The State of Society in France Before the Revolution of 1789

This gradual transformation of the national law, and the vain efforts which were made to oppose it, may be clearly traced in the history of Würtemberg.

From the origin of the county of that name in 1250, until the creation of the duchy in 1495, the legislation was purely indigenous; it was composed of customs and local laws made by the towns or by the Courts of Seignory, and of statutes promulgated by the Estates; ecclesiastical affairs alone were regulated by a foreign code, the canon law.

From 1495 the character of the legislation was changed: the Roman law began to penetrate; the doctors, as they were called, those who had studied law in the foreign schools, entered the Government and possessed themselves of the direction of the superior courts. During the whole of the first half of the sixteenth century political society maintained the same struggle against them that was going on in England at the same time, but with very different success. At the diet of Tübingen in 1514, and at those which succeeded it, the representatives of feudalism and the deputies of the towns made all kinds of representations against that which was taking place; they attacked the legists who were invading all the courts, and changing the spirit or the letter of all customs and laws. The advantage at first seemed on their side; they obtained from the Government the promise that henceforth the high courts should be composed of honourable and enlightened men chosen from among the nobility and the Estates of the Duchy, and not of doctors, and that a commission composed of agents of the Government, and of representatives of the estates, should draw up the project of a code which might serve as a rule throughout the country. These efforts were vain. The Roman law soon drove the national law out of a great portion of the legislation, and even took root in the very ground on which it still suffered this legislation to subsist.

This victory of a foreign over the indigenous law is ascribed by many German historians to two causes:—1. To the movement which at that period attracted all minds towards the languages and literature of antiquity, and the contempt which this inspired for the intellectual productions of the national genius. 2. To the idea which had always possessed the whole of the Middle Ages in Germany, and which displays itself even in the legislation of that period, that the Holy Empire was the continuation of the Roman Empire, and that the legislation of the former was an inheritance derived from the latter.

These causes, however, are not sufficient to explain why the same law should at the same period have been introduced into the whole continent of Europe. I believe that this arose from the fact that at this time the absolute power of the sovereigns was everywhere established on the ruins of the ancient liberties of Europe, and that the Roman law, a law of servitude, was admirably fitted to second their views.

The Roman law which everywhere perfected civil society tended everywhere to degrade political society, inasmuch as it was chiefly the production of a highly civilised but much enslaved people. The kings of Europe accordingly adopted it with eagerness, and established it wherever they were the masters. Throughout Europe the interpreters of this law became their ministers or their chief agents. When called on to do so the legists even gave them the support of the law against the law itself, and they have frequently done so since. Wherever there was a sovereign who violated the laws we shall generally find at his side a legist who assured him that nothing was more lawful, and who proved most learnedly that his violence was just, and that the oppressed party was in the wrong.

Note (II.)—Page 13, line 37THE TRANSITION FROM FEUDAL TO DEMOCRATIC MONARCHY

As all monarchies had become absolute about the same period, it is scarcely probable that this change of constitution was owing to any particular circumstance which accidentally occurred at the same time in every State, and we are led to the belief that all these similar and contemporary events must have been produced by some general cause, which simultaneously acted everywhere in the same manner.

This general cause was the transition from one state of society to another, from feudal inequality to democratic equality. The nobility was already depressed, and the people were not yet raised; the former were brought too low, and the latter were not sufficiently high to restrain the action of the ruling power. For a hundred and fifty years kings and princes enjoyed a sort of golden age, during which they possessed at once stability and unlimited power, two things which are usually incompatible; they were as sacred as the hereditary chiefs of a feudal monarchy, and as absolute as the rulers of a democratic society.

Note (III.)—Page 14, line 25DECAY OF THE FREE TOWNS OF GERMANY.—IMPERIAL TOWNS (REICHSTÄDTE)

According to the German historians the period of the greatest splendour of these towns was during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They were then the abode of wealth, of the arts and sciences—masters of the commerce of Europe—the most powerful centres of civilisation. In the north and in the south of Germany especially, they had ended by forming independent confederations with the surrounding nobles, as the towns in Switzerland had done with the peasants.

In the sixteenth century they still enjoyed the same prosperity, but the period of their decay was come. The Thirty-years’ War hastened their fall, and scarcely one of them escaped destruction and ruin during that period.

Nevertheless, the Treaty of Westphalia mentions them positively, and asserts their position as immediate States, that is to say, States which depended immediately upon the Emperor; but the neighbouring Sovereigns, on the one hand, and on the other the Emperor himself, the exercise of whose power, since the Thirty-years’ War, was limited to the lesser vassals of the empire, restricted their sovereignty within narrower and narrower limits. In the eighteenth century fifty-one of them were still in existence, they filled two benches at the Diet, and had an independent vote there; but, in fact, they no longer exercised any influence upon the direction of general affairs.

