Abstract:This article starts with Tocqueville's inference about the land property rights of French peasants. He believed that before the revolution, French peasants were already land owners, so they strongly hated feudal power. His logic was that the narrower the scope of feudal power had, the more hatred it aroused. Based on facts, the author argues that Tocqueville’s assertion that peasants had become landowners before the Revolution was a historical miscalculation. In the French countryside before the Revolution, peasants were greatly oppressed by the church nobles, secular nobles and royalty, and the feudal privilege was made harsher by the near-death of the feudal dynasty. The customary tenants (censiers) retained some rights to hold land, but it was broken rights. Many sharecroppers and landless peasants also had no property rights to the land. In short, the peasants' land problem was the underlying reason of the outbreak of the Great Revolution. The French Revolution struck down feudal power, constantly dissolving the feudal obligations of peasants, which were either eliminated at once or gradually faded. The mixed land property rights were being replaced by a single private property right, and the French peasants were getting closer to becoming owners of their land. However, it happened after the Revolution, not before the Revolution as Tocqueville asserted. The Revolution promoted the establishment of peasants' private land ownership, but also made them pay a heavy price.

Key words:France; private land ownership; peasants; the Great Revolution; Tocqueville

Published on Collected Papers of History Studies, Issue 5, 2021.