Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The "World" between Seigneur and Peasant

1976; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 5; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/sec.1976.0026

1938-6133

Robert Forster,

French Urban and Social Studies

The “World” between Seigneur and Peasant ROBERT FORSTER It must have been a bright, cheerful summer day at the end of June, 1782, in this particular village of Lorraine. All of Faulquemont was full of joy and appreciation from the moment of arrival to the moment of departure of Madame La Comtesse de Choiseul. Cavalry with flags and drums, infantry in full uniform, music from the regimental band of Schomberg, illuminations, bonfires, fireworks, arcs de triomphe—everything possible to show Madame la Comtesse how happy the village was to receive her. . . J This was not the Lorraine of metallurgy, that lugubrious ambi­ ance evoked by forges, soot, and pine trees, but one that at least approached the idealized pastoral Lorraine so dear to Maurice Barres. In June, 1782, the village (or ville) of Faulquemont (650 inhabitants) was the center of a cluster of fourteen villages that made up the Marquisat of Faulquemont. It had belonged to a branch of the family Choiseul, one of the great families of France, since 1751. The Countess Choiseul-Beaupre, dowager of fifty, was visiting her estate for the first time in thirty years. Her local 401 402 / ROBERT FORSTER steward and land agent, Pierre Du Seuil, was full of enthusiasm for this visite which he had been urging for some time. His letter to the chief manager (intendant) of the countess’s affairs in Paris (rue St. Augustin) went on to describe the virtuous generosity of this “respectable” and “Christian” lady during her all too brief sojourn at Faulquemont: Madame has reestablished the full pension of M. Robinet (the procureur fiscal), she has increased the wages of the forest guards, she has added a new guard at Dalem, she has established a pension for a Vatelotte Sister as school mistress of the new girls’ school, she has given 150 livres to Dr. La Baume to care for the sick of Faulquemont and of five other neighboring villages (1600 inhabi­ tants) belonging to her. Voila des charites forever memorable, not to speak of the money distributed, the 65 quarters of grain in extra alms. In all truth, she has come to Faulquemont to rain blessings from the sky.2 A more touching picture of seigneurial paternalism (or rather maternalism) would be difficult to find. But before we look more closely at the administration and activities taking place in the countess’s fourteen villages, among her 4,000 “vassals,” who was there to greet the countess as she descended from her carriage and made her way on foot to the hotel de ville of Faulquemont? No doubt by their waistcoats and their sashes, the “countess’s men” stood apart from the rough blouses and wooden shoes of the crowd, an assortment of artisans, laboureurs, sharecroppers, daylaborers , a sprinkling of forest guards, cabaret owners, and petty hucksters. Who made up this little “notability” officiating at the town hall steps for the presentation of the wreath and garland of flowers, reciting “a little prose and a little verse”? Who dined with the countess at the curate’s house? The chateau was unfortunately not appropriate for a reception. Over the years it had become an enormous granary, most of the parquet floors heaped with grain reaching up to the flamboyant boiseries like golden termites. Only three or four rooms had been reserved for lodging the family of the procureur fiscal and his rather numerous progeny as well as the eighty-year-old prevot, the The “World” between Seigneur and Peasant I 403 seigneurial judge, his wife, and two thirty-year-old daughters. Moreover, the cure had planted a kitchen garden very close to the main grille—with permission of course—but the effect was some­ thing less than regal. The cure’s residence it had to be, then, for the reception. Who was there to receive Madame la Comtesse? There were five “notables” present, three of them with their wives. First, there was Monsieur Nicolas Marizien, chief advisor of the countess in Lorraine, a lawyer, Conseiller du Roi, and former Treasurer of Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Lorraine. He had joined the countess at Nancy, where he no doubt handled the estate affairs of other absentee landlords like...