Internet history sourcebooks

Modern History Sourcebook:

Social Conditions in 17th Century France

From Report from the Estates of Normandy (1651)

Saint-Quentin. From the 450 sick persons whom the occupants

were not able to alleviate, 200 were switched out, which we had

die one at a time because they lay around the roadside. A significant number still

remain, and also to all of them it is just easy to spend the

least scrap of bread. We simply give bread to individuals who’d otherwise

die. The staple dish here includes rodents, that the occupants

search, so desperate could they be from hunger. They eat roots which

the creatures cannot eat it’s possible to, actually, not put in words the

things one sees…. This narrative, not even close to exaggerating, rather

understates the horror from the situation, for it doesn’t record the

hundredth area of the misery within this district. Individuals who’ve

not observed it using their own eyes cannot imagine how great

it’s. Not really a day passes but a minimum of 200 people die of famine

within the two provinces. We approve to getting ourselves seen herds,

not of cattle, but of folks, wandering concerning the fields

between Rheims and Rhétel, arriving our planet like pigs

to locate a couple of roots and as they possibly can only find rotten ones, and

not half an adequate amount of them, they become so weak they have not

strength left to find food. The parish priest at Boult, whose

letter we enclose, informs us he’s hidden three of his parishioners

who died of hunger. The remainder subsisted on chopped straw mixed

with earth, which they composed a food which can’t be known as

bread. Other persons in the same location resided around the physiques of

creatures which in fact had died of disease, and that the curé,

otherwise not able to assist his people, permitted these to roast at

the presbytery fire.

From Letters from the Abbess of Port-Royal

(1649) This poor country is really a horrible sight it’s stripped

of all things. The soldiers take having the farms and also have

the corn threshed, and can not provide a single grain towards the proprietors

who beg it as being an alms. It’s impossible to plough. There aren’t any

more horses have the ability to been transported off. The peasants are reduced

to over sleeping the forest and therefore are grateful to possess them like a refuge

from murderers. And when they merely had enough bread to half satisfy

their hunger, they’d indeed count themselves happy.

(1652) People massacre one another daily with each and every sort

of cruelty…. The soldiers steal from each other whether they have

denuded everybody else, so that as they spoil more property compared to what they

carry off, they’re themselves frequently reduced to starvation, and

will find forget about to annex. All of the military are equally undisciplined

and vie with each other in lawlessness. The government bodies in Paris

are attempting to return the peasants to collect within the corn but

when it’s reaped the marauders arrived at slay and steal,

and disperse all inside a general rout.

From Cecile Augon, Social France within the XVIIthe Century,

(London: Methuen, 1911), pp. 171-172, 189

This text belongs to the web Modern History Sourcebook.

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(c)Paul Halsall August 1997

Resourse: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/

Ms.Rajan's AP World History: Feudalism/Medieval/Dark ages.