Account of the dinner-debate held on
High up in the
At
the time when our story begins,1343, this area contained 7,200 homes, in other
words between 30,000 and 40,000 inhabitants, spread across fifty or so village
communities around Briançon. The population was sturdy and hard-working. In this inhospitable terrain that it was difficult for a central power to
govern, the municipalities gradually became more important than the feudal
lords. Every year at Candlemas (2 February) the heads of household of each
village met to designate their "consul". A notary or a lawyer went
around the families beforehand discretely questioning the heads of
household about possible candidates. The person who obtained the largest
number of votes was appointed, sometimes against his wishes. But he could not
refuse. He even had to put down a security of 200 crowns – returned with
interest when he left – because he was responsible with his money for the
collection of taxes and for any overspending on the projected budget! If he was
under 25 years of age, even if he was married, his father had to pay the
security. In exchange he enjoyed extensive powers and his decisions were seldom
criticised.
The consul was appointed
for one year only, and he could only been appointed again after a period of
five years. He was helped by assistants whom he chose himself or who, in
certain villages, were themselves appointed by the heads of household. The
deputies each had special areas of responsibility. For example one of them was
in charge of the preservation of the forests, another with problems of water.
In
the month of May in the year 1343, 18 men mandated by the municipalities,
descended the mule tracks on a very long journey that took them 180 kilometres
away across the plain to where Humbert II, the ruler of the Dauphiné, awaited
them in his castle at Beauvoir. At that time the Dauphiné was a state and its
sovereign was called the "Dauphin". His court was lavish and his
spending well beyond his revenue. After a reign of 10 years, overwhelmed by
debt and without descendants he was preparing to hand over the Dauphiné to the
king of France.
[The Dauphin Humbert II
would in fact sell the Dauphiné to the king of France Philip VI of
This was when the people of
Briançon and the surrounding area, fearing this cession, took advantage of the
fact that Humbert II was financially hard-pressed to offer to buy from him
their freedom. The final transaction took place on 29 May 1343 in the castle of
Beauvoir, in the presence of numerous dignitaries including the bishop of
Grenoble, whose presence was intended to authenticate the agreement. The latter
was drawn up in Latin by the notary Guigues Froment on two large sheepskins
that had been put together.
By this deed the Dauphin,
in exchange for the sum of 12,000 gold florins and an annual payment of 4000
ducats,
- confirmed the liberties,
freedoms and costums agreed or conceded by him or his predecessors ;
- gave up all feudal
services and all dues, except for the tax on wool-bearing livestock and rights
relating to his status as Dauphin ;
- recognised new and
significant personal and municipal freedoms.
To all intents and purposes
this meant for the inhabitants of Briançon and the surrounding area the
purchase of their freedom and independence. Thus up until then, meetings of the
municipal council had been subject to authorisation by one of the
Dauphin’s officials. From that time on they were dependent only
on the consul or in certain cases on a request from villagers.
Each municipality took a close
interest in those it administered and fostered solidarity. Thus the
Between the communities of
the same valley there existed a system of sharing out expenses as well as tasks
that were beyond the means of a single commune (roads, irrigation, embanking
rivers etc...). This system was called "escartonnement", a word the origin of which is uncertain. By
extension an Escarton came to mean the community of inhabitants of the
same valley. There were five such:
The escarton of
Briançon, bringing together 12 communes
The escarton of the
Queyras, bringing together 7 communes
The escarton of the
Oulx , bringing together 21 communes
The escarton of
Vaucluson, or Pragelas, bringing together 7 communes
The escarton of Château-Dauphin,
bringing together 4 communes
In other words a total of
51 communes making up a whole called the "Grand Escarton"
The Grand Escarton
designates both the whole area made up of these 5 escartons and the
meeting in Briançon of their delegates, who were also known as
"deputies". The latter could only come to a decision on important
matters after referring to their escarton, which in turn, if it saw fit,
consulted its consuls, who in their turn could consult the heads of household.
When the matter was
important enough to warrant this coming and going, it was not the deputy who
had initiated proceedings who dealt it with it, but another deputy who was
sent out to conclude or sign it.
And it was to the Grand
Escarton that the 18 fellow deputies-cum-representatives went to give an account to those who had sent them of
the mission to Beauvoir, in the year 1343, the most illustrious of years
for these inhabitants of Briançon and its area since at one stroke they became
"freemen and burghers".
