Countryside Crime Flashcards
Webster, Introduction to Basque Legends, 1879
Basque language nothing in common with other European languages
‘naive good faith’
chance of finding legends in ‘purer and older form’
‘the Basque language calls a spade a spade’
‘you don’t need to go to America to see savages’
Honore de Balzac (in Weber)
Different levels of development
San Marlot, Geneva line
Passing officer lamented that for peasants, France = taxes
Il-et-Vilaine
Proportion of communes with rural territory that had no garde champêtre in 1856
1/4
Proportion of communes that spoke no French in 1863
1/4
France was still essentially a traditional peasant and artisan society (McPhee)
1880
Proportion of French living in rural communities 1831
81%
land prices doubled
in the 30 years after 1815
land taxes rose 53%
1839-47
Peasants took the opportunity to ignore the criminal justice system
Revolutions of 1789, 1830, 1848
Bataille, Dramas of the Courtroom, Bellacoscia, the Last of the Bandits
45 years living in the wild and hiding from police after murdered notary/ mayor of Bocagnano, Marcaggi
‘troops sent, vainly on many occasions’
1865 authorities placed under lock and key about 100 inhabitants of Bocagnano, who were suspected of giving them due warning or sheltering them
When danger passed, they frequently came down to Bocagnano and took part in elections, acting as veritable masters of the countryside
January 1880, sentenced to death for 5th time
Corsica saw in him the last of the bandits, the end of days of romance
Acquitted by jury
Lives in retirement in Bocagnano in 1892 despite having been banned from there
Corbin, Village of Cannibals
Village of Hautefayre, August 16 1870
Villagers seized, tortured and killed de Monéys, a noble
Last outburst of peasant rage to result in murder
Republicans still identified with unpopular 45 cm tax imposed by the provincial government after the Revolution of 1848
People in district of Nontron recalled domination during ancien régime by nobles
de Monéys rumoured to have shouted ‘Vive la République’
Peasants ‘saw the noble, the curé and the republican as united in a common threat to themselves and the emperor’
Violent grain riot
Buzançais, 1847
Several deaths of gendarmes during resistance to coup d’état
2 December 1851
Mob murder rue Haxo
in Paris, May 1871
Number of communards perished at hands of Versailles forces
25 0000 - 100 000 (Merriman)
Resistance to Napoleonic conscription
Epic resistance in the Vendée, the Catholic and Royal Army led by Cathelineau, Stofflet, especially in the ‘great war’ of 1793-4 faceless ambushes of the Chaunnerie
Year rebellious hinterlands brought into line according to Broers
1810
La guerre des demoiselles
late 1820s/ early 1830s
‘those who take wood from the forest are the most unfortunate who deserve pity
One Pyrenean, quoted by Emsley
What brought forest theft offending to an end?
General exodus from contested mountainous and forested regions (Emsley)
Band of vagabonds arrested at Haute-Loire fair with passports describing them as merchants, road maps and guides with the times and dates of fairs across the whole of France
October 1833
‘May God deliver us from all ill and from justice!’
People of Charente. Survived into 1930s
People who called a certain bird sergent, after the baliff - sergent de justice - because it stole sardines from other, smaller birds
Breton fishermen
Legal costs of selling inheritance
up to 3/4 of estate
Proportion of accused criminals living in rural parishes in the 1840s
60% (Levasseur)
Proportion of accused criminals living in urban areas 1880s
over 50% (Levasseur)
Crimes against property more frequent
City
Homicides more common
Countryside
Year in which there were 11 murders per million in countryside and 9.3 in towns
1880
Destruction of crops increased fourfold
century before 1880
crimes most typical of rural areas - hunting, fishing, poaching - fell steadily
- 5 per 100 000 population in 1854
- 2 in 1900
- 7 in 1912
- 3 in 1921
Abortion/ infanticides common in countryside. Matter-of-fact attitude
Case of mum who helped daughter kill unwanted child, boil and feed 2 pigs
Scavenging/ smuggling off shipwrecks
e.g. off Brittany’s rocky shores. Complemented economy of scarcity
Power of magistrates weak and that of inertia almost invincible (where it comes to scavenging and smuggling off shipwrecks)
Prefect of Nantes, 1812
Such scavenging still to be found under July Monarchy
Breton beggar bands in 1840
Still supposed to follow single leader, Coesre, and to meet annually on the Pré-a- Gueux
Breton beggar bands in 1858
Driven out of Colpo but they set up quarters in other parts and only 20th Century saw an end to their organised crime
1844 military reports
spoke of outlaws taking refuge in the wilds of Gévaudan
Brigandage persisted longest
Gangs ruled the countryside
Corsica
Had to use local game keeper as interpreter
Commissaire Flaubert, Pont-L’Abbé, 1846
2nd Empire policing expansion
Police superintendents in rural areas
Increase in countryside-specialising gendarmerie
Rise in quantity of reports from countryside-specialising gendarmerie
