Revolution and Environment in Southern France "Peasants, Lords, and Murder in the Corbieres 1780-1830 by Peter McPhee.

At the break of day on the 12th November 1830 a Corbiere noble, Auguste Latrielle demanded that a contingent of gendarmes arrest a group of poor villagers from Villeseque who were illegally chopping wood from Latrielle's Gleon estate. In the ensuing confrontation one of the peasants was injured provoking the rest of the group to turn on Auguste and his son, Gonzague, and kill them both.

This fascinating book looks at the 50 years leading up to that morning, centring on the Revolution, control of the land and garrigue, and the impact changing property rights and control had on the environment. This all sounds very academic, and in places it is. McPhee is after all a Professor of History at the University of Melbourne, and this is a very well researched well written academic intervention into the ongoing debate around issues of social change and the environment.

However the one thing for residents and lovers of South it isn't is boring. McPheen has done some very detailed research into the Archives Departementales de l'Aude and uncovered a rich picture of life in the 10 years preceding the Revolution and the 40 after. He traces the relationship between the land owning nobles,the church, the land owning peasants, the labourers, craftsmen and landless poor. He vividly highlights the points of conflict between the groups, who had access and control of land and the means to cultivate being the key friction point.

What McPhee shows is that the Revolution may have had a major impact on the lives of many throughout France but in the Corbieres the conflicts between land owners, goat herders and charcoal burners continued, almost oblivious to the events in Paris and the major towns. So seamless was the change that Jean-Baptiste Ciceron, the old secretary of the symbol of Royal Reaction, the Abbey of Lagrasse, switched roles to become the chief adminstrator of the new regime.

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The one key aspect howvere that did change was control and use of the land and particularly the estates of the aristocracy. As the old order broke down nationally so did there ability to police the local community, and the communities started to test their new found liberties. One of the key areas for this conflict was the use of communal and estate lands, particularly the forrested garrigue. In the old order aristocratic priveledge backed up by the states police and army had ensured that the forests and garrigue were not used by the local communities. With the promise of Liberty Fraternity and Equality two groups of the area started to make use of these lands. The first were the goat and sheep herders, followed by the even poorer charcoal burners. This had a major environmental impact as forests were cleared of their trees and goats finished the work. What grew to replace these is what we now think of as the garrigue. The destruction of the forests changed the soil structure and soil erosion set in. Signs of this are common all around the area today. The floods that follow every heavy rainfall in the area can be directly linked to this fundamental change in property ownership and control.

In fact this situation did not last as the urban bourgouisie quickly moved into the space left by the besieged and often fleeing aristocracy. Merchants and the liberal professions quickly bought up the land and through the use of the newly reformed, and much strengthened forces of law and order excluded the peasantry from the hills. Communal land, mainly taken from the church during the revolution, was brought under state control often at the expense of the local poor.

The book is full of local colour and details. It is really a must buy for anyone who wants to understand the history of Les Corbieres and how what we see today was created. The changing nature of local agriculture, from subsistance to monoculture is also excellently tracked.