la vendee tilly

8/13/2019 La Vendee Tilly

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THE VENDEE ND RURAL REBELLION

C h a r l e s T i l l yThe University of Michigan

September 1975

CRSO Working Paper 122 Copie s a v a il a b l e throug hCenter f o r Research onS oc i a l Organ iza t i onThe Univers i ty of Michigan

330 Packard /I214Ann Arb or Mic higan 48104


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Charles TillySeptember 975


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NOTE: T h i s e s s a y s a d r a f t p r e f a c e f o r t h e H arvard U n i v e r s i t y P r e s spaperback ed i t i o n of The Vendee which s s c he d ul e d f o r p u b l i c a t i o ni n 1 97 6. H ar va rd f i r s t p u b l i s h ed The V en dee i n 1 96 4. The f i r s t

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paperback e d i t i on was pub l i shed by Wiley i n 1967 and s now out of/p r in t . F r en ch ed i t i o n V en dee w s published by Artheme Fayard

i n 1 97 0. R o s e n b e r g S e l l i e r s s ch ed ul ed t o p u b li s h a n I t a l i a ned i t i o n a V an dea i n 1 97 6. Each o f t h e s e ed i t i o n s h as t s owp r e f a c e . I f you c i t e o r q u o t e t h i s v e r s i o n p l e a s e do s o a s a CRSOWorking Pap e r s i n c e t h e d r a f t s s t l l s u b j e c t t o c h an ge .


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The VendLe was one of Europe's last great rural rebellions.There would be more: the Spanish insurrections which persisted intothe twentieth century, the peasant movements which arose during theRussian Revolution, rural France's own massive resistance to Louis

'Napoleon's 1851 coup d'etat, still others elsewhere. Nevertheless,the lineage of the vende'e was already declining in 1793. The familyhad been great. Among the ancestral portraits in the dark hall ofrural rebellion, a curious visitor would find France's Jacquerie of1358, England's Peasant Revolt of 1381, Bohemia's Hussite and Taboriterebellions in the 1420s, Germany's Peasant War of 1525. Although theseancients are recognizably of the lineage, details of the costume oftengive them an unfamiliar air; millenarian visions, egalitarian preaching,demands for freedom were paradoxically more characteristic of medievalthan of modern rebellions.

The family resemblance to the vend would become more apparentas our imaginary visitor strolled by the great cluster of seventeenth-century canvases. In the French branch alone he would notice the Nu-Pieds, the Croquants, the Bonnets Rouges. There he would see many ofthe striking features of the vendere's 1793 rebellion: its anti-bour-geois, anti-captialist, anti-state animus, its mobilization of wholecommunities as communities, its reliance on nobles, priests and pro-fessionals for almost all links and almost all leadership above the

level of the single community. The Vend6-e came late, but did notlack a pedigree.

The apparent nineteenth-century dwindling of the rural rebellionwas actually an intercontinental migration. As the rural rebelliondisappeared in Europe, it swelled in Asia and Latin America. Nor was


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t h a t s im p le c o in c id e nc e. For t h e r u r a l r e b e l l i o n t r a c e d t h e r i s e ofna t ion a l s t a te s , markets and bourgeois proper ty . By th e n ine teenthcentury , na t ion a l s ta te s , marke ts and bourgeois prop er ty had t riumphedover the pr iv i le ge s and l i b e r t i e s of r u r a l communit ies i n most of Europe.The European v i l la ge s capac i ty to r s is t had col lapsed. The same i str u e of inost of North America. But i n th e r e s t of th e world statemakingand th e expansion of c ap it al is m were proceedin g apace. Where they en-countered well -esta bl ish ed ru r al communit ies and inf rin ged t h e e x i s t i n gr ig ht s of t hose communit ies , reb el l io n ensued.

