49 10 1079 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document We ask that the luxurious way of life of the nobility be restrained. A kitchen fire is necessary, but it could be smaller. Monsieur and Madame could share a chimney and so could the children of the house. The servants could have two chimneys: one for the men; another for the women. In this way, a lot of firewood could be saved. The people could buy it for less, because it does cost a lot, maybe as much as the bread. . . . Juvaincourt (Bailliage Mirecourt) To be represented in the Estates-General, we cannot choose a lord, nor a noble without facing the greatest danger. There are some human, generous, and kind lords. But they can be jealous of their rights and their privileges and can keep us under their dependence. We should not trust any gentleman who approaches us or have his servants approach us in order to be elected. We need to be convinced that their plans are [intended to] trap us and they only want to cheat us. As farmers, we have only good and trustworthy people among our class: the Third Estate. If we seek our representatives somewhere else, our interests will be sacrificed and we will keep on being poor. Vieuvic (Bailliage Orléans) It is not only the members of the clergy who made themselves useful, and who deserve considerations and rewards, but also the members of the nobility who sacrificed to the nation their fortune, their youth, and their health in the military service. Because the Third Estate recognizes how much the nobility is useful to it, and how much it deserves considerations and distinctions, the Third Estate does not believe that by taking away just rewards, it is possible to provide for the needs of the government, but rather by bringing order and economy in all the branches of the administration of finances. P. Riviere-Verdun Montouse (Hautes-Pyrénées) Sortable Date 1789-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Pierre Goubert and Michel Denis, 1789: Les Français ont la parole (Paris: Juillard, 1964), 80–81. Description An account of the resource The cahiers de doléances ("list of grievances") drawn up by each assembly in choosing deputies to the Estates–General are the best available source of the thoughts of the French population on the eve of the French Revolution. The following excerpts from workers’ cahiers in various towns around the kingdom again show an important complaint: that nobles and officeholders enjoyed numerous privileges and that such offices were not usually open to the most qualified members of society. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 369 Title A name given to the resource Three Cahiers from Orléans Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/369/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1789 Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Gifts, pensions, and large profits reserved to nobles only take the spirit of emulation away from both nobles and commoners. Emulation is taken away from the nobles because, by being born noble and aspiring to everything, they need credit. Emulation is also taken away from the commoners because these people cannot aspire to anything, and emulation becomes useless to them. To deprive a State of the genius that could enlighten, instruct, and defend it, is a crime toward the nation. . . . To close off employment possibilities and respectable occupations to the most numerous and useful class is like killing genius and talents, and forcing them to run away from an ungrateful home. However, in our current constitution, only nobles enjoy all prerogatives like landed wealth, honors, dignities, graces, pensions, retirements, responsibility for government, and free schools. . . . These [privileges] constitute the favors the State lavishes exclusively on the nobility, at the expense of the Third Estate. The nobility enjoys and owns everything, and would like to free itself from everything. However, if the nobility commands the army, the Third Estate makes it up. If nobility pours a drop of blood, the Third Estate spreads rivers of it. The nobility empties the royal treasury, the Third Estate fills it up. Finally, the Third Estate pays everything and does not enjoy anything. Lauris (sénéchaussée Aix) Sire, it is with the heaviest pain that we see huge pensions granted to vile and scheming courtiers. They take credit in front of Your Majesty. Significant remunerations are tied to jobs without duties. If only you knew, Sire, how much sweat, how many tears soak the money going into your treasury. Without doubt, your kindness will be more on its guard against people's indiscreet requests who consume in one day the fruits of taxes from thousands of your poor subjects. We cannot hide, Sire, that the nobility consumes the major part of State income. Indeed, it is this order of citizens, to whom we probably give the most merit, that furnishes the crown officers, the governors, the commanders, the quartermasters, and all the people who have honorable positions. A noble man, who knows how to dance well, ride a horse well, and handle a sword, thinks he deserves everything, and, nonetheless, he pretends that he does not owe anything to the State. If he is only greedy for glory, then he should serve Your Majesty and the nation and receive no income. Sortable Date 1789-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Pierre Goubert and Michel Denis, 1789: Les Français ont la parole (Paris: Juillard, 1964), 72–73. Description An account of the resource The cahiers de doléances ["lists of grievances"] drawn up by each assembly in choosing deputies to the Estates–General are the best available source of the thoughts of the French population on the eve of the Revolution. This excerpt from a parish cahier in the sénéchaussée of Aix–en–Provence demonstrates that popular unrest stemmed in large part from the privileges enjoyed by nobles and by officeholders, and that such offices were not usually open to the most qualified individuals. