The Launching of Roger Brook

who lived in a little house in a clearing of the woods some distance from the chateau. Lautrade was a fat, elderly, bespectacled man, kind by disposition but firm by habit, as he had to be in order to extract his master's rents at the dates they were due from the ever-complaining farmers.

On one such visit Roger asked him if the case of the peasants was really so hard as it appeared, and he replied:

'Monsieur Breuc, it varies greatly in different parts of the kingdom. Here in Brittany, in Languedoc and in the German provinces, things are not too bad, because the nobility have managed to retain something of their independence. That makes for good conditions on some estates and bad ones on others; but at least it is better than the rule that maintains in the greater part of France. There, the Intendants wield almost absolute power, and the thousands of petty government servants who work under them is each a little tyrant, producing nothing and living like a parasite on the labour of people who are hard put to it to support themselves.

'Again different systems of tenure have grown up in various areas. In Picardy, Flanders and other provinces of the north, the nobles and clergy are accustomed to let their land in large farms. That is a good thing; such farms are the best cultivated, the farmers become men of substance and their hired labourers are paid a wage which often enables them to save enough to buy a small plot of land of their own. The peasant is always hungry for land, of course. But I am not of the opinion that its possession profits him.'

'Why do you say that, Monsieur?' asked Roger. 'I should have thought it a good thing for a man to have a piece of land of his own.'

'Experience does not go to show that as far as smallholders are concerned. 'Tis estimated that two-fifths of the kingdom consists of little plots owned by the peasants and 'tis they, not the hired labourer, whose condition is most wretched. Apart from the north all France is honeycombed with these smallholdings which have been acquired piecemeal from the nobles, either on outright payments or on the mitayer system.'

'What is that, Monsieur?'

'A mitayer is one who acquires the right to cultivate a piece of land in return for a share of its produce. The system is always unsatisfactory, as the cultivator is naturally tempted to conceal the true bulk of his crops and the landlord, rightly or wrongly, always believes that he is being cheated.'

'Even so,' remarked Roger, 'if the peasants have succeeded in buying nearly half the land in France it does not seem that their condition can be so deplorable.'

Monsieur Lautrade nodded. 'They would be no worse situated than the peasantry of other countries were they left to go about their work as they wished, and allowed to dispose of their produce as they thought fit. 'Tis the corvie and the droits de seigneur which deprive them of any hope of prosperity and fill them with discontent. By the corvie they may at any time, perhaps at such important seasons as the sowing or the harvest, be taken from their land for enforced labour on the roads, bridges and other government construction. And in many places the droits de seigneur are extremely oppressive.

'Do they vary then? I thought the droit de seigneur was the right of a noble to send for any girl living in one of the villages on his estate, on the night of her marriage, and have her sleep with him whether she was willing or no.'

' 'Tis one of the droits,' agreed the bailiff, with a smile. 'And 'twas exercised, no doubt, in the middle ages. But can you see a fastidious gentleman like Monseigneur taking one of our uncultured village wenches into his bed?'

'I know one or two that I would not mind taking into mine,' Chenou grinned.

'You do so, anyhow, you handsome rogue,' laughed Lautrade. ' 'Tis said that not one of them is safe from you, and that they fall willing enough victims to your fine black moustacbios.'

'Aye! I have my share of fun,' the chief huntsman acknowledged. But you're right about Monseigneur, and his kind. They have no stomach for such strong, garlic-flavoured dishes and have long since ceased to exercise their privileges.'

'I was referring to numerous other droits,' Lautrade went on. 'There are many and they vary with each manor, but some are common to all. There is the droit de colombier, by which the seigneur may keep as many pigeons as he chooses, which find their food as much in the peasants' fields as in his own; the droit de chasse, which reserves all game exclusively for the seigneur's amusement. Then there are the banalitis which oblige the peasant to send his com to the seigneur's mills, his grapes to the seigneur's wine-press, and his flour to the seigneur's oven. For each such operation a fee is exacted and on badly run estates the work is often ill-done or subject to irritating delays against which there is no redress. In addition there are the plages, or tolls that the peasant is called on to pay whenever he takes a cart­load of produce more than a mile or so from his home. To use every road or cross any river he must pay something either to the Crown, the Church, or to some noble. But you must know this yourself, and that one must also pay to cross each line of customs barriers that separate the provinces from one another. 'Tis this infinity of little outgoings that rob the peasant of his substance.'

'It sounds a most burdensome catalogue,' Roger agreed. 'But surely the noblesse could well afford to give some relief from this local taxation?'

Lautrade shrugged. 'The rich ones who live at Versailles know little of the peasants' lot and care less. The rest, and they form the great majority, are mostly too poor themselves to make such a sacrifice. For hundreds of years such families have sent their menfolk to France's wars, and to-equip themselves for each campaign they have been compelled to part with a little more of their land to the thrifty peasants. Now, thousands of them have naught left but a chateau and a few acres of grazing ground. Tis that which makes them so insistent on the retention of their privileges. I know of noble families who eke out a miserable existence on as little as twenty-five louis a year; and if they gave up their droits they would be faced with starvation.'

'To my mind, 'tis the restrictions on selling produce that hit the peasant hardest,' cut in Chenou. 'In a bad season he garners scarce enough to feed himself, so 'tis but fair that when he has a good one he should be allowed to make a bit for putting by. Yet the corn laws forbid him to sell his surplus to the highest bidder, and he is compelled to turn it in at the Government depot for whatever skinflint price the grain ring have agreed to give for it. But come, I must be getting back to take a look at a mare that should be foaling some time to-night.'

As he stood up Roger rose with him, and said angrily: 'Such measures are iniquitous, and I no longer wonder that so many people curse the government. I doubt if people in any other country would suffer its continuance.'

'Nay, take not an exaggerated view,' demurred Lautrade, as he escorted them to the door. 'Serfdom is now almost abolished in France, and the whole country is far richer than it was half a century ago. The peasants live a hard life but their condition here is better than in any other part of Europe, except perhaps in England and the United Provinces. If you would see real poverty, you should go to Spain as I did, not many years ago, to bring back a fresh supply of trees for Monseigneur's orangery.'

Still thinking of these things Roger rode back to the chateau, to find that a letter had arrived from his mother. In it she told him that, after two years at Portsmouth, his father had now been reposted as Rear-Admiral, Channel Squadron; so, as long as no war broke out, his ships would spend a great part of the year in harbour and, to her joy, he could continue to be much at home.

Roger took the news quite casually. Occasionally he still longed to be back in England, but the time had passed when he would have given almost anything to return and have the chance of starting his career again. He now had not only good food and comfortable quarters, but servants to wait on him, horses to ride and a splendid library at his disposal. His task was a fascinating one and he was not tied to it by any regulated hours. His pay of forty louis a year was the equivalent of the salary that, on his last night at Sherborne, old Toby had told him he might hope to receive after getting his B.A. as a tutor to a nobleman's son. It was no fortune, but it was clear gain as he could not spend a single sou of it as long as he remained at Becherel. In the meantime he was, for all practical purposes, his own master and, enjoying as he did the droit de chasse, led a life not far removed from that of the petit noblesse, yet without any of its cares and responsibilities.

By the approach of Christmas he found himself a little jaded from his long hours of poring over the old