There is no freedom without
property, Bastiat observed. The very first article of the charter signed by the
Dauphin stipulates that all the inhabitants of either sex are entitled to hold
property. Article 16 reinforces this provision by expressly recognising that
each person has a right of cession or donation without the authorisation or
consent of anyone else whosoever.
This spelt the end of
feudality, a process that had already begun with the repeated purchase of
pockets of freedom : the purchase for 5500 sous in 1244 during the
reign of Louis IX of a charter giving protection against all arbitrary
tallages, the buying back from the Dauphin of canals in 1255, etc.
It signaled also the
peaceful disappearance of the nobility. Before 1343, the nobles, practically
bereft of feudal power, abused that conferred by the very sought-after position
of Dauphin’s official: provost, bailiff, etc. Hence conflicts that had
previously been common ceased. Nobles left the escartons in the course
of the following two centuries after selling off their property. But some were
to return. In a few villages in 1346 some are said to have obtained
compensation in order to be then subject to the common tax. All those who
remained or returned integrated without fuss into the bourgeoisie. Thanks
to their social skills and their learning they would often be elected consuls.
It should be noted that all this took place 450 years before a certain night of
4 August 1789 and the abolition of privileges.
This general movement
towards greater freedom produced both individualism and more true solidarity
within the community, something that will come as no surprise to liberals.
Around 1710, the military engineer La Blotière on a tour of inspection gave the
following description : "Although, however, these peoples be
closely bound as individual to individual there is amongst them no more union
than elsewhere, nay less, but as soon as the public interest is at stake, those
who were ready to fight and quarrel amongst themselves with outrageous calumnies assemble together
forthwith and seem of admirable concord.
Hence it is that
there are very few matters, however thorny they may be, that they fail not to
resolve."
These communities enacted
their own regulations for law and order. They elected judges who ruled on
contraventions of the law by referring to local customs. Thus the commune of
Arvieu did not recognise the thirty-year rule for prescription.
The composition and methods
of appointment of this body of municipal magistrates evolved over time.
Initially the judges were renewed every year, like the consuls. Then half were
renewed every two years so that the older ones could initiate the new ones.
These
courts operated until1790, despite the abolition of all instances of municipal
justice pronounced as early as 1556 by a royal edict. It was never carried out
in Briançon and the surrounding area! Cases were judged without delay according
to municipal codes developed over the years and that were appropriate to local
needs and customs and were approved by the vote of householders. Judgments were
not approved in the name of the King but it never entered the mind of a single
inhabitant of the area to appeal against them to royal authority between 1556
et 1790.
As they were all
"freemen and burghers", the inhabitants of Briançon and the
surrounding area all had the right to hunt and to carry weapons. Their
different privileges made them an intermediary class between the commoners and
nobles, which did not fail to attract outsiders to the escartons. But
there were conditions for becoming a Briançon citizen, an immigration control
in a way. The candidate had to make an application to the council of the town,
which made its decision after investigating the person’s morals and qualities. He had to reside in the
town or possess a property there, be able to support himself financially, and
to begin with at least supply the complete equipment of a fighting man and pay
a certain sum of money. Later on weaponry was no longer required but the amount
of money was increased. It varied between 120 and 300 francs according to the
wealth of the applicant and conversely according to the services he was able to
provide. Thus a priest was accepted for 50 florins, payable within 5 years.
Once these conditions were met the candidate was given the title of fellow
burghers. In the beginning the fellow burghers were not allowed to accede
to the office of consul. Later the rule was relaxed and they were able to
accede to it after a period of six years.
As in all places and at all
times freedom produced prosperity. There were three great free fairs, one
international, which attracted merchants from as far afield as Holland, the
cities of the Hanseatic League, the Italian city states and the pontifical
state of Avignon. The escartons went to great lengths to ensure the
safety of travellers.
This was the opinion of the
intendant of the Dauphiné in his report for the year1689 :
"The peoples of Briançon and the surrounding area ... normally from the feeblest
beginnings that one may imagine, acquire by their application considerable
riches. The means that they commonly employ to this end is trade, which they
carry out variously in France, Italy, Spain and even Portugal".
Whereas many royal edicts
outlawed with great severity the circulation and usage of foreign currencies,
for more than two centuries these tenacious liberals obtained an exception to
the general rule.
