The Online Library of Liberty

• Preface.
• The Old Regime and the Revolution.
• Book First.
• Chapter I.: Contradictory Opinions Formed Upon the Revolution When It Broke Out.
• Chapter II.: That the Fundamental and Final Object of the Revolution Was Not, As Some Have Supposed, to Destroy Religious and to Weaken Political Authority.
• Chapter III.: That the French Revolution, Though Political, Pursued the Same Course As a Religious Revolution, and Why.
• Chapter IV.: How the Same Institutions Had Been Established Over Nearly All Europe, and Were Every Where Falling to Pieces.
• Chapter V.: What Did the French Revolution Really Achieve?
• Book Second.
• Chapter I.: Why the Feudal Rights Were More Odious to the People In France Than Any Where Else.
• Chapter II.: That We Owe “administrative Centralization,” Not to the Revolution Or the Empire, As Some Say, But to the Old Regime
• Chapter III.: That What Is Now Called “the Guardianship of the State” (tutelle Administrative) Was an Institution of the Old Regime.
• Chapter IV.: That Administrative Tribunals (la Justice Administrative) and Official Irresponsibility (garantis Des Fonctionnaires) Were Institutions of the Old Regime.
• Chapter V.: How Centralization Crept In Among the Old Authorities, and Supplanted Without Destroying Them.
• Chapter VI.: Of Official Manners and Customs Under the Old Regime.
• Chapter VII.: How the Capital of France Had Acquired More Preponderance Over the Provinces, and Usurped More Control Over the Nation, Than Any Other Capital In Europe.
• Chapter VIII.: That Frenchmen Had Grown More Like Each Other Than Any Other People.
• Chapter IX.: That These Men, Who Were So Alike, Were More Divided Than They Had Ever Been Into Petty Groups, Each Independent of and Indifferent to the Others.
• Chapter X.: How the Destruction of Political Liberty and Class Divisions Were the Causes of All the Diseases of Which the Old Regime Died.
• Chapter XI.: Of the Kind of Liberty Enjoyed Under the Old Regime, and of Its Influence Upon the Revolution.
• Chapter XII.: How the Condition of the French Peasantry Was Worse In Some Respects In the Eighteenth Century Than It Had Been In the Thirteenth, Notwithstanding the Progress of Civilization.
• Chapter XIII.: How, Toward the Middle of the Eighteenth Century, Literary Men Became the Leading Politicians of the Country, and of the Effects Thereof.
• Chapter XIV.: How Irreligion Became a General Ruling Passion Among Frenchmen In the Eighteenth Century, and of the Influence It Exercised Over the Character of the Revolution.
• Chapter XV.: How the French Sought Reforms Before Liberties.
• Chapter XVI.: That the Reign of Louis XVI. Was the Most Prosperous Era of the Old Monarchy, and How That Prosperity Really Hastened the Revolution.
• Chapter XVII.: How Attempts to Relieve the People Provoked Rebellion.
• Chapter XVIII.: Of Certain Practices By Means of Which the Government Completed the Revolutionary Education of the People.
• Chapter XIX.: How Great Administrative Changes Had Preceded the Political Revolution, and of the Consequences Thereof.
• Chapter XX.: How the Revolution Sprang Spontaneously Out of the Preceding Facts.
• Appendix.
• Of the Pays D’etats, and Languedoc In Particular.
• Note Referring to Various Passages In This Volume.
• Feudal Rights Existing At the Time of the Revolution, According to the Feudal Lawyers of the Day.
• Estimate of the Various Tenures In Use In France Before the Revolution.

CHAPTER III.

THAT WHAT IS NOW CALLED “THE GUARDIANSHIP OF THE STATE” (TUTELLE ADMINISTRATIVE) WAS AN INSTITUTION OF THE OLD REGIME.

MUNICIPAL liberty outlived the feudal system in France. Long after the seigniors had ceased to administer the government of the rural districts, the cities retained the right of self-government. As late as the close of the seventeenth century, several towns continued to figure as little democratic republics, with magistrates freely elected by the people. Municipal life was here still active and public; the citizens were proud of their rights and jealous of their independence.s

Elections were not generally abolished till 1692; after that date municipal business was transferred to offices (mis en offices), that is to say, the king sold to certain citizens of each town the right of governing the others forever.

This was destroying, not the freedom of the cities alone, but their prosperity also; for, though the sale of offices has often been followed by happy results in the case of judges, whose independence is the first condition of their usefulness, it has never failed to be most disastrous in every administrative branch of government, because there responsibility, subordination, and zeal are the conditions of efficiency. The government of the old monarchy made no mistake in the matter; it took good care to steer clear of the system it imposed on the towns—it never sold posts of intendant or sub-delegate.

History may well note with scorn that this great revolution was accomplished without the least political design.t Louis XI. had curtailed municipal franchises because their democratic tendency frightened him; Louis XIV. abolished, though he did not fear them, for he sold them back again to all the towns which could afford to purchase. His object, indeed, was less to destroy their liberties than to traffic in them. When he did abolish them, it was, so to speak, a mere financial experiment, and, singular to relate, the game was kept up for eighty years. Seven times during that period did the towns purchase the right of electing their magistrates, and seven times was it taken away as soon as they had learned to appreciate its value. The motive of the measure was never varied or concealed. In the preamble to the edict of 1722, the king avowed that “the necessities of our finances compel us to resort to the most effective remedy.” The remedy was effective enough, but it was ruinous to those upon whom this new impost was laid. “I am struck,” says an intendant to the comptroller-general in 1764, “with the enormous aggregate of the sums that have been paid from time to time for the redemption of municipal offices. Had these sums been laid out in works of utility in each city, the citizens would have been great gainers; as it is, the offices have only been a burden.” I am at a loss to find another feature as shameful as this in the whole range of the old regime.

It seems difficult to tell precisely how towns were governed in the eighteenth century; for not only did the source of municipal power change continually, in the manner just described, but each city had preserved some shreds of its old constitution and its peculiar local customs. No two cities in France were, perhaps, alike in every respect, though the contrasts between them are deceptive, and conceal a general similarity.

In 1764, the Council undertook to make a general law for the government of cities. It obtained from its intendants reports on the municipal organization of each town within their province. I have discovered a portion of these reports, and a perusal has completely satisfied me that municipal matters were managed very similarly in all. There are superficial and apparent diversities; substantially the plan was the same every where.

In most cases, cities were governed by two assemblies. This is true of all the large cities, and of most of the small ones.

The first assembly was composed of municipal officers, whose number varied in different localities. This was the executive of the commune, the city corporation (corps de ville), as it used to be called. When the city had obtained or purchased from the king its municipal franchise, members of this assembly were elected for a fixed term. When the king succeeded in selling the municipal offices (which did not always happen, for this kind of merchandise was cheapened by each submission of the municipal to the central authority), they had a life-interest in the posts they bought. In neither case did the municipal officers receive a salary: in both they enjoyed privileges and exemptions from taxes. All were equal in rank; they discharged their functions collectively. No magistrate was charged with any particular supervision, authority, or responsibility. The mayor presided over the corporation, but did not administer the government of the city.