Not t ha t a l l ru ra l r e be l l i ons a r e a l i ke . One o f t h e most impor-t a n t l e s s o n s of r e c en t r e se ar c h i n r u r a l h i s t o r y i s t h a t t h e g r i e va n c eswhich l e a d t o r e v o l t a r e bo th c o n cr e te an d v a r i a b l e . I n c o n t r a s t w i t ha n o l d e r p i c t u r e o f r u r a l r e b e l l i o n s a s un fo cu se d r e a c t i o n s t o h a r d s hi por t o r a p id s oc i a l change , t he l a s t two dec ade s work on the sub j e c tha s re ve a l e d a ge ne ra l pa t t e rn of r e sponse t o spe c i f i c v io l a t i o ns o fwe l l -e s t a b l i she d r i gh t s . I n E uro pe, and v e r y l i k e l y i n t h e r s t of

the world, new and i n t en s i f i ed tax a t i on has been th e s in gl e most impor-t a n t s t i m u l u s t o r u r a l r e b e l l i o n on a s c a l e l a r g e r t ha n t h e i n d i v i d u a lv i l l a g e . Tax rebel l ions have an important l e s s o n t o t e a c h . n t h esu r fa c e , t he y seem l i k e d i r e c t , uncompl ic at ed re a c t i ons t o mi se ry . ewt axes , one might th ink , a r e s imply the la s t s t raw. On c l os e r examina-t i o n , howe ve r , . r e be l l i on s t u rn ou t t o foc us on t a xe s whic h v i o l a t ee x i s t i n g l o c a l r i g h t s a nd which t h r e a t e n t h e r u r a l com mu nity s a b i l i t yt o c a r r y on i t s v a l u e d a c t i v i t i e s .

ax re b e l l i ons do no t b re ak ou t most o f t e n o r most f e roc i ous lywhere hardship i s most acute . Real ly m isera ble people d evot e s o muchof t h e i r e n er gy t o s u r v i v a l t h a t t he y h av e none l e f t f o r r e v o l t . I n


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order to understand why the North American colonists mobilized massivelyto resist unjust taxes in the decade before the American Revolution, wehave no need to invoke material hardship, clever manipulation or short-sighted greed. We can even take the colonists' own word for it: theybelieved the new taxes imposed by the British violated American rightsand principles of good government. So believing, they resisted theBritish assault on American rights.

The same general observation applies to other characteristicforms of rural rebellion: the food riot, the land occupation, anti-conscription movements. Their common denominator is the redress ofspecific violations of rural rights. In these cases the prior rightsof the village to food produced or stored locally, to local land, tothe labor power of its young men are at issue. When those rights arewell-established, when merchants or landlords or officials violatethose rights and when the village has enough organization and resourcesto resist, some form of rc1,cllion occurs. The grievances are concrete,specific, well-defined. Yet they vary from rebellion to rebellion justas the patterns of local rights and of exploitation vary from place toplace.

have written as though rural rebellions were always defensive,always reacting to someone else's disruption of the established order.Always overstates the case. For rural Europe over the last few

centuries, defensive rebellions arc the gencrnl rule, hut not the ironlaw. Two crucial qualifications apply.

First, some rural rebellions which begin defensively changedirection.or become tied to a major movement of social or politicaltransformation by allying with other groups of rebels, with different


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grievances, outside the rural area. In his Peasant ars of the TwentiethCentury, Eric Wolf has shown how a number of our era s greatest ruralmovements -- including those of Russia, China, Mexico and Viet am --

began with a strong orientation to the redressing of local grievances,yet developed through the play of coalition and opposition into powerfulforces for revolution. Wolf s analysis holds for rural participationin major European revolutions.