Education, though provided
for every child, was organised in ways that give us food for thought. The
primary school teachers offered their services literally in the marketplace! "It
is indeed a curious thing", said one prefect with amazement in the
year X, "to see, in the autumn fairs, these schoolteachers, poorly
clad, walking amongst the throng, in the midst of beasts, wearing in their hats
a goose feather, showing their estate and their will to hire themselves out for
the winter in return for a price to be agreed." One goose feather
indicated the ability to teaching reading and writing, two feathers arithmetic
and natural sciences and three feathers Latin in addition.
Each municipality appointed
its primary school teachers after a test or competitive examination in late
September or early October. Thus article 17 of a Briançon regulation of 1624
stated : "None shall be admitted as schoolmaster in this town except
he shall have been examined by two lawyers and one burgher duly appointed by
the council ; as also shall his wages be determined in the council".
Often being well known made this process unnecessary, but it needed only one
parent to object for the examination to be required. Competence had its price.
The pay could vary on scale from one to five.
Each family was required to
pay for schooling. All made it a point of honour to find the money, however
modest their means. For those who really were unable to pay the fee was
discretely waived. In the main town, teaching took place in the room used for
the meetings of the council. In the villages it was done... in a cowshed,
sheltering from the cold.
The level of education of
the ordinary people in these free valleys was unequalled for the time. 35% of
the women and 90% of the men could read. Other factors contributed to the high
quality of the education.
1. Reading lessons ended
with deciphering the archives of notaries or lawyers, which gave the pupils a
grounding in law.
2. Many able-bodied men
emigrated during the harsh winter months to do all sort of jobs in
"pleasanter climes", and there they built up commercial networks.
They had therefore to be able to read, write and count.
3. While the fathers were
on their winter peregrinations, the mothers and grandparents left behind
at home occupied the evenings by making the children do their homework and
supplementing the education given by the teacher.
4. When the weather was
warmer, the schoolteachers liked to supplement their income by working on the
farms, which give them an incomparable insight into the real world.
They had a high reputation
and hired themselves out in distant parts, as far away as
In 1713, during the reign
of Louis XIV, emissaries of the court, who thought they would be dealing with
illiterate peasants signing their names with a cross were astonished to collect
elegant signatures accompanied by comments.
How did this brave and
happy community disappear? Why, for example, did it not become another Swiss
canton, with as its umbilical cord Savoy, which was keen to become one in 1860,
or the Valley of Aosta, also eager for independence? It is probable that
The Escartons had
- the same surface area as
the three embryonic cantons of the
- the same mountainous
relief
- the same need to use the
Saint-Gothard or Montgenèvre passes
- the same way of life and
the same customs
- lastly the same essential
concern: the preservation of freedom.
This second
Two cataclysms prevented
this evolution. The first was an arbitrary decision made 900 kms away, which
struck Briançon and its surrounding area a body blow and sliced it in two.
It was the treaty of Utrecht in 1713. This Yalta of the time decided that the
border between France and Italy would follow the watershed. "A
surveyor’s border", the inhabitants were to complain. Three Escartons,
bringing together 31 communes out of the 51, immediately entered the sphere of
influence of the Duke of Savoy.
This measure completed the
economic decline that had begun with Colbertism, and traumatised the population
which lost on each side the reciprocity of the system of sharing out costs (escartonnement).
There disappeared, too, the age-old economic complementarity between the two
sides of the border that were linked by 21 passes, almost all suitable only for
mules: livestock, leather and wood on the west, fruit and vegetables on the
east.
The inhabitants on either
side of the border never forgave Louis XIV for this partition since he had
previously committed himself to preserving the cohesion of this area. All his
predecessors and successors, from Charles V to Louis XVI had in fact sworn to
uphold the charter of 1343. Later the population on the Italian side would
never forgive Mussolini for imposing on it the use of the Italian language.
The second cataclysm was
the French Revolution. On 14 June 1788, the Escartons were invited to
take part in the famous assembly at Vizille held on 21 July. Although the
inhabitants of Briançon and the surrounding area did not feel involved, the
general council of the Escartons decide to send delegates. The first problem
was that the delegation was asked to include representatives of the three
orders. As this distinction had long ago ceased to exist the designation of its
members rapidly turned into a farce. For the clergy a good old curé
would fit the bill. For the nobility they looked around for an
aristocratic-sounding name. M. de Champronet would fit the bill, although he
paid the most taxes in the commune, unlike the nobles in the plain. But what
about the Third Estate? In the escartons there were only "freemen
and burghers". But what happened after was not at all comical. It was
explained to the escartons that they were forerunners, that they were
only in a republic and they therefore had to join the new republic, one and
indivisible.