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 368 Title A name given to the resource Cahiers—A Parish Cahier Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/368/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1789 Nobility Peasants Provinces Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Decree Abolishing Hereditary Nobility and Titles 19 June 1790 1. The National Assembly decrees that hereditary nobility is forever abolished. Consequently, the titles of Prince, Duke, Count, Marquis, Viscount, Vidame, Baron, Knight, Lord, Squire, Noble, and all other similar titles shall neither be accepted by, nor bestowed upon, anyone whomsoever. 2. A citizen may assume only the real name of his family. No one may wear livery or have them worn, nor may anyone have a coat of arms. Incense shall be burned in churches only to honor the Divinity, and shall not be offered to any person. 3. The titles of Your Royal Highness and Your Royal Highnesses shall not be bestowed upon any group or individual, nor shall the titles of Excellency, Highness, Eminence, Grace, etc. Under pretext of the present decree, however, no citizen can take the liberty of attacking either the monuments in churches or the charters, titles, and other documents concerning families or properties, or the decorations in any public or private place. Also, the implementation of the provisions related to liveries and coats of arms placed upon carriages may not be effected or required by anyone at all until 14 July for citizens living in Paris, and for three months for those living in the provinces. 4. The present decree does not apply to foreigners; they may preserve their liveries and coats of arms in France. Sortable Date 1790-06-19 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Hall Stewart, A Documentary Survey of the French Revolution (New York: Macmillan, 1951), 142–43. (Slightly retranslated).. Description An account of the resource The major principle underlying the 4 August decree found legislative expression in the decree of 19 June 1790, which legally abolished the nobility, all its privileges, and, as the excerpt demonstrates, those aspects that seemed particularly contrary to reason. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 367 Title A name given to the resource Abolition of Nobility Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/367/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 19, 1790 Middle Classes – Bourgeoisie Monarchy Nobility Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document [Article] 1. The National Assembly abolishes the feudal system entirely. They declare that among feudal and taxable rights and duties, the ones concerned with real or personal succession right and personal servitude and the ones that represent them are abolished with no compensation. All the others are declared redeemable, and the price and the method of buying them back will be set by the National Assembly. The rights that will not be suppressed by this decree will continue to be collected until they are entirely paid back. 2. The exclusive right of fuies [allowing birds to graze] and dovecotes is abolished. The pigeons will be locked up during times determined by the communities. During these periods, they will be considered prey, and anyone will be allowed to kill them on their properties. 3. The exclusive right of hunting is also abolished. Any landlord has the right to destroy or have someone destroy any kind of prey, but only on the land he owns. All administrative districts, even royal, that are hunting preserves, under any denomination, are also abolished. The preservation of the King's personal pleasures will be provided—as long as properties and freedom are respected. 4. All seigneurial justices are abolished with no compensation. Nevertheless the officers of these justices will go on with their duties until the National Assembly decides on a new judicial order. 5. Any kind of tithes and fees, under any denomination that they are known or collected . . . are abolished. . . . Other tithes, whatever they are, can be bought back. . . . 6. All perpetual loans . . . can be bought back. Any kind of harvest share can also be bought back. 7. Venality of judicial fees and municipal offices is abolished. Justice will be dispensed at no cost. And nevertheless officers holding these offices shall fulfill their duties and be paid until the assembly finds a way to reimburse them. 8. County priests' casual offerings are abolished and the priests will not be paid anymore. 