The second qualification is that genuine offensive, forward-looking movements asserting new rights rather .than simply.defendingold ones have arisen in some rural areas, and have sometimes providedthe bases of important rural rebellions. Spanish rural anarchism andItalian rural socialism are examples. In these cases and others likethem the movements themselves began defensively, but had acquired anew offensive orientation b,efore the point of rebellion. Again co-alitions with outsiders, especially organized craftsmen and radicalintelligentsia, have played a crucial part in the swing from defensive

An inverse process worked itself out in the vendee. A serlesof local conflicts which had much in common with the standard local.conflicts of the old regime evolved and coalesced into a rebellionwhich was emphatically counter-revolutionary. This book traces thedevelopment of the counter-revolutionary movement from 1789 to 1793,and relates its pattern to the social structure of local communitiesin western France. It shows grievances similar to those which hadlong activated tax rebellions, food riots and anti-conscription movementsbecoming the fuel of a mass movement against the Revolution. Indeed,it shows grievances and forms of action which worked for the Revolution


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i n o th e r p a r t s o f r u r a l F r an ce w or king p o w erf u l ly f o r t h e c o u n te r -r e v o l u t i o n i n t h e v e n de e.

The b oo k s r e s o l u t i o n o f t h a t c o n t r a d i c t i o n i s n o t t h e o b v io us

one : t h a t g r i e v a n c e s and fo rm s of a c t i o n a r e si m pl y i r r e l e v a n t t ot h e r e v o l u t i o n a r y o r c o u n t e r - re v o l u t i on a r y c h a r a c t e r o f a r u r a l move-ment e i t h e r b e ca u se r u r a l p e op l e a b so rb w ha te ve r s p e c i f i c g r i e v a n c e sth ey h av e i n to t h e i r e s t ab l i s h ed wo rld- vi ew o r b ecau s e man ip u l a t i v el e a d e r s d i r e c t t h e d i f f u s e a n g e r o f t h e c o unt ry me n t o t h e i r own e nd s .I n s t e a d, t h e book i m p l i c i t l y i nv ok es a n o l d p o l i t i c a l p r i n c i p l e : t h eenemy of my enemy i s my fr ie n d . t p o r t r a y s a c o a l i t i o n of p e a s a n t s ,r u r a l a r t i s a n s , p r i e s t s , and no bl es l i n i n g up i n d i f f e r e n t w ays, a td i f f e r e n t t i m e s f o r d i f f e r e n t r e a s on s , a g a i n s t a b o u r g e o i s i e w hic h ha db een g a in in g eco no mic s t r e n g th d u r in g t h e e ig h t e en th c en tu r y , and wh ichr a p i d l y s e i z e d c o n t r o l o f t h e l o c a l and r e gi o n al p o l i t i c a l a p p ar a tu sd u r i n g t h e e a r l y y e a r s o f t h e R e v o lu ti o n. A s t h e y d i d e l s e w he r e i n

-/France, t h e bourg eois who came t o power i n th e Vendee rec eiv ed s t ro ng

s u p p o r t f ro m t h e i r f e l l ow - b ou r g eo i s i n t h e n a t i o n a l g ov er nmen t. U n l ik et h e i r c o u n t e r p a r t s i n most o t h e r r e g i o ns , t he y l a c ke d t h e a l l i e s andpower b a se i n t h e c o u n t r y s i d e t o c r u s h t h e i r e n em ie s, n e u t r a l i z e t h ed i s a f f ec t ed and g en e r a t e ac t i v e s u p p o r t among th e res t o f t h e p o p u la t i o n .Why and how t h a t happened a r e t h e book s c e nt ra l problems.

On i t s own ground, The ~ e n d 6 e as s tood up w e l l t o t h e d oz eny ea r s o f s ch o l a r s h i p and c r i t i c i s m w hich h ave pas s ed s in ce i t s pub-l i ca t i o n . Su bs equ ent s ch o l a r s h ip h as g en e r a l l y con fi rmed th e con-c lu s io ns o f t he book concern ing i t s main a r ea of co n ce n t r a t i o n ,southern Anjou. For example, C. ~ e t i t f r e r e s ew a n a ly s i s of t h ep a r t i c i p a n t s i n t h e co u n te r - r ev o lu t i o n of 1 79 3 ad d s ev id en ce f ro m


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post-revolutionary pension applications to the documents from 1793I had studied and examines both bodies of evidence closely; Petit-&re comes to essentially the same conclusions concerning participationas you will find in the book.

