been dubbed ‘la voie paysanne’. One of the problems of the Lefebvre versus Ado debate is that both of the conceptualizations of the peasantry are too rigid and dogmatic. They both are guilty of trying to project twentieth-century concepts onto eighteenth-century peasants (proto-capitalist, in terms of small-scale producers and proto-socialist, with regard to the adherence to collectivist agricultural practices). There is also a danger of trying to impose over-arching theories on a country as diverse as France. Pierre Goubert once described twenty different ‘peasantries’ in eighteenth century 

  See the Introduction.

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France and warned that examples could be found to prove anything. However, parts of both interpretations are also valuable. Lefebvre’s assertion that petit peasant agriculture relied upon collective uses and practices is well founded, but Ado has rightly contended that this small-scale production was not necessarily a brake on commercial development. As we have seen, some peasants were capable of responding positively to market opportunities, but it is clear that peasants’ choices of what to plant depended upon and reflected a whole host of external factors, including the social and economic circumstances of the day as well as the past success and/or reputation of their product. If grains were in short supply, they planted them; if they needed some more sous in an increasingly cash economy, they cultivated wine grapes in areas particularly suited to viticulture; if their families grew or the harvest was poor, they simply cleared a plot on commons for a new house or vegetable patch. It is difficult then, in the final analysis, to endorse either the ‘voie paysanne’ thesis or an overwhelming adherence to collective practices as at least 42 per cent of the communes in the Gard changed the tenure of some of their communal lands. The best conclusion to be drawn is that over-arching theories are often too intransigent to describe the actions of people who survived on their own production during precarious times. While it is true that a significant number of communes in the Gard had a change to the nature of their commons, it must be emphasized that in most villages only some of the land was actually partitioned or usurped. Most communities retained sections of common land well into the nineteenth century and many still have communal areas today. But it is also clear that there was a tremendous will to appropriate some of these lands for individual exploitation during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; and this desire emanated from the poorer members of the Gard’s rural society. This seems to contradict the traditional notion of the peasantry’s attachment to collective practices, but the French historian Nadine Vivier has clarified the situation. Contrary to much nineteenth-century historiography which contended that the commons were the patrimony of the poor, Vivier stresses the fact that many poor peasants did not, in reality, have much access to common land during the period under investigation because they tended to be monopolized by the rich. Thus, the petits desire for an arable plot or vineyard on the commons makes sense, but only if we understand that they still

   P. Goubert, ‘Sociétés rurales françaises au XVIIIe siècle: vignt paysanneries contrastées, quelque problèmes’ in Conjoncture économique, structures socials: hommage à Ernest Labrousse (Paris and The Hague, 1974), pp. 375–87; see as well, the classic statement by Lucien Febvre, ‘Que la France se nomme diversité: à propos de quelques etudes jurassiennes’, Annales ESC 3 (1946), pp. 271–4.   In 1970, common land covered over 5.2 million hectares in France, Bourjol, Les biens communaux, pp. 404–9.    See Vivier, Propriété collective, pp. 293–9.

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were able to maintain their beasts through the collective practice of vaine pâture. Vivier claims that most poor peasants were able to keep their tiny flocks through the collective pasturing on private lands (vaine pâture) rather than by pasturing them on the biens communaux. It is an important distinction, but one that is often difficult to make as it is almost impossible to disentangle common land sticto sensu from other collective practices, because for the peasantry these usage rights were all bound up together in a single conception. In the complex web of collective institutions, common land stood as a tangible symbol of rural collective life and identity and as such many inhabitants did not wish to dispose of all of it. Vivier also claims that the commons were a material base which allowed municipalities to affirm their identity and their independence in the face of attack from either seigneurs in the eighteenth century or from the state in the nineteenth. Thus if peasants and communities acted in their own best interests, what were the repercussions of the Revolution on the rural economy at large? As before, Lefebvre provides the standard interpretation. He claimed that the while the Revolution abolished feudalism, it also consolidated France’s agrarian structure well into the nineteenth century. Because the subsistence sector of the economy was strengthened during the Revolution, production was able to keep pace with population growth, but in no way did it foster an ‘agricultural revolution’. Indeed, Michel Morineau has contended that ‘one has the impression that French agriculture in 1840 remained stagnant, retarded, even premature in the greater part of the territory’.10 New research on economic production has shown that the Revolution had little long-term impact and that any gains won were cancelled out by other disadvantages. For example, although it did not enable the bourgeoisie to rapidly industrialize along the lines of the English model, on the other hand, the Revolution did expand property ownership, certainly among the peasantry.11 The traditional Annalist-inspired social history, which has dominated the field for most   This practice continued well into the nineteenth century as the Rural Code of 1791 allowed landless inhabitants to pasture six sheep plus one cow and calf in the troupeau commun. See Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 114 ; J.J. Clère, ‘La vaine pâture au XIXe siècle: un anachronisme?’, Ann. his. Rév. fran. 54 (1982), pp. 113–28 and Plack, ‘Collective Agricultural Practices and the French State: Aspects of the Rural Code from the 18th to the 20th Century’.   Vivier, ‘Les biens communaux en France au XIXe siècle’, p. 129. It was the legislators of the eighteenth century who picked apart these practices and tried to reform them separately.   Vivier, ‘Communaux et Vitalité communautaire en France’, p. 80.    See Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, pp. 255–9. 10  M. Morineau, ‘Was there an Agricultural Revolution in 18th-Century France’, in R. Cameron (ed.), Essays in French Economic History (Homewood, IL, 1970), p. 179. 11   P.T. Hoffman and J.L. Rosenthal, ‘New Work in French Economic History’, French Historical Studies 23 (2000), p. 444; Postel-Vinay, ‘A la recherche de la révolution économique’.

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of the twentieth century, usually blamed peasant méntalités for the Revolution’s negative or neutral impact on the economy, but it seems wrong to condemn the peasantry for this stagnation. Recent work has questioned and overturned the static notion of French rural life developed by the Annales school, known as the ‘histoire immobile’.12 Philip Hoffman has shown that self-generated economic growth was certainly feasible in the early modern French countryside as peasants employed technical changes, used gains from trade and made improvements to land to foster productivity growth.13 French peasants also appear to have been deeply involved in markets and were ‘ready to invest in and adopt new techniques if economic circumstances were favourable’.14 Jean-Marc Moriceau contends that the French countryside was far from immobile during the early modern period.15 In contrast Moriceau describes how rural France was witness to a profound and diverse vitality. Indeed the whole nature of French economic growth in the century after the Revolution has been re-examined. It seems that while in the short-term the Revolution may have a neutral impact, in the long-term the French economy of the nineteenth century was far from retrograde. Indeed, per capita incomes in France actually rose just as fast as they did in England; France just did not industrialize to the same extent that England did.16 In contrast to recent revisionist historiography on the social impact of the Revolution, there were some real and tangible benefits of this great upheaval. Peter McPhee has recently described the abolition of feudalism as ‘the single most important “social fact” of the French Revolution’.17 The significance of the ending of seigneurial dues and obligations and the abolition of the tithe must not be underestimated, for this was one of the greatest gains that the peasantry achieved and was extremely beneficial if they owned land.18 Because the peasantry no longer   E. Le Roy Ladurie, ‘L’histoire immobile’, Annales ESC XXIX (1974), pp. 673–92.   P.T. Hoffman, Growth in a Traditional Society: The French Countryside 1450– 1815 (Princeton, 1996). 14  Hoffman and Rosenthal, ‘New Work in French Economic History’, p. 449. 15   J.M. Moriceau, Terres mouvantes, les campagnes françaises du féodalisme à la mondialisation XIIe-XIX siècle (Paris, 2002). For the dynamism of French agriculture see his Les Fermiers de l’Île-de-France. L’ascension d’un patronat agricole (XVe–XVIIIe siècle) (Paris, 1998) and with G. Postel-Vinay, Ferme, enterprise, famille. Grande exploitation et changements agricoles: Les Chartier (XVIIe-XIXe siècles) (Paris, 1995). 16  Hoffman and Rosenthal, ‘New Work in French Economic History’, p. 451; P. O’Brien and C. Keyder, Economic Growth in Britain and France, 1780–1914: Two Paths to the Twentieth Century (London, 1978); J.C. Toutain, ‘Le produit de l’agriculture française de 1700 à 1958: vol. II, la croissance’ in Cahiers de l’Institut de science économique appliquée, supplement to 115 (1961), pp. 1–287 and ‘Le Produit bruit intrérieur de la France de 1789 à 1982’, Economies et sociétés: Histoire quantitative de léconomie française, ser. AF, 15 (1987). 17  McPhee, Living the French Revolution, p. 210. 18   Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, p. 269 and Postel-Vinay, ‘A la recherche de la révolution économique’, p. 1016. 12 13

