818 Appendix V
true that such absenteeism in the assemblies threw decisions into the hands of the
most assiduous, who might be the more economically independent, but included
also those who made a business of politics.
The majority in the Constituent Assembly did conclude, in August 1791, with
the rise of radical republicanism after Louis XVI’s flight to Varennes, that it had
gone too far in a democratic direction, and did make changes whose purpose was
to confine the significant vote, that is, the vote of the electors, more definitely to
the middle class. It left the qualifications for active citizens untouched. For elec-
tors, however, who before August 1791 had qualified by the payment of a direct tax
equal to the value of ten days’ wages (and it was by this system that the election of
1791, including choice of national deputies for the forthcoming Legislative Body,
had already taken place), the Constituent Assembly, in August 1791, prescribed
more restrictive qualifications. These resemble those of the British Reform Bill of
1832, in that they based the electoral right on amounts of property or rental vary-
ing from place to place. To qualify as an elector, by the provisions of August 1791,
it was necessary (1) in cities of more than 6,000 inhabitants to own real property
assessed on the tax rolls at an annual income value equivalent to 200 days’ un-
skilled labor, or to lease a dwelling worth an annual income value (or rental) of
150 days’ labor, (2) in cities with less than 6,000 inhabitants, the same, with 150
in place of 200, and 100 in place of 150, (3) in rural districts to own real property
of an annual value of 150 days’ labor, or to lease, or to work on shares (métayage),
real property of an annual value of 400 days’ labor. I have seen no estimates of
how many persons lost their right to be chosen as electors by these changes. At
the same time, where before August 1791 it had been necessary to pay a direct tax
of 54 livres (the marc d ’argent) to qualify as a national deputy, after August 1791
any active citizen might so qualify. The changes are significant only of the intent
of the Constituent Assembly toward its end, since the constitution did not last
long enough for them to take effect.
There has been no attempt, to my knowledge, to make a comparison of the
property qualifications under the French constitution of 1791 with those obtaining
at the same time in Great Britain and America, though these were often men-
tioned in a general way during the debates in the French Assembly. Were such
comparisons realistically made, it would be difficult to say, for example, that the
Constituent Assembly, in prescribing a marc d’argent for national deputies, wished
to “reserve the seats for a landed aristocracy, as in England.” (Godechot, Institu-
tions, 74.) In England, a member of the House of Commons representing a county
was required by law to own land of an annual income value of £600, or 15,000
French livres. Since the French tax of 1791 was intended to represent about one
sixth of annual income from property, a tax of a marc d’argent, 54 livres, would
represent an income of about 300 livres from property. The difference between
15,000 and 300 reflects a difference between conflicting theories of society.
Comparison is made difficult, but by no means impossible, by the setting of
the French qualifications in terms of days’ labor, as well as the differences between
livres, dollars, and shillings. As for the relevancy of the comparison, it must be
emphasized that the great difference in the three countries lay in the distribution
of land ownership, small properties being very common and indeed almost uni-