The Unseen Terror

by Richard Ballard

  At La Rochelle the Revolution developed without too much tension because the town’s maire, Jean-Marie Alquier, became a deputy at the Estates-General and then in the Constituent Assembly but, in spite of his absence, the municipality still fi rmly held the reins of local power. Alquier was a lawyer on the side of progressive thinking as a Freemason, and the national signifi cance of Freemasonry in the Revolution was that it had a tradition of all its members being equal in their lodges whatever their rank might be in ordinary life. Alquier was popular among the Protestants in the town because he had denounced Bishop Crussol d’Uzès of La Rochelle for his condemnation of Louis XVI’s edict of toleration for Protestants.

  Th

  e amounts Protestants were required to pay as tax eminently qualifi ed some of them as the ones to set the new whirligigs of power in motion.

  Th

  eir wealth came from controlling more than half of the town’s overseas trade. Th

  ey were readers of Diderot’s Encyclopaedia, joined lodges of Freemasons, and lived on a grand scale in the Saint-Barthélémy quarter with noble families as their neighbours. After the Revolution had started, a new edict of 24 December 1789 recognized their civil equality as well as status, so they were eligible to be members of municipal councils for the fi rst time ever. Elections held at La Rochelle in January 1790 still produced a Catholic maire, but 4 Protestants were members of a municipal council of 12 and, of the notables elected, there were 7 Protestants out of 24.14

  Election, rather than appointment, of responsible offi

  cials was the most

  characteristic indication of what had changed in the second half of 1789.

  Th

  ere were problems involved: in the town of Saint-Jean-d’Angély there were two maires elected at once, the ancien régime progressive Valentin, who had been in offi

  ce for years, and Normand d’Authon, a conserva-

  tive landowner who had gained a barony by marriage. Th

  is situation per-

  sisted until a specifi c edict of the National Assembly rectifi ed matters.15 In Saintes, as we shall see, there were some manipulations of an untried system by the new powerful, but popular enthusiasm seemed to carry along the transfer of power to the bourgeoisie. Excluded from eff ective power, some nobles left France immediately to make themselves available to Louis XVI’s brothers who talked of freeing the king from his captors. Others, like Henri de Grailly, left only after they were declared ineligible for election to the Legislative Assembly in 1791, despite having served as deputies for their order in the Estates-General and then in the Constituent.16

  chapter 2

  Elections, Grievances, and

  Feudal Dues

  The winter of 1788–9 had been particularly harsh with a tempera-ture below freezing for days on end. Late snowfall delayed sowing, and the vines were frosted. Ice on the Charente disrupted transport, split and sank boats, stopped fi shing, and piled up on the banks. Farm animals suff ered epidemics, and the price of grain was rising inexorably, to peak at La Rochelle on 28 July. In August, the harvest seemed adequate, but high rainfall made the yield less than expected so, in the autumn, the price of grain rose again and the wine harvest was mediocre too. Hoarding made the problem worse. Workers paid by the day soon became beggars.

  Th

  e wealthy in Pons complained that ‘not a day goes by but we are assailed in the town and in the country by strangers and tramps’.

  Th

  ere were bread riots, like the one in Rochefort on 26 April, when a crowd tried to burn the baker Ayraud alive in his own ovens after they had seen him receiving his normal fl our delivery. Maire Rondeau restored order and stopped the crowd entering households looking for hoarded grain.

  Severe punishments were ordered: three rioters were hanged, one sent to the galleys, and a woman imprisoned for life after a public fl ogging.

  In early 1789, provincial assemblies were called at Saintes, La Rochelle, and Saint-Jean-d’Angély to draw up the books of grievances ( cahiers de dolé-

  ance) and to hold elections of deputies from all three estates.1 Th e third

  estate held meetings in hamlets and villages to draw up a primary document, incorporating what residents had said. Th

  en meetings held in larger

  villages edited as many as 20 lists of complaints into one. Subsequently these were sent on to La Rochelle or Saintes or Saint-Jean-d’Angély for their fi nal edit, and the clergy and nobility drew up their respective lists.

  Th

  e elected deputies for each order took the fi nal editions with them to the Estates-General.

  24

  Elections, Grievances, and Feudal Dues

  25

  François-Guillaume Marillet was a lawyer who very soon became antagonistic towards developments in Saintes and the French nation brought about by his fellow lawyers. He was 57 years old, a town councillor, property-owner, and father of a family. Starting from when the elections to the Estates- General were called, he wrote his Secret History of the Revolution , recording his disgruntled reaction to the way things were going. He began with the assemblies of the three orders held in Saintes in March 1789.

  In the fi rst two orders2 they worked on the reduction of the cayers ( sic).

