2006, Vol., No.15

Korean Review of French History 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.67

pISSN : 1229-702X
https://journal.kci.go.kr/krfh

The french Monarchomach triumvirs, François Hotman, Duplessis- Mornay, Théodore de Bèze, appeared after the massacre of St Bartholomew; but their polemical orientation had been prepared by the precedent steps. Their treaties have common characters: popular sovereignty, important duty of the General Estates, theory of the contract and the conditional obeisance. The doctrines, stemmed by antique and medieval political ideas, became for the first time in European history, a compact and coherent ‘ideology’. In spite of the political originality, monarchomachs were not the democrats before the letter. When they refered the people, it didn’t mean the people-mass with the public power, but the elective minority in the society of orders, precisely the nobles. If there is a new factor in their theory, it would be the question of who may resist to the tyrant, and the question of the sovereignty of the state, separated from the person prince-sovereign.

The symbolic representations of poverty and the polysemy of the “poor” help understanding the origin and the ideology of the charitable activities of the testators at that time. The power of the symbol is related to the continuity of mentalities concerning the positive poverty. With regard to the donors, the symbolic nature of gifts and the “magic” numbers are situated in the same context. The distribution of the bread, the wine, the clothing, the bed and the book, and the existence of the number five(five wounds of Jesus), seven(seven charities), twelve, thirteen(twelve disciples + Jesus) and thirty three (age of Jesus), are reflections of a symbolic system of the faith and liturgy in the wills. Where can we find the influence of “enfermement” and the change of the behaviors towards the poor? Can we simply call upon the character of the testamentary discourse? This charity, related to one particular moment, namely that of the confrontation between the man, more particularly the priest, and the death, is a phenomenon in which the positive image of the poor persists incontestably.

At the end of July 1789 the peasants of the Mâconnais revolted against their lords. Having attacked the castles and the parsons, they demanded that both the feudal rights of the lords and the tithe be abolished and that communal lands be restored. In the course of “the wars at the castles” they burnt the land register and inventories, destroyed the colombiers, and took the weathercocks off the roofs. Though such behaviors of the peasants led to the lootings of the properties in the castles, their violence aimed not to the persons but to the system. The peasants of the Mâconnais demanded the abolition of the feudal regime, which represented itself not only as the economic system of collecting the rents but also as the social structures of ruling. With an aim to achieving such goals, the populace of the village united together in the frame of the parish and under the guidance of the principal villagers, which were those people who enjoyed the stable positions such as a village chief and the tax collectors. The social composition of the rioters testifies to the communal unity. They consisted of the various rural elements such as vine farmers, artisans, laboureurs, day laborers, servants. The leaders of the movement plotted the goals and the mobilization in advance. They led the demonstrators to the castles and then directed the operations of the riots. In the meantimes, the humble villagers served as the action groups. Like this the rural community of the Mâconnais maintained their unity against their lords. In the initial stage of the French Revolution the peasant movement illustrates that despite the social differentiation of the peasantry the peasants behaved themselves as a single bloc, which could not be divided into social categories, strata, classes.