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had to pay a portion of their seigneurial dues and the tithe in grain, these surpluses meant that the rural population was better fed, but it also allowed for greater risks to be taken in terms of agricultural production. In lower Languedoc, smallholding peasants were able to focus their attention on commercial viticulture for everexpanding markets. As many newly privatized commons were planted with wine grapes, these lands became extremely valuable. Because they were owned by the petits who exploited them, they were not susceptible to the ‘neo-tithe’ which allowed landowners to charge their tenants and sharecroppers the value of the old church tithe.19 The abolition of feudalism also had a profound impact on wine production. Not only was the right of the seigneur to be the first one to sell his wine at market (banvin) abolished, but the seigneurial monopoly over wine presses (banalité) was also broken; many of these presses became communal possessions in the years after 1789.20 Access to land was another advantage which the peasantry gained in the aftermath of the French Revolution, albeit on a much reduced scale. At the end of the ancien régime, the peasantry, in total, held the title to roughly one third of the land; in contrast, the clergy owned about 10 per cent, the nobility 25 per cent, and the bourgeoisie 30 per cent.21 However, these percentages varied tremendously from region to region.22 In the Gard, the peasantry owned more land than the national average, possibly 38–40 per cent, but this proportion rose to perhaps 50 per cent in the garrigue landscapes, which dominated at least half of the department’s territory.23 Furthermore, land ownership among micro- and petits propriétaires grew during the Revolution throughout lower Languedoc.24 In this study of the common lands in the Gard, the Revolution had a remarkable socio-economic impact, for it sanctioned legislation that stimulated many rural dwellers to appropriate a plot of common land for themselves. Some of the new plots did boost the subsistence sector of the economy, but others were devoted to more commercial enterprises, such as viticulture. The expansion of commercial viticulture in the region, which includes the Côtes-du-Rhône, was a direct result of the privatization of common land. This finding is important because it sheds light on the growth which occurred in viticulture in the south of France before   See Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution, pp. 98–100.  The seigneurial monopoly over wine presses was abolished without compensation in March 1790; see G. Vibarel, ‘Le four banal et les pressoirs vinaires des habitants de Montblanc (Hérault) (1814–1924)’, Études sur Pezenas et sa région 1(1975), pp. 31–4. 21   P.M. Jones, ‘The Peasantry of France on the Eve of the French Revolution’, History of European Ideas 12 (1990), p. 341. 22   See G. Lefebvre, ‘Répartition de la propriété et de l’exploitation foncières à la fin de l’ancien régime’, in Etudes sur la Révolution française, pp. 201–22. 23   See Soboul, Les campagnes Montpelliéraines à la fin de l’ancien régime, pp. 23–9 and Pélaquier, De la Maison du Père de la Maison Commune, pp. 113–25 – Land ownership among the clergy and the nobility was relatively weak in the Gard. 24   Pélaquier, Ibid., pp. 121–2. 19

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the monocultural revolution of the 1850s. It also challenges some of the more pessimistic views of historians who see the expansion of smallholdings during the Revolution as thwarting growth in the rural economy.25 Without doubt the Revolutionary and Napoleonic agrarian legislation analyzed in this study fostered the transfer of a significant amount of common land from the public to the private domain in the Gard. As a result petit peasant land ownership was strengthened in the region, which in turn led to an expansion of viticulture. All of this bears witness to the profound impact that the French Revolution had not only on rural society and the economy, but also on the lives of ordinary people.

25

  Le Goff and Sutherland, ‘The Revolution and the Rural Economy’, p. 76.

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Appendix I

Application of the Law of 9 Ventôse XII in the Gard

Arrondissement d’Alès Bouquet 29 August 1807 Sub-Prefect advised that because no written or verbal partition ever occurred, Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. However, all public paths, streets and woods must be returned to commune and be restored to their original state. (A.D.G. 2 0 416) Brouzet-les-Alès n.d. The municipal council declared that individuals who cleared plots of common land were poor and ignorant of the law of 10 June 1793. They referenced Article III of 9 Ventôse XII legislation and proposed that occupiers would submit to pay the commune a redevance annuelle. (A.D.G. 2 0 455) Mons 23 Pluviôse XIII The municipal council declared that ‘scrub and abandoned lands were for pasturing animals’, but that some of these had been illegally usurped and cleared by inhabitants. 27 February 1806 Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned

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to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 1087) Monteils 27 August 1807 Sub-Prefect advised that even though usurpers insisted that their declarations were legal, no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 1109) Navacelles 13 May 1810 The municipal council confirmed 12 declarations made under 9 Ventôse XII. 5 September 1810 Sub-Prefect advised that even though usurpers insist that their declarations are legal, no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 1171) Plans (les) 1 May 1817 Sub-Prefect advised that usurped woods must be restored to original state but that the title of other lands must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 1322)

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Arrondissement de Nîmes Aramon 24 Floréal XII Mayor confirmed that the partition made under 10 June 1793 was legal and that existing documents which prove this should be ‘sufficient enough to maintain the inhabitants in incommutable possession of the divided lands’. (A.D.G. 2 0 163) Aspères 1 Prairial XII Mayor declared that no partition of common land had ever taken place, but that ‘the great majority of inhabitants have taken the initiative and cleared around 50 to 60 salmées of garrigues’. 28 Frimaire XIV Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 195) Aubais 15 Pluviôse XIII The municipal council declared that no partition of common land had ever taken place, but that there had been some clearings. Those who had ‘made some clearings have never paid any fee because of their indigent state’. 28 Frimaire XIV Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 202)

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Aubord 23 Prairial XII Liste de Détenteurs recorded 25 individuals who cleared a total of 45 ha 83 ares of communal garrigues during the 1790s; the lands were now planted with grains and vines. 29 August 1809 Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus the submissions made under Article III are declared null and void and instead Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 208) Aujargues 17 April 1806 Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus the submissions made under Article III are declared null and void and instead Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 221) Beaucaire 6 March 1806 Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. 126 inhabitants declared plots, ranging in size from 18 to 67 ares, which they had cleared and planted in grape vines. (A.D.G. 2 0 297)

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Beauvoisin 28 July 1807 Liste de Détenteurs recorded 185 individuals who cleared a total of 220 ha 67 ares of patus et communaux; they all had the option to ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 316) Bellegarde 14 November 1808 Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that holders of land that was partitioned verbally in 1790 could make submissions to the Sub-Prefect under Article III of 9 Ventôse XII, but that for all other lands Article V applied and thus the title of the usurped plots must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but the occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 324) Bernis 31 July 1806 Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but the 42 occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 338) Boissières 9 Messidor XII Liste de Détenteurs recorded 19 individuals who had all cleared small arable plots in the 1790s. 18 Frimaire XIII The municipal council declared that the lands cleared were of little value and that ‘the individuals who have cleared the lands are just in doing so because they are indigent’.