9. Financial, personal, or real privileges are abolished forever. Every citizen will pay the same taxes on everything. 10. . . . Every specific privilege of provinces, principalities, regions, districts, cities and communities of inhabitants, either in the form of money or otherwise, are abolished. 11. Every citizen, whatever their origins are, can hold any ecclesiastic, civilian, or military job. Sortable Date 1789-08-04 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived J. Mavidal and E. Laurent, eds., Archives parlementaires, 1st ser., 82 vols. (Paris, 1862–96), 8:378. Translated by Exploring the French Revolution project staff from original documents in French found in J.M. Roberts, French Revolution Documents, vol. 1 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1966), 151–53. Description An account of the resource In late July 1789, as reports of several thousand separate yet related peasant mobilizations poured into Paris from the countryside, a majority of them against seigneurial property, the deputies of the National Assembly debated reforming not just the fiscal system or the constitution but the very basis of French society. In a dramatic all–night session on 4–5 August, one deputy after another stepped forward to renounce for the good of the "nation" the particular privileges enjoyed by their town or region. By the morning deputies of all orders had proposed, debated, and approved even more systematic reform, voting to "abolish the feudal system entirely." In effect, they had decided to eliminate noble and clerical privilege, the fundamental principle of French society since the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, the meaning was unclear, for the "feudal system" had ceased to exist in France several hundred years earlier. Thus working out the details of this decree became a primary objective of the National Assembly for the next two years. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 366 Title A name given to the resource 4 August Decrees Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/366/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 4, 1789 Economic Conditions Laws Nobility Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document What is necessary that a nation should subsist and prosper? Individual effort and public functions. All individual efforts may be included in four classes: 1. Since the earth and the waters furnish crude products for the needs of man, the first class, in logical sequence, will be that of all families which devote themselves to agricultural labor. 2. Between the first sale of products and their consumption or use, a new manipulation, more of less repeated, adds to these products a second value more or less composite. In this manner human industry succeeds in perfecting the gifts of nature, and the crude product increases twofold, tenfold, a hundredfold in value. Such are the efforts of the second class. 3. Between production and consumption, as well as between the various stages of production, a group of intermediary agents establish themselves, useful both to producers and consumers; these are the merchants and brokers: the brokers who, comparing incessantly the demands of time and place, speculate upon the profit of retention and transportation; merchants who are charged with distribution, in the last analysis, either at wholesale or at retail. This species of utility characterizes the third class. 4. Outside of these three classes of productive and useful citizens, who are occupied with real objects of consumption and use, there is also need in a society of a series of efforts and pains, whose objects are directly useful or agreeable to the individual. This fourth class embraces all those who stand between the most distinguished and liberal professions and the less esteemed services of domestics. Such are the efforts which sustain society. Who puts them forth? The Third Estate. Public functions may be classified equally well, in the present state of affairs, under four recognized heads; the sword, the robe, the church, and the administration. It would be superfluous to take them up one by one, for the purpose of showing that everywhere the Third Estate attends to nineteen-twentieths of them, with this distinction; that it is laden with all that which is really painful, with all the burdens which the privileged classes refuse to carry. Do we give the Third Estate credit for this? That this might come about, it would be necessary that the Third Estate should refuse to fill these places, or that it should be less ready to exercise their functions. The facts are well known. Meanwhile they have dared to impose a prohibition upon the order of the Third Estate. They have said to it: "Whatever may be your services, whatever may be your abilities, you shall go thus far; you may not pass beyond!" Certain rare exceptions, properly regarded, are but a mockery, and the terms which are indulged in on such occasions, insult one the more. If this exclusion is a social crime against the Third Estate; if it is a veritable act of hostility, could it perhaps be said that it is useful to the public weal? Alas! who is