The second assembly, known as the “general assembly,” elected the corporation (wherever elections were still held), and participated in the chief affairs of the city.

In the fifteenth century, the general assembly consisted of the whole population. One of the reports mentioned above observed that this usage was “in accordance with the popular sympathies of our forefathers.” Municipal officers were chosen by the whole people. The people were consulted from time to time, and to them account was rendered by outgoing officials. This custom is still occasionally met with at the close of the seventeenth century.

In the eighteenth century the people no longer constituted the general assembly. That body was almost invariably representative. But it must be carefully borne in mind that it was, in no single city, elected by the people generally, or imbued with a popular spirit. It was invariably composed of notables, some of whom were entitled to seats in virtue of their individual station, while others were delegates from guilds and companies, and were instructed as to their course by their constituents.

With the advance of the century, the number of notables ex officio increases in these assemblies, while the deputies from industrial associations fall off, or disappear entirely. But deputies from guilds are still present; that is to say, mechanics are excluded to make room for burghers. But the people are not so easily duped by sham liberties as many imagine; they cease to take an interest in public affairs, and live at home as unconcernedly as if they were foreigners. In vain do the magistrates endeavor to revive that patriotism which did such wonders in the Middle Age; no one listens to them. No one takes the least thought for the most momentous interests of the city. The polls—deceitful relic of departed liberty—are there still, and the magistrates would be glad if people would vote; but they resolutely abstain. History teems with similar sights. Very few monarchs, from Augustus to our day, have failed to keep up the outward forms of freedom while they destroyed its substance, in the hope that they might combine the moral power of public approval with the peculiar conveniences of despotism. But the experiment has usually failed, and it has soon been found impossible to maintain a deceitful semblance of that which really has no existence.

In the eighteenth century, then, municipal government in cities had universally degenerated into oligarchy. A few families controlled the public affairs in favor of private interests, without the knowledge of or any responsibility to the public. The disease pervaded every municipal organization in France. It is perceived by all the intendants, but the only remedy they can suggest is the still farther subordination of local authorities to the central government.

They were already under pretty extensive subjection. Not only did the Council modify city governments generally, from time to time,u but not unfrequently the intendants proposed for particular cities special laws, which the Council passed without preliminary inquiry, and often without the knowledge of the people; and these laws went into effect without the formality of registration. “This measure,” said the inhabitants of a city at which such an Order had been leveled, “has astonished all classes; nothing of the kind was expected.”

Cities were prohibited from establishing town-dues, or levying taxes, or hypothecating, selling, leasing, or administering their property, or going to law, or employing their surplus funds without an order in Council first rendered on the report of the intendant.v All public works in cities were executed according to plans and specifications approved by an order in Council. Contracts were adjudged by the intendant or his subdelegates; the state engineer usually exercised a general superintendence over all. Those who imagine that all we see in France is new will not read this without surprise.

But the Council had even a larger share of the direction of city affairs than might be inferred from these rules. Its power was, in fact, greater than the law allowed.

I find, in a circular addressed to intendants by the comptroller-general about the middle of last century, the following language: “You will pay particular attention to the proceedings of municipal assemblies. You will require a full report of all their proceedings and debates, and transmit the same to me with your observations thereon.”

The correspondence between the intendants and their sub-delegates shows that the government had a hand in the management of all the cities in the kingdom, great and small. It was consulted on all subjects, and gave decided opinions on all; it even regulated festivals. It was the government which gave orders for public rejoicing, fireworks, and illuminations. I find it mentioned that an intendant once fined some members of the burgher guard twenty livres for absenting themselves from the Te Deum.

Municipal officers were impressed with a suitable consciousness of their nonentity. Some of them wrote their intendant, “We pray you most humbly, monseigneur, to grant us your good will and protection. We shall try to prove ourselves worthy of it by our submission to the orders of your highness.” Others, who style themselves grandly “city peers,” write to say that they “have never resisted your will, monseigneur.”

It was thus that the burghers were being prepared for government, and the people for liberty.

If this close subjection of the cities had but preserved their financial standing! But it did nothing of the kind. It is said that, were it not for centralization, our cities would ruin themselves. How this may be, I know not; but it is quite certain that, in the eighteenth century, centralization did not save cities from ruin. The financial history of the period is full of city troubles.w

Let us pass from cities to villages. We shall find new authorities, new forms, but the same dependence.

I have discovered many indications that, in the Middle Ages, the people of villages formed communities apart from the seigniors. The seigniors used them, superintended, and governed them; but they owned property exclusively, elected their rulers, and administered their government on democratic principles.

This old parochial system may be traced through all the nations which were once organized on a feudal basis, even to the dependencies to which they transported their decaying laws. It is easily discernible in England. Sixty years ago it was in full vigor in Prussia, as the code of Frederick the Great is there to prove. Some vestiges of it still lingered in France in the eighteenth century.

I remember that the first time I examined the archives of an intendant’s office, in order to discover what a parish really was under the old regime, I was quite struck with the discovery, in that poor enslaved community, of several features which I had noticed in the rural districts of America, and erroneously considered as peculiarities of New World institutions. Both communities were governed by functionaries acting independently of each other, and under the direction of the community at large; in neither was there a permanent representative body, or municipal assembly proper. In both, from time to time, the people at large met to elect magistrates, and transact important business. They resembled each other, in fact, as closely as a living body resembles a corpse. Nor is this a matter of surprise, for the two systems, different as their destinies were, had the same origin.

When the rural parish of the Middle Ages was removed beyond the reach of the feudal system and left uncontrolled, it became the New England township. When it was cut loose from the seignior, but crushed in the close grasp of the state in France, it became what remains to be described.

In the eighteenth century parochial officers differed in number and title in the several provinces. Old records show that when the parishes were in full vigor, the number of these officers was greater than when the stream of parochial life became sluggish. In the eighteenth century we find but two in most parishes: the collector, and another officer usually known as the syndic. Generally speaking, these officials were elected, really or nominally, but they served far more as instruments of the state than as agents of the community. Collectors levied the taille under the orders of the intendant. Syndics, receiving orders from day to day from the sub-delegates, acted as their deputies in all matters bearing on public order or government; such, for instance, as militia business, state works, and the execution of general laws.

It has already been observed that the seignior had no part in these details of government. He neither superintended nor assisted the officials. His real power gone, he despised contrivances used to keep up its semblance, and his pride alone forbade him to take any share in their establishment. Though he had ceased to govern, his residence in the parish and his privileges precluded the formation of a sound parochial system in the stead of that in which he had figured. Such a personage, so isolated in his independence and his privileges, could not but weaken or militate against the authority of law.

His presence drove to the cities all persons of means and information, as I shall have occasion to show hereafter. Around him lived a herd of rough, ignorant peasants, quite incapable of administering their collective business. It was Turgot who described a parish as “a collection of huts not more passive than their tenants.”

