The era of the French Revolution (1715-1815)

Front matter

i a = eee eee ke Ge ee .

Louis R. Gottschalk eee err

A brilliant presentation of that era ¢ history preceding and during the pe - French Revolution and the Napoleonic: _ is not a series of separate annals, but perrereererertrrtsss

Preface

Tuis book is intended as a general introduction to the study of European history preceding and during the period of the French Revolution and Napoleon. As such, it has little pretension to being anything more than a presentation of the latest interpretations of that era. The study of the Ancient Régime is based very largely upon the works of Sée and Marion; of the French Revolution to 1795 on Mathiez and Sagnac; of the Napoleonic Period on Pariset, Rose, and Driault. Other works have, of course, been used, though the author makes no claim to having read carefully every one of the books included in the bibliography at the close of this volume. In some matters, indeed, the author has, on the basis of his own study of the original sources, ventured to disagree with the chief secondary authorities. If this present study, however, has any merit at all, it is not in any new interpretations or hypotheses that it sets forth but in its adaptation for American readers of the findings of the best European scholarship.

To a number of American students, the author is likewise greatly indebted. Among the several earlier studies of the field in one-volume compass, he owes much to the works of Professor H. E. Bourne, of Western Reserve University, Dean Shailer Mathews, of the University of Chicago, and the late Professor H. M. Stephens, of the University of California. He has ventured to disagree with them quite frequently in the interpretation of men, motives, and movements, in the organization of materials, and sometimes even upon the facts; but he has always found their volumes helpful and suggestive. To his former teacher, Professor Carl Becker, of Cornell University, the author owes not only his interest in the study of the French Revolution but much of whatever his philosophy of history may be.

Five scholars have examined this work in manuscript, vi PREFACE each criticizing one of the five books. Professor M. B. Garrett, of the University of North Carolina, looked over Book I (‘The Ancient Régime’’); Professor G. G. Andrews, of the University of Iowa, Book II (‘‘The Fall of the Monarchy’’); Professor W. B. Kerr, of the University of Buffalo, Book III (‘‘The First French Republic’’); Professor F. L. Nussbaum of the University of Wyoming, Book IV (‘‘The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte’’); and Professor C. P. Higby, of the University of Wisconsin, Book V (‘‘ Defeat and Reaction’’). Each of these scholars has made so many corrections and suggestions that if they had been added as footnotes to the text, there would be few pages free of footnotes and it might have been said of this work, as of a recent outline of universal history, that the footnotes were the most interesting part of it. To each of these gentlemen the author wishes to acknowledge his great indebtedness.

Several historical atlases have been drawn upon for the maps in this volume. The maps of France in 1789 are based upon similar ones in Schrader’s Atlas de géographie historique, the English place-names, the figures for the salt tax, and other minor details having been adapted from Shepherd’s Historical Atlas. Among the other atlases that have been used are Dow’s Alas of European History, The Cambridge Modern History Atlas, Putnam’s Historical Atlas and Putzger’s Historischer Schul-Atlas. The author's thanks are gratefully given to the editors, publishers, and printers of these and other atlases from which geographical data have been borrowed.

This book is based upon the six booklets covering the same field of history that were published by the author between 1923 and 1925. Much has been added and much has been revised, however, so that, while parts of it have been taken wholly from those booklets, the present volume is largely a new offering.

To Misses Lydia Caldwell, Augusta Schoening, Sara Landau, Maxine Adelman, and Esther Aphelin, who aided in the preparation of the manuscript for the press; to his col-

leagues, Professor Avery O. Craven, who read the sections

» PREFACE vii dealing with America and helped in the reading of the galley proofs, and Professor Carl F. Huth, who also read part of the galley proof; to Miss Catherine Young, Mr. Ernest L. Hettich, and Dr. Leo Gershoy, who made several helpful suggestions at various stages of the book’s progress; to Professor J. T. Shotwell, whose editorial criticism was of great value in making the book more readable; and to Mr. C. E. Edgerton, who read the whole of the page proof, the author wishes likewise to express his gratitude.

