IX - COUNTRY AGAINST TOWN

Summary

Up to this point I have been discussing the theory that the revolution was the overthrow of feudalism by the bourgeoisie, and trying to restate it in terms which have more regard to the facts of the history of the revolution. This obsolete theory, which was an aid to historical understanding at the beginning of the nineteenth century, has long since become a barrier to it. Above all, it has stood in the way of an appreciation of the real historical conflicts in French society. Since the population of France in the eighteenth century was overwhelmingly rural, one might expect some of these fundamental conflicts to have their roots in rural society; and it should not be too difficult to discover them. There is—it is a safe guess—far more source material available, even in print, on the peasantry than on any other sector of French eighteenth-century society. For the first time, with the revolution, ample documentation for a social analysis of the French countryside exists. Yet, apart from the work of Georges Lefebvre, there had been until the last few years remarkably little research into the problems of rural France. This is perhaps to be attributed, at least in part, to the ideological interests of those who wrote the history of the revolution.