The records of the eighteenth century abound with complaints of the inefficiency, the carelessness, and the ignorance of parochial collectors and syndics. Every body deplores the fact—ministers, intendants, sub-delegates, even men of rank, but nobody thinks of looking for its true cause.

Until the Revolution the government of rural parishes in France preserved some traces of that democratic aspect which characterized it during the Middle Ages. When municipal officers were to be elected, or public affairs discussed, the village bell summoned the peasantry, poor and rich alike, to the church door. There was no regular debate followed by a vote, but all were free to express their views, and a notary, officiating in the open air, noted, in a formal report, the substance of what was said.

The contrast between these empty semblances of liberty and the real impotence which they concealed furnishes a slight indication of the ease with which the most absolute government may adopt some of the forms of a radical democracy, and aggravate oppression by placing the oppressed under the ridiculous imputation of not being aware of their real state. The democratic parish meeting was free to express its wishes, but it was as powerless to enforce them as the municipal councils of cities; nor could it utter a word till its mouth had been opened by authority. No meeting could be convened until permission had been obtained in express terms from the intendant: this granted, the villagers, who called things by their right names, met “by his good will and pleasure.” No meeting, however unanimous, could impose a tax, or sell or buy, or lease, or go to law, without permission from the Royal Council. The church which a storm had unroofed, or the presbytery wall which was falling to pieces, could not be repaired without a decree of Council. This rule applied with equal force to all parishes, however distant from the capital. I have seen a petition from a parish to the council praying to be allowed to spend twenty-five livres.

In general, the parishioners were still entitled to elect magistrates by universal suffrage; but the intendant frequently took pains to recommend a candidate, who never failed to obtain the votes of the small electoral body. Again, he would occasionally declare of his own authority that an election just held was null and void, would appoint a collector and syndic, and temporarily disfranchise the community. Of this course I have noticed a thousand examples.

No more wretched station than that of these parochial functionaries can be conceived. They were subject to the whim of the lowest agent of the central government, the sub-delegate. He would fine or imprison them, and they could lay no claim to the usual guarantees of the subject against arbitrary oppression. An intendant wrote in 1750, “I have imprisoned a few of the principal grumblers, and made the community pay the expense of sending for the police. By these measures I have checkmated them without difficulty.” Naturally enough, under these circumstances, parochial office, instead of being an honor, became a burden from which all sought to escape.

Yet still, these last traces of the old parochial system were dear to the peasant’s heart. To this very day that system is the only branch of government which he thoroughly understands and cares for. Men who cheerfully see the whole nation submit to a master, rebel at the bare idea of not being consulted in the government of their village. So pregnant with weight are hollow forms!

The remarks I have made upon cities and villages apply also to almost every corporate body which had a separate existence and corporate property.

Under the old regime, as in our own day, neither city, nor borough, nor village, nor hamlet, however small, nor hospital, nor church, nor convent,x nor college, could exercise a free will in its private affairs, or administer its property as it thought best. Then, as now, the administration was the guardian of the whole French people; insolence had not yet invented the name, but the thing was already in existence.

[Note s, page 61.]spirit of the government of louis xi.

Nothing indicates more clearly the spirit of the government of Louis XI. than the constitutions he gave to cities. I have had occasion to study very closely those which he gave to most of the cities of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine.

All these constitutions are framed on the same plan, and all reveal the same designs. Louis XI. appears in a new light in these charters. He is generally regarded as the enemy of the nobility, but the sincere though somewhat brutal friend of the people. They reveal him as a hater alike of the political rights of the people and of those of the nobility. He uses the middle classes to lower the nobility and keep down the people: he is both anti-aristocratic and anti-democratic—the model of the burgher king. He loads city notables with privileges in the view of increasing their importance, grants them titles of nobility in order to cheapen rank, and thus destroys the popular and democratic city governments, and places the whole authority in the hands of a few families, attached to his policy, and pledged to his support by every tie of gratitude.

[Note t, p. 62.]a city government in the eighteenth century.

I select from the Inquiry into City Governments, made in 1764, the papers which relate to Angers; they contain an analysis, attacks upon, and defenses of the constitution of this city, emanating from the presidial, the city corporation, the sub-delegate, and the intendant. As the same facts occurred in many other places, the picture must not be regarded as a solitary example.

memorial of the presidial on the present state of the municipal constitution of angers, and on the reforms that it needs.

“The Corporation of Angers never consults the people at large even on the most important occasions, unless it is compelled to do so; hence its policy is unknown to every one but its own members. Even the movable aldermen have only a superficial acquaintance with its mode of proceeding.”

(The tendency of all these little burgher oligarchies was, in truth, to consult the people at large as little as possible.)

The corporation is composed of twenty-one officers, in virtue of a decree of 29th March, 1681, to wit:

A mayor, who becomes noble ex officio, and whose term is four years;

Four movable aldermen, who hold office for two years;

Twelve consulting aldermen, who are elected and hold office for life;

Two city counsel;

One counsel holding the reversion of the office;

A clerk.

They enjoy many privileges: among others, their capitation-tax is fixed at a moderate sum; they are exempt from lodging soldiers, arms, or baggage; they are exempt from dues de cloison double et triple, from the old and new excise, from the accessory dues on articles of consumption, even from benevolences, “from which latter they have asserted their own freedom,” says the presidial. They enjoy, moreover, allowances in the shape of lights, and in some cases salaries and lodgings.

We see from this that a post of perpetual alderman at Angers was not to be despised in those days. Note here, as every where else, the contrivances to secure exemptions from taxes for the rich. The memorial goes on to say that “these offices are eagerly sought by the richest citizens, who desire them in order to reduce their capitation-tax, and increase that of their fellow-citizens in proportion. There are at this moment several municipal officers who pay 30 livres of capitation, and ought to pay 250 to 300 livres; one, among others, ought, in proportion to his fortune, to pay 1000 livres at least.” In another part of the memorial it is said that among the richest inhabitants of the place are more than forty officers, or widows of officers (office-holders), whose rank exempts them from the heavy capitation-tax paid by the city. The tax consequently falls upon an infinite number of poor mechanics, who, believing themselves overtaxed, constantly complain of the amount of their tax—unjustly so, for there are no inequalities in the division of the burden laid upon the city.

• The General Assembly is composed of seventy-six persons:
• The mayor;
• Two deputies of the chapter;
• A syndic of the clerks;
• Two deputies of the presidial;
• A deputy of the university;
• A lieutenant-general of police;
• Four aldermen;
• Twelve consulting aldermen;
• A king’s attorney near the presidial;
• A city counsel;
• Two deputies of the woods and forests;
• Two of the election;
• Two of the salt warehouse;
• Two of the traites;
• Two of the mint;
• Two of the advocates and attorneys;
• Two of the consular judges;
• Two of the notaries;
• Two of the shop-keepers;
• And, lastly, two deputies from each of the sixteen parishes.

These latter are understood to be the special representatives of the people; they are, in fact, the representatives of industrial corporations, and the council is so arranged, as the reader has seen, that they are sure to be in a minority.