EV RaG,

Book I. THE ANCIENT REGIME

INTRODUCTION MAY ea ie frre AVI RR OPS TT | Sy AS ae ere itd

I. GOVERNMENT UNDER THE ANCIENT REGIME . . .. 6

II. SocIETY UNDER THE ANCIENT REGIME eet cates oO III. THe PoLiTicAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CEN-

iv. STAVING OFF THE REVOLUTION . . « + «| 88

Book IJ. THe FALL oF THE MONARCHY I. THE EstatEs GENERAL BECOME THE NATIONAL AS-

II. THE PEOPLE PREVENT COUNTER-REVOLUTION One eS Ie

III. THe TRIUMPH OF THE BOURGEOISIE . . . . . 152 Becht AZOUNTER-REVOLUTION «6 40. 6 00 es (ow 6 177 V. CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY Falls . . . . . 194

Book III. THE First FRENCH REPUBLIC

I. THE GIRONDIN SUPREMACY IN THE CONVENTION .. 215 II. THE JACOBIN SUPREMACY IN THE CONVENTION ._ . 236 Mil; THe THERMIDORIAN REACTION . . . « «+ 265 Re PED IRC TORY: och auii ys is uaul, Weeats ety es WS ba totue: hia 2OO } PART II

STABILIZATION AND REACTION Book I. THE RIsE oF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

INTRODUCTION EE A a NRO eT soa LRN Te MBER RC C8 y I. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE BECOMES MASTER OF FRANCE . 310 II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE BECOMES MONARCH IN FRANCE 321 III. CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE REVOLUTION . . . .« 342 IV. NApPoLEON BECOMES MASTER IN EUROPE "356 x CONTENTS

Boox II. DEFEAT AND REACTION

I. THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM Lk he Ri II. LIBERATION, ABDICATION AND RESTORATION III. RESTORATION AND REACTION IN EUROPE . IV. THE HunpRED Days ho ks ae BIBLIOGRAPHY Pee Se elit he Vw hye Oe (SHRONOLGGIGAL;LABLE ...: « | ,e 5 INDEX wile ls vetis wh iec ye uht eae vie

MAPS AND CHARTS yd ARI IG SEU UR ES een er Frontispiece FRANCE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. ... Between 8 and 9 REIN SO hea ng Between 106 and 107 PARIS DURING THE REVOLUTION... Facing page 134 RENAL SAU COURS) 7) lead (taki eee ey) 2165 SET on EES 9 fe 70 Ee Facing page 272 Meme LOG, hehe ae ee Between 298 and 299 BIPRINCTOION eG) ultoes bite tye Between 384 and 385 ON OS Ce CS es Between 434 and 435

DMEM IN TSIA-TGIS 3 pe: . 6. es Facing page 450

THE ERA OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

PART I DISSATISFACTION AND REFORM rey

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THE ERA OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Introduction

FUNDAMENTALLY revolution means change. The Latin phrase was novae res (new things). The French Revolution means, not the popular picture of massacre and guillotine, war and terror, but a series of alterations — social, economic, political — in the European scene. The blood and thunder are perhaps more interesting and (alas!) easier to describe and easier to remember. But they are only the tools of the revolution, changing it, shaping it, cutting out its course; they are not the revolution itself. The novae res are to be sought in the differences, spiritual and material, that are discernible in 1815, when (and only for a moment) the Revolution came to a halt, as compared to the state of Europe before 1789 when, roughly speaking, the Revolution began.

This period before 1789 has become generally known as the Ancient or Old Régime (Ancien Régime), an era when even contemporaries realized what historians can now more easily perceive — that a change was necessary and more or less inevitable. It is easy to exaggerate the chaos and horror of the Ancient Régime, to say that things were so bad that they could not possibly have become worse and had to become better. It must be remembered, however, that our principal sources of information on the evils of the period are the writings of reformers who depicted with biased pens the viciousness of a system that they detested, and petitions to the King (cahiers) that, because of their very nature, listed only the worst features of society and

4 INTRODUCTION government. From such sources, only a distorted picture can be derived. But it is the distortion that interests us most, for it was the distortion that overcame inertia and brought about revolution. That the inertia was overcome, that an entire nation was moved to depths of popular feeling and bursts of popular action almost unprecedented, make it possible to argue, with Shelley, that misrule and superstition were fetters that ate ‘‘with poisonous rust into the soul.’’ Things were very, very bad indeed, even if they were not so bad that they could not possibly have been worse. That was true of all of Europe to a varying degree and not of France alone. If England was better off than France, the Germanies, in some respects, were worse off still. But it was in France, and for reasons that will appear later, that the Revolution began. And it is for the institutions of France during the Ancient Régime that we possess the most complete studies and information.

