en France, vol. iv. pp. 170–192. M. Guizot says, perhaps too strongly, that his reign was ‘la métamorphose de la royauté en despotisme,’ On the connexion of this with the centralizing movement, see Tocqueville's Démocratie, vol. i. p. 307: ‘Le goût de la centralisation et la manie réglementaire remontent, en France, à l'époque où les légistes sont entrés dans le gouvernement; ce qui nous reporte au temps de Philippe le Bel.’ Tennemann also notices, that in his reign the ‘Rechtstheorie’ began to exercise influence; but this learned writer takes a purely metaphysical view, and has therefore misunderstood the more general social tendency. Gesch. der Philos. vol. viii. p. 823.
310
As several writers on law notice this system with a lenient eye Origines du Droit Français, in Œuvres de Michelet, vol. ii. p. 321; and Eschbach, Etude du Droit, p. 129: ‘le système énergique de la centralisation’, it may be well to state how it actually works.
Mr. Bulwer, writing twenty years ago, says: ‘Not only cannot a commune determine its own expenses without the consent of the minister or one of his deputed functionaries, it cannot even erect a building, the cost of which shall have been sanctioned, without the plan being adopted by a board of public works attached to the central authority, and having the supervision and direction of every public building throughout the Kingdom.’ Bulwer's Monarchy of the Middle Classes, 1836, vol. ii. p. 262.
M. Tocqueville, writing in the present year (1856), says, ‘Sous l'ancien régime, comme de nos jours, il n'y avait ville, bourg, village, ni si petit hameau en France, hôpital, fabrique, couvent ni collège, qui pût avoir une volonté indépendante dans ses affaires particulières, ni administrer à sa volonté ses propres biens. Alors, comme aujourd'hui, l'administration tenait donc tous les Français en tutelle, et si l'insolence du mot ne s'était pas encore produite, on avait du moins déjà la chose.’ Tocqueville, l'Ancien Régime, 1856, pp. 79, 80.
311
The number of civil functionaries in France, who are paid by the government to trouble the people, passes all belief, being estimated, at different periods during the present century, at from 138,000 to upwards of 800,000. Tocqueville, de la Démocratie, vol. i. p. 220; Alison's Europe, vol. xiv. pp. 127, 140; Kay's Condition of the People, vol. i. p. 272; Laing's Notes, 2d series, p. 185. Mr. Laing, writing in 1850, says: ‘In France, at the expulsion of Louis Philippe, the civil functionaries were stated to amount to 807,030 individuals.’
312
‘The government in France possesses control over all the education of the country, with the exception of the colleges for the education of the clergy, which are termed seminaries, and their subordinate institutions.’ Report on the State of Superior Education in France in 1843, in Journal of Statist. Soc. vol. vi. p. 304. On the steps taken during the power of Napoleon, see Alison's Europe, vol. viii. p. 203: ‘Nearly the whole education of the empire was brought effectually under the direction and appointment of government.’
313
Much attention is paid to the surveillance of pupils; it being a fundamental principle of French education, that children should never be left alone. Report on General Education in France in 1842, in Journal of Statist. Soc. vol. v. p. 20.
314
A distinguished French author says: ‘La France souffre du mal du siècle; elle en est plus malade qu'aucun autre pays; ce mal c'est la haine de l'autorité.’ Custine, Russie, vol. ii. p. 136. Compare, Rey, Science Sociale, vol. ii. p. 86 note.
315
It is to the activity of this protective and centralizing spirit that we must ascribe, what a very great authority noticed thirty years ago, as ‘le défaut de spontanéité, qui caractérise les institutions de la France moderne.’ Meyer, Instit. Judic. vol. iv. p. 536. It is also this which, in literature and in science, makes them favour the establishment of academies; and it is probably to the same principle that their jurists owe their love of codification. All these are manifestations of an unwillingness to rely on the general march of affairs, and show an undue contempt for the unaided conclusions of private men.
316
Mably (Observations, vol. iii. pp. 154, 155, 352–362) has collected some striking evidence of the tyranny of the French nobles in the sixteenth century; and as to the wanton cruelty with which they exercised their power in the seventeenth century, see Des Réaux, Historiettes, vol. vii. p. 155, vol. viii. p. 79, vol. ix. pp. 40, 61, 62, vol. x. pp. 255–257. In the eighteenth century, matters were somewhat better; but still the subordination was excessive, and the people were poor, ill-treated, and miserable. Compare Œuvres de Turgot, vol. iv. p. 139; Letter from the Earl of Cork, dated Lyons, 1754, in Burton's Diary, vol. iv. p. 80; the statement of Fox, in Parl. Hist. vol. xxxi. p. 406; Jefferson's Correspond. vol. ii. p. 45; and Smith's Tour on the Continent, edit. 1793, vol. iii. pp. 201, 202.
317
Mr. Eccleston (English Antiq. p. 138) says, that in 1450 ‘villenage had almost passed away;’ and according to Mr. Thornton (Over-Population, p. 182), ‘Sir Thomas Smith, who wrote about the year 1550, declares that he had never met with any personal or domestic slaves; and that the villains, or predial slaves, still to be found, were so few, as to be scarcely worth mentioning.’ Mr. Hallam can find no ‘unequivocal testimony to the existence of villenage’ later than 1574. Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 312; see, to the same effect, Barrington on the Statutes, pp. 308, 309. If, however, my memory does not deceive me, I have met with evidence of it in the reign of James I., but I cannot recall the passage.
318
M. Cassagnac (Causes de la Révolution, vol. iii. p. 11) says: ‘Chose surprenante, il y avait encore, au 4 août 1789, un million cinq cent mille serfs de corps;’ and M. Giraud (Précis de l'Ancien Droit, Paris, 1852, p. 3), ‘jusqu'à la révolution une division fondamentale partageait les personnes en personnes libres et personnes sujettes à condition servile.’ A few years before the Revolution, this shameful distinction was abolished by Louis XVI. in his own domains. Compare Eschbach, Etude du Droit, pp. 271, 272, with Du Mesnil, Mém. sur le Prince le Brun, p. 94. I notice this particularly, because M. Monteil, a learned and generally accurate writer, supposes that the abolition took place earlier than it really did. Hist. des divers Etats, vol. vi. p. 101.
319
Cassagnac, de la Révolution, vol. i. pp. 122, 173; Giraud, Ancien Droit, p. 11; Soulavie, Mém. de Louis XVI, vol. vi. p. 156; Mém. au Roi sur les Municipalités, in Œuvres de Turgot, vol. vii. p. 423; Mém. de Genlis, vol. i. p. 200.
Further information respecting the amount and nature of these vexatious impositions will be found in De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol. xiii. p. 24, vol. xiv. p. 118; Saint-Aulaire, Hist. de la Fronde, vol. i. p. 125; Tocqueville, Ancien Régime, pp. 135, 191, 420, 440; Sully, Œconomies Royales, vol. ii. p. 412, vol. iii. p. 226, vol. iv. p. 199, vol. v. pp. 339, 410, vol. vi. p. 94; Relat. des Ambassad. Vénit. vol. i. p. 96; Mably, Observations, vol. iii. pp. 355, 356; Boulainvilliers, Ancien Gouvernement, vol. iii. p. 109; Le Vassor, Hist. de Louis XIII, vol. ii. p. 29; Mém. d'Omer Talon, vol. ii. pp. 103, 369; Mém. de Montglat, vol. i. p. 82; Tocqueville, Règne de Louis XV, vol. i. pp. 87, 332; Œuvres de Turgot,
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