WEBVTT

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Prof: I'm going to talk
about some of my favorite people

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today.

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Over the weekend I was at a
memorial service and a

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conference in honor of my late
mentor, the great historian and

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sociologist, Charles Tilly.

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When I first knew him,
which was a long time ago,

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he was working on collective
violence.

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He's someone in his career who
published literally fifty-one

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books and over 600 articles,
but above all was a generous

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mentor to a whole bunch of
people,

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including yours truly.

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He was working on collective
violence.

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He once told me--in fact,
I couldn't find exactly where

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he wrote this,
if he did--he once told me,

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and I mentioned this the first
day,

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"It's bitter hard to write
the history of remainders."

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Some of the people I'm going to
talk about today didn't see

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themselves as remainders in
history,

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but they're people who didn't
quite fit in,

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and were really overwhelmed and
ultimately defeated by the

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economic, social,
and political processes.

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If one of the themes of the
course and of any course,

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really, I suppose,
that deals with the modern

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world experience,
especially in this day of

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globalization,
is the dynamic duo of

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capitalism or large-scale
economic change and the state,

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you're going to see that today
in some of the folks that I'm

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talking about.

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I once used the example of
trying to get you to imagine

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parachuting over the European
continent over a very slow

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descent.

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Let's say now from maybe
mid-sixteenth century until

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mid-nineteenth century.

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If you could see every incident
of collective violence,

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of political protest,
popular protest that

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occurred--and all protest is
ultimately political--by far the

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most prevalent would have been
the grain riot.

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This itself is terribly
significant and so is its

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disappearance,
given what I just said about

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the state and large-scale
economic change.

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Another way to imagine this is
if you had a Richter Scale that

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moved or that registered every
incident of collective violence.

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Tilly and his whole team were
counting up every single

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incident of collective violence
that they could find in Europe

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between mid-eighteenth century,
in terms of his study,

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or even earlier than that,
and 1936.

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They would come to the same
conclusion that you would,

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were you floating over this
great continent for that period

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of time.

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What I'm going to do today is
sort of a trilogy,

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talk about three things,
and they're all related.

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First, grain riots.

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Second the swing movement,
Captain Swing,

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drawing on the classic book a
long time ago of Eric Hobsbawm

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along with Tilly.

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Third, talk about something
that I did, the Demoiselles of

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while.

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All three fit together,
I think, very nicely.

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One of the underlying themes,
which you'll see,

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is that popular protest and
collective violence attached to

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popular protest is not random.

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It can be spontaneous,
but it's not illogical.

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There's a logic to popular
protest right through the ages

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in the early-modern period as
well as in the nineteenth

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century,
and ordinary people put forth

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their demands by protesting and,
in doing so,

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hope to affect change,
to appeal to authorities who

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hopefully will do the right
thing,

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often imagining a world in the
past where a sense of justice

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prevailed.

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In terms of grain riots I'll
talk about the just price,

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because they talked about it.

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Having said that,
let me enter the world of grain

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riots.

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I'll give you some examples.

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This is from Spain,
1856, with the pretext of the

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high price of bread and for lack
of work.

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The workers of Valladolid and
Burgos rose and burned flour

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stores, mills,
and inspection offices.

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The civil governor intervened
to put down the rising,

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but the rebels overwhelmed him
and attacked the chiefs of his

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forces.

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The sacking and burning
continued.

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Most likely,
as a consequence of the

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spreading of news of the
incident, disturbances also

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spread to the countryside and to
other cities.

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The governor of Palencia tried
to hold back the uprising in his

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city, but he had to retreat
before a hissing crowd.

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In Benavente,
Rioseco, and along the Castille

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Canal, the disorders recurred.

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They had the characteristics of
the old type of rebellion aimed

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at spectators and hoarders,
among whom the masters of

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workshops were counted.

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In their hatred,
the insurgents set fire to

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shops and storehouses with the
cry of,

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"cheap bread,
cheap bread,"

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and attacked the boats that
served for the transport of

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grain as well as putting the
torch to grain not yet harvested

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in the fields.

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If you back up almost a century
ago in France,

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if you look at the memoirs of a
royal official from May 3,

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1775: "The musketeers,
who had been warned the day

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before,
hurried to the markets.

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The fleeing rioters overturned
baskets full of bread and

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blocked the way to the horses.

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It was 9:00 a.m.

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The watch was supposed to be
getting its orders at that hour

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and the people had already gone
to the bakers and seized the

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bread they found in the shops.

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That pillage had a special
character.

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People did it without violence.

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The shops of the bakers were
emptied and those of the pastry

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makers and the dealers and other
foods which were equally exposed

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were left untouched."

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Or 1816 in England,
East Anglia:

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in early summer a surprise came
that the agricultural laborers

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(who we will come back to hear
about in a little while) of East

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Anglia had come out in revolt.

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Conditions had worsened since
the end of the Napoleonic war

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and riots and disturbances were
everywhere in the towns.

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The point is that I could give
you examples from virtually

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every country over a very long
period of time and the grain

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riot would dominate.

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This is France-based,
but it's true of almost

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everywhere--again,
do not write this down--men

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fight for food in the following
years particularly.

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They come in waves,
1693-94,1698,

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1709-10,
1728,1739-40,1749, 1752,

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1768,1770,
1775 a big one,

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1785,1788-89,1793,
1799,1811-12,181

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6-17,1829-30,1839-40,
1846-47,1853-54,

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and then never again.

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By never again,
I mean in France never again

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and slowly the grain riot
disappears as a form of

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political protest,
of collective violence or

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collective nonviolence,
depending on the case.

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That's the big question.

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What's going on here?

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Popular protest is a way of
finding out what's going on when

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you look at all this stuff.

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Why do the grain riots
disappear as a form of

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collective violence?

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Why?

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Here's a placard,
that is a poster,

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scrawled in the town of Vaville
in the West of France in 1709.

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"We are dying of hunger.

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We must absolutely order you to
set prices on bread and grain or

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else we will break from our
homes like enraged lions,

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weapons in one hand,
fire in the other."

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Arson--fire,
by the way, is one of those my

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friend, Jim Scott at Yale,
calls weapons of the weak.

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a thatched cottage,
can do some serious mischief.

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What these grain rioters want
to do, very ordinary people,

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men and particularly
women--remember,

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women are responsible for the
household economy.

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Also young people and also
children.

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What they want to do is they're
putting forth claims.

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They want the government,
the monarchies,

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the administrators,
the officials,

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the intendants,
the governors,

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the sheriffs in England to set
the price of bread,

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as Maximilien Robespierre and
the Jacobins had wanted them to.

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Why?