It has been said that few peoples take as keen delight in intellectual controversy as the French; and few subjects present as much room for controversy as the French Revolution. Hence it is that Aulard and Mathiez disagree to-day on the relative merits of Danton and Robespierre; that Aulard and Caron once waged, in newspaper articles and books, a fervid disputation upon the value of Taine as a historian; and that Faguet and Roustan, at the dawn of this century, championed the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries respectively and antagonistically. To controversies like these we owe much, both in literature and information; and it is to be hoped that they will continue. At present there seems to be no danger of their abatement. The French Revolution is still a vital issue in France and elsewhere. The correct interpretation of events, the just portrayal of character, the last word cannot be determined yet, if ever at all.

However, in the controversy between Faguet and Roustan, between the age of Louis XIV and the age of Louis XV, scholars to-day seem universally inclined toward the eighteenth century — not perhaps as superior to the

INTRODUCTION 5 earlier era, as Roustan would have had it, but as the immediate and productive cause of the French Revolution. To be sure, there was ‘“‘a revolutionary spirit before the French Revolution,’’ as Rocquain has made clear; and, to be sure, the reforms to which the Revolution gave birth were conceived and even brought to the point of fruition at an earlier day. But to-day is the result of yesterday; the causes of the French Revolution are to be sought (and can more easily be found) in the years immediately preceding it rather than in remoter times.

Chapter I Government Under The Ancient Regime

THERE was no diabolical cunning that had devised the tyrannical, confused government of the French monarchy of the eighteenth century, in order to exploit the peasant and to enable a few privileged aristocrats to live in unproductive luxury. In the course of several eras of development, France had gradually evolved, by the seventeenth century, from medieval anarchy and papal domination into a strongly centralized nation. In this struggle for existence the chief contenders against the younger and more vigorous spirit of Nationalism were the centrifugal forces of feudalism that tended to make of each county and duchy in the realm a separate and sovereign entity, and the centripetal force of the Church that tended to make of all of Europe a holy empire dominated by spiritual princes. By a series of conquests, marriages, treaties, and bequests, the Capetian Kings of France, originally the actual rulers of only the tiny Ile de France with but nominal claims to suzerainty over the lands of the lesser nobility, had subdued the barons and increased their holdings until Louis XV was able to hand down to his successor a realm with boundaries such as France boasts to-day, save for Savoy and Nice and a few anomalous enclaves that still managed to survive under foreign rule. Proportionately, the once independent aristocracy had lost their power and had been subordinated to the point where now they regarded it as the highest honor to act as valets of the Grand Monarch in his glorious palace at Versailles. The Church, too, though still looking to Rome for guidance, had in certain respects become a national organization.

The achievement of these results had required not only internecine strife with Church and barony, but also strong men and, frequently, Machiavellian cunning. The Valois

THE RISE OF ABSOLUTISM 7

Louis XI and Francis I, the Bourbon Henry IV and Louis XIII had conquered, stolen, and bought land and allegiance until their more illustrious scion Louis XIV would have been able to say, if he did not actually say, “‘I am the State!’’ Hewas the State. Protestants were made to feel it by the revocation of the toleration that they had thus far enjoyed by the Edict of Nantes, as well as Catholics who, in definite cases, were obliged to recognize the superiority of the State over the Church; peasants who paid heavy taxes and quaked at his august name were made to feel it, as well as nobles who attended his levées and fawned upon him at court. Political feudalism was dead, but its executioner had been forced to devise means and to use weapons that had concentrated its power in his hands; and such power was strength to do evil no less than strength to do good. Feudalism was dead! Long live absolutism!

