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The Culture of Poverty in Paris on the Eve of the Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Jeffry Kaplow
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At the very beginning of the investigation, it is necessary to find a word to describe the European masses before the coming of the twin revolutions, the French and Industrial, that have contributed so much to the making of the modern world. “Proletariat” is clearly anachronistic; “wage-earners” is inadequate in a society where cash wages were far from being the most common form of payment for labor. “Working class” is too much identified with nineteenth century developments and, what is worse, conjures up an image of a homogeneous group that does not conform to eighteenth century realities. “Laboring poor” is by far the best, for it emphasizes two primary facts about the people with whom we are concerned: first, that, to one extent or another, they earned their living by doing manual labor, and, second, that they were being continuously impoverished, as Professor Labrousse has shown. The category has several virtues as a tool of historical analysis. It is large enough to take account of the complexities of eighteenth century social conditions, stressing the mobility and social intercourse that existed, albeit on a diminishing scale, between the master artisans and shopkeepers, their apprentices and journeymen on the one hand, and the domestics, beggars, criminals and floating elements in the population, on the other. Classes laborieuses and classes dangereuses lived side by side and recruited their personnel from one another. They did in fact form a whole, whom contemporaries called “les classes inférieures”. If we look toward the future, we see that the French Revolution Was to bring about a temporary split in their ranks by politicizing those among them who became the sans-culottes, and that the Industrial Revolution was to complete this division on other bases by allowing some of the laboring poor to become petty capitalists, While forcing the majority to become proletarians or to fall further still into the nether world of the lumpen-proletariat. In sum, the use of the concept of the laboring poor enables us to come close to the reality of eighteenth century paris and to watch the disagregation of that reality with the passage of time.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , August 1967 , pp. 277 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1967

References

page 277 note 1 Labrousse, C. E., La crise de l'économie française à la fin de l'ancien régime et au début de la Révolution (Paris, 1944).Google Scholar

page 277 note 2 Cf. for the nineteenth century, Chevalier, Louis, Classes laborieuses et classes dangereuses (Paris, 1956)Google Scholar. Although the present state of the research does not allow me to make a definitive statement on the matter, it is perhaps not too early to suggest that a good deal of what Professor Chevalier sees as novel in the 1830s and 1840s may have had important antecedents before the Revolution – notably the complex patterns of population exchange between city and country, and the inability ot the Capital to absorb immigrants in any but a superficial way.

page 278 note 1 Furet, François, “Pour une definition des classes inférieures a l'époque moderne” in: Annales: Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations, XVIII (1963), pp. 459–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 278 note 2 Cahen, Léon, “La population parisienne au milieu du XVIIIe siècle”, in: Revue de Paris, XVI, no. 17 (1 09 1919), pp. 146–170.Google Scholar

page 278 note 3 It is not yet possible to give a quantitative breakdown of the constituent parts of the laboring poor. By this I mean not only the diverse socio-professional groups – butchers, bakers, candlestick makers – so dear to the hearts of French social historians. More important, in my view, is the need to distinguish between those exercising a trade within a guild framework and those outside the fold, between those who actually produced goods and those who engaged in marketing them, the petits marchands des rues. Furthermore, the social historian will want to study connections that may exist between place of origin and trade recruit ment in and towards Paris, and the ways in which certain trades came to be dominated (and internally policed) by men of one province: given the lack of national integration in the eighteenth century, one might almost say: by men of one culture group as opposed to another. A concrete example: was it an accident that so many masons were recruited from the Limousin? The accent here must be on the heterogeneity of the laboring poor, and nothing that is said here, however much it attemps to establish characteristics shared by a large percentage of the total group, should be taken as questioning that fundamental fact. On the particular question of the floating population, see my article: “La Population flottante de Paris à de la fin de l'ancien régime”, in: Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française, No 187 (January-March, 1967), pp. 1–14.Google Scholar

page 279 note 1 Anon., Paris Aujourd'Hui, ou Idées diverses d'un citoyen du tiers état sur le commerce, l'opulence, et la pauvreté actuelle des habitans de cette ville (Paris, 1789), p. 11.Google Scholar

page 279 note 2 Furet, loc. cit.