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29 April 1806 Rapport de Maire confirmed that no partition or sale of common land had ever occurred, but that the occupiers ‘should be maintain in their use of the land if they pay a fee (rent)’. (A.D.G. 2 0 389) Cabrières 29 Pluviôse XIII The municipal council confirmed that François Duafés had cleared 41 ares in Year XI; they want him to become the ‘incommutable proprietor’ under Article III of 9 Ventôse XII. 6 Feb 1806 Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but Duafés could ‘acquire’ his plot by leasing it. (A.D.G. 2 0 467) Cailar (Le) 19 Pluviôse XIII The municipal council stated that 117 declarations were made under 9 Ventôse XII, but that there was never any partition and these holdings were simply usurpations. They asserted that ‘the community of le Cailar was always opposed to these clearings’. The commons were always used for the pasturing of flocks and since these clearings ‘many proprietors of the commune have been forced to sell their flocks’. 16 March 1807 Décret Imperial pronounced the eviction of the occupiers with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII. Only those who had made plantations or constructions can be indemnified as proprietors. 1808 Mayor reported that Imperial decree had not been executed because occupiers would not give up their plots. He suggests that the Instructions of the Minister of

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the Interior of 8 Brumaire XIV be applied as the occupiers would then be allowed to lease their plots under Article V. (A.D.G. 2 0 479) Calvisson 18 Frimaire XII The municipal council confirmed that four inhabitants made submissions for their small arable plots, but they do not want the holders to benefit under Article III of 9 Ventôse XII because no written or verbal partition had ever occurred. 8 May 1806 Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but the four occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 498) Caveirac 15 Pluviôse XII The municipal council declared that no partition ever took place, only défrichements, ‘but since the Revolution, usurpations have become much more considerable with garrigues being cleared and planted with grape vines’. The names of 38 usurpers were listed. 28 Frimaire XIV Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but the 38 occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 563) Clarensac 30 Ventôse XIII The municipal council confirmed that no partition ever took place, only défrichements and ‘almost all of them by the poorest inhabitants – some plant grape vines, others plant grain and they are finding a way to earn a living’.

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12 Floréal XIII Sub-Prefect advised because no written or verbal partition ever occurred, Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 598) Domazan 22 October 1809 The Minister of the Interior confirmed arrêté du Prefecture du Gard which maintained inhabitants in possession of land that was partitioned under 10 June 1793. Occupiers could benefit from Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII, but those who simply cleared without a partition were condemned as usurpers and Article V was applied. 17 August 1810 Petition from inhabitants to prefect stated that most of the occupiers of the plots were indigent poor who could not afford to acquire the lands outright, but could afford to pay the commune a redevance annuelle. (A.D.G. 2 0 707) Fontanès 27 May 1806 Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but the occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. 23 July 1807 Liste de Détenteurs recorded 47 individuals who held plots between 10–98 ares planted with either rye or oats. (A.D.G. 2 0 763)

Appendix I: Application of the Law of 9 Ventôse XII in the Gard

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Fourques Year XII The municipal council confirmed that 68 submissions had been made under Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII, but no written or verbal partition was ever made. Council wanted holders to retain their plots but to submit to a redevance annuelle. No response from prefect or sub-prefect. (A.D.G. 2 0 780) Gallargues-le-Montueux Year XIII The municipal council declared that 18 submissions had been made under Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII, but no written or verbal partition was ever made. Council wanted holders to retain their plots but to submit to a redevance annuelle. No response from prefect or sub-prefect. (A.D.G. 2 0 864) Jonquières-St.-Vincent 15 Pluviôse XIII The municipal council declared that 25 submissions had been made under Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII, but no written or verbal partition was ever made. Council wanted holders to retain their plots but to submit to a redevance annuelle No response from prefect or sub-prefect. (A.D.G. 2 0 883) Langlande 5 Fructidor XIII Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus Article V applied. The usurpers were condemned to délaissement, i.e. the land must be returned to commune.

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17 February 1806 Conseil Municipal considered prefect’s ruling unjust and proposed a new mode de jouissance which was ‘unanimously decided … to authorize the mayor to lease the plots to the occupiers on nine year contracts’. (A.D.G. 2 0 897) Manduel 6 February 1806 Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus Article V applied. The usurpers were condemned to délaissement, i.e. the land must be returned to commune. 1 September 1808 Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture authorized mayor to bring case to the Tribunal and evict holders with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII. (A.D.G. 2 0 992) Marguerittes 10 July 1808 Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but the 26 occupiers who had made submissions could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 1000) Meynes 15 Floréal XII Mayor confirmed that no partition had ever taken place, but that ‘certain areas, and above all the garrigues have been cleared by individuals since the Revolution until last month’. The total amount cleared was 8 ha, while the remaining surface area of the commons was 75 ha 91 ares. 28 Frimaire XIV Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus Article V applied – usurped land must be returned to commune in

Appendix I: Application of the Law of 9 Ventôse XII in the Gard

171

title with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but the four occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 1045) Montmirat 10 January 1812 Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus Article V applied. The usurpers were condemned to délaissement, i.e. the land must be returned to commune. (A.D.G. 2 0 1134) Redessan Germinal XII Mayor confirmed that no partition had ever taken place, but that there had been many défrichements. 72 individuals declared their plots on 30 Pluviôse XIII. 16 March 1807 Décret Impérial ordered that usurpers be able to lease their plots. 24 May 1809 Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture provided instructions for those usurpers who wanted to lease their plots, i.e. two experts must be named to estimate the value of the land and a list of occupiers with the amount of tax which they will pay to the commune must be drawn up. (A.D.G. 2 0 1397) Saint-Bonnet 5 April 1812 The municipal council confirmed that no partition had ever taken place only usurpations. They wanted occupiers to be evicted. 13 April 1812 Sub-Prefect advised that the occupiers be allowed to purchase or lease their plots under Article V of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. (A.D.G. 2 0 1517)

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Saint-Côme et Maruéjols 6 Germinal XIII Sub-Prefect reported that no partition had ever taken place but that the commune had always allowed ‘the most indigent’ to clear plots on the garrigues for their subsistence. He commented that ‘it was impossible to dispossess the majority of these poor people’. 23 April 1807 Décret Impérial allowed the occupiers keep their lands under Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. (A.D.G. 2 0 1557) Saint-Dionisy 17 Thermidor XII The municipal council confirmed that no partition had ever taken place, but that there were clearings made on the communal garrigues. They claimed that it would be to the community’s advantage to lease these lands, and thus invoke Article V of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. No response from prefect or sub-prefect. (A.D.G. 2 0 883) Saint-Gilles 13 February 1806 Arrêté du Conseil du Préfecture ruled that no written or verbal partition ever occurred, thus Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but the over 500 occupiers who tried to claim lands that they had cleared under 5 July 1770 could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 1625) Théziers 23 Frimaire XIII Liste de Détenteurs recorded 123 individuals who had cleared lands between 1790–1800. 46 cleared herme/garrigue and planted vines; 13 cleared herme and planted grains; 43 cleared herme and planted a mixture of grains and vines.

