ABSTRACT
The response of the National Assembly to the news of the ‘Great Fear’ was initially one of panic. On 4 August a series of prominent nobles made sweeping gestures to renounce their privileges. Over the succeeding days, however, the Assembly made a crucial distinction between instances of ‘personal servitude’, which were abolished outright, and ‘property rights’ (seigneurial dues payable on harvests) for which peasants had to pay compensation before ceasing payment. The distinction was to create years of litigation and unrest in the countryside. State taxes and church tithes were also to continue for the time being. Nevertheless, the decrees were of great importance in legislating that henceforth all French people were to be citizens equal before the law and that careers were ‘open to talents’. The age of privileged corporations and provinces was over.
Article 1. The National Assembly destroys the feudal regime completely. It decrees that both feudal and censuel [that is, levied on crops] rights and dues which stem from real or personal servitude or mortmain [a lord’s inalienable hold over some land], and those who represent them, are abolished without compensation; all the others are declared redeemable, and the price and the manner of the redemption will be set by the National Assembly. Those of the said rights that are not abolished by this decree will continue nonetheless to be collected until redemption has been made.
Article 2. The exclusive right to bird shelters and dovecotes is abolished. Pigeons will be confined for periods determined by communities; during this time, they will be regarded as game, and each man will have the right to kill them on his land.
Article 3. The exclusive right to hunting and open rabbit warrens is equally abolished, and any property owner has the right to destroy and have destroyed, on his own property alone, any type of game, except in conformity with police regulations that may be made in relation to public safety.
All capitaineries [hunting jurisdictions], even royal ones, and all hunting preserves, under whatever denomination, are equally abolished; and the preservation of the personal pleasures of the king will be provided for in a manner compatible with the respect due to property and liberty.
The President will be given the responsibility of requesting from the king the freeing of galley slaves and those banished for the simple fact of hunting, the release of prisoners currently detained, and the abolition of the existing procedures in this respect.
Article 4. All seigneurial courts are abolished without compensation, but nonetheless the officers of these laws will continue their duties until the National Assembly has provided for the establishment of a new judicial order.
Article 5. Tithes of any nature, and taxes that take their place, under whatever denomination that they be known and collected, even by subscription, and possessed by secular and regular bodies, by beneficed clergymen, vestries and all people in mortmain, even by the Order of Malta, and other religious and military orders … are abolished, subject to advice on the means to meet in another manner the costs of divine worship, the maintenance of ministers of religion, the relief of the poor, the repairs and reconstruction of churches and presbyteries, and all the establishments, seminaries, schools, colleges, hospitals, communities and others to whose maintenance they are currently assigned. And meanwhile, until provision has been made, and the former possessors are furnished with their equivalent, the National Assembly orders that the said tithes will continue to be collected according to the law and in the accustomed manner. …
Article 6. All perpetual ground rents, be they in kind or in money, whatever be their type, whatever be their origin, and to whomever they be due, owners of mortmain, owners of domains, privileged persons, those of the Order of Malta, will be redeemable; seigneurial rights to a part of the tenant’s harvest, of all types and all denominations, will be so also, at a rate to be set by the Assembly. It will be forbidden in the future ever to create a non-redeemable due.
Article 7. The venality of judicial and municipal positions is abolished henceforth. Justice will be rendered freely. Nonetheless the incumbents of these positions will continue to fulfil their functions and to receive their emoluments until the Assembly has provided for means of securing their reimbursement.
Article 8. The occasional charges levied by country priests are abolished, and will cease to be paid as soon as the increase of the portion congrue and vicars’ stipends has been provided for, and a ruling will be given to ascertain the lot of town priests.
Article 9. Pecuniary, personal or real privileges, in matters of taxation, are abolished forever. Levies will be made on all citizens and on all possessions, in the same manner and the same form; and the ways of effecting proportional payments of all contributions will be advised, even for the last six months of the current year of taxation.
Article 10. A national constitution and public freedom being more beneficial to the provinces than the privileges that some of them enjoyed, and the sacrifice of which is necessary for the unity of all parts of the kingdom, it is declared that all special privileges of provinces, principalities, counties, cantons, towns and communities of inhabitants, be they financial or of any other nature, are abolished without compensation, and will be absorbed into the common rights of all French people.
Article 11. All citizens, without distinction of birth, may be admitted to all ecclesiastical, civil and military employments and positions. …
Article 14. Plurality of benefices will no longer exist, once the income from the profit to which one is entitled exceeds the sum of 3,000 livres. …
Article 16. The National Assembly decrees that, in memory of the great and important deliberations that have just been undertaken for the happiness of France, a medal will be struck, and that in thanksgiving a ‘Te deum’ will be sung in all the parishes and churches of the kingdom.
Article 17. The National Assembly solemnly proclaims King Louis XVI to be Restorer of French liberty.
Article 18. The National Assembly will appear as a body before the king, in order to present to His Majesty the decree that it has just adopted, to bring him the homage of its most respectful gratitude, and to beg him to allow the Te Deum to be sung in his chapel, and that he himself be present. …
Source: Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel, no. 4d0, 11–14 August 1789, vol. 1, pp. 332–3.https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781032618814/e9ac31eb-0a68-4fdc-b417-e6e5b1e67c6c/content/fig3_Unfig_001.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>