When posts in the corporation become vacant, the General Assembly chooses three candidates for each vacancy.

Most of the posts in the city government are free to persons of all professions; the Assembly is not—as others which I have noticed—obliged to choose a magistrate or a lawyer to fill a vacancy. To this the presidial objects strongly.

According to the same presidial, which seems terribly jealous of the city corporation, and whose main objection to the constitution was, I suspect, that it did not confer privileges enough on the presidial, “the General Assembly is too numerous, and composed of persons too devoid of intelligence to be consulted on any matters but sales of the city property, the negotiation of loans, the establishment of town dues, and the election of municipal officers. All other business should be transacted by a smaller body, wholly composed of notables. No one should be a member of this assembly but the lieutenant-general of the sénéchaussée, the king’s attorney, and twelve other notables chosen out of the six bodies, the clergy, the magistracy, the nobility, the university, the merchants, and the burghers, and others who do not belong to any of these six classes. The first choice of notables should be made by the Assembly, and future elections by the assembly of notables or the body from which each notable is chosen.”

A resemblance existed between these public functionaries, who thus become members of municipal bodies as office-holders or notables, and the functionaries of the same title and character in our day. But their position was very different from that of modern office-holders—a fact which can not be safely overlooked; for nearly all these old functionaries were city notables before they obtained office, or only sought office in order to become notables. They had no notion of either resigning their rank or being promoted; this alone creates a vast difference between them and their successors in office.

memorial of the municipal officers.

This document shows that the city corporation was created in 1474 by Louis XI. upon the ruins of the old democratic constitution of the city, and that its principle was of the nature explained above; that is to say, nearly all political power was vested in the middle classes; the people were kept at a distance, or weakened; a vast number of municipal officers were created in order to muster partisans for the scheme; hereditary titles of nobility were granted in profusion, and all sorts of privileges were secured to the burgher administrators.

The same paper also contains letters patent from successors of Louis XI., which recognize this new constitution and curtail still further the power of the people. It mentions that in 1485 the letters patent granted with this view by Charles VIII. were assailed by the people of Angers before the Parliament, just as, in England, disputes relative to the charter of a city would have been carried before the courts. In 1601 a decree of Parliament again fixed the political rights which were authorized by the royal charter. From thenceforth, no other controlling authority appears but the Royal Council.

It appears from the same memorial that mayors, like all other city officers, were selected by the king out of a list of three names presented by the General Assembly; this was in virtue of an Order in Council of 22d June, 1708. It also appears that, in virtue of Orders in Council of 1733 and 1741, the small traders were entitled to one alderman (perpetual) or councilor. Finally, the memorial shows that at that time the corporation was intrusted with the distribution of the tax levied for the capitation, equipment, lodgings, provisions of the poor, of the troops, of the revenue service, of foundlings.

Then follows an enumeration of the great labors which devolve upon municipal officers. They fully justify, in the opinion of the memorialists, the privileges and the permanent rank which they enjoy, and which, it is plain, they are much afraid of losing. Many of the reasons which they assign for the severity of their office-labors are curious, such as the following: “Their financial duties have been much increased by the extensions which are constantly being made to the aid dues, the gabel, the stamp and registry dues, and the unlawful exactions of registry dues and freehold duties. They have been involved, on the city’s behalf, in perpetual lawsuits with the financial companies in reference to these taxes; they have had to go from court to court, from the Parliament to the Council, in order to resist the oppression under which they are groaning. An experience and a public service of thirty years enable them to state that the life of man is hardly long enough to defend one’s self against the stratagems and the traps which the agents of the revenue-farmers are constantly laying for the citizen, in order to preserve their commissions.”

Curiously enough, it is to the comptroller-general that these things are said, and said with the view of winning his support for the privileges of the class that expresses these views. So deeply rooted was the habit of viewing the companies which farmed the taxes as an adversary that might be abused on all sides without objection from any one. This habit steadily spread and gained strength; men learned to view the treasury as an odious tyrant, hateful to all: the common enemy instead of the common agent.

“All offices were first united with the corporation,” adds the same memorial, “by an Order in Council of the 4th September, 1694, in consideration of a sum of 22,000 livres;” that is to say, the offices were redeemed that year for that sum. By an order of 26th April, 1723, the offices created by the edict of 24th May, 1722, were also united to the corporation, or, in other words, the city was permitted to redeem them. By another order of 24th May, 1723, the city was authorized to borrow 120,000 livres for the acquisition of the said offices. Another, of 26th July, 1728, authorized it to borrow 50,000 livres to redeem the office of clerk-secretary of the City Hall. “The city,” says the memorial, “has paid its money to preserve the freedom of its elections, and to secure to the officers it elects for one or two years, or for life, the various prerogatives attached to their offices.” Some of the municipal offices were re-established by the edict of November, 1733; an order was subsequently obtained at the instance of the mayor and aldermen, allowing the city to purchase an extension of its rights, for a term of fifteen years, for a sum of 170,000 livres.

This is a fair criterion of the policy of the government of the old regime, as regards cities. It compelled them to contract debts, then authorized them to establish extraordinary taxes to liquidate them. And to this it must be added that afterward many of these taxes, which were naturally temporary, were made perpetual, and then the government got its share.

The memorial continues: “The municipal officers were never deprived of their judicial functions till the establishment of royal courts. Until 1669, they had sole cognizance of disputes between masters and servants. The accounts of the town dues are rendered before the intendant, in obedience to the decrees establishing or continuing the said dues.”

The memorial makes it plain that the representatives of the sixteen parishes, who, as above mentioned, had seats in the General Assembly, were chosen by companies, corporate bodies, or communities, and were the mere organs of these bodies. They were bound by their instructions on all points.

In fine, this memorial shows that, at Angers as elsewhere, no expenses could be incurred by the city without the concurrence of the intendant and the Council. And it must be acknowledged that, when the government of a city is intrusted to certain men to be used as their private property, and when these men receive no salary, but enjoy in lieu thereof privileges which exonerate them from all responsibility to their fellow-citizens for maladministration, the guardianship of the state may seem a necessity.

The whole of this memorial, which is clumsily drawn up, indicates a state of great alarm on the part of these officials lest the existing state of things should be changed. All kinds of reasons, good and bad, are accumulated together, and pressed into the service of the statu quo.

memorial of the sub-delegate.

The intendant, having received these two contradictory memorials, asks for the opinion of his sub-delegate. He gives it:

“The memorial of the municipal councilors,” says he, “does not deserve attention; its only aim is to subserve their own privileges. That of the presidial may be beneficially consulted, but there is no reason for granting them all the prerogatives they desire.”

He admits that the constitution of the civic body has long needed reform. Besides the immunities already mentioned, which were enjoyed by all the municipal officers of Angers, he states that the mayor, during his term of service, was lodged at a cost of at least 600 francs; that he received 50 francs salary, and 100 francs for expenses of his office, besides the jetons. The attorneysyndic was also lodged, and so was the clerk. In order to escape aid and town dues, the municipal officers had fixed upon a presumed amount of consumption by each of them; and by accounting for this, they could introduce into the city as many casks of wine or other merchandise as they pleased.