Appendix I: Application of the Law of 9 Ventôse XII in the Gard

173

No response from prefect or sub-prefect. (A.D.G. 2 0 1998)

Arrondissement d’Uzès Belvézet 21 Prairial XII Mayor confirmed that although a partition had been projected on 1 Germinal II, it was never executed. Instead, there had been many clearings made on communal lands. 9 Fructidor XII Liste de Détenteurs recorded 26 individuals who had held their 1 salmée plots since Year VI. 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that submissions be declared null and void since Article III only applies to occupiers ‘who used the land in virtue of a verbal partition and could not be invoked by usurpers’ thus, Article V applied but other occupiers could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 331) Capelle-Masmolène 5 Fructidor XII Liste de Détenteurs recorded 11 individuals who had cleared their plots, totaling 4 ha 40 ares, between Years II and IV. 19 June 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that since no written or verbal partition ever occurred, Article V applied. The title of the usurped land must be returned to commune with restitution of income since 1 Vendémiaire XIII, but the 11 occupiers who had made submissions could ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 521)

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Cavillargues 4 Frimaire XIII The municipal council declared that the 51 occupiers who had cleared plots in Year II must relinquish them. 23 June 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that submissions be declared null and void and that all individuals who had cleared common land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. (A.D.G. 2 0 569) Connaux 28 Brumaire XIII Liste de Détenteurs recorded 60 individuals who had held plots since Year III. 21 December 1808 Secrétairerie d’État ruled that the arrêtés from the Conseil du Prefecture du Gard, 14 Avril 1806, 30 January 1807, 24 December 1807 be confirmed and that the 60 occupiers be evicted on the grounds that the original land cleared by them had been wooded. 27 April 1818 Sub-Prefect reported that the original occupiers were never evicted and that they continued to make submissions to retain their plots. His advice was to replant the usurped lands and sell the wood for the profit of the commune. (A.D.G. 2 0 656) Cornillon 23 Floréal XII Mayor reported that no partition had ever taken place, only massive clearings ‘by a large number of inhabitants’. He wanted Article V of the law of 9 Ventôse XII invoked for the 51 occupiers.

Appendix I: Application of the Law of 9 Ventôse XII in the Gard

175

11 June 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that all individuals who had cleared common land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. (A.D.G. 2 0 672) Foissac 12 Juin 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that since no written or verbal partition had ever taken place, the 20 individuals who made declarations could not benefit from Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. Article V, however, applied and all individuals who had cleared common land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. (A.D.G. 2 0 747) Garrigues Saint Eualie 14 May 1806 Mayor and Conseil Municipal reported that no partition had ever taken place, only ‘considerable land clearances’. They wanted this land to be returned to the community and a portion of it sold to help pay off the commune’s debt. 25 May 1807 Sub-Prefect advised that all individuals who had cleared common land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. (A.D.G. 2 0 815) Lirac 4 June 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that all individuals who had cleared common land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’.

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January 1811 Décret de Napoléon confirmed Arrêté de Conseil Prefecture du Gard which invoked Article V with the opportunity for the holders to ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them, but added that any wooded land that was cleared must be returned to its original state and used communally ‘as it had been in the past’. (A.D.G. 2 0 961) Lussan 13 Frimaire XIII The municipal council reported that no partition had ever taken place, only clearings. 94 declarations were made by 46 cultivateurs, 22 journaliers, 10 travailleurs, and one charbonnier. 11 June 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that all individuals who had cleared common land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. But a new usage mode may be drawn up which could include leasing of plots. (A.D.G. 2 0 973) Montclus 11 Frimaire XIII The municipal council reported that no partition had ever taken place, but that 56 individuals had made declarations for land which they had cleared and planted in grape vines. They wanted Article V of the 9 Ventôse XII invoked. No response from prefect or sub-prefect. (A.D.G. 2 0 1101) Orsan 2 Messidor XII Mayor reported that partition of 11 ha 41 ares of common land was made under 10 June 1793 although an official act was never drawn up.

Appendix I: Application of the Law of 9 Ventôse XII in the Gard

177

12 November 1808 Arrêté du Préfet du Gard ruled that all holders of plots of common land could benefit under Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII provided that they submit to paying an annual redevance to the commune. (A.D.G. 2 0 1300) Pin(Le) 29 Brumaire XIII Liste de Détenteurs recorded 30 individuals who had cleared plots between Year II and IX. 2 June 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that since a partition had taken place, but that it was before 10 June 1793, the 30 individuals who made declarations could not benefit from Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. Article V, however, applied and all individuals who had cleared common land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. (A.D.G. 2 0 1319) Pougnadoresse n.d. Liste de Détenteurs recorded one individual, Joseph Meyselle, who had cleared a 6 are arable plot in Year VII. 23 June 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that since no partition had ever taken place, the individual who made a declaration could not benefit from Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. Article V, however, applied and all individuals who had cleared common land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. (A.D.G. 2 0 1364)

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Pouzilhac 27 May 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that since a verbal partition had taken place, but the submissions made were not for those lands, the 13 individuals who made declarations could not benefit from Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. Article V, however, applied and all individuals who had cleared common land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. (A.D.G. 2 0 1376) Pujaut 19 Prairial XII Liste de Détenteurs recorded 65 individuals, most of whom had cleared plots in Years IX and X, although 10 had held their lands since before 1789. 21 June 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that since no partition had ever taken place, the individuals who made declarations could not benefit from Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. Article V, however, applied and all individuals who had cleared common land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. (A.D.G. 2 0 1383) Roque(la)-sur-Cèze 22 Pluviôse XIII The municipal council reported that deliberations on the law of 10 June 1793 had commenced but were interrupted by the Levée en Masse and an official partition was never carried out. But some inhabitants went ahead and cleared arable plots on the communal broussailles all the same. 35 individuals made declarations for their plots of common land under the law of 9 Ventôse XII. 23 June 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that since no partition had ever taken place, the individuals who made declarations could not benefit from Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. Article V, however, applied and all individuals who had cleared communal

Appendix I: Application of the Law of 9 Ventôse XII in the Gard

179

land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. (A.D.G. 2 0 1455) Sabran 29 Brumaire XIII Liste de Détenteurs recorded 54 individuals, 90 per cent of whom had cleared plots between Years II and IV. 18 June 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that since no partition had ever taken place, the individuals who made declarations could not benefit from Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. Article V, however, applied and all individuals who had cleared common land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. (A.D.G. 2 0 1467) Saint-Étienne-des-Sorts 10 Messidor XIII Mayor confirmed that a legal partition had taken place under 10 June 1793. 20 July 1808 Décret de Napoléon confirmed and maintained this partition which was made in accordance with the Revolutionary partition decree. (A.D.G. 2 0 1578) Saint-Hippolyte-de-Montaigu 25 Prairial XII Mayor reported that no partition had ever been made, only usurptions. He requested that the occupiers be condemned to relinquish the title of their lands, but that then the plots be rented out for the benefit of the commune. 20 June 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that since no partition had ever taken place, the individuals who made declarations could not benefit from Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse

