The Aude Before Vineyard Monoculture

The grain-growing economy of the Aude was in part a product of the mercantilist policy of the ancien régime, where governments strictly controlled the planting of vineyards and even fined peasants for planting new vines without government authorization. Once these restrictions disappeared with the revolution of 1789, however, grains continued to dominate the Audois economy for the next fifty years, and vines remained "une affaire de gagne petit," something to bring in a bit of money on the side.^[2] In fact, most southern wine never appeared on Audois tables but went off to distilleries in Narbonne and Carcassonne, to produce eau de vie and the 3/6 liqueur for which the department was known; these products were then shipped to Bordeaux, Rouen, Paris, and sometimes abroad.^[3] Thus, unlike the self-sufficient peasant economies of other parts of France, the mixed capitalist agricultural economy of the Aude was already highly commercial and market-oriented at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Wheat also brought Audois farmers and merchants important commercial links with the region and with the rest of France. Audois wheat growers regularly exported their surpluses to other Mediterranean departments—the Hérault, Gard, Bouches-du-Rhône, and the Alpes-Maritimes—via the bustling commercial centers of Carcassonne and Narbonne. In either town they could link up with the Canal du Midi, the lifeline by which goods traveled to markets east and west; or they could take their goods by road to the port of La Nouvelle, just south of Narbonne, where they could reach Cette, Marseille, and Toulon by boat. In addition to their agricultural commerce, towns like Carcassonne, Limoux, Montolieu, Cennes-Monesties, and Chalabre, possessed large-scale draperies that also carried on a lively export trade. Finally, small-scale protoindustry, most of it homebased, flourished in Audois villages in the first half of the nineteenth century: forges in the southwest near Quillan; masonry,

caskmaking, and carpentry; tailoring, shoemaking, and dressmaking. In 1836, the census of Coursan listed four blacksmiths, four butchers, three carpenters and cabinetmakers, two turners, two coopers, two weavers, three locksmiths, three harnessmakers, a wigmaker, a miller, and two seamstresses! There was one café in the village.^[4] Generally speaking, then, commercial exchange was central to the economy of large towns like Carcassonne and Narbonne, as well as to the economy of smaller bourgs in the eastern half of the department, such as Coursan and Lézignan.

During the early 1800s, in the period of mixed agricultural capitalism, virtually everyone in most Audois villages owned some land—artisans, tradesmen, shepherds, workers, and even unskilled laborers (Table 1).^[5] In Coursan, only foremen (ramonets ) and farmhands (domestiques )—individuals who usually came from outside the department—did not make their way into the ranks of landowners in this period. Most propertyholders in Coursan in these years owned tiny pieces of land (less than one hectare). About one-third of the landowners held larger properties of between one and five hectares, and they relied on family labor. Baptiste Rouge, for example, a shoemaker, owned two hectares, which he farmed part-time with his wife, Louise, and their twelve-year-old son. Antoine Hérail, a harnessmaker, his eighteen-year-old son Antoine, also a harnessmaker, and his wife, Claire, worked that family's two and one-half hectares.^[6] Ownership of even a small piece of land for most of these people could provide a comfortable supplement to income and a cushion against unemployment.

Owners of properties of between six and twenty hectares and larger required wage labor and mules or horses to cultivate their land. Most of these holdings consisted of small parcels scattered throughout the village (biens du village ), although a few proprietors owned large estates of over twenty hectares en bloc . These independent property owners dominated the cereal-based economy in Coursan. In Coursan, eight large farms employed local, unskilled wage laborers (brassiers ) for plowing, sowing, and harvesting. Not surprisingly, as in all societies in which the ownership of land is a major determinant of social status, the owners of these large farms occupied positions of power and prestige in

the local community, dominating local politics. Men such as Esprit Tapié, André Salaman, and Antoine Givernais from Coursan canton sat on the department Conseil général and on municipal councils and served as justices of the peace and mayors (as did Henri Emmanuel Sabatier and Joseph Hérail, of Coursan). Few of these men actually tilled the soil themselves.

Nonlandowning workers and tradesmen in the previneyard years relied on wages that were barely adequate for subsistence. Although skilled workers like masons and carpenters earned respectable daily wages of between 2.75 and 4 francs, in the late 1840s agricultural workers in the Aude earned only from 1 to 1.50 francs per day (at this time a two-kilogram loaf of bread cost about 20 centimes). Occasionally employers paid agricultural workers in kind with potatoes and beans or gave them meals on the farm. Even worse, male workers in the local textile industry earned only 75 centimes per day, and women 50 centimes.^[7] Employers were able to keep wages low because they could rely on these workers' labor all year round and did not need to hire them away from tilling their own land.