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The Peasantry before the Revolution.—Condition of the Peasantry arising out of the Revolution. The Labourers.-Farmers.-Small Proprietors.-Military Labourers.-Farmer of D'Orsonville.-Cottager of the Vallée of Dorsai.-Rural Economy.Market Day at Montreuil.-Peasant Dwelling. Morals. -Domestic Manners and Affections. Religion.-Religious Processions.-Popular Superstitions. Diet.- Hospitality.- Mendicity.Charity. Costume.-Physiognomy.-The Basque. Summary.

POLITICAL revolution, the inevitable result of undue preponderance in some order of the state in which it occurs, presents, in the moral subversion it occasions, an image of those fearful symptoms, by which nature in her great volcanic struggles rights herself,

and vindicates her violated laws; and the convulsions of disorganizing matter best typify the throes and efforts of social and political dissolutions. Fermentation works alike in both: destructive particles are forced to the surface: much of what is good is overwhelmed in the impetuosity of the torrent much of what is bad reigns paramount through its hour of necessary agency. The evil, however, which caused the explosion is at length removed; and these tumultuous actions, subsiding into quiescence, terminate by a necessary causation in the re-establishment of harmony and order. A new form of things presents itself; new arrangements arise out of the elementary wreck of exhausted systems; and in political, as in natural science, new facts are inscribed on the tables of human experience; new combinations extend the sphere of human views; and new lights beam upon the collected mass of human knowledge, to correct its theories and to fortify its conclusions.

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When the burning floods and frightful explosions of Vesuvius poured ruin and desolation on every object within the sphere of its convulsed action, the elder Pliny was seen

exposing himself to its varied forms of danger, in the cause of knowledge, and for the benefit of his species: his spirit soaring in sublimity above the wreck of matter, as nature, with all her awful secrets, stood revealed before him. But to the greatest political explosion that time has ever witnessed, or history recorded; to the revolution of France few philosophical Plinys have brought their cool and unbiassed scrutiny. The event which has shaken the greatest dynasties of the earth, torn the creed of the most powerful religion, subdued opinions coeval with record, and weakened ties twisted with the very instincts of nature, has rarely been viewed through any medium but that of passion, or discussed in any language but that of prejudice.

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It has, indeed, in its progress, been contemplated with well-merited horror. It has dazzled the visionary, it has frightened the timid. The oppressor and the oppressed have alike turned its events to their purpose; to exhibit it as a warning, or to seize upon it as an example. But while history with her impartial testimony exposes the causes of the French revolution, in the increasing abuses of the government, and in the consequent de

ence.

moralization of the people, its effects on the nation, out of whose wrongs it arose, are only to be estimated in the interior of society, and in the detailed minutiæ of every-day existIt is by an intimate acquaintance with the changes impressed upon all the various conditions and classes of the population, that its good and evil can alone be appreciated; and when prejudice disfigures, and policy misrepresents, philanthropy will exultingly point to domestic ameliorations, and philosophy triumph in the justification of her theories.

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Liberty and property," says Voltaire, "is the cry of the English; it is the cry of nature:" and he adds, in his own peculiar style, " Il vaut mieux que St. George et mon droit; St. Denis, et mont joie." To the oppressed and miserable peasantry of France all natural expression was denied. With every feeling of humanity violated, with every social institute perverted, they had learned by experience that complaint was unavailing, and resistance ruin.* An event, however, occurred, which, forwarded by

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*See Les Dictionnaires des Fiefs de M. de Treminville, et de Prenaudon.

their wrongs, was destined to work their redemption; and the total overthrow of that frightful system of feudality, which had so long crushed them into slavery, was among the first and best works of the revolution. To form a just idea of the magnitude and proportions of the giant structure, as it stood, frowning over the waste it had occasioned, the production of a few scattered fragments will suffice; nor is any minute detail of its complicated deformities necessary to excuse or to justify the reaction, which followed evils so harshly inflicted, and so patiently sustained.

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The corvée (which, in giving France such noble roads, robbed the peasant of his sole possessions, his time and his labour) tore him not unfrequently from his family and home to labour in a distant province; nor were the direct evils belonging to this system the only means of oppression to its vic

The resistance made in La Bretagne, under the reign of Louis XIV. to the tyranny and insupportable exactions of the government, was punished with a severity that approached to extermination! The city of Rennes was nearly depopulated; and the troops were every where let loose, to commit every species of violence on the defenceless inhabitants.

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