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XII. Article V, however, applied and all individuals who had cleared common land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. (A.D.G. 2 0 1647) Saint-Laurent-des-Carnols 29 Brumaire XIII Liste de Détenteurs recorded 36 individuals who cleared plots in Year IV. 10 November 1808 Arrêté du Préfet du Gard ruled that all holders of plots of common land could benefit under Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII provided that they submit to paying an annual redevance to the commune. (A.D.G. 2 0 1735) Saint-Paulet-de-Caisson 18 February 1805 The municipal council reported that although no partition ever occurred, many inhabitants had cleared plots of common land. They wanted the 60 occupiers to lease lands on nine year contracts. 17 June 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that since no partition had ever taken place, the individuals who made declarations could not benefit from Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. Article V, however, applied and all individuals who had cleared common land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. Lands could then be leased back to holders ‘with the profit going to the commune’. (A.D.G. 2 0 1795) Saint-Pons-la-Calm 19 June 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that since no partition had ever taken place, the 32 individuals who made declarations could not benefit from Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. Article V, however, applied and all individuals who had cleared common land

Appendix I: Application of the Law of 9 Ventôse XII in the Gard

181

should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. (A.D.G. 2 0 1802) Saint-Quentin-la-Poterie 11 Frimaire XIII The municipal council reported that no partition had ever taken place, but that 33 individuals had usurped plots of common land. They asked that these lands be leased back ‘with the profits going to pay off the community’s debts’. 11 June 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that since no partition had ever taken place, the individuals who made declarations could not benefit from Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. Article V, however, applied and all individuals who had cleared common land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. The lands could then be leased back to holders ‘with the profit going to the commune’. (A.D.G. 2 0 1817) Saint-Victor-la-Coste 29 Brumaire XIII Liste de Détenteurs recorded 16 individuals who had cleared between the Years III and IX. 15 Pluviôse XIII The municipal council reported that these clearings had been made ‘to the detriment of other inhabitants and despite opposition from the commune’. 21 June 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that since no partition had ever taken place, the 16 individuals who made declarations could not benefit from Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. Article V, however, applied and all individuals who had cleared common land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. (A.D.G. 2 0 1856)

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Sanilhac-et-Sagriès 28 September 1806 The municipal council reported that no partition had ever taken place but that 34 occupiers declared their small arable plots which they had cleared between Years VI and XI. 16 February 1807 Sub-Prefect advised that since no partition had ever taken place, the 34 individuals who made declarations could not benefit from Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. Article V, however, applied and all individuals who had cleared common land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. (A.D.G. 2 0 1893) Vallérargues 29 Brumaire XIII Liste de Détenteurs recorded 29 individuals most of whom had cleared small arable plots in the Year IV. 11 Frimaire XIII The municipal council reported that no partition had ever taken place just illegal clearances made by particular individuals ‘to the detriment of the majority’. 23 June 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that since no partition had ever taken place, the 29 individuals who made declarations could not benefit from Article III of the law of 9 Ventôse XII. Article V, however, applied and all individuals who had cleared common land should be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community’. (A.D.G. 2 0 2059)

Appendix I: Application of the Law of 9 Ventôse XII in the Gard

183

Arrondissement du Vigan Campestre-et-Luc 30 March 1806 The municipal council reported that no partition had ever taken place, but that one individual, Alexis Montel, had made a submission for a plot of usurped common land. 8 April 1806 Sub-Prefect rejected the submission by M. Montel and declared that he be evicted and that the land in question be reintegrated with the communal holdings. (A.D.G. 2 0 504) Cannes-et-Clairan 10 August 1809 Arrêté de Préfet du Gard confirmed the legal partition which had taken place under 10 June 1793, but condemned those who had usurped plots of common land to Article V of the 9 Ventôse XII law with the option to ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 514) Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort 21 March 1806 Sub-Prefect advised that since no partition had ever taken place, the 60 occupiers of common plots be condemned ‘to giving up these lands with restitution of income since 1er Vendémiaire XIII given to the community under Article V of the law of 9 Ventôse XII’. 17 January 1808 Sub-Prefect reported that the 60 declarants were poor and thus unable to pay the commune any rent for their plots. These lands consequently were to be reintegrated to the communal domain. (A.D.G. 2 0 1655)

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Sauve 3 Fructidor XII Liste de Détenteurs recorded 19 individuals who had cleared plots of common land both before and after the law of 10 June 1793. 29 March 1807 Arrêté du Préfet du Gard condemned those who had usurped plots of common land to Article V of the 9 Ventôse XII law with the option to ‘acquire’ their plots by leasing them. (A.D.G. 2 0 1908)

Appendix II

Sales by Commune under the Law of 20 March 1813 in the Gard

1

Gravel

Boucoiran

2

Bouillargues

1

Brignon

2

Campestre Cardet Castillon du Gard Chusclan Comps Corbes Cruviers Lascours

9 1 2

Type of Land

4h

Total Sales (francs) 51205 102 3640 3385 600 1101 36534 100575 2796 1305

5% Annual Rent Due 4845 6 568 190 5 65 1853 2721 140 50

Rent Recvd 1814 ? ? ? ? ? 47.12 ? ? ? ?

Rent Recvd 1815 ? ? 284 ? 2.5 32.5 ? 1360.5 70 ?

Rent Recvd 1818 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 2721 140 ?

4725

100

?

?

?

6550

192

?

96

?

775

25

18.12

12.5

?

7069 1000

329 50

238.52 ?

164.5 ?

? ?

40100

992

?

?

?

2266.4 7525 2215

106 404 64

76.85 ? ?

53 ? ?

? 404 ?

325

10

7.25

5

?

This page has been left blank intentionally

3 1 1

Surface Area Marshes & Pastures 1040h 64a 54c Arable ? Marshes & Bread Oven 41h 78a & 80m Pastures ? 120m Ancient Oven Woods & Pastures ? 48h 79a 73c Marshes & Arable Marshes 176h Meadow ? Pasture 7h 45a Arable & Ruins of a 4h 25a Temple Arable 29h 70a 90c Arable, Gravel, 10h 54a 75c Pasture, Meadow Woods & Pasture ? Pasture 56 arpent Arable & Vines, 16h 10a 44c Garden Copse Woods 1h 58a 9h 31a Marshes Copse Woods 750a

No. of Sales Aiguesmortes 7 Aigueze 1 Aimargues 2 Anduze 1 Aramon 1 Aulas et Arphy 1 Beaucaire 5 Bellegarde 4 Bezouce 1 Boisset et Gaujac 1 Commune

Commune Dions Domazan Fournes

Surface Area

Total Sales (francs) 12700

5% Annual Rent Due 491

Rent Recvd 1814 ?

Rent Recvd 1815 ?

Rent Recvd 1818 ?

2390

236

?

118

?

1h 85a 86c

1223.2

63

45.61

31.5

?

121h 8a 9c 75a 15a & ?

33991 1305 3780

1024 62 103

? ? ?

512 ? ?

1024 62 103

1200

54

39.15

27

?

? 1275 52.2 314.69 ? ? ? ? ?

? 850 36 217 ? ? ? 88 ?

? 4700? ? ? 501 22 84 476? 21

55h ?

This page has been left blank intentionally

Fourques Garrigues Jonquieres La Bastide d’Engras La Calmette Le Cailar L Vigan Logrian Lussan Manduel Meynes Milhaud Montfrin

No. of Type of Land Sales 1 Pasture Arable & Olive oil 2 press Tile works, Sheep-pen 1 & Arable 317 Arable 1 Threshing area 2 Garden & Hillside 1

Diverse

4h 35a 12c

2 5 2 1 3 1 2 4 1

Diverse Marshes & Meadows Uncultivated land Diverse Diverse Arable Threshing area Arable 2 Buildings Arable, Vines, Heath land House House Diverse

30h 98a 3c 47h 55a 31c 7h 15a 20c 136h 33a 59c 49h & ? 32a 40c 3h 9a 78c 76a 7c 95c

12318 61679 910 23300 20375 205 1786 3160 422

5 1700 72 434 501 22 84 176 21

88a 90c & ?