Scholarship concerning other counter-revolutionary sections ofwestern France has been less kind to any hopes for a simple extensionof he vendgels findings elsewhere; other students of the subjecthave confirmed the importance of local anti-bourgeois coalitions, butthey have shown that those who lined up against the rural bourgeoisievaried greatly depending on the character of the region. In Brittany,for example, T. J A LeGoff and D. N G. Sutherland find that theentire rural community tended to oppose the petty notables whoopted for the Revolution.

The ~endgk's ritics have complained mainly about the book'sanalytic framework and about its incompleteness. I deliberatelycast the book as an analysis of community structure, of urbanization

and of related political processes. Some historians found that thedefinitions, analogies, models, and reiterated arguments clutteredan otherwise intelligible analysis of the counter-revolution. Manysocial scientists claimed that the emphasis on urbanization distortedan otherwise interesting account of the political impact of moderni-zation, or centralization, or some other major social process.

After years of reflection, I find myself unshaken on the firstcharge, but a bit rueful on the second. Were I to rewrite the booktoday, I would be at least as careful as before about definitions,analogies, models and explicit statement of arguments. n author aidshis readers, including other students of the same subject, by stating


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the nature.05 the problem, 'identifying the connections he wants to makewith existing work on that problem, and laying out the criteria ofproof and disproof he regards as appropriate. The book's concern withconcepts is correct.

have, on the other hand, lost some of my confidence that urban-ization was the best possible analytical focus. The growing and changinginfluence of cities unquestionably played an important part in shapingwestern France's response to the Revolution. As I see it now, however,the emphasis on urbanization obscures the influence in the vendhe oftwo other processes which have strongly influenced the developmentof rural rebellions in the western world: the expansion of capital-ism and the concentration of power in national states. Cities andurbanization have fundamental roles in both processes. Too great afocus on urbanization (or too broad a definition of urbanization)nevertheless draws attention away from the independent effects ofcapitalism and statemaking. In the vend& itself, it is valuable tolearn the place of cities and city-based merchants in the growth ofthe cottage textile industry. It is also important to realize thatthe property relations which developed were not those of city ortcountry but of classic mercantile capitalism.

As for the incompleteness of this book, was the first tolament it. Scattered through the chapters you will find apologiesthat was unable to carry out a more detailed analysis of changingproperty relations in eighteenth-century Anjou, of the revolutionarysale of church properties, of a number of other crucial topics. Iregret now that the book says so little about the implications of


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what happened in the ~end6e or our understanding of the course ofthe French Revolution as whole. I would be happier if it con-tained a more sustained treatment of counter-revolutionary movementselsewhere in France during the same period. Any one of these improve-ments however would have added months or even years to the eightyears it took me to prepare the book that actually appeared. It isnot certain that the improvement would have justified the additionalinvestment of time.

In the light of the excellent studies of rural history andrebellion which have been published since the appearance of The ~endgesome other problems wh5ch the book neglects now deserve attention. Letme mention only two examples.

First where did the rural proletariat come from and what washappening to it in the years before the rebellion? The book devotesquite a bit of space to documenting the importance of rural textileartisans in the vende/e1s opulation and in the counter-revolbtion.It also shows in passing that something like a tenth of the adultmale population consisted of essentially landless agricultural labor-ers. As studies of the proletarianization of the rural population inother parts of Europe begin to come in nevertheless it becomesclearer that my treatment neglects a significant problem and a fineopportunity. Where did those landless workers come from? Was rapidpopulation growth or the consolidation of land in the hands of nobleand bourgeois propertyholders forcing the children of peasants tochoose among enigrating remaining single o their family farms ortaking up work as weavers or day-laborers? If so we might betterunderstand the pressures on the rural population at the start of the