The sub-delegate does not propose to deprive the councilors of their exemption from taxes; but he thinks their capitation-tax, which is now fixed at a very low figure, should be settled every year by the intendant. He also advises that these officials should be made to contribute with every one else to the don gratuit, their exemption from which is without authority or precedent.

The municipal officers, says the memorial, are intrusted with the preparation of the capitation-rolls for the people. They perform this duty carelessly and arbitrarily, whence the intendant is regularly overwhelmed every year with petitions and reclamations. It would be desirable that this tax should be distributed hereafter, in the interest of each community or company, by its members, in a general and stable manner; and that municipal officers should in future fix the capitation of burghers only, and of persons belonging to no public body, such as certain workmen and the servants of privileged persons.

The memorial of the sub-delegate confirms what the municipal officers have already stated in regard to the redemption, in 1735, of the municipal offices, for the sum of 170,000 livres.

letter from the intendant to the comptroller-general.

Armed with these various documents, the intendant writes to the minister: “The public interest and that of the citizens,” he says, “require a reduction in the number of municipal officers, whose privileges have become a heavy burden on the public.”

“I am struck,” he adds, “with the enormous amount of money that has been repeatedly paid for the redemption of municipal offices at Angers. A similar sum, employed usefully, would have done the city much good; as it is, it has only made people feel the weight of the authority and of the privileges of these officials.

“The internal abuses of this government fully deserve the attention of the Council. Independently of jetons and candle, which consume the annual appropriation of 2127 livres (this was the sum set apart for this class of expenditures in the normal budget, which was occasionally imposed on cities by the king), the public money is squandered and employed for clandestine purposes by these officers. The king’s attorney, who has held his office for thirty or forty years, has obtained such a mastery over the administration, of which he alone understands the details, that the citizens have been unable to obtain the least information with regard to the employment of their money.” In consequence, the intendant proposes to the minister to reduce the corporation to a mayor serving for four years, six aldermen serving for six years, one king’s attorney serving for eight, and a perpetual clerk and receiver.

In other respects the Constitution which he proposes for Angers is precisely the same as the one he elsewhere proposed for Tours. In his opinion,

1st. The government should preserve the General Assembly, but merely as an electoral body for the election of municipal officers.

2d. It should create an extraordinary Council of Notables, whose functions should be those with which the edict of 1764 appeared to invest the General Assembly. This council to be composed of twelve persons, holding office for six years, and elected, not by the General Assembly, but by the twelve bodies esteemed notable, each body electing one. He designates as notable bodies,

The presidial,

The university,

The election,

The office of woods and forests,

The salt warehouse,

The office of the traites,

The mint,

The advocates and attorneys,

The consular judges,

The notaries,

The traders (marchands),

The burghers (bourgeois).

As will be remarked, nearly all these notables were public functionaries, and all the public functionaries were notables. From this, as from a thousand other papers in these collections, it may be inferred that the middle classes were then as great place-hunters and as destitute of independent ambition as they are now. The only difference is, as I remarked in the text, that formerly the petty importance afforded by these places was bought, whereas now candidates beg the government to grant them the charity of a place for nothing.

It is here seen that the whole real power in the municipality is vested in the extraordinary council, and the administration of the city is thus further confined to a small circle of burghers. The only assembly in which the people continue to exercise the least interference is now confined to the electing of municipal officers whom it can not instruct. It is to be remarked, also, that the intendant is more unbending and antipopular in his principles than the king, who seemed in his edict to have transferred most of the public authority to the General Assembly, and again, that the intendant is far more liberal and democratic than the burghers. This last inference is at all events a fair one from the memorial I have quoted in the text, from which it appears that the notables of another city were desirous of excluding the people from the election of municipal officers in opposition to the views of the intendant and the king.

It may be noticed that the intendant recognizes two distinct classes of notables under the names of bourgeois and marchands. It may not be useless to give an exact definition of these words, in order to show into how many small fragments the bourgeoisie was divided, and by how many petty vanities it was actuated.

The word bourgeois had a general and also a particular meaning; it meant the members of the middle classes at large, and it also meant a certain number of men within those classes. “Bourgeois,” says a memorial filed at the inquiry of 1764, “are individuals whose birth and fortune enable them to live without engaging in lucrative pursuits.” Other portions of the memorial show that the word bourgeois does not apply to persons who belong to companies or industrial corporations; it is not so easy to say to whom it does apply. “For,” as the same memorial says, “many persons assume the title of bourgeois whose only claim to it is their idleness, who have no fortune, and lead a rude, obscure life. Bourgeois should, on the contrary, always be distinguished by their fortune, their birth, their talents, manners, and mode of life. Mechanics composing trade-companies have never been classed in the rank of notables.”*

Traders (marchands) were another class of individuals who, like the bourgeois, belonged to no company or corporation: but where were the limits of this little class? “Must we,” says the same memorial, “confound small, low-born dealers with wholesale merchants?” To overcome the difficulty, the memorial proposes to have the aldermen draw up every year a table of notable traders (marchands), to be handed to their chief or syndic, who shall invite to the deliberations at the city hall none but those who are thereon inscribed. Care will be taken to inscribe on this table no traders who may have been domestics, porters, wagoners, or followers of other low trades.

[Note u, page 66.]One of the most striking features of the administration of cities in the eighteenth century is, not the absence of all representation and intervention of the public in city business, but the extreme variability of the rules governing such administration. Civic rights were constantly bestowed, taken away, restored, increased, diminished, modified in a thousand ways, and unceasingly. No better indication of the contempt into which all local liberties had fallen can be found than these eternal changes of laws which no one seemed to notice. This mobility would alone have sufficed to destroy all initiative or recuperative energy, and all local patriotism in the institution which is best adapted to it. It helped to prepare the great work of destruction which was to be effected by the Revolution.

[Note v, page 67.]a village government in the eighteenth century (taken from the papers of the intendant’s office in the ile de france).

The affair which I am about to relate is one instance out of a thousand which illustrates the forms and the dilatory methods used by parochial governments, and shows what a general parochial assembly really was in the eighteenth century.

The parsonage-house and steeple of a rural parish—that of Ivry, Ile de France—required repair. To whom was application to be made to make the repairs? Who was to pay for them? How was the money to be procured?

1st. Petition from the curate to the intendant, setting forth that the parsonage-house and steeple need immediate repairs; that his predecessor had caused useless buildings to be erected adjoining the parsonage-house, and had thus altered and deformed the character of the spot; and that the inhabitants, having permitted him to do this, ought to bear the expense of all needful repairs, having their recourse on the late curate’s heirs for the expense.

2d. Ordinance of monseigneur the intendant (29th August, 1747), ordering the syndic diligently to convene an assembly to deliberate on the necessity of the repairs.