At home they were all heavily burdened with debts, partly because they continued to be charged for the Imperial taxes at a rate suited to their former splendour, and partly because their own administration was extremely bad. It is very remarkable that this bad administration seemed to be the result of some secret disease which was common to them all, whatever might be the form of their constitution; whether aristocratic or democratic it equally gave rise to complaints, which, if not precisely similar, were equally violent; if aristocratic, the Government was said to have become a coterie composed of a few families: everything was done by favour and private interest; if democratic, popular intrigue and venality appeared on every side. In either case there were complaints of the want of honesty and disinterestedness on the part of the Governments. The Emperor was continually forced to interpose in their affairs, and to try to restore order in them. Their population decreased, and distress prevailed in them. They were no longer the abodes of German civilisation; the arts left them, and went to shine in the new towns created by the sovereigns, and representing modern society. Trade forsook them—their ancient energy and patriotic vigour disappeared. Hamburg almost alone still remained a great centre of wealth and intelligence, but this was owing to causes quite peculiar to herself.

Note (IV.)—Page 19, line 14DATE OF THE ABOLITION OF SERFDOM IN GERMANY

The following table will show that the abolition of serfdom in most parts of Germany has taken place very recently. Serfdom was abolished—

1. In Baden, in 1783.

2. In Hohenzollern, in 1804.

3. In Schleswig and Holstein, in 1804.

4. In Nassau, in 1808.

5. In Prussia, Frederick William I. had done away with serfdom in his own domains so early as 1717. The code of the Great Frederick, as we have already seen, was intended to abolish it throughout the kingdom, but in reality it only got rid of it in its hardest form, the leibeigenschaft, and retained it in the mitigated shape of erbunterthänigkeit. It was not till 1809 that it disappeared altogether.

6. In Bavaria serfdom disappeared in 1808.

7. A decree of Napoleon, dated from Madrid in 1808, abolished it in the Grand-duchy of Berg, and in several other small territories, such as Erfurt, Baireuth, &c.

8. In the kingdom of Westphalia, its destruction dates from 1808 and 1809.

9. In the principality of Lippe Detmold, from 1809.

10. In Schomburg Lippe, from 1810.

11. In Swedish Pomerania, from 1810 also.

12. In Hessen Darmstadt, from 1809 and 1811.

13. Würtemberg, from 1817.

14. In Mecklenburg, from 1820.

15. In Oldenburg, from 1814.

16. In Saxony for Lusatia, from 1832.

17. In Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, only from 1833.

18. In Austria, from 1811. So early as in 1782 Joseph II. had destroyed leibeigenschaft; but serfage in its mitigated form of erbunterthänigkeit lasted till 1811.

Note (V.)—Page 19, line 17

A part of the countries which are now German, such as Brandenburg, Prussia proper, and Silesia, were originally inhabited by a Slavonic race, and were conquered and partially occupied by Germans. In those countries serfdom had a far harsher aspect than in Germany itself, and left far stronger traces at the end of the eighteenth century.

Note (VI.)—Page 20, line 11CODE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT

Amongst the works of Frederick the Great the least known, even in his own country, and the least brilliant, is the Code drawn up under his directions and promulgated by his successor. I do not know, however, whether any of them throws more light upon the man himself and on his time, or which more fully displays their reciprocal influence on each other.

This code is a real constitution, in the sense usually attached to the word; it undertakes to define not only the relations of the citizens to one another, but also the relations between the citizens and the State: it is at once a civil code, a criminal code, and a charter.

It rests, or appears to rest, on a certain number of general principles expressed in a very philosophical and abstract form, and resembling in many respects those which abound in the Declaration of the Rights of Man in the French Constitution of 1791.

It proclaims that the good of the State and of its inhabitants is the object of society and the limit of the law; that the laws cannot restrict the liberty or the rights of citizens except for the sake of public utility; that every member of the State is bound to labour for the public good, according to his position and fortune; and that the rights of individuals must give way to the interests of the public.

There is no mention of the hereditary right of the Sovereign and his family, nor even of any private rights distinct from the rights of the State. The name of the State is the only one used to designate royal power.

On the other hand, much is said about the general rights of man: these general rights of man are based on the natural liberty of each to pursue his advantage, provided it be done without injury to the rights of others. All actions not forbidden by the natural law, or by the positive laws of the State, are permitted. Every inhabitant of the State may demand from it protection for his person and property, and has the right to defend himself by force if the State does not come to his assistance.