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two i n t e r i m s o l u t i o n s : f i r s t m o b i li z i ng t h e l o c a l p o p u la t i on a g a i n s ta sm ll number of pre~umed~enemiesf t h e Rev o l ut i o n; s eco nd s u b s t i -t u t i n g i n d i r e c t r u l e v i a l o c a l ne tw or ks of t r u s t e d b o u rg eo is f o r i n -

d i r e c t r u l e v i a p r i e s t s and no bl es .P r o l e t a r i a n i z a t i o n and s t a t e c e n t r a l i z a t i o n a r e i m p or ta nt

problems on which he ~ e n d ~ eouches bu t on ly touches . T h e r e a r eo t h e r s : t h e n a t u r e of r e v o l ut i o n a r y l e a d e r s h i p t h e r o o t s of v i o l e n c et h e e f f e c t s of r e p r es s io n t h e r i s e and f a l l of p o l i t i c a l r i g h t s . YesThe ~ e n d g e e a v e s a l a r g e ag enda u n f u l f i l l e d . Le t me t ake re fuge i na se lf -s er vi ng homily: a good book opens doo rs and makes people wantt o en te r them. I f he vendge opens th e way to p lac es o th er peop lewant t o e x p l o r e t h a t w l l be reason enough f o r i t s w r i t i n g .


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SELECTED REFERENCES

A c c at i , L. . V iv e l e r o i s a n s t a i l l e e t sa n s g a b e l l e : una d i sc u s s i o n es u l l e r iv o l t e c on ta d ine, Qua de rn i S t o r i c i , 7 ( Se pt .-Dec . 1972) , ,

Ar da n t, Ga br i e l . ~ h g o r i e oc io log ique de l ' im po t . P a r i s : SEVPEN,1965. 2 vo ls .

~ e r c e , ves-Marie. H i s t o i r e de s C roqua n ts . P a r i s : Droz, 1974. 2 vo l s .Croquants e t Nu-Pieds. P a r i s : Ga l l im a r d / Ju l l i a r d ,

1974. Co l l ec t io n Archives ..Blok, Anton. The Mafi a of a S i c i l i a n V il la g e. New York: Harp er Row,

1974.C a l v e r t , P e t e r . A Study of Revolution . Oxford: Clarendon Pr es s, 1970.Davis, N at al ie Zemon. So ci et y and Cu lt ur e i n Ea rly Modern France.

S ta n f o r d : S ta n f o r d Un iv e r s i ty P r e s s , 1975 .Dunn, John. Modern Rev olu tio ns. Cambridge: Cambridge Un iv er si ty Pr es s,

1972.Fl et ch er , Anthony. Tudor Re be ll io ns . London: Longmans, 1968.G r a tt o n , Ph i l i p p e . L es l u t t e s d e c l a s s e s d an s l e s campagnes. Par is:

Anthropos, 1971.H i lt on , Rodney. Bond Men Made Fr ee . Medi eval Pe as an t Movements and

t h e En gli sh Ri si ng of 1381. London: Temple Smith, 1973.Hobsbawm, E J . and George ~ude'. Captain Swing: A S o c i a l H i s t o r y

of th e Great Ag rar ian Up ris ing of 1830. New York: Pantheon, 1968.Hoerder , Dirk. People and Mobs: Crowd Acti on i n Massa chuse tts du r in g

th e American R e vo lu t ion , 1765-1780. B e r l in : p r iv a t e l y p r in t e d ,1971.

Huizer , Gerri t . Peasa nt Reb ell ion i n La ti n America. Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1973.


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Landsberger, Henry A., ed. Rural Protest: Peasant Movements and SocialChange. London: Macmillan, 1974.