page 279 note 3 See, for example, Lewis, Oscar, “The Culture of Poverty”, in: Scientific American, CCXI, no. 4 (10, 1966), pp. 19–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I am much in Professor Lewis' debt for his stimulating work on this subject.

page 280 note 1 Piozzi, Hester Lynch, Observations and Reflections made in the course of a Journey through France, Italy and Germany (London, 1789, two volumes), I, pp. 13–15.Google Scholar

page 280 note 2 For an extended commentary on the power of death in the eighteenth century, see Armengaud, André, Démographie et Sociétés (Paris, 1966).Google Scholar

page 281 note 1 Pichat, Jean Bourgeois, “Evolution générale de la population Française depuis le XVIIIe siècle”, in: Population, VI (1951), p. 658.Google Scholar

page 281 note 2 Hardy, S. P., Mes Loisirs, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Fr. 6682, folio 152, 26 December 1775.Google Scholar

page 282 note 1 Cf. Caraccioli, L., Lettres d'un indien à Paris (Paris and Amsterdam, 1789), I, p. 256.Google Scholar

page 282 note 2 de Boyer, Abbé, Principes sur 1'administration temporelle des paroisses (Paris, 1786, two volumes), I, p. 32.Google Scholar

page 282 note 3 de Boislisle, A. (ed.), Lettres de M. de Marville, Lieutenant général de Police au Ministre Maurepas (1742–1747) (Paris, 1896–1905, three volumes), I, p. 206.Google Scholar

page 283 note 1 Hardy, , Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Fr. 6683, folio 483.Google Scholar

page 283 note 2 Journal Encyclopèdique, October, 1775, 183Google Scholar, cited in Bulletin de la Société de 1'Histoire de Paris, XXXVIII (1911), pp. 297–298Google Scholar. The death certificate of a person buried at the expense of charity could not be signed by his relatives or friends. Information was gathered for the parish registers from gravediggers. This practice led to many abuses but ended only in 1775 by order of the police magistrates of the Chaâtelet.

page 283 note 3 Acceptance may have had its rewards. Although thoroughly despised by the men of power, “le bon peuple de Paris” enjoyed a tacit freedom to get drunk and to engage in other amusements deemed worthy of the “canaille”, to let off steam in ways not dangerous to society. But let them engage, as they occasionally did, in the smallest strike, bread riot or similar protest movement and all tolerance fell by the wayside.

page 283 note 4 The literature on hospitals at the end of the eighteenth century is immense. I cite here only two: Rondonneau de la Motte, Essai historique sur l'Hôtel Dieu de Paris (Paris, 1787)Google Scholar, notes that the sick and dying often lay together six to a bed. de Récalde, Abbé, Traité sur les abus qui subsistent dans les hôpitaux (Saint Quentin and Paris, 1786)Google Scholar says that the Hôtel Dieu “est à présent redouté du dernier des hommes, par le trop grand nombre de pauvres que le malheur y rassemble”.

page 284 note 1 Anon., Un malade de l'Hôtel Dieu de Paris, aux âmes sensibles (Paris, 1787), passim, especially 13:Google Scholar

“Quelle demeure affreuse! O honte! O ma Patrie!

Toi, dont I'humanité charme tout l'univers,

Vois ce triste cloaque où la Faux ennemie

Fait de vastes moissons depuis cinq cents hivers;

Maudissans les secours d'une charité dure,

Vois tous ces Malheureux, par milliers amassés.