ignorant of the effects of monopoly? If it discourages those whom it rejects, is it not well known that it tends to render less able those whom it favors? Is it not understood that every employment from which free competition is removed becomes dearer and less effective? In setting aside any function whatsoever to serve as an appanage for a distinct class among citizens, is it not to be observed that it is no longer the man alone who does the work that it is necessary to reward, but all the unemployed members of that same caste, and also the entire families of those who are employed as well as those who are not? Is it not to be remarked that since the government has become the patrimony of a particular class, it has been distended beyond all measure; places have been created, not on account of the necessities of the governed, but in the interests of the governing, etc., etc.? Has not attention been called to the fact that this order of things, which is basely and—I even presume to say—beastly respectable with us, when we find it in reading the History of Ancient Egypt or the accounts of Voyages to the Indies, is despicable, monstrous, destructive of all industry, the enemy of social progress; above all, degrading to the human race in general, and particularly intolerable to Europeans, etc., etc.? But I must leave these considerations, which, if they increase the importance of the subject and throw light upon it, perhaps, along with the new light, slacken our progress. It suffices here to have made it clear that the pretended utility of a privileged order for the public service is nothing more than a chimera; that with it, all that which is burdensome in this service is performed by the Third Estate; that without it, the superior places would be infinitely better filled; that they naturally ought to be the lot and the recompense of ability and recognized services, and that if privileged persons have come to usurp all the lucrative and honorable posts, it is a hateful injustice to the rank and file of citizens and at the same time a treason to the public weal. Who then shall dare to say that the Third Estate has not within itself all that is necessary for the formation of a complete nation? It is the strong and robust man who has one arm still shackled. If the privileged order should be abolished, the nation would be nothing less, but something more. Therefore, what is the Third Estate? Everything; but an everything shackled and oppressed. What would it be without the privileged order? Everything, but an everything free and flourishing. Nothing can succeed without it, everything would be infinitely better without the others. It is not sufficient to show that privileged persons, far from being useful to the nation, cannot but enfeeble and injure it; it is necessary to prove further that the noble order does not enter at all into the social organization; that it may indeed be a burden upon the nation, but that it cannot of itself constitute a nation. In the first place, it is not possible in the number of all the elementary parts of a nation to find a place for the caste of nobles. I know that there are individuals in great number whom infirmities, incapacity, incurable laziness, or the weight of bad habits render strangers to the labors of society. The exception and the abuse are everywhere found beside the rule. But it will be admitted that the less there are of these abuses, the better it will be for the State. The worst possible arrangement of all would be where not lone isolated individuals, but a whole class of citizens should take pride in remaining motionless in the midst of the general movement, and should consume the best part of the product without bearing any part in its production. Such a class is surely estranged to the nation by its indolence. The noble order is not less estranged from the generality of us by its civil and political prerogatives. What is a nation? A body of associates, living under a common law, and represented by the same legislature, etc. Is it not evident that the noble order has privileges and expenditures which it dares to call its rights, but which are apart from the rights of the great body of citizens? It departs there from the common order, from the common law. So its civil rights make of it an isolated people in the midst of the great nation. This is truly imperium in imeprio. In regard to its political rights, these also it exercises apart. It has its special representatives, which are not charged with securing the interests of the people. The body of its deputies sit apart; and when it is assembled in the same hall with the deputies of simple citizens, it is none the less true that its representation is essentially distinct and separate: it is a stranger to the nation, in the first place, by its origin, since its commission is not derived from the people; then by its object, which consists of defending not the general, but the particular interest. The Third Estate embraces then all that which belongs to the nation; and all that which is not the Third Estate cannot be regarded as being of the nation. What is the Third Estate? It is the whole. Sortable Date 1789-01-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Emmanuel