  Th

  ere was a lot of noise and diversion, particularly in the clergy’s assembly . . . In the third estate’s assembly . . . each district presented its lists and the assembly nominated eight or twelve commissioners for remod-elling them all and reducing them to a single one. M. le Mercier was one. I do not recall who the others were. M. le Mercier, with his sugary and quiet tone set his own views out on all issues to all who would listen, and talked to all the commissioners with the greatest honesty and kindness.3

  When they came to the list for the town itself, the greater part of the articles of grievance were complaints and invective against M. Gaudriaud [perpetual maire of Saintes] and M. the intendant. Th

  e delegates from the coun-

  tryside did not want to take up all these personal accusations, saying that they knew nothing of all that, and that in consequence they would never sign, and so if the town had personal grievances against M. Gaudriaue ( sic), they could draw up a particular list and address it to M. Necker, the controller-general, or send it to be presented by the deputies. Th ey

  [the urban delegates] insisted, but they gave in, and all these articles were suppressed from the general list.4

  It took three days to produce a fi nal document containing the grievances of the third estate of the Saintes area. Th

  e clergy and nobility were

  in session to draw up their lists from a standing start. Marillet’s full name, which included a nobiliary particle (de la Couboisière), suggests that he had contacts in the impressive former Jesuit boys’ college where the nobles were meeting, and he always speaks respectfully of nobles in his journal. In the meetings of the nobility, ‘all went along peacefully – at least I do not remember that there was any noise’.5

  When the lists of grievances were complete, election of the deputies began. For the third estate,6 ‘a landowner from Marennes, M. Garésché, gained the most ballots and was elected fi rst deputy’.7 Th e second ballot

  26 Th

  e Unseen Terror

  was in favour of Lemercier and, after the result was announced, the lawyer Jacques Garnier made a speech.

  He spoke for a long time in praise of M. le Mercier, and fi nished by saying that, since his health would perhaps not permit him to live in Versailles for the duration of the Estates, he off ered himself as his assistant. Th e assembly

  had no regard for this ambitious demand because they saw that he was a loudmouth ( bavard) who talked too much, and who would put himself up again8 and wanted his own opinion to prevail.9

  Th

  e third deputy elected was Auger, a businessman from Tonnay-Charente.

  For the fourth deputy’s place, there was a disputed result between
Ratier –

  who was either from Barbezieux or from Archiac, and was either a lawyer or a landowner (Marillet could not remember, he says) – and Garnier. At nine o’clock, it was decided to have another vote in the morning.

  Th

  e hours of night were well used by M. Garnier and his supporters. During the time the assembly met, he had often invited the deputies from Pons and other places around to eat with him and he paid visits to others in their respective hotels. Th

  at evening, he sent letters to all the hotels to ask for their votes. Th

  e greater part of the assembly was staying at M. Bormin’s Fleur de Lys. All the deputies from Barbezieux, Archaic and the places around them were lodged in this hotel – at least fi fty of them. Th

  ey had placed a sign at

  the hotel door – with the permission of M. the Lieutenant-General of the Police – with the inscription: Hotel of the Provincial Assembly. Th ey say it

  is still called that.10

  Garnier was unsuccessful despite all his eff orts because Ratier’s party did not want another deputy from Saintes itself. So the next morning Ratier

  ‘gained almost all the votes and was named fourth deputy’.11

  Th

  e thirds had fi nished their business and they split up with the agreement of M. Nieuil, president of the general assembly, without waiting for the closing ceremony, knowing that the clergy and the nobility had not yet begun to name their deputies, and that their aff airs and occupations would not allow them to remain in the town any longer.12

  Th

  e nobles elected M. de Riché at their fi rst ballot. Th

  e second saw the vote

  divided between de La Tour du Pin and Brémond d’Ars. Another ballot secured the place for de La Tour du Pin. All the voting was complete: two clergy, two noble, and four third estate deputies. Th

  e only thing left to do

  Elections, Grievances, and Feudal Dues

  27

  was decide the expenses of the deputies, which were set at 24 livres a day.

  Now Marillet feels free to express his own reaction to these proceedings: It is to be desired that the ambition and cabals of messieurs the deputies of the province in general turn to the advantage of the residents, but the greater number of them were very young, and all were very little instructed in the principles of government and great matters with which they would have to deal. Th

  e will of the king, which demanded mature men who were

  prudent and tranquil, had not been carried out.13

  Th

  e deputies met at Poitiers, ‘where they were given time and place to meet to go to Versailles together in April. All good Frenchmen, all good patriots, looked on them as their fathers, their true friends, and wished them bon voyage and a happy success in their undertakings’.14

  As we shall see, Marillet turned into the most severe critic of nearly all the instigators of the Revolution in his town and in the whole nation.

  Despite his bias, he adds an important dimension to our understanding of events, and the main value of his comments is that they are immediate.

  * * *

  Th

  e lists of grievances drawn up in the Aunis and the Saintonge provide a clear guide to the preoccupations of their compilers. Th

  e nobility of

  La Rochelle complained of

  taxes of all kinds being arbitrarily raised, exclusive privileges stultifying all activity; letters of arrest [ lettres de cachet]15 which restrain liberty, set free the guilty, and put the innocent in irons; commissions that suspend laws and interrupt the course of justice. Each ministry reverses the stability enforced by its predecessor. Wastefulness is extensive: considerable pensions are prostituted to all sorts of people, and most modest ones remain refused to zealous servants. Th

  e [national] fi nances are reduced to a frightening

  state . . .16

  Th

  ey criticized the riches of the regular clergy in their abbeys. Th e public

  are astonished, they say, at the seven million livres ‘uniquely employed in charity, in help given to indigent people, and in the building of churches . . .