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To set the price of bread.

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To keep the price of bread low
so that everybody would have

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access to buying bread.

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Bread--literally,
that commodity,

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whether dark bread in the
poorer regions of central Europe

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or in the south of France or in
parts of Spain and southern

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Italy,
or white bread,

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which is more associated with
more prosperous peasants,

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represented more than half of
the expenses of ordinary people,

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not just food but bread.

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Bread is what people ate.

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Black bread in the poorer areas;
white bread in the wealthier

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areas, to make a generalization.

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There were all different kinds
of bread.

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Here's how I can approach this.

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In the town of Liege,
which is in Wallonia,

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that is in what's now eastern
Belgium, Liege,

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famous for its cork among other
things,

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and now part of the rust belt
of eastern Belgium,

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they had a municipal statute,
that is a municipal regulation,

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from about the fourteenth
century.

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The date 1317 sticks in my mind
somewhere.

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I must have read that decades
ago.

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It said that on market day
merchants from other places

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would not be allowed in to buy
grain until the third day of the

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market.

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By the way, the term for
merchants they used were

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engrosseurs,
which has a sense in French of

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a bunch of people who would make
themselves fat.

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Why?

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Because they could afford to
buy bread at the price that

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nobody else could afford.

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They wouldn't be allowed in
until the third day of the

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market.

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But, of course,
that's not what happens through

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most of European history.

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The pressure from these crowds,
the logic of these crowds is to

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force municipal authorities in
the name of order--but perhaps,

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who knows,
in the name of justice--to set

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a price of bread so that
everybody could have a shot at

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it.

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As some wag once put,
criticizing this kind of social

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history, "Well,
it's pretty obvious that grain

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riots occur on market days in
areas in which there is grain

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being exported out of a
region."

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But that is precisely the point.

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The peasants or townspeople
don't riot.

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Ordinary people don't riot
necessarily when the price of

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grain reaches its absolute
maximum.

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When they riot,
they seize grain or they

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pillage shops,
at the moment

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when--particularly when they see
grain being taken out of the

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community,
removed from their sense of

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moral authority over something
upon which they depend to live.

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Women, as I said before,
played the major role in grain

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riots.

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Why?

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Because they're responsible for
the household economy.

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Right through this whole period
there's a familiar scenario.

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People pour into town for
market day.

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They see the stagecoaches,
the diligences,

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the wagons carting the grain
away and they stop it.

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They stop it.

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It's the same format everywhere.

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It's as if you had some sort of
Internet, or CNN,

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or something like that telling
people, "Here's how you

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grain riot."

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But they don't rip off the
grain and they don't rip off,

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as the one example I gave you,
fancy pastries and stuff like

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that.

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They take the grain often to a
communal piece of property,

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such as the commons or the
shed, the covered market.

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Some of the most fantastic
examples are in the south of

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France, but all sorts of places,
too.

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They sell the grain to ordinary
people at what they consider to

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be the just price.

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They use that expression,
"the just price."

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There's a sense of moral
outrage that some forces they

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can't control are taking away
what they need to survive.

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In 1789, a year you know,
what's the big collective

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action in Paris?

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It's the seizing of the
Bastille, of course,

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but above all it's the attack
on the customs barriers,

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the tax offices that ring
Paris,

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which forced the price of food,
grain, bread,

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everything up higher.

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They attacked them as a symbol
of what they considered to be an

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unfair economy that's depriving
them of the right to have enough

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to eat.

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So, these wagons that are
carrying grain away,

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who's in these wagons?

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Who are these folks and what
are they doing?

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They're merchants and they know
that when they're buying up

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grain, where are they taking it?

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They're taking it to Berlin,
or Stuttgart,

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or Munich, or to Milan,
or to Paris,

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or to Lyon.

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Why?

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Because that grain will command
even a higher price there,

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where you've got all these
people.

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What is the interest of
monarchies and other forms of

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tyranny, if you will?

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It's their interest to feed the
cities first.

15:44.629 --> 15:48.179
The growth of cities,
the growth of bureaucracies,

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of the state,
the growth of garrisons who

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have to be fed increases the
pressure on grain in times of

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harvest failure.

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Grain riots not only have the
timing of markets when grain is

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leaving the town,
but obviously the subtext is

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that in times of these cyclical
harvest failures.

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The harvest fails.

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Credit is withdrawn.

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The price of bread goes up and
the riots start.

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If you look at where the riots
start in any of these countries

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that I've talked about,
it's in response to grain being

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taken out of rural regions and
being taken to cities to get

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higher prices.

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You've got the merchant on the
wagon, too, and you've probably

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got his driver.

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Who else do you have there,
increasingly?

16:40.500 --> 16:45.210
You've got the Guarda Civila in
Spain,

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or you've got various police in
the Italian estates,

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or you've got the tough,
hardened Berlin police,

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or the Prussian army,
or you've got the

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eighteenth century,
or the gendarmes in the

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nineteenth century.

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Here again is a way of looking
at this theme.

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The state and capitalism are on
the wagon here.

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You've got the merchant and
you've got the police guarding

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him.

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That's the dynamic duo of
change over the long run.

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To be sure, people who have big
plots of land in Pomerania,

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or in northern Italy,
or in the Beauce south of

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Paris,
around Chartres,

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or someplace like that,
these people are not out grain

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rioting.

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What are they doing?

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They're hoarding.

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They're waiting until the price
of grain even goes higher.

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That's why a form of popular
protest, of collective action

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throughout this whole period are
attacks on hoarders.

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1789--you read about it in the
book.

17:58.450 --> 18:02.200
The famine plot,
the idea that wealthy

18:02.201 --> 18:05.871
aristocrats are trying to starve
out the poor to get their way

18:05.866 --> 18:10.306
and that hoarders have huge,
just sacks of grain,

18:10.309 --> 18:14.959
which they often did,
in their chateaus.

18:14.960 --> 18:17.890
They're holding it from the
market and laissez faire says,

18:17.886 --> 18:20.246
"Let the market decide the
price."

18:20.250 --> 18:22.290
"Okay, let's keep that
stuff back.

18:22.289 --> 18:23.069
People will go hungry.

18:23.069 --> 18:24.329
Too damn bad for them.

18:24.328 --> 18:26.768
They should have more
money."

18:26.769 --> 18:32.729
Over and over and over again in
all of these places the grain

18:32.730 --> 18:38.100
riot is the most important form
of collective violence,

18:38.095 --> 18:40.375
of popular protest.

18:40.380 --> 18:43.910
Then it just disappears.

18:43.910 --> 18:47.010
Again, France is the most
studied, but it disappears

18:47.005 --> 18:48.275
earlier in Britain.