6050

228

?

?

228

? ? ?

82 410 4800

4 13 103

2.9 9.42 ?

2 6.5 ?

? ? 103

Moussac

4

Mus Navacelles Nimes

1 1 1

Saint Chaptres

3

Saint Dezery

1

Saint Etienne des Sorts Saint Gilles Saint Jean de Serres

Type of Land House Vines & Heath land Marshes Diverse Diverse & Heath land Arable & Gravel Arable & Garden Arable Arable & Vines Pasture Uncultivated land Arable & Vines Uncultivated land Arable, Meadow & Gravel House, Arable, Heath land

Surface Area 2a 50c 1h 20a ? ? 31h 80a 27c 25h 76a 99c 1h 80a ? 35h 19a & ? 110h 48a 24a ? 2a 64c

Total Sales (francs) 230 815 10450 1573.35 4650 30759 1450 400 7737 1686 133 4529 145

5% Annual Rent Due ? 27 465 ? 124 993 43 2 515 93 8 194 4

Rent Recvd 1814 ? 19.57 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 67.42 ? 140.65 2.9

Rent Recvd 1815 ? 13.5 ? ? ? 496.5 ? ? ? 46.5 ? 97 2

Rent Recvd 1818 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

36220

1392

?

?

1392

12h 72a

2400

87

?

?

?

5h

4480

270

?

?

?

101592

3421

2480.22

1710.5

?

?

4929

161

?

?

?

5h 88a 26c

8229

242

?

?

?

150

4

?

?

?

?

1

Copse woods

7

Arable, Pasture, Marshes 298h 1a & ?

1

Pasture

Saint Maximin

2

Saint Nazaire

1

Arable & Ancient Cemetery Arable

7a 93c

This page has been left blank intentionally

No. of Sales Nozieres 1 Orsan 2 Pompignan 1 Pont Saint Esprit 2 Quissac 1 Remoulins 3 Rivieres 1 Robiac 1 Sabran 14 Sagriers 1 Saint Alexandre 1 Saint Anastasie 1 Saint Bonnet 3 Commune

Commune

No. of Sales

Sauve

2

Sommieres

4

Theziers

4

Tresques Uzes

1 2

Vauvert

1

Verfeuil Vers

1 2

Vestric

2

Total 76

1

Total Sales (francs)

5% Annual Rent Due

Rent Recvd 1814

Rent Recvd 1815

Rent Recvd 1818

Woods, Arable, Building Buildings & Ancient Cemetery Buildings & Ancient Cemetery

76h 1a

22320

472

?

236

?

30a 42c

2910

160

?

80

160

175

5

3.62

2.5

?

4600

73

?

?

?

139.2

96

?

?

?

?

?

1003

?

12.32

8.5

?

?

104

?

? 31.17

5.5 21.5

? ?

?

666.5

?

3a

This page has been left blank intentionally

Saint Etienne de Lolm Saint Hilaire d’Ozilhan Saint Hippolyte du Fort St. Julien de Peyrolas St. Laurent d’Aigouze Tharaux

Surface Area

Type of Land

1

Arable

9h 32a 55c

1

Pasture & Heath land

85h 9a

10075

192

1

Arable

5h 51a

5035

108

3

Marshes, Arable, House 419h 57a 91c

88150

2006

1

Arable 3 Olive oil presses & Arable House Heath land & Arable Arable, Pasture, Marshes Church land Arable Marshes, Meadow, Arable  

64a

1100

17

11a 63c

5022

208

? 12h 52a 44c

765 1305

11 43

52h

7800

1333

6a 11h 19a 6c

365 9176

11 378

? ?

?

? ?

32990

252

?

126

?

5023.9

8684

6965

475

662h 50a  

880224.95 

31425

190

Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution

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Q 300, Idem., 15 novembre 1813–30 mai 1815 Q 301, Idem., maisons et usines, 20 mai 1813–8 août 1814 Q 302, Ventes de diverses propriétés communales dans l’arrondissement d’Uzès 1813–15 Q 303, Affiches et process verbaux de renvoi relatifs aux ventes des biens communaux, nos 1 à 18 Q 306, Éxpéditions tmbrés de diverses ventes, destinées au Directeur des Domaines Q 307, États de mise en ventes des biens communaux certificates de prise de possession par la Caisse Q 312, Instructions relatives à cette liquidation et états présentant pour les communes le revenue annuel des biens vendus, ainsi que le montant des inscriptions de rentes sur le Grand Livre, à deliver à chaque commune en replacement de ce revenu Q 315, Opposition de certains communes à la prise de possession de leurs beins par la Caisse d’Amortissement, 1813 Q 484, Sommier des biens des communes cédés à la Caisse, Bureau de Nîmes,19 avril 1813–7 octobre 1815 Q 485, Sommier des ventes des biens des communes, Bureau de Nîmes, 8 avril 1813–2 mars 1818 Cadastres Aramon (1813) Bellegarde (1818) Cassagnoles (1810) Chusclan (1825/6) Domazan (1813) Fourques (1834) Jonquires (1830) Lédénon (1809/10) Lirac (1825) Marguerites (1809) Montfaucon (1812) Ners (1830) Orsan (1834) Poulx (1809) Roquemaure (1825) St. Géniès de Comolas (1825) St. Laurnet-des-Arbres (1825) St. Victor-la-Coste (1826) Tavel (1824)

Plan 1164 W 3 1164 W 10 1010 W 633 1164 W 20 1164 W 26 1164 W 32 1164 W 38 1164 W 41 1164 W 42 1164 W 45 1164 W 49 1110 W 649 1164 W 51 1164 W 55 1164 W 61 1164 W 70 1164 W 78 1164 W 90 1164 W 97

État de sections 3 P 279 3 P 545 3 P 3414 3 P 887 3 P 1056 3 P 1164 3 P 1324 3 P 1431 3 P 1451 3 P 1503 3 P 1608 3 P 3546 3 P 2006 3 P 2093 3 P 2230 3 P 2441 3 P 2626 3 P 2795 3 P 2974

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Index

Ado, Anatoli 5–8, 11–12, 63, 65, 154–5 Aberdam, Serge 79 agriculture capitalist transformation of 4–8, 154–9 commercialisation of 8, 155–9 commercial/market production 5–8, 155–9 and common land 33, 71, 83 subsistence production 4–5, 135, 154–6, 158 agronomy 7, 36–7, 57, 90, 133, 150, 154 Aigues-Mortes 25, 27, 29, 116, 121 Aimargues 115, 118 Aisne 57 d’Alembert 8 Alès 23–4, 27, 29, 74, 78, 118 Allier 89 Alphonse, François 100 Alps 66, 69 Alzon 83 America, see United States, the animal husbandry, see pasture/ pastoralism Anduze 23 Annales School, the 156–7 Appolis, Emile 31 Aramon, 97, 115, 137 Ardèche 15, 18, 19, 72–3 Ariège 125 Armand 89 arrondissement d’Alès 27, 95, 121, 126, 129 arrondissement de Nîmes 27, 32, 95, 121, 126–7, 147–8

arrondissement d’Uzès 27, 32, 95, 121, 127, 134, 147–8 arrondissement du Vigan 27, 95, 121, 126, 129, 134 Aube 40 Aude 19, 71, 94–5, 110, 126, 148 Aveline, Jean-Baptiste 46, 49 Aveyron 15, 86 Baker, Keith Michael 1 Bagard 74 Bagnols-sur-Cèze 22, 27, 43, 78 Barjac 113 Bas-Rhin 89 Basses-Pyrénées 126 Beaujolais 148 Beaucaire 25–7, 118 foire de Beaucaire 25–6 Bellegarde 51, 99, 118, 121, 126, 130 Bergeron, Louis 107, 109 Le Berquier, Jules 49 Bertin, H.L. 24 Bertrand de la Hosdinière 55 biens communaux, see common land biens nationaux 2, 12, 108, 111, 120, 123 Bloch, Marc 31, 63 Bodinier, B. 111, 116 Boissy d’Anglas 118 Boire, représentant en mission 139 Bouches-du-Rhône 22, 57 Bouillargues 118 Bourbon Restoration 10, 123–4, 133, 153, 154 Bourgin, Georges 48, 63 Bozon, P. 73 Brittany 66