  Th

  ey denounce this crowd of immensely rich monasteries lived in by three or four monks made incapable ( hors d’état) of keeping the vows of their orders and their foundations’ by their small number and the luxury in which they live. It comes as a surprise that the abolition of the monasteries and

  28 Th

  e Unseen Terror

  convents, which took place two years later, was suggested at this early stage by some of the nobles.

  Th

  ey asserted that administration was too complicated, and suggested that uniting the provinces of Aunis, Saintonge, and Angoumois would be preferable since the map of the region was ‘a real harlequin’s coat’.

  Diff erent types of administrations were shown in diff erent colours: there were enclaves separated from their main territories and attached to others with which contact was diffi

  cult because they were so far from each

  other. Agriculture, industry, and trade were often interrupted by church festivals when no work could be done. Th

  ey asked for the suppression of

  14 of them each year, representing a saving of seventy million livres. Th ey

  resented courtiers being promoted as military offi

  cers more rapidly than

  country nobles, and said the army and navy estimates varied too much from year to year to allow for consistent planning. Th

  ose responsible for

  coastal defence were taking too many labourers off their estates to be sailors.

  Th

  e peasant who works our land is no more qualifi ed to become a sailor than one from parts of the kingdom inland . . . it is diffi cult to explain the

  predisposition which has led to our province being designated as appropriate for taking sailors.

  No republic was asked for, and royalist convictions stand out in the lists.17

  Nevertheless, the nobles of Saintes and Saint-Jean-d’Angély wanted the Estates-General as a means of parliamentary government on the British model, with regular meetings and ministers responsible to it. Th e expenses

  of the king’s household should be permanently fi xed. Th

  e press should have

  complete freedom, and there should be provincial assemblies to comple-ment the Estates-General.

  Th

  e state of public education was deplored: an almost total absence of primary schools for the people, teachers thin on the ground. Th e

  clergy of Saintes claimed that their college was better maintained than its counterpart in Angoulême. Th

  e third estate of La Rochelle’s list com-

  plained that the college there was closed to all but the children of the nobility or Catholic pupils: ‘forty two children from La Rochelle are taken far away because their religion means that the college in the town is closed to them’.

  Th

  e complaints expressed by the third estate of Taillebourg, a village on the Charente between Saintes and Saint-Savinien, are very poignant.18

  Elections, Grievances, and Feudal Dues

  29

  Th

  e poor taxpayers (censitaires), who often sell their belongings so that they can eat, would have preferred to make gifts of what was asked of them, rather than have a serjeant come round to them with a paper in his hand to make the seigneur’s demands of his dues . . . Yet, all the time there are complaints about what the receivers demand from them . . . Two years ago, a marriage contract for a labourer cost a fee of three livres; to-day, someone of the same quality has to pay fi fteen livres. When the question is asked of messieurs the receivers, “Why does it cost so much?” Th

  ey reply “Th

  ose are our orders and

  we have to keep to them. Pay up, unhappy man, and don’t say a word!”

  Is there any
thing needed at the church? Recourse is made to M. the Intendant who, whenever the curé asks him to, sends a surveyor down here to draw up a very expensive report at a charge which allows the most hateful fraud to the profi t of his protégés . . . Th

  e poor parishioners of Juicq and

  Annepont, Monseigneur [the cahier is meant for the king to see], throw themselves down at your knees to gain a suspension of works at their churches until the Estates-General; they are only embellishments and by no means necessary.19

  Th

  e complaints of the 62 separate corporations in Rochefort represent the particular concerns of a military port. Soldiers’ and sailors’ wives whose husbands had infected them with venereal disease needed to be cared for, ‘otherwise they will give birth to degenerates, often more a charge on the country than useful to it’. A request is made for a hospice for poor, elderly, and infi rm old soldiers and sailors, described in Enlightenment language as ‘our equals in nature’.

  Th

  e draining of the marshes to improve the soil and prevent malaria was strongly urged, so was the need for the streets in the town, little better than foul drains, to be paved, and for fresh water fountains to be cleaned. Th e

  Chamber of Commerce wanted freedom from paralysing taxes on goods entering or leaving France, especially those concerning wines and eau de vie.

  Internal taxes charged on diff erent stretches of the Charente River, and the tax to maintain the bridge at Taillebourg, were hindering trade. Th e admi-ralty tax on wrecked or damaged ships was particularly irksome. Additional commercial dry-docks (as opposed to the military ones) and new quays on the river frontage were needed, like the ones provided at Saintes.20

  Th

  e clergy of Saintes lamented that they were unable to see, ‘without the bitterest pain, the daily attacks brought against religion, the public infraction of its laws, the daily blasphemies which dishonoured it, and the scandalous writings which attack and tear it’. ‘Animated by a truly priestly charity’, they regarded the Protestants ‘as straying sheep after whom we must run with a tender sollicitude’. Th

  e term non-catholiques in the 1787