18:48.279 --> 18:49.389
You'll know why already.

18:49.390 --> 18:50.470
You already know.

18:50.470 --> 18:52.420
I'll tell you again in a minute.

18:52.420 --> 18:56.740
There ain't no peasants left in
Britain.

18:56.740 --> 18:59.170
In France, the last wave is
1855.

18:59.170 --> 19:02.640
Now, there are protests at the
end of the nineteenth century

19:02.644 --> 19:04.534
against the high cost of food.

19:04.528 --> 19:09.708
One shouldn't imagine people
surrounding the Stop N Shop and

19:09.705 --> 19:14.875
blocking it with their little
pushcarts that they're putting

19:14.883 --> 19:19.123
their frozen food into,
but they're the equivalents of

19:19.123 --> 19:19.483
that.

19:19.480 --> 19:21.710
There are protests against the
high cost of food.

19:21.710 --> 19:25.410
Food still is an important
dynamic in protests.

19:25.410 --> 19:27.660
In World War II,
for example,

19:27.663 --> 19:31.933
irritation about the rich doing
even better than ever,

19:31.928 --> 19:35.628
and rationing cards and all
that business.

19:35.630 --> 19:41.200
But the grain riot simply
disappears as a form of popular

19:41.195 --> 19:43.975
protest in Europe,
period.

19:43.980 --> 19:46.390
It doesn't mean that bread
wouldn't be terribly important

19:46.393 --> 19:47.603
in the Russian Revolution.

19:47.599 --> 19:48.539
It does.

19:48.538 --> 19:55.958
There are riots in Russia
against the high price of bread.

19:55.960 --> 20:01.360
But the classic beginning in
Western Europe and moving east,

20:01.356 --> 20:05.896
the classic,
the quintessentially popular

20:05.896 --> 20:10.226
domain of protest,
expression of popular protest

20:10.226 --> 20:12.076
just disappears,
period,

20:12.079 --> 20:13.819
point.

20:13.819 --> 20:15.729
Why?

20:15.730 --> 20:17.990
The battle's been won.

20:17.990 --> 20:21.060
The merchants,
the police, the

20:21.060 --> 20:25.720
gendarmes,
the troops, they're already

20:25.720 --> 20:26.780
there.

20:26.778 --> 20:31.828
Beginning again west to Eastern
Europe, you've got the

20:31.826 --> 20:37.916
depopulation of marginal rural
property, marginal rural lands.

20:37.920 --> 20:43.820
People can't make it anymore
producing little bits of this

20:43.823 --> 20:48.283
and that and they plunge
themselves into the

20:48.277 --> 20:53.867
ever-increasing urban world in
order to find work.

20:53.868 --> 20:57.028
And, so, if you look at what
people protest over,

20:57.034 --> 20:59.544
we can see this big economic
change.

20:59.538 --> 21:02.568
The nineteenth century just
transforms the way people live.

21:02.569 --> 21:03.269
This is for sure.

21:03.269 --> 21:05.719
The nineteenth century didn't
invent consumer culture.

21:05.720 --> 21:08.190
We already know,
Jan deVries has just published

21:08.194 --> 21:11.744
within the last month or two
just a brilliant book showing

21:11.738 --> 21:15.468
that ordinary families made all
sorts of sacrifices to try to

21:15.469 --> 21:19.079
improve their lives beginning
the middle of the seventeenth

21:19.075 --> 21:21.735
century,
participating in this consumer

21:21.743 --> 21:23.813
culture, buying soap,
buying forks,

21:23.809 --> 21:25.469
and that kind of thing.

21:25.470 --> 21:29.370
But these big-time economic
changes, the nineteenth century

21:29.374 --> 21:32.274
is the crucial period in the
whole thing.

21:32.269 --> 21:38.329
The disappearance of the grain
riot as a form of popular

21:38.329 --> 21:44.059
protest is a fantastic
demonstration of that fact.

21:44.058 --> 21:46.968
You don't want to complicate
the thing or undermine the

21:46.972 --> 21:49.942
validity of what I've said by
imagining, "Well,

21:49.940 --> 21:51.960
that's all pre-modern,
this kind of protest.

21:51.960 --> 21:55.190
Then we've got modern protest
and more strikes and all

21:55.188 --> 21:55.978
that."

21:55.980 --> 21:58.550
It's true that there are more
strikes and strikes become

21:58.548 --> 22:00.648
another classic form of
political protest,

22:00.650 --> 22:04.130
but the world of the nineteenth
century was changing.

22:04.130 --> 22:08.590
The big losers in all of this
are rural people,

22:08.586 --> 22:12.746
rural laborers,
peasants who simply couldn't

22:12.751 --> 22:17.791
make a go of it and their world
was transformed.

22:17.789 --> 22:21.709
That's part one of this trilogy.

22:21.710 --> 22:26.120
Secondly, let's look at the
Swing Movement.

22:26.118 --> 22:31.418
These next two things I'm going
to talk about take place really

22:31.423 --> 22:33.053
at the same time.

22:33.049 --> 22:35.509
That's not a coincidence.

22:35.509 --> 22:37.319
It's not a coincidence at all.

22:37.318 --> 22:39.538
The first story is that of
Captain Swing.

22:39.538 --> 22:43.498
I alluded to this the very
first day, those of you who were

22:43.500 --> 22:43.980
here.

22:43.980 --> 22:48.500
It was in 1829-30.

22:48.500 --> 22:50.380
Those are the big years.

22:54.538 --> 22:55.478
same time.

22:55.480 --> 22:57.360
They are similar and
fascinating.

22:57.359 --> 22:58.329
I think they're fascinating.

22:58.329 --> 23:00.149
I hope you will, too.

23:00.150 --> 23:03.000
They have so much in common
with each other and with what

23:03.000 --> 23:04.580
I've just been talking about.

23:04.578 --> 23:10.458
It's not about winners and
losers in the brave new economy

23:10.463 --> 23:16.763
of high-powered capitalism and
all its incarnations in Europe,

23:16.760 --> 23:18.620
big and small.

23:18.618 --> 23:23.798
We see the faces,
the remainders of this kind of

23:23.804 --> 23:25.794
economic change.

23:25.788 --> 23:32.808
Again, the people who worked on
Captain Swing were George

23:36.819 --> 23:39.659
How do I put this?

23:39.660 --> 23:47.980
There was a real person called
Ned Ludd in about 1816-17 in

23:47.976 --> 23:49.406
England.

23:49.410 --> 23:53.940
The English word Luddite is
someone who's a machine breaker.

23:53.940 --> 23:56.950
Luddism is machine breaking.

