ABSTRACT
In the eighteenth century, the wealthiest, most populous, most glamorous country in Europe was France. There was censorship, regulated by the clergy: the works even of French philosophes were published and smuggled into France, where their clandestine character ensured their rapid sale. The Religious tolerance, equality before the law, representative government were all prevented by the absolutist policies of the French Crown. For years, agricultural writers, imbued with Enlightenment ideas, had been calling for reforms. These writers, called physiocrats, were convinced that the wealth of a country rested on the productivity of its land, and they were well aware that the farmland of France was not productive. Under these conditions, the poor peasants could hardly be expected to undertake agricultural improvements, which physiocrat writers usually expected to come from above, imposed on peasantry for its own good. Rural poverty was not the only target of reformers it was the institution of legal privileges, for economic as well as political reasons.
