The Long Nineteenth Century: A History of Europe from 1789 to 1918. Charles Downer Hazen
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130,000, the nobility 140,000, while possibly about as many bourgeois as these two combined enjoyed privileges that separated them from the mass of their class. Thus the privileged as a whole numbered less than 600,000, while the unprivileged numbered well over 24,000,000. One man in forty therefore belonged to the favored minority whose lot was differentiated from that of their fellowmen by artificial advantages and distinctions.
The clergy of the Roman Catholic Church formed the first order in the state. It was rich and powerful. It owned probably a fifth of the land of France. This land yielded a large revenue, and, in addition, the clergy exacted tithes on all the agricultural products of the realm. This was in reality a form of national taxation, with this difference from the other forms, that the proceeds went, not to the nation, but to the Church. The Church had still another source of income, the dues which it exacted as feudal landlord from those to whom it stood in that relation. The total income of this corporation was approximately $100,000,000 of our money. Out of this it was the duty of the Church to maintain religious edifices and services, to support many hospitals and schools, to relieve personal distress by charity, for there was no such thing in France as organized poor relief by the state or municipality. Thus the Church was a state within the state, performing several functions which in most modern societies are performed by the secular authority. This rich corporation was relieved from taxation. Although from time to time it paid certain lump sums to the national treasury, these were far smaller than they would have been had the Church been taxed on its property and on its income in the same proportion as were the commoners. An income so large, had it been wisely and justly expended, might have aroused no criticism, for many of the services performed by this organization were essential to the well-being of France. But here as elsewhere in the institutions of the country we find gross favoritism and wanton extravagance, which shocked the moral sense of the nation and aroused its indignation, because they belied so completely pretensions to a peculiar sanctity on which the Church based its claims to its privileged position. For the organization did not treat its own staff with any sense of fair play. Much the larger part of the income went to the higher clergy, that is, to the 134 bishops and archbishops, and to a small number of abbots, canons, and other dignitaries in all probably not more than 5,000 or 6,000 ecclesiastics. These highly lucrative positions were monopolized by the younger sons of the nobility, who were eager to accept the salaries but not disposed to perform the duties. Many of them resided at court and lived the gay and worldly life, with scarcely anything, save some slight peculiarity of dress, to indicate their ecclesiastical character. The morals of many were scandalous and their intellectual ability was frequently mediocre. They did not consider themselves men set apart for a high and noble calling, they did not take their duties seriously - of course there were honorable exceptions, yet they were exceptions but their aims were distinctly finite and they conducted themselves as typical men of the world, attentive to the problem of self-advancement, devoted to all the pleasures, dissipations, and intrigues of Versailles. Some held several offices at once, discharging the obligations of none, and enjoying princely revenues. The archbishop of Strassburg had an income of $300,000 a year and held high court in a splendid palace, entertaining 200 guests at a time. Even the saucepans of his kitchens were of silver. A hundred and eighty horses were in his stables, awaiting the pleasure of the guests. A few of the bishops received small incomes, but the average among them was over $50,000 a year. They were in the main absentees, residing, not in their dioceses, but in Versailles, where further plums were to be picked up by the lucky, and where, at any rate, life was gay. Some of the bishoprics had even become the hereditary possessions of certain families, passing from uncle to nephew, as in the secular sphere many offices passed from father to son.
On the other hand, the lower clergy, the thousands of parish priests, who did the real work of spiritual consolation and instruction, who labored faithfully in the vineyard, were wretchedly recompensed. They were sons of the third estate, while their proud and prosperous superiors were sons of the nobility, and they were treated as plebeians. With wretched incomes of a few hundred francs, they had difficulty in keeping body and soul together. No wonder they were discontented and indignant, exclaiming that their lot "made the very stones and beams of their miserable dwellings cry aloud." No wonder they were bitter against their superiors, who neglected and exploited them with equal indifference. The privileged order of the clergy is thus seen to be divided into two classes, widely dissimilar in position, in origin, and in outlook upon life. The parish priests came from the people, experienced the hardships and sufferings of the people, saw the injustice of the existing system, and sympathized with plans for its reform. The triumph of the popular cause in the Revolution was powerfully aided by the lower clergy, who at critical moments threw in their lot with the third estate and against their clerical superiors who rallied to the support of the absolute monarchy which had been so indulgent and so lavish to them. A house divided against itself, however, cannot permanently stand.
Somewhat similar was the situation of the second order, the nobility. As in the case of the clergy, there was here also great variety of condition among the members of this order, although all were privileged. There were several subdivisions, clearly enough marked. There were two main classes, the nobility of the sword and the nobility of the robe, that is, the old military nobility of feudal origin and the new judicial nobility, which secured its rank from the judicial offices its members held. The nobility of the sword consisted of the nobles of the court and of the nobles of the provinces. The former were few in number, perhaps a thousand, but they shone with peculiar brilliancy, for they were the ones who lived in Versailles, danced attendance upon the king, vied with each other in an eager competition for appointments in the army and navy and diplomatic service, for pensions and largesses from the royal bounty. These they needed, as they lived in a luxurious splendor that taxed their incomes and overtaxed them. Residing at court, they allowed their estates to be administered by bailiffs or stewards, who exacted all that they could get from the peasantry who cultivated them. Everybody was jealous of the nobles nobles of this class, for they were the favored few, who practically monopolized all the pleasant places in the sun.
The contrast was striking between them and the hundred thousand provincial nobles who for various reasons did not live at court, were not known to the king, received no favors, and who yet were conscious that in purity of blood, in honorableness of descent and tradition, they were the equals or superiors of those who crowded about the monarch's person. Many of them had small incomes, some pitifully small. They could cut no figure in the world of society, they had few chances to increase their prosperity, which, in fact, tended steadily to decrease. Their sons were trained for the army, the only noble profession, but could never hope to rise very high because all the major appointments went to the assiduous suitors of the clique at court. They resided among the peasants and in some cases were hardly distinguishable from them, except that they insisted upon maintaining the tradition of their class, their badge of superiority, a life of leisure. To work was to lose caste. This obliged many of them to insist rigorously upon the payment of the various feudal dues owed them by the peasantry, some of which were burdensome, most of which were irritating. In some parts of France, however, as in the Vendee and in Brittany they were sympathetic and helpful in their relations with the peasants and were in turn respected by them.
The nobility as a whole enjoyed one privilege that was a serious and unnecessary injury to the peasants, making harder the conditions of their lives, always hard enough, namely the exclusive right of hunting, considered the chief noble sport. This meant in actual practice that the peasants might not disturb the game, although the game was destroying their crops. This was an unmitigated abuse, universally execrated by them.
The odium that came to be attached in men's minds to the nobility was chiefly felt only for the selfish and greedy minority. The provincial nobility, like the lower clergy, were themselves discontented with the existing order, for abundant reasons. They might not wish a sweeping transformation of society, but they were disposed to favor political reforms that would at least give all within the order an approximately equal chance. They were devoted to the king, but they experienced in their own persons the evils of an arbitrary and capricious government which was highly partial in its favors.
There was yet another section of the nobility whose status and whose outlook were different still. Many offices in France could be bought. They and their perquisites became the property of those who purchased them and who could transmit them to their children, and one of the perquisites that