The French Revolution | Page 8

Marquis
de Mirabeau, father of a more famous son. They concerned themselves, among other
things, with theories of agriculture largely based on the conditions of their country. With
her large population France could with difficulty produce sufficient food for her people.

The wheat which she did produce was brought to market under extremely bad conditions
of distribution and of payment. The century witnessed what appeared to be an endless
succession of short crops and consequent famine. Viewing these conditions as a whole,
the economic thinkers concluded that the foundations of the State must repose on
agriculture, and they quickly voiced a demand that there should be encouragement for the
production of wheat and free circulation.
Towards the end of the reign of Louis XV the effect of these economic doctrines began to
be felt. Several efforts were made to remove the restrictions on the circulation of wheat.
These efforts, however, proved unavailing until after the meeting of the States-General,
and that largely because of the powerful interests that were concerned in maintaining the
wheat question as it then existed. The conditions were curious and are of great
importance in {27} their relation to the outbreak of the Revolution.
Wheat had become the great medium of financial speculation. It was an article that came
on the market at a stated period in large quantities, though in quantities which experience
showed were rarely sufficient to meet the requirements of the succeeding twelve months.
The capitalist who could pay cash for it, and who had the means of storing it, was
therefore nearly certain of a moderate profit, and, if famine occurred, of an extravagant
one. That capitalist of necessity belonged to the privileged classes. Frequently religious
communities embarked in these ventures, and used their commodious buildings as
granaries. Syndicates were formed in which all varieties of speculators entered, from the
bourgeois shopkeeper of the provincial town to the courtier and even the King. But
popular resentment, the bitter cry of the starving, applied the same name to all of them:
from Louis XV to the inconspicuous monk they were all accapareurs de blé, cornerers of
wheat. And their profits rose as did hunger and starvation. The computation has been put
forward that in the year 1789 one-half of the population of France had known from
experience the meaning of the {28} word hunger; can it be wondered if the curse of a
whole people was attached to any man of whom it might be said that he was an
accapareur de blé?
The privileged person, king or seigneur, bishop or abbot, levied feudal dues along the
roads and waterways, so that a boatload of wine proceeding from Provence to Paris was
made to pay toll no less than forty times en route. He owned the right of sitting as judge
in town or village, and of commanding the armed force that made judgment effective.
Where he did not own the freehold of the farm, he held oppressive feudal rights over it,
and in the last resort reappeared in official guise as one of an army of officials whose
chief duty it was not so much to ensure justice, good government, or local improvement,
as to screw more money out of the taxpayer. Chief of all these officials were the King's
intendants, working under the authority of the Controleur-Genéral des Finances.
The Controleur was the most important of the King's ministers, and had charge of nearly
all the internal administration of the kingdom. He not only collected the revenue, but had
gradually subordinated every other function of government to that one. So he took charge
{29} of public works, of commerce and of agriculture, and directed the operations of an
army of police, judicial and military officials--and all for the more splendid maintenance
of Versailles, Trianon, and the courtiers.

In the provinces he was represented by the intendant. This official's duties varied to a
certain extent with his district or généralité. In administration France showed the
transition that was proceeding from feudalism to centralized monarchism. Provinces had
been acquired one by one, and many of them still retained local privileges. Of these the
chief was that of holding provincial Estates, and where this custom prevailed, the chief
duty of the Estates lay in the assessment of taxes. Where the province was not pays d'état,
it was the intendant who distributed the taxation. He enforced its collection; directed the
maréchaussée, or local police; sat in judgment when disorder broke out; levied the militia,
and enforced roadmaking by the corvée. Thirty intendants ruled France; and the modern
system with its prefects is merely a slight modification devised by Napoleon on the great
centralizing and administrative scheme of the Bourbon monarchy.
The taxes formed a somewhat complicated {30} system, but they may, for the present
purpose, be grouped