3d. Deliberation of the inhabitants, by which they declare that they do not object to the parsonage-house being repaired, but as for the steeple, they hold that, as it is built on the choir, which the curate, as a large tithe-holder, is bound to repair, he must pay for any repairs it may need. [An Order in Council of April, 1695, had, in fact, imposed the duty of keeping the choir in repair upon the tithe-holder, leaving the tithe-payers to look after the nave.]

4th. New ordinance of the intendant, which, in view of the conflict of statements, orders an architect, the Sieur Cordier, to visit and examine the parsonage-house and steeple, hear evidence, and make estimates of the works.

5th. Authentic report of all these proceedings, testifying that a certain number of landholders of Ivry, apparently men of rank, burghers, and peasants, appeared before the intendant’s commissioner, and gave evidence for or against the pretensions of the curate.

6th. New ordinance of the intendant, directing that the estimates prepared by his architect be laid before the landholders and inhabitants in a general assembly convoked with due diligence by the syndic for the purpose.

7th. New parochial assembly in pursuance of the ordinance, in which the people declare that they adhere to their expressed opinions.

8th. Ordinance of the intendant, directing, first, that in presence of his sub-delegate at Corbeil, the curate, syndic, and principal inhabitants of the parish being also present, the contracts for the work according to the estimates shall be given out; and, secondly, that, whereas the want of repairs involves absolute danger, the whole cost shall be levied upon the inhabitants, without prejudice to the legal rights of those who conceive that the cost of repairing the steeple should be borne by the curate as tithe-holder.

9th. Notice to all parties to be present at the office of the sub-delegate at Corbeil, where the contracts are to be given out.

10th. Petition of the curate and several inhabitants, praying that the costs of the preliminary proceedings be not charged, as usual, against the contractor, lest they should deter bidders from coming forward.

11th. Ordinance of the intendant, directing that all expenses incurred in order to bring the affair to issue be settled by the sub-delegate, added to the contract, and included in the imposition.

12th. Authority from several notables of the parish to the Sieur X. to be present on their behalf at the execution of the contract, and confirm it according to the architect’s estimates.

13th. Certificate of the syndic, stating that the usual notices and advertisements have been made.

14th. Official report of the contract:

15th. Lastly, Order in Council (23d July, 1748), authorizing an impost to raise this sum.

It may have been noticed that frequent allusions are here made to the parochial assembly. The following report of one of these assemblies will show how matters were usually managed on these occasions.

Notarial Act.—“This day, at the close of the parochial mass, at the usual and customary place, was present at the assembly held by the inhabitants of the said parish before X., notary at Corbeil undersigned, and the witnesses hereinafter mentioned, the Sieur Michaud, vine-dresser, syndic of the said parish, who presented the ordinance of the intendant authorizing the assembly, read the same, and applied for an official certificate of his due diligence in the premises:

“And then and there appeared an inhabitant of the said parish, who stated that the steeple was upon the choir, and, consequently, that its repairs should be charged to the curate; did furthermore appear —— (here follow the names of various parishioners, who, on the contrary, consent to the request of the curate); and thereafter appeared fifteen peasants, mechanics, masons, and vine-dressers, who declare themselves of the same mind as the preceding persons. Did also appear the Sieur Raimbaud, vine-dresser, who declared that he would agree to whatever monseigneur the intendant decided in the premises. Did also appear the Sieur X., doctor of the Sorbonne, curate, who persists in the allegations and conclusions of his request.

“Whereof the said parties have required of us official certificate.

“Done and passed at the said place of Ivry, in front of the burial-ground of the said parish, before the undersigned; and the meeting aforesaid lasted from eleven o’clock in the morning till two.”

It will be noticed that this parish assembly was a mere administrative inquiry, in the same form and as costly as judicial inquiries; that it never led to a vote or other clear expression of the will of the parish; that it was merely an expression of individual opinions, and constituted no check upon government. Many other documents indicate that the only object of parish assemblies was to afford information to the intendant, and not to influence his decision even in cases where no other interest but that of the parish was concerned.

It may be remarked, also, that this affair gives rise to three separate inquiries; one before the notary, another before the architect, and a third before two notaries, to ascertain whether the people have not changed their minds.

The impost of 724 liv. 18 s., authorized by the Order of 23d July, 1748, bears upon all landholders, whether privileged or not. This was generally the case in affairs of this kind; but the share of the various rate-payers was not fixed on uniform principles. Persons who paid the taille were taxed in proportion to their taille. Privileged individuals, on the other hand, were taxed in proportion to their assumed fortunes, which gave them a great advantage over the former class.

It appears, finally, that in this matter the distribution of the impost was made by two collectors, inhabitants of the village; not elected, nor serving in their turn, as was usually the custom, but chosen and appointed by the intendant’s sub-delegate.

[Note w, page 67.]The pretext which Louis XIV. put forward for destroying the municipal liberty of towns was the maladministration of their finances; yet the evil, according to Turgot, continued to exist, and even assumed larger proportions after the reform of this monarch. He adds that most cities are heavily in debt at the present time, partly for moneys lent to government, and partly for expenses or decorations which municipal officers—who dispose of other people’s money, who render no account, and receive no instructions—are constantly incurring, in order to increase the splendor or the profit of their position.

[Note x, page 72.]the state was guardian of convents as well as communes; instance thereof.

The comptroller-general, authorizing the intendant to pay over 15,000 livres to the Convent of Carmelites, to which certain indemnities were due, desires the intendant to satisfy himself that the money, which represents a capital, is properly invested. Similar instances abound.

[Note t, p. 62.]a city government in the eighteenth century.

I select from the Inquiry into City Governments, made in 1764, the papers which relate to Angers; they contain an analysis, attacks upon, and defenses of the constitution of this city, emanating from the presidial, the city corporation, the sub-delegate, and the intendant. As the same facts occurred in many other places, the picture must not be regarded as a solitary example.

memorial of the presidial on the present state of the municipal constitution of angers, and on the reforms that it needs.

“The Corporation of Angers never consults the people at large even on the most important occasions, unless it is compelled to do so; hence its policy is unknown to every one but its own members. Even the movable aldermen have only a superficial acquaintance with its mode of proceeding.”

(The tendency of all these little burgher oligarchies was, in truth, to consult the people at large as little as possible.)

The corporation is composed of twenty-one officers, in virtue of a decree of 29th March, 1681, to wit:

A mayor, who becomes noble ex officio, and whose term is four years;

Four movable aldermen, who hold office for two years;

Twelve consulting aldermen, who are elected and hold office for life;

Two city counsel;

One counsel holding the reversion of the office;

A clerk.

They enjoy many privileges: among others, their capitation-tax is fixed at a moderate sum; they are exempt from lodging soldiers, arms, or baggage; they are exempt from dues de cloison double et triple, from the old and new excise, from the accessory dues on articles of consumption, even from benevolences, “from which latter they have asserted their own freedom,” says the presidial. They enjoy, moreover, allowances in the shape of lights, and in some cases salaries and lodgings.