23:56.950 --> 24:01.220
You break machines because
machines are putting you out of

24:01.215 --> 24:01.735
work.

24:01.740 --> 24:03.830
You're a handloom weaver.

24:03.828 --> 24:06.788
There are famous cases in
Silesia in Germany.

24:06.788 --> 24:10.598
Then machines for glassworks
and then later in the century,

24:10.595 --> 24:14.265
things I talked about last
time, were putting them out of

24:14.269 --> 24:14.859
work.

24:14.859 --> 24:18.179
Ned Ludd busted up machines.

24:18.180 --> 24:21.990
He broke machines.

24:21.990 --> 24:26.910
1829 was an awful economic year
everywhere in Europe.

24:26.910 --> 24:32.250
A freezing winter and real
hunger in Britain.

24:32.250 --> 24:33.310
That's my example.

24:33.308 --> 24:35.568
It's from Britain,
from England specifically,

24:35.569 --> 24:38.189
from the south of England even
more specifically.

24:38.190 --> 24:42.530
They found people who were
starved to death in the fields

24:42.527 --> 24:47.017
with only dandelions in their
stomachs with nothing else to

24:47.019 --> 24:47.639
eat.

24:47.640 --> 24:52.740
If you were a Frenchman,
or a German,

24:52.740 --> 24:59.060
or a northern Italian,
and you went to England in 1829

24:59.057 --> 25:01.877
or 1830,
if you did the reverse of the

25:01.881 --> 25:04.661
Arthur Young track--Arthur Young
was always wandering through

25:04.655 --> 25:07.335
France and discovering people he
thought were sixty-five or

25:07.337 --> 25:07.937
seventy.

25:07.940 --> 25:10.020
It turned out they were
twenty-nine.

25:10.019 --> 25:13.259
They were so battered and
beaten down by hardship.

25:13.259 --> 25:17.429
There's famous case of a woman
he met in Champagne near Reims

25:17.434 --> 25:18.484
of that case.

25:18.480 --> 25:22.410
Arthur Young saw all of these
peasants in Europe,

25:22.406 --> 25:27.396
but the counterpart of Arthur
Young, people from the continent

25:27.397 --> 25:30.177
going to England,
were amazed.

25:30.180 --> 25:34.460
There weren't any more
peasants, virtually no peasants.

25:34.460 --> 25:37.590
You'd find a peasant as a small
property owner existentially

25:37.592 --> 25:40.182
committed to the land,
that's a little bit overly

25:40.181 --> 25:43.221
fancy,
but dependent upon a lopin

25:43.219 --> 25:46.919
de terre,
a small piece of land,

25:46.920 --> 25:49.850
for family survival,
the household economy.

25:49.848 --> 25:52.928
There weren't any more peasants
left in England.

25:52.930 --> 25:55.940
There were gentry,
including big property owners

25:55.940 --> 25:59.080
who were masters of all that
they saw before them,

25:59.078 --> 26:02.408
in the portraits they had
painted of themselves.

26:02.410 --> 26:03.850
You had gentry.

26:03.848 --> 26:08.788
You had yeomen who were sort of
smaller versions of gentry.

26:08.788 --> 26:13.868
You had middle-rank property
owners and this sort of thing.

26:13.868 --> 26:16.778
You had wealthy people from the
city wanting to live in an

26:16.778 --> 26:19.738
aristocratic way buying as much
land as they could take.

26:19.740 --> 26:22.750
There was no place in Europe in
which such a small percentage of

26:22.752 --> 26:24.812
the population owned so much of
the land.

26:24.808 --> 26:29.308
That's still true today in
Britain.

26:29.309 --> 26:31.159
But there weren't any peasants.

26:31.160 --> 26:31.740
Why?

26:31.740 --> 26:34.490
Because the big fish had eaten
the smaller fish.

26:34.490 --> 26:37.050
And because,
beginning in the sixteenth

26:37.049 --> 26:39.259
century,
the enclosure movement,

26:39.259 --> 26:41.019
which you've read about,
I think,

26:41.019 --> 26:45.129
meant that basically,
no surprise,

26:45.130 --> 26:47.620
the big guys get the law on
their side.

26:47.618 --> 26:52.318
Parliament passes thousands of
acts of enclosure which allow

26:52.323 --> 26:56.313
people to enclose and divide up
the common land.

26:56.308 --> 27:01.008
The big fish eat the smaller
fish and the peasantry is

27:01.009 --> 27:02.959
basically destroyed.

27:02.960 --> 27:04.770
What you have,
as I said before in another

27:04.768 --> 27:06.798
context, in England,
is you've got all sorts of

27:06.797 --> 27:07.677
textile workers.

27:07.680 --> 27:11.520
You've got all sorts of
governesses and domestic

27:11.519 --> 27:15.029
workers, and you have hundreds
of thousands,

27:15.034 --> 27:18.144
millions of agricultural
laborers.

27:18.140 --> 27:20.760
You have agricultural laborers
in other countries,

27:20.759 --> 27:21.079
too.

27:21.078 --> 27:23.418
But you also have small
property owners.

27:23.420 --> 27:25.580
There's hardly any of those
folks left in England.

27:25.578 --> 27:31.928
To return to the story,
in 1829 ordinary people start

27:31.932 --> 27:37.922
participating in protest and
collective action.

27:37.920 --> 27:42.340
They start threatening,
and smashing,

27:42.338 --> 27:46.388
and burning threshing machines.

27:46.390 --> 27:48.550
Why threshing machines?

27:48.548 --> 27:52.358
Because threshing machines are
taking their work.

27:52.358 --> 27:55.168
The way they survive is during
harvest they go from place to

27:55.170 --> 27:57.740
place working,
the way people still do in the

27:57.740 --> 27:59.970
wine harvest in the south of
France,

27:59.970 --> 28:03.450
working from place to place
bringing in the harvest,

28:03.450 --> 28:06.130
prosperous agricultural land in
the south of England.

28:06.130 --> 28:07.430
This is how they get by.

28:07.430 --> 28:08.860
They don't live very well.

28:08.858 --> 28:09.988
They don't do very well,
but they're lodged.

28:09.990 --> 28:10.890
They're fed.

28:10.890 --> 28:15.140
They have a crummy place to
sleep, but they can do okay.

28:15.140 --> 28:19.090
Then the big guys,
the big farmers start buying

28:19.094 --> 28:20.904
threshing machines.

28:20.900 --> 28:22.920
The threshing machines do the
work of these people.

28:22.920 --> 28:26.240
Next time they guys come along
in groups of ten,

28:26.236 --> 28:28.346
twenty, thirty,
families, pals,

28:28.354 --> 28:32.804
friends, they come around and
say, "It's harvest time.

