The House in the Rue Saint-Fiacre by H. B. Callaway

Author:H. B. Callaway
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harvard University Press

Inheritance Practices at the End of the Old Regime

Links between generations made it difficult for administrators to distinguish who, among the members of a family, really owned something. To ask who “really” owned it, in fact, is clumsy. The Duc de la Trémoille and his son both owned their property. They simply had different claims to the same assets. The legal arrangements used to share assets among family members, based in customary law and unchanged in the Revolution, were actually quite clear on what each member of a family owned. A single asset could be shared by dividing different claims—such as use versus underlying ownership—or by creating fractional shares. Property “belonged” to several people at once, and yet each share was rigorously individual. In this sense, distinguishing between a regime of individual property and a communal approach to assets—as lawmakers sought to do—did not truly reflect the nature of family holdings either before or after the Revolution: property was both individual and shared at the same time. Families did not necessarily share resources out of sentimentality or a desire to help each other. Rather, managing family assets made it possible for a family’s patrimony to support multiple households and multiple generations. This point further highlights how inadequately the idea of sharing captures the way families acted. Carefully delimiting the rights of each member allowed the family to maximize its assets.

The practices of the la Cour de Balleroy family exemplify the ways in which families shared property strategically across time.16 The family was targeted by the émigré laws after Charles-Auguste de la Cour, Marquis de Balleroy, was guillotined and his wife, Sophie l’Epineau, emigrated. The marriage contract of Charles-Auguste’s son, Philippe-Auguste, shows parental assets apportioned carefully to benefit both young and old simultaneously. Philippe Auguste, an only son, married Elisabeth-Jacqueline Maignard de la Vaupalière in April 1784.17 Like many couples, they signed a marriage contract that enumerated the financial settlement arranged by their parents.18 In the contract, the groom’s parents each settled annuities on their son, drawn on various funds. The military commission previously purchased for the groom by his father was also listed as part of the settlement. The bride received a dowry of 300,000 livres, to be paid in part to her husband in cash on the wedding day, and the rest to be delivered in installments of no less than 50,000 livres at will by her father. She was also guaranteed her inheritance portion in the future. A key element of the marriage contract was the way it allowed the parents to continue benefiting from their property while still supporting the young couple. This was made possible by offering many different forms of property, including cash, annuities, and assets in kind such as the military commission. One particular ownership claim is worth highlighting: the bride’s family promised to lodge the newlyweds in their home, rent-free, for three years.19 Essentially the gift was a three-year lease, which represented a form of ownership claim on the parents’ home. Significantly, however, promises of cash in this contract were secured against the parents’ land.

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