Dans ce réduit infect, accusans la nature,

Et sur un seul grabat l'un sur l'autre entassés,

Respirans avec l'air le mélange funeste

Des poisons échappés au foyer de la peste.”

page 284 note 2 Archives de la Seine, 6 AZ 133, 1 July 1718Google Scholar.

page 284 note 3 The interrogations and case histories of accused criminals are in the Y series of the Archives Nationales. See also: Archives de la Préfecture de Police, AB 405 – in the quartier Saint Denis between 1779 and 1786 there were an enormous number of complaints over “insultes, mauvais propos, propos calomnieux”. Most of the cases were settled by a simple apology or reprimand.

page 284 note 4 Hardy, , Bibliothèque Nationale. Ms. Fr. 6681, folio 329, 3 May 1774Google Scholar; Marville, , Lettres, I, pp. xvi–xvii.Google Scholar

page 284 note 5 Hardy, , Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Fr. 6683, folio 13, 3 July 1778.Google Scholar

page 284 note 6 Mémoires de Jacques Louis Ménétra écrits par luy-même, Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, Ms. 678, p. 13: [when he was a child] “dans cest temps le bruit couroit que I'on prenoit les jeunne garson et que I'on les seigneoit et qu'il étoit perdue pour jamais et que de leur sangs servoit pour baigné une princesse ataquée d'une maladie quy ne pouvoit etre que guerit avec du sangs humain. Sela fit beaucoup de reumeurt dans Paris. Mon pere vint me cherchée à l'ecolle comme bien d'autre avec sept fort garson tonnelier quy portoit chacun un levier sur l'épaule. La rumeur fut si forte que les vitres des commissaire fure cassé et que Ton asomma plusieurs malheureux et meme que I'on en brula un en place de greve, que I'on avoit prie resemblant a un mouchard. L'on ne laissoit plus sortir les enfant. II eu trois misérable quy fure penduë; en place de greve pour faire justice et pour rendre le calme dans Paris.” For the details of the affair, see Bibliothèque Nationale, Collection Joly de Fleury, 1101–1102 and Archives Nationales, X2b 1367–1368.

page 285 note 1 Bras, Gabriel Le, Introduction à l'histoire de la pratique religieuse en France (Paris, 1942–1945, two volumes), I, pp. 98–99.Google Scholar

page 285 note 2 See, for example, Archives Nationales, Y 13163 – Ordonnance de Police concernant l'observation des Dimanches et des Fêtes, 8 June 1764. This order was subsequently renewed many times. See also Piozzi, , Observations, I, pp. 27–28Google Scholar; “And surely I never knew till now, that so little religion could exist in any Christian country as in this, where they drive their carts, and keep their little shops open on a Sunday, forbearing neither pleasure nor business, as I see, on account of observing that day upon which their Redeemer rose again. They have a tradition among the meaner people, that when Christ was crucified, he turned his head towards France, over which he pronounced his last blessing; but we must accuse them, if so, of being very ungrateful favourites.”

page 286 note 3 This may have been particularly true of women, less so of men. Hardy notes a communion procession in St. Roch parish made up of fifty girls and a single boy – but this is not sufficient evidence from which to draw conclusions. See Hardy, , Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Fr. 6683, folio 275, 10 April 1780.Google Scholar

page 286 note 1 Almanach spirituel pour l'année M.D. CC. LXXIII (Paris, 1773)Google Scholar, passim; Bras, Le, Introduction, I, p. 41.Google Scholar

page 286 note 2 Bibliothèque Nationale, Collection Joly de Fleury, 1568. Sartine, , Lieutenant-général de Police wrote to Joly de Fleury, Avocat-général du Parlement, on 24 March 1762Google Scholar: “… les habitants de la Paroisse St. Leu commencent à murmurer beaucoup sur le défaut de prêtres, nécessaires pour la desserte de cettéeglise … Quoique le service s'y fasse assés exactement, ils manquent néanmoins de confesseurs, et l'approche des fêtes de Paques rendra cette disette encore plus frapante.”