28:32.799 --> 28:35.739
Here we are.

28:38.000 --> 28:39.700
"Sorry, ol' chap.

28:39.700 --> 28:41.260
We don't need you.

28:41.259 --> 28:43.409
Maybe a couple of you,
but we don't need you.

28:43.410 --> 28:45.440
We've got these machines.

28:45.440 --> 28:48.450
They do the job that you used
to do.

28:48.450 --> 28:51.090
We don't have a problem with
them working hard all the time.

28:51.088 --> 28:54.258
The machines work all the time
at our command.

28:54.259 --> 28:56.949
See ya!"

28:56.950 --> 28:58.540
Are they mad?

28:58.539 --> 28:59.739
They're furious.

28:59.740 --> 29:02.350
They start burning these
machines.

29:02.348 --> 29:06.148
They start smashing down the
gates and going in and burning

29:06.153 --> 29:07.273
these machines.

29:07.269 --> 29:12.419
Then they started to find
posters that had been written,

29:12.417 --> 29:16.437
scrawled posters,
sometimes barely literate,

29:16.442 --> 29:20.752
because this wasn't a literate
population.

29:20.750 --> 29:24.810
They begin to talk about a
mythical-like figure like Ned

29:24.811 --> 29:27.621
Ludd, except this wasn't a real
one.

29:27.618 --> 29:31.278
My favorite--I had this former
girlfriend a long time ago at

29:31.278 --> 29:34.008
Mighty Michigan,
and we were going to write a

29:34.007 --> 29:35.617
screenplay about this.

29:35.619 --> 29:38.359
We never did.

29:38.358 --> 29:40.688
One of them said,
they all said,

29:40.686 --> 29:44.516
"If you don't get rid of
the threshing machine,

29:44.517 --> 29:46.467
your agony will begin.

29:46.470 --> 29:49.050
We will destroy your machines.

29:49.049 --> 29:50.649
We will burn you out."

29:50.650 --> 29:57.310
But the best that I ever saw
was, "Revenge for thee is

29:57.314 --> 30:03.524
on the wing from thy determined
Captain Swing."

30:03.519 --> 30:06.069
Who was Captain Swing?

30:06.068 --> 30:08.738
He was a sense of popular
justice.

30:08.740 --> 30:12.850
He was what used to be called
the moral economy.

30:12.849 --> 30:14.869
He did not exist.

30:14.869 --> 30:15.589
He should have.

30:15.589 --> 30:19.089
He still should exist.

30:19.089 --> 30:20.919
He did not exist.

30:20.920 --> 30:25.720
But Captain Swing gave this
kind of paramilitary sense to

30:25.715 --> 30:27.425
"We are many.

30:27.430 --> 30:29.070
We are correct.

30:29.069 --> 30:30.139
We are right.

30:30.140 --> 30:32.710
We have God on our side.

30:32.710 --> 30:34.420
We are organized.

30:34.420 --> 30:36.710
We will win."

30:36.710 --> 30:40.700
The subtext is that "Maybe
we better negotiate and see.

30:40.700 --> 30:44.600
Maybe you keep a few machines
around, but we want our jobs

30:44.599 --> 30:45.489
back."

30:45.490 --> 30:49.660
Captain Swing was everywhere.

30:49.660 --> 30:50.620
He was in Kent.

30:50.619 --> 30:52.089
He was in Cambridgeshire.

30:52.089 --> 30:53.079
He was in Devon.

30:53.079 --> 30:54.829
He was in Wiltshire.

30:54.828 --> 30:58.868
He didn't exist,
but he was everywhere,

30:58.865 --> 31:02.895
at least in the popular
imagination.

31:02.900 --> 31:07.970
By the way, the Captain Swing
folks had some allies.

31:07.970 --> 31:12.350
They were the smaller farmers
who couldn't afford the big-time

31:12.349 --> 31:14.769
threshing machines,
and they thought,

31:14.769 --> 31:18.949
"Maybe if they burn the
machines of my ravenous

31:18.946 --> 31:20.876
neighbor,
that wouldn't be the worst

31:20.884 --> 31:21.844
thing in the world."

31:21.838 --> 31:26.038
So, they get moral support from
folks like that.

31:26.039 --> 31:27.599
They spread.

31:27.599 --> 31:30.759
They're in all sorts of places.

31:30.759 --> 31:32.089
Do they win?

31:32.089 --> 31:34.069
Are you kidding?

31:34.069 --> 31:35.919
They lose.

31:35.920 --> 31:40.170
The sheriff comes in a country
that only had a police force

31:40.165 --> 31:44.185
starting in 1829 in London,
that didn't like the idea of

31:44.192 --> 31:45.732
uniformed armies.

31:45.730 --> 31:49.610
That was something the French
and the Spanish had.

31:49.608 --> 31:53.908
They bring their military
contingents and they beat the

31:53.910 --> 31:56.060
hell out of these people.

31:56.059 --> 31:58.109
They put them on trial.

31:58.108 --> 32:02.138
They hang some of them,
not all that many.

32:02.140 --> 32:08.580
They sent lots of them to
Tasmania or to Australia.

32:08.578 --> 32:10.928
"We all live in a convict
colony,"

32:10.926 --> 32:14.036
as they sometimes sing in
Australia whenever they play the

32:14.038 --> 32:16.378
"poms,"
as they sometimes call the

32:16.384 --> 32:17.154
British.

32:17.150 --> 32:21.020
They send them a long,
long way and they defeat them.

32:21.019 --> 32:23.279
It's bitter hard to write the
history of remainders.

32:23.279 --> 32:24.879
It's fun, though, too.

32:24.880 --> 32:26.640
It's fun.

32:26.640 --> 32:31.680
Captain Swing disappears.

32:31.680 --> 32:34.420
The big guys win.

32:34.420 --> 32:38.370
Enclosure keeps rolling along.

32:38.368 --> 32:40.828
Tens of thousands of people are
on the road.

32:40.829 --> 32:42.689
Oh, they get a little victory.

32:42.690 --> 32:48.030
The poor law of 1832 was
probably influenced by this

32:48.026 --> 32:54.406
perceived threat of popular
people voting with their feet,

32:54.410 --> 32:57.930
threatening but also
negotiating, cajoling,

32:57.930 --> 33:02.950
trying to imagine a time in the
past when everybody had a shot

33:02.946 --> 33:04.836
at doing well enough.

33:04.838 --> 33:08.818
The same thing as the grain
riots, imagining a time when

33:08.823 --> 33:11.723
there was a just price for
everything.

