A Social History of Nineteenth-Century France

Roger Price

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781032202396
• eBook ISBN: 9781000544541
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

First published in 1987, A Social History of Nineteenth-Century France argues that the social impact of the French Revolution has been greatly exaggerated, and that in 1815 France was still predominantly a rural and pre-industrial society. The revolution introduced only very limited changes in social structures and relationships – the daily lives of ordinary people remained virtually unchanged. A much more decisive turning point in French history, the author suggests, was the period of structural change in economy and society, which began in the mid nineteenth century. The first part of the book looks at many changes in the economy and their effect on living standards and social environment. The second part identifies the social groups which make up French society and provides detailed analyses of their lifestyles and social relationships. Part Three considers the influence of such key institutions as churches, schools, and the state. Drawing on an exceptionally wide range of primary sources, this is likely to be the definitive overview of French society for many years to come and will be of interest to researchers of French history and European history.

PART ONE A Changing Environment

DOI: 10.4324/9781003262824-1

Population growth, industrial development, urbanization, rail, road and canal construction, together with changes in agricultural methods, had a marked impact upon the landscape, which it would be fascinating to examine. However, it is the interaction of people and their social environment which is the central concern of the following chapters - to define the main features of economic change and assess the impact of these changes on living standards, employing such demographic indicators as mortality rates; upon people's perceptions of their own and their children's life-chances, using the key indicator which is birth rate; and the responsiveness to changing opportunities indicated by the decision to migrate from country to town.

1 The economy: continuity and change

DOI: 10.4324/9781003262824-2

Introduction

The French economy underwent considerable change during the nineteenth century. At its beginning, a very high proportion of the population worked in agriculture, incomes were low and spent mostly on food and other necessities, demand for manufactured goods was limited, and poor communications further restricted the market. With low levels of demand, techniques in both agriculture and industry remained relatively primitive. From the 1840s the pace of economic change accelerated, with radical alterations to the structure of the economy. This affected the composition of total output and the distribution of employment, and had a profound impact upon society at large. The main problem is how best to describe, and then explain, this change. Economic relationships can only be understood as part of an overall social system. It is thus essential to attempt to understand the interaction of a multiplicity of variables of different types. The historian must, moreover, concern himself not only with change, but also with continuity. The two are interrelated and inseparable.

There is no simple explanation of the economic changes which occurred in France in the nineteenth century. The British example was, of course, an important stimulus due to the threat of competition and the simple desire to emulate, but economic change in France has to be explained primarily in terms of the specific French context - in relation to particular conditions of relief and climate, the structure of market demand, and the supply and cost of the factors of production.

Nineteenth-century economic growth differed from that of previous centuries in that it was sustained and involved major structural changes in both economy and society. The crucial characteristic of this growth was the increase in per capita production revealed in Table 1. The statistics should be treated with caution, due to the problems involved in their collection, but they can be regarded as indicators of general trends.

Demand might be regarded as the initiating force in the development of an economic system. Sustained growth meant breaking out of the vicious circle which in a traditional society resulted in low real income because of low per capita productivity, caused by low levels of investment in capital equipment, which in their turn were the result of low levels of demand due to low real

* Superior figures refer to the Notes and references beginning on p. 366.

Table 1 National income at constant prices (in 1905-13francs)^1*

Years	Total national income (millions of francs)	Per capita national income (francs)
1825-34	10,606	325.6
1835-44	13,061	380.5
1845-54	15,866	443.0
1855-64	19,097	510.9
1865-74	22,327	602.0
1875-84	24,272	644.2
1885-94	26,713	696.6
1895-1904	30,965	794.7
1905-13	34,711	876.4

income. The problem was intensified by a tendency for population growth to accelerate in the early stages of development, at a time when industrial growth and the provision of employment opportunities outside the agricultural sector was slow. To a substantial extent per capita income and the whole cycle of economic growth depended upon rising agricultural productivity both to feed this population and provide resources for industry. A long period of increased demand was necessary to encourage economic innovation, the shape of which was determined by the range of techniques available and the capacity of potential innovators to make use of them - itself determined by the availability of capital and of labour equipped with the necessary skills.

Innovation must be considered within the context of established local and regional economic systems. New techniques tended to be more rapidly accepted the more easily they fitted into existing productive systems, the lower their capital cost and the greater the possibility of financing them through self-investment. In effect modernization involved not the substitution of 'modernity' for 'tradition' but the interpenetration of various attributes of both.

The structure of demand in the nineteenth century was decisively transformed by transport innovation, which increased the size of potential markets by reducing the cost of transporting commodities. There can be no doubt that the effectiveness of all forms of transport was substantially increased from the 1840s. The means were provided for the cheap and rapid movement of commodities, of people, and through the telegraph and press of information. Progress had undoubtedly been made before the railway spread, but the traditional forms of transport had constituted a major obstacle to the development of a more unified market and a major disincentive to increased production. Comparisons might be instructive. Britain, a much smaller country, possessed the advantages of a relatively dense waterway system which facilitated the easy

Table 2 Internal transport of merchandise (milliard tonnes/kilometre)²

Years	Road	Canal	Rail	Sea (coaster)	Total
1830	2.0	0.5	_	0.6	3.1
1841-4	2.3	0.8	0.06	0.7	3.86
1845-54	2.6	1.2	0.46	0.7	4.96
1855-64	2.7	1.4	3.0	0.7	7.8
1865-74	2.8	1.3	6.3	0.6	11.0
1875-84	2.6	1.5	9.4	0.6	14.1
1885-94	2.7	2.3	10.9	0.8	16.7
1895-1904	2.8	3.2	14.9	1.1	22.0
1905-14	2.9	3.8	21.0	1.1	28.8

establishment of integrated markets. France had more in common with a large landmass like Germany, in which the railway played a major role in stimulating changes in market structures. It would be too much to describe the railways as a necessary precondition for the substantial extension of markets, but transport changes without doubt profoundly affected the spatial structures of economic activity. Table 2 reveals both the large increase in goods transported and the stimulating effect of the rail network. Large-scale production is dependent upon access to large markets. Prior to the development of the railway network, high transport costs made it difficult to break out of an economic system based upon small-scale production for localized markets. The exceptions were regions close to the sea or waterways, with relatively cheap access to markets. In such regions the techniques of production were determined primarily by the relative costs of the various factors of production. Everywhere in early nineteenth-century France the availability of abundant supplies of low-cost labour made large-scale capital investment seem unnecessary.

However, it is a mistake to assume new methods of transport wrought immediate transformation. They tended (as Figures 3 and 4 indicate) to favour the already more developed regions of plain and river valley, which offered profitable traffic and low costs of operation. These were already prosperous areas, more responsive to change given their relatively high per capita production, incomes and investment capacities. To a considerable extent the relative economic position of the various regions remained unchanged, save where previously isolated areas enjoying specific natural advantages were provided with better a...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Contents Page
• Acknowledgements Page
• Introduction Page
• Part One A Changing Environment
• Part Two Social Relationships
• Part Three Social Institutions
• Notes and references
• Select bibliography
• Index