Sieyès, What Is the Third Estate? in Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, vol. 6, French Philosophers of the Eighteenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1899), 32–35. Description An account of the resource Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès was born at Fréjus on 3 May 1748. He was educated at a Jesuit school, became a licentiate of canon law, and was appointed vicar–general by the bishop of Chartres. He first came into prominence with the publication of his pamphlet, "Qu’est ce que le tiers état?" In 1789 he was elected delegate to the Estates–General from Paris, and in the preliminary struggle for organization was made spokesman of the Third Estate. The policy indicated in his pamphlet was the one actually carried out in the conservative period of the Revolution. As the Revolution progressed, Sieyès dropped out of sight and had the good fortune to escape death. When asked at a later period what he had done during the Terror, he summed up his whole experience in the words: "I existed." In 1795 he again came forward and was appointed a member of a commission to draft a new constitution. His views did not obtain prominence in the constitution of 1795, and he refused to accept a position in the Directory of the new government. Sieyès took part with Napoleon in the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire, and was made one of the provisional consuls, with Napoleon and Roger Ducos. Later, he was made a count of the empire and given extensive estates as a reward for his services to France. This marks Sieyès’s final retirement from public life. He fled to Brussels on the second return of the Bourbons, returned after the revolution of 1830, and died in Paris on 20 June 1836. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 365 Title A name given to the resource "What Is the Third Estate?" by Emmanuel Sieyès Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/365/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1789 Enlightenment Middle Classes – Bourgeoisie Nobility Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document The court, maintaining the principles of the resolutions of last May 3 and 5, commands that the said decree [on the organization of the Estates General] be registered on the court rolls and implemented, according to its form and tenor, but with the following requirements: It may not be argued, based on the preamble or any articles of the said declaration, that the court must be restored to resume functions which violence alone has suspended. The court cannot be restricted by the silence imposed on the King’s procureur-général regarding issues connected to the execution of the Ordinances, Edicts, and Declarations of last May 8, and from giving consideration to matters which the court was obliged to take up. . . . Finally, the parlement, in conformity with its resolution of 3 May 1788, maintains its insistence that the Estates General, arranged for next January, be convoked regularly and composed according to the forms utilized in 1614. Sortable Date 1788-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived J. Mavidal and E. Laurent, eds., Archives parlementaires, 1st ser., 82 vols. (Paris, 1862Ð96), 1:389. Description An account of the resource By the fall of 1788, parlementary opposition to royal reforms had brought about a stalemate, with the Parlements refusing all reforms to the tax system. To gain the Parlement of Paris’s acceptance of new loans to keep the monarchy from going bankrupt, the new finance minister (Louis XVI’s fifth), Étienne–Charles Loménie de Brienne, decided to convoke an Estates–General for the first time since 1614. In his memoirs, he claims that he sought to keep conservative nobles from dominating the Estates–General and obstructing reforms by giving the Third Estate twice as many deputies as the other orders and by allowing all deputies’ votes to count equally. In this way, he hoped to build a working majority in favor of reform in the Estates–General. This decision was announced by a royal decree of 25 September 1788. The Parlement of Paris accepted this decree. However, it committed what became a major tactical error by demanding that the Estates–General follow the "forms of 1614," meaning that each order should have the same number of representatives rather than allow a "doubling of the Third" and that each estate should vote independently. When this resolution was published, it set off an outpouring of pamphlets and newspapers opposing the Parlements and calling for the Estates–General to vote "by head" rather than "by order." Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 364 Title A name given to the resource Royal Decree Convoking the Estates–General and the Parlementary Response (1788) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/364/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1788 Laws Middle Classes – Bourgeoisie Nobility Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document What do we see first? Seigneurial goods, common people's goods, houses and lands for sale or to rent. Expenses, offices, and pensions for sale. . . . These are frequently transferred. If people think a little bit, they will be aware of the worldly and moral whirl in which they live. Lands, castles, family estates, expenses, leave one family to enter another one. These mobile possessions, this continuous succession, which substitutes old masters for new ones and continuously subjects half the men to the other half, represent such an amazing show for a philosopher. We would be led to believe that there are no real possessions, and that all men are simple usufructuaries. In less than a generation, most of the goods have gone from one master to another and are often distorted. Large lands and expenses, which are important to all the distinguished families because of the name of the house, are not spared from these revolutions, because of marriages, alliances, death, exchanges, and changes of fortunes. Then comes the sale of furniture, personal effects, wardrobes, carriages . . . either because of death or through a friendly transaction, which brings up the same thought. Here again we notice how short human pleasures are, how the remains of wealthiness and luxury rapidly go from one family to another. In a short time, referred to as years, these same families will be stripped of the remains of wealthiness and luxury. Sortable Date 1859-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Eugene Hatin, Histoire politique et littéraire de la presse en France, 8 vols. (Paris, 1859–61), 2:125. Description An account of the resource This newspaper article considers the question of equality from the opposite point of view—arguing that without social distinctions making clear who should lead and who should follow, society cannot hold together. In particular, the article emphasizes that economic changes such as reliance on the market to set prices undercut older ideas of protection by the elite, shifting notions of social morality. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 363 Title A name given to the resource The Traditional Order Defended Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/363/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1859 Middle Classes – Bourgeoisie Monarchy Nobility Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Because you are a great lord, you think you are a great genius! . . . Nobility, wealth, rank, position . . . they all make you feel so proud! What have you done to deserve so much? You went to the trouble of being born—nothing more! As for the rest—a rather ordinary man! And as for me, zounds! Lost among the obscure masses, I have had to use more knowledge and be more calculating just to survive than all the rulers of Spain have needed over the last hundred years! And you want to take me on. . . . Could anything be stranger than a fate such as mine? The son of God-knows-who, kidnapped by bandits, schooled in their ways, they now disgust me and I yearn for an honest job—but everywhere I go, I am turned away. I study chemistry, pharmacology, surgery, and all the money of a great lord could barely get me a job wielding a veterinarian's probe! Tired of lamenting over sick animals, and wanting to do something completely different, I threw myself recklessly into the theater. Alas, I might as well have tied a stone round my neck! I'm a disaster in a play about ethics in a harem. Since it is a Spanish author, I thought I could unscrupulously make fun of Mohammed, but immediately some envoy from God-knows-where complains that some of my verses offend the Sublime Porte, Persia, a part of the Indian peninsula, all of Egypt, and the Kingdoms of Carthage, Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco. And there you have it, my play ruined to please some Mohammedan princes. . . . A question about the nature of wealth came up, and since it's possible to discuss things one doesn't actually possess, and not having two pennies to rub together, I wrote about the value of money and its net profit. Soon thereafter, from inside a carriage, I see a castle's drawbridge being lowered for me, and as I entered, abandoned any hope and freedom. [He rises.] How I would like to get hold of one of those seven-day wonders—so thoughtless about the evils that they cause—after a healthy misfortune had curbed his pride! I'd tell him . . . that stupidities that appear in print acquire importance only where they are restricted, that without the freedom to criticize, praise has no value, and that only small minds are apprehensive about small notes. [He sits down again.] Tired of housing a lowly boarder, one day they throw me into the street, and, since I have to eat now that I'm not in prison anymore, I once again sharpen my quill and ask everyone how things are going. They tell me that during my economic retreat, the tax on production was eliminated in Madrid, which even covered printed works. There is total freedom to publish any article, provided that no reference is made to the authorities, religion, politics, morals, high officials, influential organizations, the opera or any other theatrical productions, or anyone who believes in anything, and subject to the approval of two or three censors! In order to profit from this very generous freedom, I announce a new periodical, which, not wanting to following in anyone's footsteps, I call the "Useless Journal." Phew! A