33:11.720 --> 33:14.740
Captain Swing was really part
of that.

33:14.740 --> 33:18.360
Obviously, I find what they did
thrilling, but I probably

33:18.361 --> 33:19.721
shouldn't say that.

33:19.720 --> 33:24.650
And, of course,
they probably had a lot of time

33:24.653 --> 33:28.653
to think about what they did on
that extraordinarily long trip

33:28.653 --> 33:31.323
to Port Arthur,
not the Port Arthur in Asia,

33:31.318 --> 33:35.058
but the Port Arthur in
Tasmania,

33:35.058 --> 33:40.048
or to what would become New
South Wales or Victoria in

33:40.049 --> 33:41.179
Australia.

33:41.180 --> 33:44.350
But Captain Swing disappears.

33:44.348 --> 33:48.778
He never existed,
but he sure should have.

33:48.779 --> 33:54.659
A long time ago,
when I was starting out,

33:54.660 --> 33:59.540
I was working in the archives
in Vincennes on the edge of

33:59.544 --> 34:01.834
Paris,
the military archives in the

34:01.833 --> 34:03.233
big Chateau de Vincennes.

34:03.230 --> 34:08.350
I was working on other stuff
and I kept finding these

34:08.353 --> 34:14.073
incidents that were occurring at
precisely the same time as

34:14.070 --> 34:16.830
Captain Swing,
1829-30,

34:16.829 --> 34:19.339
not in England but in France.

34:19.340 --> 34:29.630
I kept finding these reports
from a part of--;I didn't bring

34:29.630 --> 34:37.480
a map and I can't draw worth a
damn either.

34:37.480 --> 34:39.550
Imagine la belle France.

34:39.550 --> 34:43.050
Nice, huh?

34:43.050 --> 34:46.170
Mountains.

34:46.170 --> 34:49.260
Toulouse here.

34:56.077 --> 34:59.837
the mountainous department,
I kept finding these reports.

34:59.840 --> 35:02.300
The capital is Foix,
but that's in the plain,

35:02.300 --> 35:02.860
kind of.

35:02.860 --> 35:04.360
Then you go up in the mountains.

35:04.360 --> 35:05.750
You've got real serious
mountains.

35:05.750 --> 35:08.060
Now people drive through those
mountains to get to Andorra,

35:08.059 --> 35:09.529
to buy cheaper pastis,
and cigarettes,

35:09.534 --> 35:10.614
and that kind of thing.

35:10.610 --> 35:12.030
It's very beautiful there.

35:12.030 --> 35:15.020
It's also full now of people
from 1968 who went off and

35:17.179 --> 35:19.559
Sometimes you'll see some of
them staggering around there.

35:19.559 --> 35:24.119
I kept finding reports from the
police or from the

35:24.123 --> 35:27.013
gendarmes,
above all,

35:27.010 --> 35:33.910
or from mayors saying that men
dressed as women were coming

35:33.911 --> 35:40.221
down the mountain in the mists,
and fog, and snow,

35:40.219 --> 35:44.859
armed with pitchforks,
armed with rifles and were

35:44.860 --> 35:50.740
chasing away two groups of
people: charbonniers,

35:50.739 --> 35:56.979
charcoal burners--forest people
cutting down trees--and forest

35:56.981 --> 36:02.711
guards--those people guarding
the forests employed by the

36:02.713 --> 36:04.993
state,
employed by the rural

36:04.992 --> 36:07.472
bourgeoisie,
or people living in Foix or

36:07.465 --> 36:10.555
Toulouse who owned a lot of land
in the forest,

36:10.559 --> 36:18.409
or by communes if the forests
were communally owned to try to

36:18.407 --> 36:21.937
keep out ordinary people.

36:21.940 --> 36:26.660
These people were coming down
the mountain and taking shots at

36:26.657 --> 36:29.827
them and yelling nasty things to
them,

36:29.829 --> 36:34.039
threatening them with
pitchforks and trying to drive

36:34.039 --> 36:35.029
them away.

36:35.030 --> 36:39.510
And then, they would find notes
saying, "If the forest

36:39.512 --> 36:43.922
guards and the charcoal burners
come back, your agony will

36:43.916 --> 36:44.686
begin.

36:44.690 --> 36:47.730
Signed Jean,
Lieutenant of the

36:47.731 --> 36:49.831
Demoiselles."

36:49.829 --> 36:55.879
A demoiselle in French is
obviously a young woman.

36:55.880 --> 36:57.900
These became known as the
Demoiselles of the

36:58.650 --> 37:05.030
I found so many of these in
1829,1830, 1831,

37:05.025 --> 37:09.615
a few in 1848,
a couple in 1872,

37:09.623 --> 37:12.593
and never again.

37:12.590 --> 37:15.380
Who were these people and what
were they doing?

37:15.380 --> 37:18.190
What they wanted,
again think of Captain Swing

37:18.193 --> 37:21.883
and think of the grain riots,
what they wanted was access to

37:21.882 --> 37:22.822
the forest.

37:22.820 --> 37:25.530
They'd always had access to the
forest.

37:27.800 --> 37:32.180
You need wood that's gleaned
from the forest to make fire to

37:32.175 --> 37:33.135
stay alive.

37:33.139 --> 37:36.359
You need berries, roots to eat.

37:36.360 --> 37:40.090
You need places to pasture your
animals,

37:40.090 --> 37:43.930
pigs which eat right down
through the root,

37:49.835 --> 37:51.105
or sheep.

37:51.110 --> 37:54.560
If they're really rich maybe
cows, but that didn't happen

37:54.559 --> 37:55.669
very much there.

37:55.670 --> 37:57.200
The rich guys owned the cows.

37:57.199 --> 37:59.289
The peasants didn't own the
cows.

37:59.289 --> 38:02.459
They'd always,
for centuries as they well

38:02.458 --> 38:05.548
remembered, had access to the
forest.

38:05.550 --> 38:08.030
Why did they lose access to the
forests?

38:08.030 --> 38:10.030
They're looking back at an
imaginary time.

38:10.030 --> 38:11.140
It wasn't imaginary.

38:11.139 --> 38:12.359
They always had had access.

38:12.360 --> 38:14.780
There was lots of forest--the
whole place.

38:14.780 --> 38:17.550
Deforestation is a big problem
in France since the seventeenth

38:17.545 --> 38:18.675
and eighteenth century.

38:18.679 --> 38:21.579
But the Pyrenees have many
forests, many mountains.

38:21.579 --> 38:24.419
They'd always been able to go
there as they wanted.