After laying down these first great principles, the legislator, instead of deducing from them, as in the code of 1791, the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people and the organisation of a popular government in a free state of society, turns shortly round and arrives at another result equally democratic but by no means liberal; he looks upon the sovereign as the sole representative of the State, and invests him with all the rights that have been recognised as belonging to society. In this code the sovereign is no longer the representative of God, he is the representative of society, its agent and its servant, to use Frederick’s own words printed in his works; but he alone represents it, he alone wields its whole power. The head of the State, says the Introduction, whose duty it is to bring forth the general good, which is the sole object of society, is authorised to govern and direct all the actions of individuals towards that end.

Among the chief duties of this all-powerful agent of society we find the following: to preserve peace and public security at home, and to protect every one against violence. Abroad it is for him to make peace or war; he only is to make laws and enact general police regulations; he alone possesses the right to pronounce pardons and to stop criminal proceedings.

All associations that may exist in the State, and all public establishments, are subject to his inspection and direction for the sake of general peace and security. In order that the head of the State may be enabled to fulfil these obligations, he must possess certain revenues and profitable rights; accordingly he has the power of taxing private fortunes and persons, their professions, their trades, their produce, or their consumption. The orders given by the public functionaries who act in his name are to be obeyed, like his own, in all matters within the limits of their functions.

Beneath this perfectly modern head we shall presently see a thoroughly Gothic body; Frederick only removed from it whatever stood in the way of the action of his own power, and the result was a monster which looked like a transition from one order of creation to another. In this strange production Frederick exhibited as much contempt for logic as care for his own power and anxiety not to place needless difficulties in his own way by attacking that which was still strong enough to defend itself.

The inhabitants of the rural districts, with the exception of a few districts and a few places, were in a state of hereditary servitude, which was not confined to the forced labour and services inherent to the possession of certain estates, but which extended, as we have seen, to the person of the possessor.

Most of the privileges of the owners of the soil were confirmed afresh by the code; it may even be said that they were confirmed in opposition to the code, since it states that where the local customs and the new legislation differed the former were to be followed. It formally declares that the State cannot destroy any of these privileges except by purchasing them and the following forms of justice.

The code asserted, it is true, that serfage, properly so called (leibeigenschaft), inasmuch as it established personal servitude, was abolished, but the hereditary subjection which replaced it (erbunterthänigkeit) was still a kind of servitude, as may be seen by reading the text.

In the same code the burgher remained carefully separated from the peasant; between the burghers and the nobility a sort of intermediate class was recognised, composed of high functionaries who were not noble, ecclesiastics, professors of learned schools, gymnasia and universities.

Though apart from the rest of the burghers, these men were by no means confounded with the nobles; they remained in a position of inferiority towards them. They could not in general purchase noble estates (rittergüter), or fill the highest places in the civil service. Moreover, they were not hoffähig, that is to say, they could not be presented at court except in very rare cases, and never with their families. As in France, this inferiority was the more irksome, because every day this class became more enlightened and influential, and the burgher functionaries of the State, though they did not occupy the most brilliant posts, already filled those in which the work was the hardest and the most important. The irritation against the privileges of the nobility, which was about to contribute so largely to the French Revolution, prepared the way for the approbation with which it was at first received in Germany. The principal author of the code, nevertheless, was a burgher; but he doubtless followed the directions of his master.

The ancient constitution of Europe was not sufficiently destroyed in this part of Germany to make Frederick believe that, in spite of the contempt with which he regarded it, the time was yet come for sweeping away its remains. He mostly confined himself to depriving the nobles of the right of assembling and governing collectively, and left each individual in possession of his privileges, only restricting and regulating their application. Thus it happened that this code, drawn up under the direction of a disciple of our philosophers, and put in force after the French Revolution had broken out, is the most authentic and the most recent legislative document that gives a legal basis to those very feudal inequalities which the Revolution was about to abolish throughout Europe.

In it the nobility was declared to be the principal body in the State; the nobles were to be appointed by preference, it says, to all posts of honour which they might be competent to fill. They alone might possess noble estates, create entails, enjoy the privileges of sporting and of the administration of justice inherent in noble estates, as well as the rights of patronage over the Church; they alone might take the name of the estates they possessed. The burghers who were authorised by express exemption to own noble estates could only enjoy the rights and honours attached to their ownership, within the precise limits of this permission. A burgher possessed of a noble estate could not bequeath it to an heir of his own class unless he was within the first degree of consanguinity. If there was no such heir, or any heir of noble birth, the estate was to be sold by public auction.

One of the most characteristic parts of Frederick’s code is the penal law for political offences, which is appended to it.

