Author: * Marty Cornelius -
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Date: Nov 10, 2003 - 14:56
Just how the peasant and the rest of the lower classes profited from the turn of the government PRECISELY, I can’t say directly. I’ll have to look it up. There are plenty of books that have collected statistical tables from that period.
A very useful book is Simon Schama’s “Citizens, Chronicle of the French Revolution”
I think that after the revolution, the poorest people did not really benefit from it. The whole F.R. was mostly about the ideals of the dissatisfied bourgeoisie, lower nobles and the lower clergymen.
As stated often, it were the lower clergymen who were committed most in improving the peoples-situations.
In contrary the great noble families who “traded bishoprics” THEY saw the daily situation the peasants lived in.
After the F.R., France still remained largely a agricultural nation. After it had taken up industrial means, the poorest were working in the factories under equally bad circumstances as when they just peasants.
Not until after the first world war did the situation really improve for them.
About most farmers/ citizens after the F.R.; their living standards went up quite a lot, and they were better protected by laws and regulations.
As said before, the situation before the revolution was not kind for peasants. Displeasing a nobleman was enough to get them into prison (or worse!)
I shall not say much about it (again), I just want to show the division of land in France, and the taxes peasants had to pay:
DIVISION OF LAND
The noblemen (about 1,5% of France’s inhabitants) had 25% of all the available land.
The Church, as an institute had 22% of the available land.
The people who “lived on the land” (peasants and such), who together where 90% of the population, only had 40% of the land, which often wasn’t their own property.
TAXES TO PAY (for peasants)
Taxes for the king 20%
Taxes for the Church 8%
Other Taxes 4%
“Lordly Rights” (nobles) 15%
Sowing-seeds for next year 20 à 25%
Left for the farmer himself. 28 à 33%
I just want to make one remark: Let’s not forget Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord. It is often forgotten how much this nobleman, who was also a bishop, actually did for the lower classes, even if (as some books say) he was the “greatest scoundrel that has ever lived”.
He tried his best to get a lot of laws changed. And to “undermine” the influence of the Roman Catholic church, who of course, had nothing to gain by the French Revolution, and a lot to loose.
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