38:24.420 --> 38:28.580
They didn't own the forest,
but use and property were not

38:28.577 --> 38:31.767
categories that meant anything
to anyone.

38:31.768 --> 38:33.528
They're told they can't go
there anymore.

38:33.530 --> 38:36.800
Some of them go to churches and
they're looking for deeds that

38:36.804 --> 38:40.034
would have given people of those
villages rights to be in the

38:40.027 --> 38:41.367
forest centuries ago.

38:41.369 --> 38:42.239
No.

38:42.239 --> 38:44.389
They don't find them.

38:44.389 --> 38:47.449
So, why can't they go in the
forest anymore to pasture their

38:47.447 --> 38:50.607
miserable animals or to find
something to eat or some fuel?

38:50.610 --> 38:52.160
Why can't they do that anymore?

38:52.159 --> 38:53.819
Aha!

38:53.820 --> 38:57.010
We're talking capitalism in the
state.

38:57.010 --> 38:58.600
The price of wood has increased.

38:58.599 --> 38:59.509
Why?

38:59.510 --> 39:03.830
The metallurgical industry,
what they call Catalan,

39:03.831 --> 39:07.461
as in Catalonia,
forges small metallurgical

39:07.463 --> 39:08.763
industries.

39:08.760 --> 39:10.060
The price of wood goes up.

39:10.059 --> 39:12.299
Suddenly the people that own
the forest say,

39:12.300 --> 39:14.810
"Hey baby,
we don't want those peasants

39:14.809 --> 39:17.609
and their animals in the forest
anymore."

39:17.610 --> 39:20.520
They start hiring forest guards.

39:20.518 --> 39:23.928
They start hiring charcoal
burners,

39:23.929 --> 39:26.599
the charbonniers,
who are chopping down the

39:26.601 --> 39:28.511
trees,
slicing them up,

39:28.510 --> 39:31.640
as people still do in the Jura,
or in the Black Forest,

39:31.639 --> 39:34.399
or do anywhere that you can
think of in Europe.

39:34.400 --> 39:40.310
In Oregon, where I'm from,
logging was a good way to make

39:40.306 --> 39:41.146
money.

39:41.150 --> 39:43.390
I never did it,
but when you're in college.

39:43.389 --> 39:45.649
And, so, the wood is leaving
the forests.

39:45.650 --> 39:49.130
People are getting even richer
and the peasants are out of

39:49.132 --> 39:49.562
luck.

39:49.559 --> 39:51.109
Why are they out of luck?

39:51.110 --> 39:54.800
Because what the big-money
people do that own the forest is

39:54.802 --> 39:57.802
they do exactly what the wealthy
did in England,

39:57.795 --> 39:59.255
the big landowners.

39:59.260 --> 40:00.430
They get the law on their side.

40:00.429 --> 40:01.849
What a surprise.

40:01.849 --> 40:03.789
They have their lobbyists.

40:03.789 --> 40:04.929
They get the law on their side.

40:04.929 --> 40:11.069
They pass a new forest code in
1827 that keeps ordinary people

40:11.070 --> 40:16.810
out of the forests to which they
had always had access.

40:16.809 --> 40:18.359
They always had access.

40:18.360 --> 40:19.850
They can't go there anymore.

40:19.849 --> 40:23.619
They go up there and they find
armed guards there.

40:23.619 --> 40:28.579
They are many and the guards
are few and they scare the hell

40:28.579 --> 40:31.859
out of them and they drive them
away.

40:31.860 --> 40:35.790
The mayors of these little
villages, Massat--I love to go

40:35.788 --> 40:36.348
there.

40:36.349 --> 40:38.129
I've written about it.

40:38.130 --> 40:39.450
Massat was one of the mayors.

40:39.449 --> 40:40.669
He's in a difficult position.

40:40.670 --> 40:43.110
He knows damn well who is
causing the troubles,

40:43.106 --> 40:44.956
les troubles,
in the forests,

40:44.960 --> 40:47.240
but he's got to live with these
people.

40:47.239 --> 40:50.429
He isn't going to be telling on
anybody.

40:50.429 --> 40:51.609
I followed this through.

40:51.610 --> 40:56.810
I read this and wrote something
about it in a book I did a long

40:56.811 --> 41:01.511
time ago called 1830 in
France, an edited book.

41:01.510 --> 41:05.620
So, what happens?

41:05.619 --> 41:08.529
Who is Jeanne,
Lieutenant of the Demoiselles?

41:08.530 --> 41:09.290
Jeanne.

41:09.289 --> 41:10.289
Who is she?

41:10.289 --> 41:12.349
She didn't exist either.

41:12.349 --> 41:14.879
She's exactly like Captain
Swing.

41:14.880 --> 41:17.040
She says, "We are many.

41:17.039 --> 41:18.539
We are right.

41:18.539 --> 41:21.399
We have justice on our
side."

41:21.400 --> 41:23.890
By the way, these people did
not speak French.

41:23.889 --> 41:26.949
It was hard for them to find
somebody to write in French

41:26.945 --> 41:29.835
"Your agony will
begin," because they don't

41:29.835 --> 41:30.775
speak French.

41:30.780 --> 41:35.070
They spoke a patois that's very
much influenced by Spanish

41:35.068 --> 41:39.508
that's not even really like
Catalan and certainly nothing to

41:39.510 --> 41:40.940
do with Basque.

41:40.940 --> 41:44.550
It doesn't have anything to do
with anything except vaguely

41:44.547 --> 41:46.037
Hungarian and Finnish.

41:46.039 --> 41:48.949
They write these things and
they said that Jeanne,

41:48.951 --> 41:51.981
the Lieutenant of the
Demoiselles will toast you one

41:51.981 --> 41:54.301
day if you don't leave the
forests.

41:54.300 --> 41:57.610
What they want is they want the
government to restore their

41:57.608 --> 41:58.918
rights in the forest.

41:58.920 --> 42:00.010
Does the government do that?

42:00.010 --> 42:00.720
Are you kidding?

42:00.719 --> 42:01.969
Of course they don't.

42:01.969 --> 42:04.449
Now, 1830 comes along,
"revolution,

42:04.454 --> 42:06.624
liberty, fraternity,
equality, red,

42:06.621 --> 42:08.281
white, and blue."

42:08.280 --> 42:09.100
What do they do?

42:09.099 --> 42:11.999
They say, "Well,
this liberty must mean that we

42:11.996 --> 42:14.606
can have our forests back,
doesn't it?"

42:14.610 --> 42:18.320
One of the interesting things
about this is they become

42:18.318 --> 42:20.788
petitioners just for a little
bit.

42:20.789 --> 42:23.279
They get people who can write
French to petition saying,

42:23.284 --> 42:25.284
"We hear about this
liberty in Paris.

