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"In this lamentable business, the bourgeoisie plays the same role as the pioneers of America," continued Clousier. "It buys up great estates, which the peasantry could not otherwise acquire. It cuts them up and then sells, either at auction or in small lots at private sale, to the peasants. Everything is judged by figures in these days, and I know none more eloquent than these.
How could such facts be understood unless we had previously taken that rapid glance at the Mediocracy. Fourchon was right; the middle classes now held the position of the former lords. The small land-owners, of whom Courtecuisse is a type, were tenants in mortmain of a Tiberius in the valley of the Avonne, just as, in Paris, traders without money are the peasantry of the banking system.
He said that all the peasantry for ten leagues around were under arms, and that the Baron d'Escorval was the leader of the revolt. He did not doubt the final success of the movement, declaring that Napoleon II., Marie-Louise, and all the marshals of the Empire were concealed in Montaignac.
Except in some insensibility to animal pain, I never knew of an act in my regiment which I should call brutal. In reading Kay's "Condition of the English Peasantry" I was constantly struck with the unlikeness of my men to those therein described.
The spectacular palace built by Louis XIV threw glamour and prestige about the triumphant monarchy. It drew the great nobles from their castles and peasantry, and converted them into courtiers, functionaries and office holders.
The Catholic peasantry having discovered their clergy in these wild retreats, flocked to them on Sundays and festivals, in order to join in private not public-worship, and to partake of the rites and sacraments of their Church. Such was the state of the country at the period when the unfortunate men whom we are about to describe were pent up in this newly discovered cavern.
Away from the influence of the meeting-house there existed a Bœotian state of mind, only to be excited by appeals to the senses of the most palpable character, a state of mind in which faith—the evidence of things not seen, according to Paul—was quite out of the question; and I regret to say that, notwithstanding the activity of the last fifty years and the praiseworthy and laborious efforts of the East Anglian clergy in all quarters, suitably to rouse and feed the intellect of the East Anglian peasantry, a good deal yet remains to be done.
Small golden blossoms, like whin blossoms, cluster thickly here and there, and the starry-eyed daisies, white and sweet with blushes edged, lift their modest faces to the sky. Even the bog waste is nodding all over with a cotton flower, white as a snowflake; they call it ceanabhan in Irish, and the peasantry use it as a comparison when praising the white arms and bosoms of the Mayo maidens.
Lastly, we should remember that praise is due to the peasantry for their patience under disappointment and for their orderly conduct as soon as they understood the law and recognised it to be the will of the Tsar. Thus it may justly be said that the Emancipation was not the work of one man, or one party, or one class, but of the nation as a whole.*
The Whiteboys 'found in their favour already existing a general and settled hatred of the law among the great body of the peasantry. We have seen how much the law, and the ministers of the law, had done to deserve the peasant's love.
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