We see from this that a post of perpetual alderman at Angers was not to be despised in those days. Note here, as every where else, the contrivances to secure exemptions from taxes for the rich. The memorial goes on to say that “these offices are eagerly sought by the richest citizens, who desire them in order to reduce their capitation-tax, and increase that of their fellow-citizens in proportion. There are at this moment several municipal officers who pay 30 livres of capitation, and ought to pay 250 to 300 livres; one, among others, ought, in proportion to his fortune, to pay 1000 livres at least.” In another part of the memorial it is said that among the richest inhabitants of the place are more than forty officers, or widows of officers (office-holders), whose rank exempts them from the heavy capitation-tax paid by the city. The tax consequently falls upon an infinite number of poor mechanics, who, believing themselves overtaxed, constantly complain of the amount of their tax—unjustly so, for there are no inequalities in the division of the burden laid upon the city.

• The General Assembly is composed of seventy-six persons:
• The mayor;
• Two deputies of the chapter;
• A syndic of the clerks;
• Two deputies of the presidial;
• A deputy of the university;
• A lieutenant-general of police;
• Four aldermen;
• Twelve consulting aldermen;
• A king’s attorney near the presidial;
• A city counsel;
• Two deputies of the woods and forests;
• Two of the election;
• Two of the salt warehouse;
• Two of the traites;
• Two of the mint;
• Two of the advocates and attorneys;
• Two of the consular judges;
• Two of the notaries;
• Two of the shop-keepers;
• And, lastly, two deputies from each of the sixteen parishes.

These latter are understood to be the special representatives of the people; they are, in fact, the representatives of industrial corporations, and the council is so arranged, as the reader has seen, that they are sure to be in a minority.

When posts in the corporation become vacant, the General Assembly chooses three candidates for each vacancy.

Most of the posts in the city government are free to persons of all professions; the Assembly is not—as others which I have noticed—obliged to choose a magistrate or a lawyer to fill a vacancy. To this the presidial objects strongly.

According to the same presidial, which seems terribly jealous of the city corporation, and whose main objection to the constitution was, I suspect, that it did not confer privileges enough on the presidial, “the General Assembly is too numerous, and composed of persons too devoid of intelligence to be consulted on any matters but sales of the city property, the negotiation of loans, the establishment of town dues, and the election of municipal officers. All other business should be transacted by a smaller body, wholly composed of notables. No one should be a member of this assembly but the lieutenant-general of the sénéchaussée, the king’s attorney, and twelve other notables chosen out of the six bodies, the clergy, the magistracy, the nobility, the university, the merchants, and the burghers, and others who do not belong to any of these six classes. The first choice of notables should be made by the Assembly, and future elections by the assembly of notables or the body from which each notable is chosen.”

A resemblance existed between these public functionaries, who thus become members of municipal bodies as office-holders or notables, and the functionaries of the same title and character in our day. But their position was very different from that of modern office-holders—a fact which can not be safely overlooked; for nearly all these old functionaries were city notables before they obtained office, or only sought office in order to become notables. They had no notion of either resigning their rank or being promoted; this alone creates a vast difference between them and their successors in office.

memorial of the municipal officers.

This document shows that the city corporation was created in 1474 by Louis XI. upon the ruins of the old democratic constitution of the city, and that its principle was of the nature explained above; that is to say, nearly all political power was vested in the middle classes; the people were kept at a distance, or weakened; a vast number of municipal officers were created in order to muster partisans for the scheme; hereditary titles of nobility were granted in profusion, and all sorts of privileges were secured to the burgher administrators.

The same paper also contains letters patent from successors of Louis XI., which recognize this new constitution and curtail still further the power of the people. It mentions that in 1485 the letters patent granted with this view by Charles VIII. were assailed by the people of Angers before the Parliament, just as, in England, disputes relative to the charter of a city would have been carried before the courts. In 1601 a decree of Parliament again fixed the political rights which were authorized by the royal charter. From thenceforth, no other controlling authority appears but the Royal Council.

It appears from the same memorial that mayors, like all other city officers, were selected by the king out of a list of three names presented by the General Assembly; this was in virtue of an Order in Council of 22d June, 1708. It also appears that, in virtue of Orders in Council of 1733 and 1741, the small traders were entitled to one alderman (perpetual) or councilor. Finally, the memorial shows that at that time the corporation was intrusted with the distribution of the tax levied for the capitation, equipment, lodgings, provisions of the poor, of the troops, of the revenue service, of foundlings.

Then follows an enumeration of the great labors which devolve upon municipal officers. They fully justify, in the opinion of the memorialists, the privileges and the permanent rank which they enjoy, and which, it is plain, they are much afraid of losing. Many of the reasons which they assign for the severity of their office-labors are curious, such as the following: “Their financial duties have been much increased by the extensions which are constantly being made to the aid dues, the gabel, the stamp and registry dues, and the unlawful exactions of registry dues and freehold duties. They have been involved, on the city’s behalf, in perpetual lawsuits with the financial companies in reference to these taxes; they have had to go from court to court, from the Parliament to the Council, in order to resist the oppression under which they are groaning. An experience and a public service of thirty years enable them to state that the life of man is hardly long enough to defend one’s self against the stratagems and the traps which the agents of the revenue-farmers are constantly laying for the citizen, in order to preserve their commissions.”

Curiously enough, it is to the comptroller-general that these things are said, and said with the view of winning his support for the privileges of the class that expresses these views. So deeply rooted was the habit of viewing the companies which farmed the taxes as an adversary that might be abused on all sides without objection from any one. This habit steadily spread and gained strength; men learned to view the treasury as an odious tyrant, hateful to all: the common enemy instead of the common agent.

“All offices were first united with the corporation,” adds the same memorial, “by an Order in Council of the 4th September, 1694, in consideration of a sum of 22,000 livres;” that is to say, the offices were redeemed that year for that sum. By an order of 26th April, 1723, the offices created by the edict of 24th May, 1722, were also united to the corporation, or, in other words, the city was permitted to redeem them. By another order of 24th May, 1723, the city was authorized to borrow 120,000 livres for the acquisition of the said offices. Another, of 26th July, 1728, authorized it to borrow 50,000 livres to redeem the office of clerk-secretary of the City Hall. “The city,” says the memorial, “has paid its money to preserve the freedom of its elections, and to secure to the officers it elects for one or two years, or for life, the various prerogatives attached to their offices.” Some of the municipal offices were re-established by the edict of November, 1733; an order was subsequently obtained at the instance of the mayor and aldermen, allowing the city to purchase an extension of its rights, for a term of fifteen years, for a sum of 170,000 livres.

This is a fair criterion of the policy of the government of the old regime, as regards cities. It compelled them to contract debts, then authorized them to establish extraordinary taxes to liquidate them. And to this it must be added that afterward many of these taxes, which were naturally temporary, were made perpetual, and then the government got its share.

The memorial continues: “The municipal officers were never deprived of their judicial functions till the establishment of royal courts. Until 1669, they had sole cognizance of disputes between masters and servants. The accounts of the town dues are rendered before the intendant, in obedience to the decrees establishing or continuing the said dues.”