"In one last
lunge, like a mortally wounded beast", one of them would write, they made on 29
December 1789 one final but unsuccessful appeal to the National Assembly in
order to preserve their freedom.
Finally on
The local customs survived
for some time. Thus in 1884, some young men, after a night-time disturbance,
were required by the municipality to rebuild a bridge carried away by a
torrent. Yet these young men had burnt neither a coach nor a cart. When the
work was complete they were allowed to put up a sign saying :"Bridge
of Youth". Here’s something that would please Christian Michel!
For a long time the standard
of education remained high. During the Restoration, a letter writer could still
say :
"Confined to his
cowshed by winter’s icy blasts, there the inhabitant instructs himself,
makes himself more civilised, teaches his children and servants and holds school for them. The highest and
most inaccessible professor there be in the globe, he fears not that the
university may cast him down from his chair; that it may prescribe to him
an exclusive mode of teaching ; that it may measure intelligences by its
yardstick and that it may say to him : you shall stop here!"
The primary school masters
continued to go far afield. For the school campaign in the winter of 1792-93,
68 passports were issued by the commune of Névache to those of its inhabitants
going away to teach. Névache then numbered 845 inhabitants belonging to 190
households. That made therefore one primary school master for every three
families! The oldest were aged 58, the youngest was 12 . He was the young
pupil-teacher who was following his elders to learn, according to their
expression, to "rule the school". But the State decided that from
then on it was up to it to "rule the schools" with varying degrees of success.
Towards the end of the
nineteenth century a local doctor wrote : "Although the district
of Briançon has derived great benefit from the modern organisation of primary
education...twice the number of schoolteachers would be needed for primary
teaching to be available to young children in the outlying villages, as it was
before 1790, thanks to the efforts and the initiative of the municipal
authority".
It is a pity that
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was not curious enough to inform himself about the Escartons
during his stays in the Dauphiné. He would have discovered there that men and
women no better and no worse than those elsewhere had been made better by
living in a free society.
It was interesting to
wonder whether in the most inaccessible valleys of our dear Pyrenees there may
not have been self-governed communities comparable to the Escartons. In
fact there still is one such, the principality of
Andorra is a collectivity
that is entirely free and autonomous, even if it still pays formal homage to
its two "co-princes", the president of the French Republic, a distant
heir to the rights of the Count of Foix, and the bishop of Urgel. This autonomy
is due to :
- historical
circumstances : in 1278, the bishop of Urgel, in Spain, and the count of
Foix, in France, signed a deed of parage delimiting their respective rights and
powers over the territory of Andorra, which was their joint fiefdom.
- geographical
circumstances : the first roads suitable for vehicles and that opened up
Andorra to the outside world were not built until 1913 on the Spanish side, and
not until1931 on the French side!
Needless to say neither
suzerain ever had the slightest desire to challenge the other’s rights at
the price of dangerous military expeditions, not even to levy much in the way
of taxes on rural mountain populations that were fairly poor.
The country consists of
about 60,000 inhabitants spread over seven parishes. Each one is administered
by a council (or "común") that enjoys considerable financial and
regulatory autonomy. Each parish appoints 3 representatives to the "General
Council", which decrees the laws common to the whole principality. This
council is made up of 42 members, half
of whom are elected by universal suffrage.
The Council is elected for
four years. At the beginning of each term, it elects a "Cap de Govern"
who takes on executive power along with his "Govern" (cabinet).
An Upper Council of
Justice, with 5 members, appointed for six years and non-renewable, nominates
the "Batlles" (county court judges), and the other magistrates.
Education is independent of
the state.
Andorrans do not pay direct
taxes. Their currency is the euro. Nowadays they live mainly from tourism but
their social life in previous centuries was very similar to that of the Escartons.
Thus, there exists in Andorra la Vella, the capital, in the "House of the
Valleys", where the General Council meets a "chest with seven
keyholes", for which each parish holds a specific key. This chest contains
the community’s most important documents. Similarly, there existed in the
Escarton of the Queyras (and perhaps in the others) a chest with seven
keyholes to which each commune had a key.
From Andorra to Switzerland
via the escartons, everything goes to show that peoples who live in a
state with reduced prerogatives are happier than the others. The lesson for the
larger countries is clear: their inhabitants would be happier if their states
applied the principle of subsidiarity.
(Translated by Michael
Glencross)
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