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Article SANTERRE. * ← Page 2 of 15 →
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Santerre. *
appal the judges at the assizes of the Somme , and make one doubt the influence of civilization , no less than the utility of the stroke of the executioner . In no other part of France have the landed proprietors found so much difficulty as in this , of disposing of their rural property ; neither is there any other district where they
received lower rents , in spite of the extreme fertility of the soil , so that the trouble of realizing their property w as as great to the proprietors as it was to make the cultivators in possession pay a larger amount of rent than they themselves thought proper to fix upon . This is so true , that the leases and rentals remain just what they were a hundred . Things are
years ago , in fact , at such a pass , that farmers , in managing their children , include in the contract of marriage the lands set out in their leases , as if they were themselves the real proprietors . There are even some who positively assert that these properties have cost many brave men their lives , on account of that obstinacy of character , which has induced them to protest
against the law of common usage and custom . " What was the use , " a proprietor once said to me , " of struggling , without the least hope of success , against the power of such a custom , when it is common in a whole province , where the population is very considerable , and where there is not an individual who has not been brought up in this manner to consider that the estate is his own , and who could not be brought to comprehend anything else than that his own interest would suffer were he to think otherwise ?"
Moreover ,. prudent proprietors , if they ¦ struggled for their rights , took care never to set foot in the province themselves , but fought for them by aid of officers of justice , who , in the case of a rigorous execution , were accompanied by a most imposing number of armed men . And it often happened that the officers of justice , in spite of all these precautions ,
were shot at , either from the interior of the granaries or from behind the grindstones , which covered the fields , when those , whose persons or harvest they wished to seize , were able to do it with the least chance of success . And even when this did not happen , and the seizure was absolutely effected , the proprietor did not find himself in the least profitedbecauseon
, , the one side , no one could be found sufficiently bold , or so bad a neighbour , as to come and purchase any of the articles exposed for sale ; whilst on the other , none dared offer themselves as tenants to occupy a farm , from which the former tenant had been expelled .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Santerre. *
appal the judges at the assizes of the Somme , and make one doubt the influence of civilization , no less than the utility of the stroke of the executioner . In no other part of France have the landed proprietors found so much difficulty as in this , of disposing of their rural property ; neither is there any other district where they
received lower rents , in spite of the extreme fertility of the soil , so that the trouble of realizing their property w as as great to the proprietors as it was to make the cultivators in possession pay a larger amount of rent than they themselves thought proper to fix upon . This is so true , that the leases and rentals remain just what they were a hundred . Things are
years ago , in fact , at such a pass , that farmers , in managing their children , include in the contract of marriage the lands set out in their leases , as if they were themselves the real proprietors . There are even some who positively assert that these properties have cost many brave men their lives , on account of that obstinacy of character , which has induced them to protest
against the law of common usage and custom . " What was the use , " a proprietor once said to me , " of struggling , without the least hope of success , against the power of such a custom , when it is common in a whole province , where the population is very considerable , and where there is not an individual who has not been brought up in this manner to consider that the estate is his own , and who could not be brought to comprehend anything else than that his own interest would suffer were he to think otherwise ?"
Moreover ,. prudent proprietors , if they ¦ struggled for their rights , took care never to set foot in the province themselves , but fought for them by aid of officers of justice , who , in the case of a rigorous execution , were accompanied by a most imposing number of armed men . And it often happened that the officers of justice , in spite of all these precautions ,
were shot at , either from the interior of the granaries or from behind the grindstones , which covered the fields , when those , whose persons or harvest they wished to seize , were able to do it with the least chance of success . And even when this did not happen , and the seizure was absolutely effected , the proprietor did not find himself in the least profitedbecauseon
, , the one side , no one could be found sufficiently bold , or so bad a neighbour , as to come and purchase any of the articles exposed for sale ; whilst on the other , none dared offer themselves as tenants to occupy a farm , from which the former tenant had been expelled .