56 000 1840s
189 000 1880
Result of increased police presence
Steep decline in activities of anachronistic criminals - highwaymen, brigand gangs, etc
Smuggling much hardier
Basque clergy taught
indirect taxes are contrary to canonical and social justice, so smuggling isn’t a sin
Military observers in the Pyrenees
Recognised that smuggling is their only resource, only trade
Gradually mountain men of the Pyrenees found new resources
State monopoly of match production created new crime
making/ selling of contraband matches
March 1866, Plogastel-Saint-Germain
Draft board met for annual drawing of lots for who would perform 7 years’ military service
Contingent of draft-age youths from Plozévet arrived
Brawl of over 300 ppl, using staves, stones
Youths from Plozévet wanted to march round cross - tradition to ensure good draft numbers
All other youths wished to stop them
In past, mayor had insisted on disarmament
This year, gendarmes rubbished his fears of trouble and villagers allowed to keep hold of cudgels that the Berton peasant rarely laid aside
Endless brawls
Mountains of Auvergne
Young servant girl at Elne
accused of stealing handkerchief worth one franc
vehement denials availed her of no more than suspended sentence
Complained liberty more restricted now, in 1848, than b4 in ancien régime, as result of police intervention
Men of Tarascon
Our populations hold the figure of the gendarme sacred
Yet same file shows gendarmes frequently attacked when interfered with local gambling, drinking, poaching, fairs, pilgrimages
Prefect of Châteulin, 1853
Particularly inflammable because of incessant friction over forest rights
Ariège
Disturbances resulting from Forest Code 1827
Burgundy and Dauphiné, Anjou, Gascony, Pyrenees
Trespass, pilfering, theft, acts of vengeance against guards
Forestry-related crimes only tapered off after 1850s
Poor rose, cut down thousands of trees and the army/ national guard had to intervene
Gers, 1828
Cantal, 1839
Rural populations imbued with the idea they have been despoiled of property rights held since time immemorial
Summer 1848, royal prosecutor, Toulouse, of the forest fires, raids to mutilate trees etc of the peasants
Most common cases brought before courts of the Second Empire
Hunting
e.g. Bazas, 1856, 45 hunting violations vs 43 thefts
Selection of new offences
Begging, drunkenness, gleaning, gathering wood, peddling without permit
Crimes caused by conscription
failure to report, desertion, self-mutilation to escape the draft
Modernisation creating crime
Use of traditional weights and measures became illegal
New hygienic regulations governing sale of drugs etc
New postage stamps - 1849 law making re-use of cancelled stamps a crime
Example of how novelties became ordinary
New postage stamps
Civil court records of Sainte-Menehould list 18 offences for use of old postage stamps 1850s, 4 in 1860s, 4 in 1870s, 2 in 1880s, last in 1886
Increase in offences due to increased readiness to lodge complaints
Châteaulin, num of offences for coups et blesseures almost tripled 1856-1906
More and more complaints by women about domestic violence
Legal costs
as high as 30 francs, 15 days’ wage
More complaints because of bigger budgets as well as change of mores
Sainte-Menehould court’s earliest judgement on abuse of young child
1900
Cahiers of 1789
full of complaints about beggars
poor gathered in thousands on a beach at Cesson, looking for shellfish, devoured raw
1814, priest’s account
1848 agricultural survey
in Perche, begging as chronic as penury
Ppl used to it. Felt no shame about it
Beggars crowded into cities because they had organised charity
e.g. Toulouse full of beggars through 1840s and 50s
Annuaire de la Haute-Garonne, 1848 - One couldn’t take a step without being assailed
begging ancient tradition, part of subsistence pattern
in Ariège. Endured to the end of the Second Empire
Beggars are real tyrants and many deliberately make themselves feared by their threats
Commissaire, Gers, 1876
Number of beggars in 1905 according to Méline
400 000 beggars (over 1% of population)
Created feeling of insecurity that contributed to rural exodus, especially of bourgeoisie
Beggars often menaced those who refused them alms
fences torn down, fields flooded
Court records
Cantonal archives swelled with circulars and reports
beggars and vagabonds enter isolated houses and demand food and drink
writer, 1894
Bresse and Savoy, houses crowded into hamlets, partly for fear of beggars
Stats for arrests for vagrancy and begging
2500 in 1830
50 000 in 1899
Economic crises less significant than disruptions of collective order
Durkheim, Suicide
Cultural reasons for begging
Traditional tales and morality argued against turning away the stranger or the poor
Fear of supernatural retribution if beggar turned away
Social function of beggar
Souvestre - ‘the beggar is also the bard, the news carrier and commercial traveller’. In Lower Brittany especially
Beggars ashamed to beg
Vergougnans of Pyrénées-Orientales wore mask
Roussillon and Hérault, crisis of 1907 - local doctor saw new beggars wearing masks too