The nobility had not stood by idly watching the King batten upon their losses. Long and bitter had been the struggle, as the fifteenth century came to an end, before the last stronghold of feudal aristocracy was razed by the defeat of Charles of Burgundy at the hands of Louis XI. The barons tried again and again, by religious wars in the next century, by popular uprisings in the century following (the Fronde), by conspiracies at the dawn of the eighteenth century, to regain their ascendancy over France and France’s rulers. But each successive defeat resulted only in the greater glory of the monarch, until not only the sunking Louis XIV, but even his less brilliant successor, Louis XV, reflecting his splendor, identified himself with the State: ‘‘My people are one only with me. National rights and national interests are necessarily combined with my own and rest in my hands alone.”’ But after all, the King was still, in a sense, but the chief of the nobles. One was not born a Montmorency or a Rohan, or of any of the other of the proudest families in France, only to hand him his robe as he stepped from his bath, or to amuse his mistresses’ pets. Blue blood was still more worthy than ordinary red blood. Society that was society counted ancestors; and it helped to have sixteen quarterings upon one’s coat of arms when army commissions were being distributed, when a lucrative ecclesiastical living was to be awarded, or a governmental sinecure had to be filled. If other things were equal, a noble would receive preferential consideration even when the most responsible ministerial and diplomatic posts were to be filled. But very frequently other things were not equal, and some bourgeois lawyer or low-born financier might take precedence over a descendant of the most renowned line in France when merits and ability entered into consideration. ‘Though important offices were still filled by nobles, who frequently were not the best qualified incumbents for their positions, it had ceased to be true that the nobility alone might serve close to the King. Colbert had sat on the right hand of Louis XIV; Turgot and Necker were to give opinions that were practically orders to Louis XVI.

Tradition demanded, however, that one kind of political office the King must still regard as the preémpted field of the nobility. From the princes of the blood, dukes, peers, and highest personages of the realm the King still chose the governors-general, lieutenants-general, and lieutenants of the King in the forty provinces of France. These provinces had at one time been practically or entirely independent of the King of France. In the course of hectic centuries they had become incorporated with the French nation, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes involuntarily, but almost always with certain conditions and guarantees expressly stipulated in treaties or charters. These conditions, together with local patriotism and tradition, had served to keep the boundaries between the various provinces distinctly marked. Frenchmen were not exclusively Frenchmen; they were Gascons, Normans, Bretons, as well, and proud of their provincialisms. As their governors, the King needs must, if not by written obligation, at least out of respect for provincial feelings, choose a member of an illustrious family high in the local peerage. Officially the provinces were now known as gouvernements (governments), though from

THE GOVERNMENTS ® Capitals B.=Bishopric; C.=County SCALE OF MILES

SALT TAX AND CUSTOMS

District of the great salt tax (grande gabelle)

District of the little salt-tax

(petite gabelle ) District of the Rethel.salt tax (gabelle du Rethelois)

District of the salt-works tax

(gabelle de salines)

District: of the ‘‘quart-bouillon”

District of the ‘‘redeemed provinces’ =

[___] District of the «free provinces” The numbers indicate the prices of the same quantity of salt in the different parts of France Boundary of the Five Great Farms

Boundary of the ‘‘provinoes réputées étrangéres”

Provinces d’étranger effectif”’ (ie. a soquired since 1664, or granted special privileges.) B= Bishopric; C.-County; LAB.=Labourd.

Longitude 5° West from Greenwich 0° i

THE INTENDANCIES

Pays d’Election Pays d’Etat © Capitals of Intendancies

District of the ‘customary ns - law”

District of the ‘‘written law”

Parlement or ‘‘conseil souverain’””

“Chambre des comptes”

«Cour des aides”

“Court of admiralty’””

“Bureau de finance’ and «Chambre du domaine”

“Cour des monnuies’*

Chief court of the ealt tax

€F Grand mastership of waters and forests (eaux et foréts)

B= Bishopric;C=County;LAB=Labourd.

CENTRALIZATION THROUGH INTENDANTS-— 9° the old names (Artois, Burgundy, Dauphiny, Touraine, Brittany, etc.) still clung. And in the course of time, as step by step the nobility had lost their power and provincialism had become merged with nationalism, the governors-general and their subordinates had become little more than figure-heads. All that now remained to them of the absolutism that had once marred or adorned the annals of Dukes of Normandy, Burgundy, Languedoc were the privileges merely of civil representatives of the army, responsible for the militia, conscription, and administration of the army in their respective jurisdictions.

For all other purposes of administration, Cardinal Richelieu, the man whose work in the seventeenth century had made absolutism in eighteenth-century France possible, had developed a new scheme of local government. Ever since 1542 the Kings of France had appointed certain officers to perform specified duties over definitely assigned territories. These officials were called intendants, and the territories over which they had jurisdiction were called intendancies. Richelieu found a number of intendancies already in existence, ruled over by intendants chosen from the middle class and having boundaries that did frequent violence to the boundary lines of the older provinces. He > recognized in the intendants a means of reducing the powers of the governors, and in the intendancies, a weapon against the local prestige of the province. To the intendancies already in existence, he added several new ones and gave to the intendants greater powers than they had hitherto had. His successors followed the precedent thus established.