thousand poor writers are immediately up in arms. My paper is shut down and here I am out of work once again! I was on the point of giving up in despair when someone offered me a job. Unfortunately I was honest—they needed someone good in math, and a dancer got the job! I had no other recourse besides stealing, so I set myself up as a Faro dealer. Now, my good people, I dine on the town and so-called fashionable people politely open their doors for me—keeping three-quarters of the profits for themselves. I could well have restored my economic standing. I even began to understand that, in order to make money, know-how is more important than knowledge. But since everyone around me was crooked, and yet insisted that I be honest, it was normal that once again I went under. This time I renounced the world, and twenty fathoms of water were about to separate me from it, when a beneficent Providence called me back to my original calling. I picked up my bundle and my leather strop and, leaving illusions to the fools who can live by them, and my shame in the middle of the road as too heavy a load for someone on foot, I bounce from town to town, finally living carefree. A great lord, passing through Seville, recognizes me. I perform his wedding ceremony, and in return for my helping him get a wife, he wants to take mine! Plots and stormy interludes! Sortable Date 1784-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, La Folle journée ou le marriage de Figaro (Amsterdam, n.p., 1785 [1784]), act 5, scene 3. Description An account of the resource Like his predecessors of earlier generations, playwright Pierre–Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais—who became an important figure of the late Enlightenment because of the controversy surrounding his work The Marriage of Figaro [1784]—believed that a truly rational society would not tolerate arbitrary inequality. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 362 Title A name given to the resource Beaumarchais’s Understandings of Inequality Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/362/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1784 Enlightenment Middle Classes – Bourgeoisie Nobility Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document LETTER LXXIV Usbek to Rica, at ——— It was a few days ago that a man I know said to me, "I promised to introduce you into the best houses in Paris, and I will now take you to the home of a great noble, one of the men who best represents the realm." "What does that mean, sir? Is it that he is more polished or more affable than the others?" "No," he said. "Ah, I understand; he makes his superiority constantly felt by those who approach him. In that case, it is of no use if I go. I grant him everything and accept my sentence as an inferior." But I had to go, and I met a little man who was so proud, who took snuff with such haughtiness, blew his nose so mercilessly, spat with such composure, and who caressed his dogs in such an offensive manner, that I could not help but admire him. "Oh, good heavens," I said to myself. "If I acted like that at the court in Persia, I would be quite a fool!" Rica, we would have to have been of quite mean character to go and insult in a hundred petty ways those people who came every day to show us their respect. They knew well that we were above them, and if they did not, our kind deeds would [have] made them aware of it every day. Not having to do anything to make ourselves respected, we did all we could to make ourselves liked. We were accessible to the humblest, and although we lived in a grandeur that always tends to harden feelings, they found us to be sensitive. We descended to their needs, keeping only our hearts above them. But when it was a matter of sustaining the prince's majesty in public ceremonies, or of building respect for the nation in the eyes of foreigners, or when, finally, it was necessary to lead soldiers in perilous times, then we held ourselves a hundred times higher than we had ever descended. We became proud once more, and sometimes we were deemed to have made a rather good showing for ourselves. Paris, the 10th of the moon of Saphar, 1715 Sortable Date 1721-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Charles-Louis de Sécondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Persian Letters, no translator listed, 3d ed. (London: J. Torson, 1736), no. 74, 157–58. Description An account of the resource In his Persian Letters, published anonymously and abroad in 1721, Charles–Louis de Sécondat, Baron de Montesquieu, president of the Parlement of Bordeaux and a noble himself, made a scathing critique of nobility that set the tone for the philosophes’ attack on the inequality of eighteenth–century French society. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 361 Title A name given to the resource Montesquieu’s Attack on the Nobility Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/361/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1721 Enlightenment Middle Classes – Bourgeoisie Nobility Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Does a dog need another dog, or a horse, another horse? No animal depends on any other of its species. Man, however, has received that divine inspiration that we call Reason. And what has it wrought? Slavery almost everywhere we turn. If this world were as good as it seems it could be, if everywhere man could find a livelihood that was easy and assured a climate suitable to his nature, it is clear that it would be impossible for one man to enslave another. If this globe were covered with wholesome fruit, if the air, which normally should contribute to our lives, did not carry disease or death, if man needed no other lodging and bed than those the buck and his roe require, then the Genghis-Khans and Tamerlanes would have no servants other than their own children decent enough to help them in their old age. If some individual of tyrannous mind and brawny arm had the idea of enslaving his neighbor who is weaker than he, it would be impossible. The oppressed would be one hundred leagues away before the oppressor had taken his first steps. If all men then were without needs, they would thus be necessarily equal. It is the poverty that is a part of our species that subordinates one man to another. It is not inequality, it is dependence that is the real misfortune. It matters very little that this man calls himself "His Highness," or that man "His Holiness." What is hard is to serve them. In our unhappy world it is impossible for men living in society not to be divided into two classes: The rich who command, and the poor who serve. These two classes are then subdivided into a thousand, and these thousand have even more subtle differences. All the poor are not unhappy. The majority are born in that condition, and continual work keeps them from feeling their fate too keenly. However, when they do feel it, the result is wars, such as that in Rome where the People's party was pitted against the Senate party, or such as those of the peasants in Germany, England, and France. All these wars shall finish sooner or later with the subjugation of the people because the powerful have money; for in a state, money is master of all. I say in a state, for it is not the same between nations. The nation that makes the best use of the sword will always subjugate the nation that has more gold and less courage. All men are born with a rather violent penchant for domination, wealth, and pleasure, and with a strong taste for idleness. Consequently, all men covet the money, wives, or daughters of other men, want to be their master, subjecting them to all their caprices and doing nothing, or at least only doing enjoyable things. It is easy to see that with these honorable tendencies it is as impossible for men to be equal as it is impossible for two preachers or two professors of theology not to be jealous of one another. The human race, such as it is, cannot subsist unless there is an endless number of useful men who possess nothing at all. For it is certain that a man who is well off will not leave his own land to come and plow yours, and if you have need of a pair of shoes, it is not the Appellate Judge who will make them for you. Equality is therefore both the most natural of things, as well as the most unreal. As men go to extremes in everything when they can, this inequality has been exaggerated. It has been claimed in many countries that it was not permissible for a citizen to leave the country where fate has placed him. The idea behind this law is obvious: "This land is so bad and so badly governed that we forbid anyone to leave for fear that everyone will leave." Do better: make all your subjects want to live in your country, and make foreigners want to come. Deep in their hearts, all men have the right to think themselves entirely equal to other men, but it does not follow from this that the cardinal's cook can order his master to prepare him dinner. But the cook can say: "I am a man like my master, born in tears, as was he. When he dies, it will be with the same fear and the same rituals as I. Both of us perform the same natural functions. If the world was turned upside down, and I became cardinal and my master became the cook, I would take him into my service." This discourse is reasonable and just, but while waiting for the world to turn over, the cook must do his duty or else all human society becomes corrupted. Sortable Date 1765-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived François-Marie Arouet, Dictionnaire philosophique (London [Nancy], 1765), 157–60. Description An account of the resource This passage from François–Marie Arouet, pen–named Voltaire, who was perhaps the best–known writer of the eighteenth century, illustrates the spirit of investigation of the Enlightenment. The philosophes wanted to understand the rationale behind inequality, were particularly interested if there were natural reasons for it, or if inequality came wholly from social conventions. From a well–to–do middle–class background, Voltaire condemned arbitrary inequality and the social conditions that spawned it. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 360 Title A name given to the resource Voltaire’s Understanding of Inequality Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/360/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1765 Enlightenment Middle Classes – Bourgeoisie Nobility Text