816 Appendix V
geois, whatever M. Michelet may say.” “It is not a question of figures,” added Blanc,
“but of justice” (Michelet, Rev. f r., ed. 1868, II, 381; Blanc, Rev. f r., ed. 1854, VI,
99). A half century later, Jean Jaurès, a social democrat and a Marxist, but a hu-
mane and perceptive historian, reached a rounded judgment on the work of the
Constituent Assembly, which he found to be halfway between the democracy of
universal suffrage and the bourgeoisie censitaire of 1815– 1848. He concluded that
only the “sub- proletariat” had been unfranchised in 1791 (Hist. socialiste, I,
378– 98).
Many of the French academic school have shown a less judicial tone than the
socialist Jaurès. For Aulard, “the bourgeoisie formed itself into a politically privi-
leged class” (Hist. pol. de la Rev. fr., Paris, 1905, p. 70), for Sagnac “the bourgeoisie
monopolized power” (in Lavisse, Hist. de Fr. contemp., Paris, 1920, I, p. 165), for
Mathiez an “aristocracy of wealth replaced that of birth” (Rev. fran., Paris, 1922, I,
115), for Villat the electoral regime was “a system of bourgeois selfishness” (Rev. et
empire, Paris, 1936, I, 72– 73), and for Godechot “only the rich could vote” (Institu-
tions de la France sous la Rev. et l ’Empire, Paris, 1951, p. 73). These views have passed
into many histories of the French Revolution written in English. They all reflect
Louis Blanc’s impatience with figures.
The Constituent Assembly, by an actual count based on local returns, deter-
mined on May 27, 1791 that there were then 4,298,360 “active citizens” in France,
that is, adult males, at least twenty- five years of age, domiciled locally for one year,
not in domestic service, and paying an annual direct tax equal in amount to the
wages of three days’ unskilled labor. Only these active citizens received the vote.
The population of France at this time was probably between 25,000,000 and
26,000,000 (not 27,190,023 as stated by the Assembly, which made no pretense to
knowing or having counted the total population); and as for age distribution, both
Moheau and Lavoisier estimated that 44 per cent were under 21 years old, and 59
per cent under 31. (Levasseur, Population française, 1889, I, 276.) We may assume
that half the males were under 25, and half 25 or older. The highest possible figure
for total men of 25 and over is thus 6,500,000; and if there were 4,298,360 active
citizens, Mathiez was exaggerating in saying that “3,000,000 poor were excluded
from the rights of citizenship” (Mathiez, I, 114). Counting all men of 21 and over,
it is apparently true that about 3,000,000 were excluded from the vote, since there
would be about 7,280,000 men over 21; but these “passive citizens,” without the
vote, included young men under 25 of all social classes, men living with parents
and hence paying no tax, those not yet domiciled locally for a year, and domestic
servants, as well as persons too poor to be liable for the required tax. It must be
remarked also that the tax reforms of the Constituent Assembly, by replacing many
indirect taxes of the Old Regime with a direct tax on real and personal property,
carried the liability to direct taxation far down in the social scale. Assuming the
accuracy of the figure of 4,298,360 for active citizens (which may be debatable, but
is not in fact contested), I would judge that a quarter of adult males may have been
excluded from the vote by reason of poverty. Young people, transients, and new-
comers in particular areas, of various economic levels but all without the vote,
would, however, be a force of political importance, especially in revolutionary