The Milliard

[“Neue Rheinische Zeitung” No. 247, March 16, 1849]

* Cologne, March 15. Shortly after the February revolution, money stringency made its appearance in Paris. Respect de la propriété!¹ was universally proclaimed, and the poor petty bourgeoisie took this to refer to themselves. The provisional government was all the more willing to show its respect de la propriété as the Bank at once advanced it 50 million francs, free of interest.² The provisional government was composed for the most part of petty bourgeois of the “National” and allowed itself to be deceived by the Bank’s magnanimity. The 50 million were soon spent. In the meantime, the shareholders and holders of banknotes had had time to exploit the respect de la propriété in the best possible way and to withdraw their metal from the Bank. The petty bourgeois, who for their part also wished to profit from the respect de la propriété, went to their banker to have their bills of exchange, drawn on their propriété, i.e., on their industry, their shop³ or their factory, discounted: the bankers pleaded scarcity of money and refused to discount them. They went to other bankers in order to have their bills endorsed by their own bankers and discounted at the Bank: the bankers refused their endorsement. Respect de la propriété! Thus it was precisely the bankers who first violated the respect de la propriété, while they themselves were perfectly able to exploit this respect. Then began the general complaint that credit, confidence,⁴ had disappeared. The petty bourgeois, however, still did not abandon their respect de la propriété; they thought that when “law and order” had been restored, confidence would also return, and then their bills would be discounted on the strength of their propriété. We know how, after the June battle, when law and order were restored, the whole propriété passed into the pockets of the bankers as a result of the judicial compositions, and how the petty bourgeois first understood the meaning of “respect” when their “propriété” had gone to the devil. Those who at that time suffered most as a result of the money crisis brought about by the big bourgeoisie were obviously the workers. At the same time that the provisional government invented the famous 45-centime tax in order to remedy its own distress, a placard signed by workers appeared on the walls, beginning with the words: avez-vous besoin d’argent? (Do you need money?) In this placard it was bluntly proposed that the milliard which had been granted to the émigrés in 1825 as compensation should be reclaimed. Who were the émigrés of that time? Precisely those who had instigated and kept up the war against France from abroad, and who then returned to France in the baggage train of the foreign powers. Who was among the émigrés to whom the compensation accrued? The Duc d’Orléans, i.e. the king just driven out, and the Legitimists, i.e. the friends of the king driven out long before. The Constituent Assembly and the Convention had decreed the confiscation of the estates of the traitorous émigrés; the returned kings and émigrés of the two Restaurations had themselves voted the indemnity for themselves and their friends. The kings had been driven out again, the resolutions of the Constituent Assembly and the Convention regained their full validity, and what was more natural than that the indemnity should again accrue to the people. The placard, in which the reclaiming of the milliard was expounded in this way, was read by the workers with universal jubilation; they stood in their thousands before the placard and discussed it in their own fashion. This lasted a whole day; the next day the placard had vanished from the walls as if by magic. The Legitimists and Orleanists, realising the whole danger with which they were threatened, had hired men with heavy money who were expressly commissioned to destroy this placard down to the last trace during the night. People at that time were caught up in the whirl of new organisational plans. All the world thought only of inventing a new system in order to introduce it forthwith into the “state”, despite all existing conditions. The provisional government hit on the unhappy idea of inventing the 45-centime tax on the peasants. The workers believed that the 45 centimes would have the same effect as the milliard: a taxation of landed property – and they let the milliard drop. The “Journal des Débats”, as well as the stupid “National”, strengthened them in this opinion, expounding in their leading articles that the true capital was “the land”, the original landed property, and that the provisional government had a perfect right to levy this tax for the benefit of the workers. When the actual levying began, a murderous outcry arose from the peasants against the workers of the towns. “What?” said the peasants, “are we worse off than the workers? We have to borrow capital at heavy interest merely in order to cultivate our land and feed our families, and we are supposed to pay, on top of the taxes and the interest for the capitalist, a maintenance dole for the workers?”

The peasants became untrue to the revolution, because, instead of furthering their interests, it harmed them even more. The workers recognised the cunning of the tax instigated by the reactionary party; the respect de la propriété now became clear to them too: the difference between formal and real property emerged; it turned out that bourgeois capital had, so to speak, twisted the soil from the earth, that the formal owner of the land had become a vassal of the capitalist, and that the tax only hit the indebted vassal. When, on top of that, the real landed proprietor made the poor peasant feel his influence through the withdrawal of credit, seizure, etc., the revolution became positively hateful to him. The Legitimists, who through their great landed estates had much influence in the countryside, exploited this situation, and then the intrigues of the royalists in favour of Henry V arose. Under these circumstances, so distressing for the revolution, May 15 drew near. The milliard proposed by Barbès, although brought forward in a different form, again struck the people like a lightning flash and ignited. Even the June battle could not stifle this idea of the milliard, and now, while Barbès’s trial is going on at Bourges, it has taken on flesh and blood among the peasants. To demand back from the Legitimists, their landlords and bloodsuckers, the milliard which they, the peasants, raised – that is a different bait from Napoleon. The agitation for its repayment has already spread over the whole of France, and if it were to be decided by universal suffrage, it would obtain even more votes than Napoleon. The milliard is the first revolutionary measure which will hurl the peasants into the revolution. The petitions which are pouring in from all sides, the tone in which these petitions are drawn up, prove that it has already gained a firm footing. In Cluny they are demanding not only the return of the milliard, but also the interest at 3 per cent which it has yielded since 1825. Since the trial at Bourges, the petitions have been accumulating in a way that is beginning to make the judges at Bourges, as well as the whole reactionary party, feel uneasy. Today, again, Aiserey, Ancey, Mâlain, St. Wibaldt, Vittaux and a mass of other communes have had petitions presented to the Chamber by their people’s representatives. Under the heading “Rappel du Milliard”¹ the journals are daily publishing the names of new communes which are joining this great measure. Soon on all walls, in all communes, one will read: “Rappel du Milliard”, and when the approaching elections take place under this cry, then we shall see what the capitalists, whether they call themselves Legitimists or Orleanists or bourgeois, have to oppose to this milliard in order to oust the democratic candidates who are entering the new Chamber with the dowry of this milliard, so as to use it as appanage-money for the benefit of the peasants and workers. But that is not all: Louis-Napoléon had everywhere promised the peasants not only the restitution of the 45-centime tax, but a general alleviation of taxation. In the petitions it is universally demanded that the milliard be used for the most part for this purpose. As regards the legal foundation of the restitution itself, it was already established immediately after the July revolution of 1830. The payment of the sums still remaining from the milliard was suddenly stopped at that time. If what had already been paid out was not ordered to be refunded, the only reason was that Louis-Philippe and his family had themselves received a very considerable part of these funds.

The counter-revolutionary party, finding it impossible to contest the justice of this measure, contents itself for the time being with drawing attention to the difficulty of its implementation. The difficulty, namely, would consist in tracking down those who drew larger or smaller sums from this granted compensation. Nothing easier than this. Let us begin with the large sums. At the head of the list stands the Duc d’Orléans (the later Louis-Philippe) and his sister Madame Adélaïde with 50 million, and this money only needs to be raised on the immense estates which the National Assembly recently restored to the royal family.

The Prince de Condé received 30 million, and who inherited these 30 million? The Duc d’Aumale and Mme de Feuchères. Here, then, a fine beginning could already be made. The royal family has enormous forests and estates in France, and the peasants are already beginning to calculate what they have lost through these millions not having been returned to them as early as 1830.

¹ Respect for property — ² interest-free — ³ commercial business — ⁴ confidence

¹ Repayment of the milliard