Except where local pride rendered tampering unwise, the intention of the innovators had been to destroy the integrity of the provinces. In some cases, two provinces or a part of one government and a part of another were joined to make one intendancy. In others, a large province was broken up into more than one intendancy. Geographical considerations were uppermost but since the intendancy was fundamentally an economic division for purposes of taxation, the boundaries were frequently drawn so as to include one metropolis within each intendancy. It was after these large cities that the intendancies were named (Amiens, Bordeaux et Bayonne, Caen, Dijon, Lyons, Paris, etc.). The old boundaries and the traditional names thus were destroyed. Richelieu had met with severe opposition from all the local authorities (Parlements as well as nobles), and civil war under his successor Mazarin for a time checked the development of these intendancies. But, in 1789, all France was divided among thirty-two intendants ruling over thirty-four intendancies (universally, though inaccurately, also called generalities). These thirty-two royal delegates, with some notable exceptions such as the later minister D’Argenson, were almost exclusively chosen from the middle class — practically always from the body of lawyers in the King’s Council known as Masters of Petitions (Maitres des Requétes). |

The forebodings of the nobles, who had fought bitterly - against the institution of the generalities, proved to have been well grounded. By 1789, the once proud prerogatives of the feudal governors had passed into the hands of the bourgeois intendants. Local affairs were entirely under their control. On occasion, their jurisdiction might overlap the governor’s or the local assembly’s and conflict might arise that would require a higher authority to settle. D’Argenson spoke scathingly on occasion of the Governor of Hainaut with whom he had to contend. But inside his intendancy the intendant generally was supreme. He might decide whether to assume the responsibility of a decision himself or to send his problems on to Versailles for solution, but every activity, whether it was as trivial as the patching of a church roof or as important as the building of a new highway, was submitted for his approval; and it may be assumed that the ministers at the capital were none too censorious if he acted without disturbing them too frequently. “The Thirty Tyrants” they were called; and the slight arithmetical error may easily be overlooked in view of the appositeness of the phrase.

CONFLICTS WITH LOCAL AUTHORITIES Lie’

In each generality were a number of sub-intendants, or sub-delegates, appointed by the King through the intendaut. Sometimes the sub-delegate ruled over a subdivision of the generality, but most frequently he was simply an agent of the intendant, with power to perform only the tasks assigned to him by his master. In the larger towns (except Paris and Lyons) there were mayors, chosen by the King or some powerful noble or by the notables of the municipality. In Paris and Lyons the chief municipal officer was a Prevost of the Merchants (Prévét des Marchands), chosen, in Lyons, directly by the King; in Paris, on the 16th of August of every other year, regularly designated notables of the city would gather at the City Hall for the purpose of electing a prevost. They would listen to a letter from the King and then cast their ballots. Almost invariably it would be found that the gentleman elected was one carefully named in the King’s letter. Then, as the populace was admitted to watch, the notables sat them- _ selves down to a grand repast. In the country districts, the old town assemblies still continued to meet.t' In the large cities, too, the guilds, though reduced in number and stripped of the power that, at one time, had made them the commercial, social, and political arbiters of municipal affairs, yet retained important prerogatives in the regulation of trade. Furthermore, some of the provinces still had their local legislatures or estates. Intendants and sub-intendants were thus the representatives of the King, newly created allies in the struggle against feudal aristocracy; governors, guilds, town councils, syndics, local estates, and frequently mayors were survivals of a more remote age when barons were sovereigns and cities were newly chartered corporations. The representatives of the new order frequently clashed with the representatives of the old order, and since their respective jurisdictions were not clearly marked, the struggles were sometimes difficult to

* For purposes of administration and taxation, they elected a syndic, though frequently syndics might be chosen in other ways. A syndic might also be elected by other municipalities and corporations.

adjust. Always, however, there was the King’s Council to appeal to, and the intendants were the appointees of the King — that is to say, of the King’s Council. The absolutism of the King thus prevented a deadlock in the conflicting machinery of the State, and was frequently a blessing, though in almost impenetrable disguise.

The King himself might, if he wished, manage all the affairs of State. Louis XIV had taken the business of kingship seriously; Louis X VI would have liked to emulate his example. But the Louis who reigned between them found himself too busily engaged in the more interesting things of life to devote too much attention to governmental matters. Consequently, during his reign, it was only when he became sufficiently concerned for personal or other motives that he took an active part in the deliberations of ministers and councils. In that way, though at any time the King might veto their decisions or take any action contrary to their advice, though he might dismiss or even imprison them singly or collectively, the King’s Council had become the actual rulers of France. But nothing could be done without the sanction of the monarch; on less important affairs, the King generally followed the recommendations of the Council, and on more important subjects, the Council generally was careful to agree with the King.