The successor of the Great Frederick, Frederick William II., who, in spite of the feudal and absolutist portion of the legislation, of which I have given a sketch, thought he perceived a revolutionary tendency in his uncle’s production, and accordingly delayed its publication until 1794, was only reassured, it is said, by the excellent penal regulations by means of which this code corrected the bad principles which it contained. Never, indeed, has anything been contrived, even since that time, more perfect in its kind; not only were revolts and conspiracies to be punished with the greatest severity, but even disrespectful criticisms of the acts of the Government were likewise to be most severely repressed. The purchase and dissemination of dangerous works was carefully prohibited; the printer, the publisher, and the disseminator were made responsible for the sins of the author. Ridottos, masquerades, and other amusements, were declared to be public assemblages, and must be authorised by the police; the same thing held good with respect to dinners in public places. The liberty of the press and of speech was completely subjected to an arbitrary surveillance; the carrying of fire-arms was also prohibited.

In the midst of this production, of which half was borrowed from the Middle Ages, there appear regulations, which, by their extreme spirit of centralisation, actually bordered on socialism. Thus, it is laid down that it is incumbent on the State to provide food, work, and wages for all who are unable to maintain themselves, and who are not entitled to assistance either from the lord or from the parish: for such as these work was to be provided, according to their strength and capacity. The State was to form establishments for the relief of the poverty of its citizens; the State, moreover, was authorised to destroy foundations which tended to encourage idleness, and to distribute amongst the poor the money under their control.

The novelty and boldness of the theories, and the timidity in practice which characterises this work of the Great Frederick, may be found in every part of it. On the one hand, it proclaimed the great principle of modern society, that all ought to be alike subject to taxation; on the other, it suffered the provincial laws, which contain exemptions from this rule, to subsist. It ordained that all lawsuits between a subject and the sovereign shall be judged according to the forms and precedents laid down for all other litigation; but, in fact, this rule was never obeyed when the interests or the passions of the King were opposed to it. The Mill of Sans-Souci was ostentatiously exhibited, while on many other occasions justice was quietly suppressed.

The best proof of how little real innovation was contained in this apparently innovating code, and which, therefore, renders it a most curious study for those who desire to know the true state of society in that part of Germany at the end of the eighteenth century, is that the Prussian nation scarcely seemed to be conscious of its publication. The legists alone studied it, and at the present day a great number of educated men have never read it.

Note (VII.)—Page 21, last lineLANDS OF THE PEASANTS IN GERMANY

Amongst the peasantry there were many families who were not only freemen and owners of land, but whose estates formed a perpetual entail. The estate they possessed could not be divided, and was inherited by only one of the sons, usually the youngest, as is the case in certain English customs. This son was only bound to pay a certain portion to his brothers and sisters.

These Erbgüter of the peasantry were more or less common throughout Germany; for in no part of it was the whole of the soil swallowed up by the feudal system. In Silesia, where the nobility still retain immense domains, of which most of the villages formed a part, there were nevertheless villages owned entirely by their inhabitants, and entirely free. In certain parts of Germany, such as the Tyrol and Friesland, the predominant state of things was that the peasants owned the soil as Erbgüter.

But in the greater part of Germany this kind of possession was but a more or less frequent exception. In the villages where it existed the small proprietors of this kind formed a sort of aristocracy among the peasantry.

Note (VIII.)—Page 22, line 3POSITION OF THE NOBILITY AND DIVISION OF LANDS ALONG THE BANKS OF THE RHINE

From information gathered on the spot, and from persons who lived under the old state of things, I gather that in the Electorate of Cologne, for instance, there was a great number of villages without lords, governed by the agents of the Prince; that in those places where the nobility existed, its administrative powers were much restricted; that its position was rather brilliant than powerful (at least individually); that they enjoyed many honours, and formed part of the council of the Prince, but exercised no real and immediate power over the people. I have ascertained from other sources that in the same electorate property was much divided, and that a great number of the peasants were landowners; this was mainly attributable to the state of embarrassment and almost distress in which so many of the noble families had long lived, and which compelled them constantly to alienate small portions of their land which were bought by the peasants, either for ready money or at a fixed rent-charge. I have read a census of the population of the Bishopric of Cologne at the beginning of the eighteenth century, which gives the state of landed property at that time, and I find that even then one-third of the soil belonged to the peasants. From this fact arose a combination of feelings and ideas which brought the population of this part of Germany far nearer to a state of revolution than that of other districts in which these peculiarities had not yet shown themselves.

Note (IX.)—Page 22, line 27HOW THE USURY LAWS HAD ACCELERATED THE SUBDIVISION OF THE SOIL

A law prohibiting usury at whatever rate of interest was still in force at the end of the eighteenth century. We learn from Turgot that even so late as 1769 it was still observed in many places. The law subsists, says he, though it is often violated. The consular judges allow interest stipulated without alienation of the capital, while the ordinary tribunals condemn it. We may still see fraudulent debtors bring criminal actions against their creditors for lending them money without alienation of the capital.