The memorial makes it plain that the representatives of the sixteen parishes, who, as above mentioned, had seats in the General Assembly, were chosen by companies, corporate bodies, or communities, and were the mere organs of these bodies. They were bound by their instructions on all points.

In fine, this memorial shows that, at Angers as elsewhere, no expenses could be incurred by the city without the concurrence of the intendant and the Council. And it must be acknowledged that, when the government of a city is intrusted to certain men to be used as their private property, and when these men receive no salary, but enjoy in lieu thereof privileges which exonerate them from all responsibility to their fellow-citizens for maladministration, the guardianship of the state may seem a necessity.

The whole of this memorial, which is clumsily drawn up, indicates a state of great alarm on the part of these officials lest the existing state of things should be changed. All kinds of reasons, good and bad, are accumulated together, and pressed into the service of the statu quo.

memorial of the sub-delegate.

The intendant, having received these two contradictory memorials, asks for the opinion of his sub-delegate. He gives it:

“The memorial of the municipal councilors,” says he, “does not deserve attention; its only aim is to subserve their own privileges. That of the presidial may be beneficially consulted, but there is no reason for granting them all the prerogatives they desire.”

He admits that the constitution of the civic body has long needed reform. Besides the immunities already mentioned, which were enjoyed by all the municipal officers of Angers, he states that the mayor, during his term of service, was lodged at a cost of at least 600 francs; that he received 50 francs salary, and 100 francs for expenses of his office, besides the jetons. The attorneysyndic was also lodged, and so was the clerk. In order to escape aid and town dues, the municipal officers had fixed upon a presumed amount of consumption by each of them; and by accounting for this, they could introduce into the city as many casks of wine or other merchandise as they pleased.

The sub-delegate does not propose to deprive the councilors of their exemption from taxes; but he thinks their capitation-tax, which is now fixed at a very low figure, should be settled every year by the intendant. He also advises that these officials should be made to contribute with every one else to the don gratuit, their exemption from which is without authority or precedent.

The municipal officers, says the memorial, are intrusted with the preparation of the capitation-rolls for the people. They perform this duty carelessly and arbitrarily, whence the intendant is regularly overwhelmed every year with petitions and reclamations. It would be desirable that this tax should be distributed hereafter, in the interest of each community or company, by its members, in a general and stable manner; and that municipal officers should in future fix the capitation of burghers only, and of persons belonging to no public body, such as certain workmen and the servants of privileged persons.

The memorial of the sub-delegate confirms what the municipal officers have already stated in regard to the redemption, in 1735, of the municipal offices, for the sum of 170,000 livres.

letter from the intendant to the comptroller-general.

Armed with these various documents, the intendant writes to the minister: “The public interest and that of the citizens,” he says, “require a reduction in the number of municipal officers, whose privileges have become a heavy burden on the public.”

“I am struck,” he adds, “with the enormous amount of money that has been repeatedly paid for the redemption of municipal offices at Angers. A similar sum, employed usefully, would have done the city much good; as it is, it has only made people feel the weight of the authority and of the privileges of these officials.

“The internal abuses of this government fully deserve the attention of the Council. Independently of jetons and candle, which consume the annual appropriation of 2127 livres (this was the sum set apart for this class of expenditures in the normal budget, which was occasionally imposed on cities by the king), the public money is squandered and employed for clandestine purposes by these officers. The king’s attorney, who has held his office for thirty or forty years, has obtained such a mastery over the administration, of which he alone understands the details, that the citizens have been unable to obtain the least information with regard to the employment of their money.” In consequence, the intendant proposes to the minister to reduce the corporation to a mayor serving for four years, six aldermen serving for six years, one king’s attorney serving for eight, and a perpetual clerk and receiver.

In other respects the Constitution which he proposes for Angers is precisely the same as the one he elsewhere proposed for Tours. In his opinion,

1st. The government should preserve the General Assembly, but merely as an electoral body for the election of municipal officers.

2d. It should create an extraordinary Council of Notables, whose functions should be those with which the edict of 1764 appeared to invest the General Assembly. This council to be composed of twelve persons, holding office for six years, and elected, not by the General Assembly, but by the twelve bodies esteemed notable, each body electing one. He designates as notable bodies,

The presidial,

The university,

The election,

The office of woods and forests,

The salt warehouse,

The office of the traites,

The mint,

The advocates and attorneys,

The consular judges,

The notaries,

The traders (marchands),

The burghers (bourgeois).

As will be remarked, nearly all these notables were public functionaries, and all the public functionaries were notables. From this, as from a thousand other papers in these collections, it may be inferred that the middle classes were then as great place-hunters and as destitute of independent ambition as they are now. The only difference is, as I remarked in the text, that formerly the petty importance afforded by these places was bought, whereas now candidates beg the government to grant them the charity of a place for nothing.

It is here seen that the whole real power in the municipality is vested in the extraordinary council, and the administration of the city is thus further confined to a small circle of burghers. The only assembly in which the people continue to exercise the least interference is now confined to the electing of municipal officers whom it can not instruct. It is to be remarked, also, that the intendant is more unbending and antipopular in his principles than the king, who seemed in his edict to have transferred most of the public authority to the General Assembly, and again, that the intendant is far more liberal and democratic than the burghers. This last inference is at all events a fair one from the memorial I have quoted in the text, from which it appears that the notables of another city were desirous of excluding the people from the election of municipal officers in opposition to the views of the intendant and the king.

It may be noticed that the intendant recognizes two distinct classes of notables under the names of bourgeois and marchands. It may not be useless to give an exact definition of these words, in order to show into how many small fragments the bourgeoisie was divided, and by how many petty vanities it was actuated.

The word bourgeois had a general and also a particular meaning; it meant the members of the middle classes at large, and it also meant a certain number of men within those classes. “Bourgeois,” says a memorial filed at the inquiry of 1764, “are individuals whose birth and fortune enable them to live without engaging in lucrative pursuits.” Other portions of the memorial show that the word bourgeois does not apply to persons who belong to companies or industrial corporations; it is not so easy to say to whom it does apply. “For,” as the same memorial says, “many persons assume the title of bourgeois whose only claim to it is their idleness, who have no fortune, and lead a rude, obscure life. Bourgeois should, on the contrary, always be distinguished by their fortune, their birth, their talents, manners, and mode of life. Mechanics composing trade-companies have never been classed in the rank of notables.”*

Traders (marchands) were another class of individuals who, like the bourgeois, belonged to no company or corporation: but where were the limits of this little class? “Must we,” says the same memorial, “confound small, low-born dealers with wholesale merchants?” To overcome the difficulty, the memorial proposes to have the aldermen draw up every year a table of notable traders (marchands), to be handed to their chief or syndic, who shall invite to the deliberations at the city hall none but those who are thereon inscribed. Care will be taken to inscribe on this table no traders who may have been domestics, porters, wagoners, or followers of other low trades.

[*]In the text the words bourgeois and bourgeoisie are translated “burghers” or “the middle classes,” according to the context. The exact meaning of the French word is often doubtful, and the search for an exact English equivalent almost always hopeless.—Trans.