210

Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution

Bulletin des Lois 102 Burgundy 70, 137 Buzot 55 cahiers de doléances 22, 24, 39–40 Cailer, Le 118 Caisse d’Amortissement 102, 106–7, 110, 115, 119 Calmette, La 135 Camargue 17–18, 32, 121 Petit Camargue 134 Cambon, Jean-Pierre 49 Canal du Midi 137 Cannes 51–2, 129 Cantal 89, 125 capitalism agrarian capitalism 4–8, 64, 69, 154–7 anti-capitalism 4–5, 64, 154–5 development of 4, 6–8, 64, 154–7 French Revolution and 4, 6, 154–9 peasantry and 4–7, 11, 64, 154–7 transition from feudalism 7, 156 Carcassonne 137 Carnes 135 Cassagnoles 60–61, 74 Castelnau-Valence 82 Catholics 29–30, 78 Cévennes 17–20, 23–4, 29, 32–3, 74, 83, 129, 134 Champagne 70 Chaptal, Jean-Antoine-Claude 142, 153 Chusclan 20, 148, 150 Clère, J.J. 48, 70 coal mining 24 Cobb, Richard 3 Codolet 41 collective rights/practices 4–6, 10, 38–40, 64–5, 133, 154–6 Commission for Commerce and Provisioning 137–9 Committee of Agriculture and Arts 80

Committee of Agriculture and Commerce 35–6, 38, 43–7, 49–50, 55, 57–8, 80 Committee of Public Safety 72, 74, 81, 139 common land debate around 9, 11, 37–8, 40, 44, 47, 53, 63–5, 85–91 definition of 8–9, 32, 57 extent of 30–32, 41–2 legislation regarding 5 July 1770 100–101, 120, 139, 150 15 March 1790 37 14 August 1792 10, 47, 50–51 28 August 1792 10, 48–9 10 June 1793 10–12, 51, 57, 59–93, 97–103, 123–4, 126, 131, 135, 137, 143, 153 21 Prairial IV 10, 81, 87–91 9 Ventôse XII 10, 51, 64, 70, 73–4, 81, 84, 91–103, 106, 108, 118–20, 123–4, 126, 129–31, 134, 142–4, 150, 153 20 March 1813 10, 12, 51, 105–24, 129–30, 154 23 June 1819 10, 51, 123–31, 134, 144–7, 154 ownership of 9, 31 peasant acquisition of 6, 42–3, 51, 80–84, 123–31, 142–7, 153, 158–9 peasant conception of 5, 62, 65, 156 privatisation/partition of 2, 10–12, 31, 43–5, 73–84, 105–31, 142–7, 153, 155 seigneurs and 9, 31, 37, 40, 48, 60, 156 triage 9–10, 37–8, 48, 60 types of 12, 32, 45, 131 use of 33, 42, 64, 83, 131, 156 Connaux 52

Index

Conseil des Anciens 87 Conseil des Cinq-Cents 87–90 Conseil d’Etat 98, 126 Consulate 10, 20, 123 Continental Blockade 141 Copenhagen 138 Corbières 7–8, 22, 71, 94, 119, 148–9 Cornillon 40 Costières-du-Gard/Nîmes 134, 147, 149, 153 Côte-d’Or 70 Côte-du-Rhône 20, 74, 134, 137, 146–50, 153, 158 counter-revolution 3, 13, 29 Creuse 66 Cunier 89 Darracq 89 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen 35, 138 défrichement, see land clearance Delaye, Benoit 120 Delpierre 89–90 Desan, Susan 2 Dermingny, Louis 21 Diderot 8 Dions 118 Directory 85, 87–8, 91, 94 Domazan 33 Domessargues 82 Doubs 125 Doyle, William 1, 3 Dubert, Louis 120 Dudon, M. 109 Duport, Anne-Marie 13 economy development of rural 12, 156–9 regional 19–26, 134–51 and trade 25–6, 138–41 d’Essuiles, comte 133 étangs, see Camargue Fabre de l’Hérault 57

211

feudalism abolition of 4, 35, 47–8, 157–8 transition to capitalism 7, 157 Forest Code of 1827 133 Fourques 32, 116, 118–20, 123 Franche-Comté 137 French Revolution bourgeoisie and 1, 6 common land and 9–12, 158–9 development of capitalism and 4, 6, 154–7 nobility and 1 peasantry and 3–6, 157–9 Furet, François 1 Gajan 74 Gard 12–13, 15, 17, 19, 20, 22–4, 26–8, 40–42, 44–5, 49–51, 57, 60, 73, 79, 82, 88, 90, 95, 97, 101, 103, 111, 113–15, 118–21, 124–7, 131, 133, 136–7, 142, 147–8, 150, 158–9 Gardon river 15, 17–18 Garilhe, Stanislas-Privat 120–21 Garran, J. Ph. 87–8 garrigues 7, 17–18, 20–21, 24, 28, 32–3, 41, 51, 71, 74, 82, 84, 94–5, 100–101, 127, 129, 134, 150, 153, 158 Gauthier, Florence 6, 56, 69 Genoa 25–6, 138–9 Germany 141 Gironde 62, 65 Girondins 55–6, 59 Godechet, Jacques 63, 107 Goubert, Pierre 154 grain production 19, 72, 135, 137, 150, 155 Grangent, S.V. 19–20, 23 Great Fear, the 37 Gross, J.-P. 56 Guichonnet, Paul 66, 79 Guigue, Guillaume 120

212

Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution

Hamburg 138 Haute-Garonne 19, 72, 110, 126 Haute-Marne 48, 70 Haute-Pyrénées 110, 126 Haute-Saône 93 Haute-Savoie 66, 79 Henriot, Marcel 70–71 Hérault 15, 17, 57–8, 73, 137, 148 Hoffman, Philip 157 Hood, James 29 Hufton, Olwen 2–3 Huguenots, see Protestants Hunt, David 46–7, 57 Ikni, Guy-Robert 7, 11, 69 Ile-de-France 48 Indre-et-Loire 111, 116 Isoré 86 Italy 15, 25, 141 Jacobins 11, 56–9, 62, 78, 85–6 Jaurès, Jean 1 Jessenne, J.-P. 56 Jones, Colin 3 Jones, Peter 2, 8, 11, 48, 56, 63, 65–6, 70 July Monarchy 30, 133 Jura 40, 66 La Grand-Combe 24 Lamerville, Heurtault de 35, 38, 46, 90 land clearance 21–2, 40, 45, 58–9 ecological effects of 7, 40, 45, 58–9 under the 5 July 1770 edict 7, 9, 40 land ownership bourgeois 6, 28, 38, 85–6, 123, 158 church 158 noble 158 small peasant 4, 6–7, 24, 28, 38, 86, 123, 135, 150, 153, 155–6, 158–9 Landes 89