page 286 note 3 Hardy, , Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Fr. 6680, folio 163–164, 9 December 1769Google Scholar; de Plancy, J. Colin, Dictionnaire infernal (Brussels, 1845, fourth edition), p. 182.Google Scholar

page 286 note 4 Alletz, P. A., L'Albert moderne (Paris, 1768).Google Scholar

page 286 note 5 Pelissier, Léon G. (ed.), “Une lettre de Paris (1772)”, in: Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de Paris, XXVI (1899), pp. 61–64.Google Scholar

page 286 note 6 Calmet, Dom Augustin, Dissertations sur les apparitions des Esprits (Paris, 1751, fourth edition)Google Scholar, shows that belief in ghosts, vampires and associated phenomena was widespread.

page 286 note 7 Hardy, , Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Fr. 6683 folio 139–140, 22 April 1779Google Scholar. Cf. the experience of Johanna Southcott in England a generation later.

page 286 note 8 Hardy, , Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Fr. 6682, folio 331, 27 February 1777.Google Scholar

page 287 note 1 Bibliothèque Nationale, Collection Joly de Fleury, 1292.

page 287 note 2 Laslett, Peter. The World We Have Lost (London, 1966)Google Scholar, Chapter six. The evidence we have about rural communities in both France and England indicates that there was not a great number of bastards, but we know little or nothing about the urban situation.

page 288 note 1 Ariès, Philippe, L'Enfant et la vie familiale sous l'ancien régime (Paris, 1960)Google Scholar, translated as Centuries of Childhood (New York, 1962).

page 288 note 2 Lallemand, Léon, Histoire des enfants abandonnés et délaissés (Paris, 1885), p. 161.Google Scholar

page 288 note 3 Restif dela Bretonne, Les Nuits de Paris (London and Paris, 1788), III, p. 631Google Scholar. This separation may have been the result of special working conditions, rather than the desire to break away from the family.

page 288 note 4 Archives de la Préfecture de Police, AB 405.

page 288 note 5 Hardy, , Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Fr. 6683, folio 229, 14 December 1779.Google Scholar

page 289 note 1 Cailleau, André Charles [d'après Barbier], Le Gouté des Porcherons (Paris, 1763)Google Scholar; Anon., Code Poissard, ou Instruction comique et divertissante pours'samuser pendant le carnaval (Paris, no date, but appears to be of the revolutionary period).

page 289 note 2 Archives de la Seine, 6 AZ 133 – Sentence de Police contre plusieurs particuliers our avoir fait charivari, 13 May 1735Google Scholar.

page 289 note 3 [De Peysonnel,] Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Na. Fr. 3247; Vadé, , La pipe cassée (Paris, 1755, third edition), p. 15Google Scholar; Cailleau, , Gouté, p. 4.Google Scholar

page 289 note 4 For some cases of gross and altogether exceptional violence, see Hardy, , Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Fr. 6683, folio 219, 21 November 1779Google Scholar and folio 273, 3 April 1780.

page 289 note 5 Peysonnel, De, Les Numéros (Amsterdam, 1782, three volumes), II, pp. 118–119Google Scholar: “… le jargon du peuple de Paris & des environs, un monstre dégoutant composé de tous les barbarismes & de tous les solécismes qu'il est possible de commettre dans la langue Française.” See also: Anon., Errors of Pronunciation & Improper Expressions used frequently, and chiefly by the Inhabitants of London, to which is added, those in similar use, chiefly by the Inhabitants of Paris (London, 1817)Google Scholar, where we are told that the Parisians have a distressing habit of saying “ben” for “bien” and of adding Zs in all sorts of unwonted places.

page 290 note 1 Herlaut, Commandant, Le recrutement de la Milice à Paris en 1743 (Coulommiers, 1921).Google Scholar

page 290 note 2 Hardy, , Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Fr. 6681, folio 348, 20 May 1774Google Scholar. A slightly different and more elegant version appears in Raunié, Emile (comp.), Chansonnier historique du XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1883, ten volumes), VIII, p. 320.Google Scholar

page note 1 Hardy, , Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Fr. 6681, folio 361, 11 January 1774.Google Scholar