Le Goff, T. J. A., and D. M. G. Sutherland. The Revolution and theRural Community in Eighteenth-Century Brittany, Past and

Present, 62 (1974), 916-119.Lewis, John Wilson, ed. Peasant Rebellion and Communist Revolution in

Asia.. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974.Lida, Clara E. Anarquismo y revolucidh en la Espana del XIX. Madrid:

Siglo, 1972.Lucas, Colin. The Structure of the Terror. The Example of Javogues

and the Loire. London: Oxford University Press, 1973.Mazauri~ Claude. Sur la ~gvolution ancaise. Paris: Editions Sociales

Mitchell, Harvey. The ~endge nd Counterrevolution: A Review Essay,French Historical Studies, 5 (autumn, 1968), 405-429.

Mollat, Michel, and Philippe Wolff. Ongles bleus, Jacques et Ciompi.Les ~A olutions opulaires en Europe aux XIVe et XVe si2cles.Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1970.

Moore, Barrington, Jr. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy.Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Boston:Beacon, 1966.

Mousnier. Roland. Fureurs paysannes: Les paysans dans les revoltesdu XVIIe siecle (France, Russie, Chine). Paris: Calmann-Levy,1967.

Peacock, A. J.. Bread or Blood: The Agrarian Riots in East Anglia,1816. London: Gollancz, 1965.

petit ire, C. Les grandes composantes sociales des armees vendeennesdlAnjou, Annales historiques de la Revolution francaise,January-March 1973: 1-20.


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Sche iner , I rwin . The Mindful Peasant : Ske tches fo r a Study ofRebel l ion, Jo ur na l of Asian Stu die s, . 32 (August 1973 ) , 579-591.

She l ton , Walte r James . Engl ish Hunger and In du st r i a l Diso rders .London: Macm illa n, 1973.

Soldani , S . C on ta d in i , ope r a i e ' po po lo ' n e l l a r i v o l u z i o n e d e l1848-49 i n I t a l i a , S t u d i s t o r i c i , no. 3 1973: 557-613.

Stevenson, J . Food R io ts i n England, 1792-1818. I n R. Qu ina ultand J . Stevenson, eds . , Popula r Pr ot es t and Pub l ic Order.London: George A ll en Unwin, 1974.

Thompson, E. P. The Moral Economy of t h e En gl is h Crowd i n th e Eigh-te en th Century, Pa st and Pr es en t , 50 (1971) , 76-136.

. 'Rough Music ' : Le Ch ar iv ar i an gl ai s , Annales;Economies, soci&'te/s, C i v i l i s a t i o n s , 27 (1972), 285-312.

T i l l y , C h a r l e s . Food Supply and Pub li c Order i n Modern Europe. I nC ha r l e s T i l l y , e d . , The F or ma tion o f Na t iona l S ta t e s i n We s te r nEurope. Pr ince ton: Pr inc e ton Un ive rs i ty Pr es s , 1975.

. Revolut ions and Co l l ec t i ve Violence . I n Fred I .Green ste in and Nelson Polsby, ed s . , Handbook of P o l i t i c a lSci enc e. Read ing, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1975. Vol. 111

Louise T i l l y , a nd R icha rd T i l l y . The R e be l l iousCent ury, 1830-1930. Cambridge: Harvard Un iv er si ty Pr es s, 1975.

T i l l y , L o u i s e A. The Food R io t a s a Form o f P o l i t i c a l C o nf l i c t i nF ra nc e, J o u r n a l of I n t e r d i s c i p l i n a r y H i s t o r y , 2 (1 97 1) ; 23-57.

Wa ll ers te in , Immanuel. The Modern World-System. C ap it a l is t Ag ri cu lt ur eand th e Or ig in s of t h e European World-Economy i n t h e Six te en thCe nt ur y. New York: Academic, 1974.

Wolf, E ri c. Pe as an t Wars of t h e Twen tiet h Cent ury. New York: Har perRow, 1969.


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