42:25.280 --> 42:28.060
That surely is our forests,
isn't it?"

42:28.059 --> 42:28.909
Un-uh.

42:28.909 --> 42:30.449
The government says,
"Oh, no.

42:30.449 --> 42:34.259
The Forest Code of 1827 is
evermore in use and you can't

42:34.255 --> 42:36.605
have access to the forest."

42:36.610 --> 42:39.260
The forest guards return.

42:39.260 --> 42:43.700
The forest guards return to the
forest, but so do the

42:43.695 --> 42:44.885
demoiselles.

42:44.889 --> 42:48.639
They begin to dress up as women
again.

42:48.639 --> 42:50.849
They lose.

42:50.849 --> 42:52.529
What a surprise.

42:52.530 --> 42:54.190
They're driven away.

42:54.190 --> 42:57.010
Why do they dress up as women?

42:57.010 --> 43:02.040
One thing they do,
mocking the charcoal workers

43:02.039 --> 43:08.709
also, they put charcoal on their
face and they wear sheets.

43:08.710 --> 43:11.590
They try to make them look like
dresses.

43:11.590 --> 43:14.040
Why as women?

43:14.039 --> 43:15.669
It's more than a disguise.

43:15.670 --> 43:18.840
What it is is an enraged
carnival.

43:18.840 --> 43:22.700
If you think of carnival,
think of Mardi Gras,

43:22.699 --> 43:29.569
anywhere in Christian Europe,
what you do during carnival,

43:29.570 --> 43:32.440
look at the floats in New
Orleans when everybody's getting

43:32.436 --> 43:34.596
wasted and dressing up in
various things.

43:34.599 --> 43:39.839
The old version of that was
that you dressed up like you're

43:39.844 --> 43:41.024
exploiters.

43:41.018 --> 43:44.558
The three or four days you
could mock the judge who handed

43:44.561 --> 43:45.991
out unfair sentences.

43:45.989 --> 43:51.119
You could mock the big fat
noble who had seigneurial rights

43:51.117 --> 43:52.087
over you.

43:52.090 --> 43:54.180
You could mock the
gendarmes,

43:54.184 --> 43:56.344
who you thought treated you
badly.

43:56.340 --> 43:57.240
You could pretend.

43:57.239 --> 44:01.839
It was a carnival,
but an enraged carnival.

44:01.840 --> 44:06.380
During carnival you stand the
world on its head.

44:06.380 --> 44:09.220
What you did in this case is
you dressed up as women,

44:09.215 --> 44:11.665
reversing reality from their
point of view.

44:11.670 --> 44:14.110
This enraged carnival is
intended,

44:14.110 --> 44:16.130
rather like the
charivari,

44:16.130 --> 44:21.460
the shivaree in English,
in which you pound on pots and

44:21.456 --> 44:25.526
pans outside the house of a
couple or a woman,

44:25.530 --> 44:28.130
for example,
who has married somebody from

44:28.126 --> 44:28.796
another village.

44:28.800 --> 44:32.130
You try to set things right
again by pounding and calling

44:32.128 --> 44:35.758
attention to a misdeed that has
violated the communal sense of

44:35.755 --> 44:36.465
justice.

44:36.469 --> 44:38.039
That's what these people are
doing.

44:38.039 --> 44:40.529
They're saying,
"Respect us.

44:40.530 --> 44:42.060
Respect justice."

44:42.059 --> 44:43.729
And, so, they're dressing up
like women.

44:43.730 --> 44:45.430
They're standing the world on
its head.

44:45.429 --> 44:49.059
It's an enraged,
deadly serious carnival.

44:49.059 --> 44:52.849
They'll shoot at these people
and beat the hell out of them

44:52.847 --> 44:54.347
when they catch them.

44:54.349 --> 45:01.019
So, Jean, the lieutenant of the
demoiselles, represents justice

45:01.021 --> 45:06.941
and this kind of acting out of
this enraged carnival.

45:06.940 --> 45:10.780
It's more than a disguise.

45:10.780 --> 45:11.980
But they don't win.

45:11.980 --> 45:14.230
Captain Swing doesn't win,
either.

45:14.230 --> 45:15.500
They're arrested.

45:15.500 --> 45:17.410
They're put on trial.

45:17.409 --> 45:20.929
Some of them are put in jail.

45:20.929 --> 45:25.689
But in the end,
they come back at the end of

45:25.693 --> 45:30.573
1830,1831, some in 1832,
if I remember right,

45:30.568 --> 45:36.108
1848 they're back,
1872, but then never again.

45:39.902 --> 45:43.332
in the second half of the
nineteenth century.

45:43.329 --> 45:46.579
These people can't make it in
the forest anymore.

45:46.579 --> 45:48.989
They can't go into the forest
anymore.

45:48.989 --> 45:52.179
They can't survive with their
little plots of land.

45:52.179 --> 45:53.259
So, they bail out.

45:53.260 --> 45:54.550
They get out.

45:54.550 --> 45:57.890
Their great, great,
great grandchildren,

46:00.090 --> 46:05.050
the aircraft factories in
Toulouse,

46:05.050 --> 46:07.630
or go to Bordeaux,
or go to Paris,

46:07.630 --> 46:11.240
or go to Agen,
or end up somewhere else.

46:11.239 --> 46:14.769
The demoiselles,
like Captain Swing,

46:14.768 --> 46:19.818
like these grain rioters in all
of these countries,

46:19.820 --> 46:24.670
in Spain, in Britain,
in Prussia, everywhere,

46:24.670 --> 46:29.680
these are the remnants of what
people viewed as a traditional

46:29.677 --> 46:34.427
way of doing things that at
least was infused with a sense

46:34.434 --> 46:38.814
of the proper,
a sense of popular justice.

46:38.809 --> 46:43.009
The demoiselles tried to stand
the world on its head during

46:43.010 --> 46:45.050
carnival,
and tried to get people to do

46:45.052 --> 46:49.252
the right thing,
to return the forests to them,

46:49.250 --> 46:54.090
to get the threshing machines
the hell out of the big farms in

46:54.086 --> 46:57.826
Kent and other places,
restore grain and bread to a

46:57.826 --> 47:01.336
reasonable price so everybody
could have a shot at buying

47:01.338 --> 47:01.838
some.

47:01.840 --> 47:05.760
But in the end,
they lose out to this dynamic

47:05.755 --> 47:10.735
duo, this more powerful duo,
the state and capitalism.

47:10.739 --> 47:15.759
It's bitter hard to write the
history of remainders.

47:15.760 --> 47:21.000