This Royal Council or King’s Council (Consetl du Roi or Conseil d’Etat) was a body, varying in size from time to time, appointed by the King from among any of his subjects. Once it had had certain judicial powers, but at the end of the fifteenth century, Charles VIII had created a Grand Council (Grand Conseil) which, ever since, had taken over these judicial prerogatives. Now the King’s Council was the highest administrative body in the State, subject only to the King himself. It was made up of five special Councils.t The functions of the various councils were not

* The Council of State (Conseil d’Etat or, to distinguish it from the King’s Council, Conseil d’en Haut) was especially entrusted with the conduct of foreign affairs, though it sometimes decided upon internal policies, too. The

Council of Despatches (Conseil des Dépéches), under the guidance of the Controller-General of Finances, concerned itself primarily with internal ad-

THE ROYAL COUNCILS 13 all distinct or carefully defined, and were left very largely to chance. In general, they legislated and administered in the King’s name. The Privy Council, besides, seems to have been a training school for the other Councils. All of them gave advice. In addition to the Royal Councils, there was a Committee or Council of War, created in 1787, and a number of bureaux, whose business it was to prepare information for the Councillors and to settle matters that might be considered too trivial to refer to the Councils. Thus a meticulous intendant might submit an unimportant question, which had in turn been submitted to him by a cautious sub-intendant, to the authorities at Versailles, where it might be settled by some bureau or some Councilor of State, or come up before some Council! or eventually be submitted to the King himself.

A good king like Henry IV, who was really interested in state affairs, or a fatuous king like Louis XIV, who loved to meddle in governmental matters, might thus give most of his days to politics. Even Louis XV managed to spare enough time from his mistresses and amusements to attend the meetings of at least three councils quite regularly. Actually, however, it had become the practice for the Controller-General of Finances (since money was the prime necessity of the State) to act as the chief executive authority, taking precedence even over the Chancellor. He was a member of four councils and the Chancellor of only three. It thus devolved upon him to assure a certain degree of uniformity in governmental policy and to keep the various departments from entangling each other hopelessly in bureaucratic red-tape. When entanglements did ministration. The Council of Finance (Conseil des Finances) and the Council of Commerce (Conseil de Commerce) acted under the Chancellor and the Controller-General as the chief financial and commercial authorities of the State. The largest Council, made up in 1789 of forty-two so-called Councillors of State, several intendants of finances, and eighty lawyers known as Maitres des Requétes (Masters of Petitions), assisted by a host of lawyers and minor officials, was called the Privy Council or Council of Parties (Conseil Privé or Conseil des Parties). Its duties were chiefly judicial.

« If it was the Privy Council, the intendant might himself be present, since intendants were always chosen from among the matires des requétes.

occur, there was always the absolute power of the King to cut the knots. The administrative branch of the govern- _ ment of France thus revealed the weaknesses of its growth. New office after new office had been created to weaken the old, but the weakened old ones remained as the vigorous new ones multiplied, and the increasing absolutism of the King, which was the result of the weakening of the one and the vigor of the other, sufficed to keep them all working, well enough, at least, to prevent atrophy.

What was true of the administration of France was likewise true of the judicial department. Here, too, there was a jumbled disorganization saved from utter bewilderment only by the arbitrary power of the King. The various organizations within the State that had now become subjugated to the royal authority still retained some vestiges of their once sovereign judicial powers. The Church, which once had claimed the right to try all clergymen, widows, and orphans, and all cases committed on church lands or involving sin, still tried cases of a specified nature, limited now, however, almost exclusively to the offenses of the higher clergy. Blasphemy and sacrilege still were severely punished by lay judges. In 1766, because he had refused to remove his hat and had shouted insultingly at a passing church procession, a lad named La Barre was sentenced to have his tongue torn out, to be hanged, and his body to be burned. The feudal aristocracy likewise retained their manorial courts, trying their serfs and the neighboring peasantry, generally only for minor offenses. The seigneurial judges frequently tended to be partial in the interest of the lords who paid them:and were not above accepting bribes openly; and since court procedure was irregular and changing, justice was a variable quantity.