Languedoc 7, 9, 15, 17, 19–21, 23, 25, 27–8, 31, 72, 138, 141, 148, 153 Haute-Languedoc 137 Laudan 20 Lédenon 22 Lefebvre, Georges 3–5, 8, 10–12, 40–41, 56, 64–5, 69, 93, 110, 118, 154–6 Legislative Assembly 36, 47, 49 Le Goff, T.J.A. 3, 147 Léman 66 Lemarchand, Guy 63, 65 Lenin, 6–7, 154 Lewis, Gwynne 29 Le Vigan 18, 20, 27 Lezurier de la Martel 106 Lirac 20, 148 Logrian 83 Loiret 87 Lorraine 70, 94 Louis IX 25 Louis XI 25 Louis XV 9, 40 Louis XVI 50 Louis XVIII 10, 123 Lozère 15 Lussan 118, 144 Lyon 25, 148 Markoff, John 2 Marne 110 Marseilles 23 Marxist interpretation/historians 1, 5–6, 8 Massif Central 11, 66 Massillargues-Attuech 74 Matheron, François 119 Mathiez, Albert 1 Maugenest 89 Maximun Général, Le 135–6, 139 McNeill, J.R. 32 McPhee, Peter 2, 7–8, 22, 46, 71, 94, 119, 148–9, 157

Index

Mediterranean 15, 17, 25 Meurthe 70, 94, 110 Meynes 129–30 Minister of Commerce and Public Works 130–31 Minister of the Interior 61, 80, 82, 98, 100–101, 113, 119 Mistral 18 mode de partage 38, 44–5, 47, 49–53, 58–9, 61, 86, 88, 99 Molé 106, 109 Mollien, Comte de 105, 110 Montfrin 144 Monteils 90 Montpellier 25, 121, 136, 150 Montpezat 113 Moriceau, Jean-Marc 157 Morineau, Michel 156 Moselle 70, 94, 110 Mountain, the, see Jacobins Napoleon 10, 12, 91–2, 97–8, 103, 105–6, 109, 123–4, 130, 133, 141, 153–4 National Assembly 35–6, 38–40, 141 National Convention 50, 55–7, 59–61, 87, 99, 136, 154 Nemours, Dupont de 35 Ners 80–81, 88, 137 Neufchâteau, François de 47 Nice 139 Nîmes 12, 15, 23, 25–7, 41–2, 52, 78, 95, 118, 135, 150 Nord 11, 41, 57, 69, 93 Normandy 48 Octrois 141 Oise 57, 69 Olive production 19, 22–3 Orléanais 66 Orsan 98–9, 120

213

Paris 43, 45–7, 50–51, 57, 60, 61, 69–70, 72, 80, 82, 90–91, 97–8, 118, 121, 148 Paris Agricultural Society 36 Pas-de-Calais 69, 93 pasture/pastoralism 7, 21–2, 24, 33, 66, 72, 83–4, 86, 156 pays de grande culture 7 pays de petite culture 7, 11, 19, 27, 135 peasantry anti-capitalism and 4–5, 64, 154 conception of property 5, 38, 62, 156 definition of 27–8 Lefebvre’s view of 3–5, 10, 64–5, 154, 156 micros 7, 116, 118, 120, 123, 150 participation in French Revolution 3, 154, 157–9 petits 7, 8, 11, 21, 39, 45, 53, 108, 111, 116, 118, 120, 123, 135, 149, 150, 153, 155–6, 158–9 relationship to capitalist development 5–8, 11, 64, 154, 156–9 relationship to private property 5–6, 38, 156 Pélissier 57 Périgord 66 Peronnet, Michel 13 Petrow, Eugène 63 physiocracy 7, 46 Picardy 6, 8 Poitou 66 Pommier, Rabaut 50, 55, 57 Pompignan 129 Pont-St. Esprit 20, 27, 32 Portiez de l’Oise 92 Poullain-Grandprey 55 Protestants 29–30, 78 Provence 22, 71, 139 Pujat 146 Pyrénées-Orientales 126, 148

214

Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution

Quissac 32 Rebuffat, Anne 118 Remoulins 42–3 revisionist historians 1–3, 157 Rhône river 15, 17, 25, 27, 32, 121 Rhône valley 18, 141 Richert, G. 72 Roche, Pierre 119 Rochefort 146 Robespierre 56, 85 Rolland, Baron de 102, 115, 119 Roquemaure 20, 27, 78 Rothiot, J.P. 70, 94 Rouvière, François 12 Royalists 88 Rural Code of 1791 36, 38–9, 131 rural society 26–30, 116, 155 Saillol, P. 66 Saint-Bénézet 40 Saint-Bonnet-de-Salendrique 41 Saint-Etienne-des-Sorts 42, 97 Saint-Gilles 19, 25, 27, 100, 118, 120–21, 150 Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert 32 Saint-Hippolyte-du-Gard 23 Saint-Jean-du-Gard 20, 23 Saint-Just 56 Saint-Laurent-d’Aigouze 74, 90–91, 121 Saint-Laurent-des-Arbres 20, 81–2 Saint-Paulet-de-Caisson 101 Saint-Pons-la-Calm 130 Saint-Quentin-le-Poterie 101 Saint-Théodorit 124 Saint-Victor-la-Coste 146 Sallmann, J.M. 69, 93 Savey, Susan 28 Saze 84 Schama, Simon 1, 3 Sée, Henri 72, 108 seigneurs 24, 37, 48 common land and 9

triage 9–10 seigneurial regime 2, 4 Seine-et-Marne 70 Seine-et-Oise 61, 70, 111, 116, 118 Sernhac 129 Sète 121, 138 Sewell, William 1 Seyne 52 silk industry 23 Soboul, Albert 5–7, 28, 63, 107, 141 sociétés politiques, les 78 Solakian, David 49 Somme 57, 69 Sommières 23, 28, 32 Souhait, Julien 59 Soulages, Pons de 35 Spain 15, 25–6, 141 Spang, Rebecca 2­­­­ Subsistence Commission 72, 136–7 Sutherland, Donald 3, 147 Switzerland 138, 141 Tavel 20, 146, 148 textile industry 21, 23 Teyssier, E. 111, 116 Thermidorians 85 Théziers 134 Tornac 74 Toulouse 25 Touraine 66 triage, see common land; seigneurs Trouvé 94–5 Tubeuf, Pierre-François 24 Tulard, Jean 111 Turgot, A.R.J. 37, 57 United States, the 138 Uzès 23, 27 vaine pâture 33, 38–9, 71, 156 Vallérargues 52–3, 79 Var 22, 71 Vauvert 27, 42, 74 Versailles 24

Index

Vestic 83 Vigaroux, Etienne 120 Villeneuve-lès-Avignon 22, 32, 113 Vinification 141–2, 147 Viticulture 7, 19–22, 135, 139, 141–51, 154–5, 158–9 as part of polycultural production 19, 21, 135 market-oriented 7, 139, 141–51, 158–9 Vivier, Nadine 8, 11–12, 48, 62–4, 66, 70, 79, 90–91, 93, 102, 107, 109, 115–16, 118, 123, 131, 155–6

215

voie paysanne thesis 6–7, 11, 63, 65, 69, 154–5 Vosges 59, 70, 89, 94 wine 7, 20–21, 138–9, 141–51, 154, 158–9 commercial production of 7, 21, 139, 141–51, 158–9 requisition of 138–41 Woloch, Isser 107 women 33, 59–60, 79, 86, 88, 118 woods 32–3, 40–41, 58, 71, 81–3, 106 Young, Arthur 18–20, 26