Personal serfdom was virtual slavery. In his drive to break with feudalism Napoleon abolished it in most of Europe except Russia and Austria. The Austrian Empire abolished it in 1848, the Russian Empire in 1861. The Brits maintained serf tenure in various forms until 1922, but serf tenure wasn't personal serfdom.
AII
The bloody trouble is we are only alive when we’re half dead trying to get a paragraph right. - Paul Scott
Slavery ended when the French troops arrived.
It was re-instated where the forces of reaction prevailed, from Russian serfdom to Anglo capitalism. (Rather ten hours picking cotton in the sun than fourteen hours weaving it in a cold and damp Manchester spinnery!)
The subject is 'slavery in Europe', you self-loathing cultural-marxist.
Quite apart from that, Haiti was fully inspired by the French revolution. A bit of a mini-me. As the story soon became excruciatingly complicated of who supported what, soon French troops were supressing a revolution in the Americas.
Last edited by Louis VI the Fat; 07-30-2011 at 12:53.
The bloody trouble is we are only alive when we’re half dead trying to get a paragraph right. - Paul Scott
Well a revolution that started with limiting the role of the king ended with its strongest defender declaring himself emperor.
That's why French history is awesome. Russia: who controls the baton that keeps the peasants down. Germany: symphonies and cathedrals interspersed by brief bouts of teutonic fury. England: God save the queen, and what fortune the silly masses think so too. Italy: let's see if we can build more splendid art than we can let rot away.
Not France. Her history is endlessly complicated, refined, twisted and turned, where nothing is what it seems and yet rationality emerged as the first thing a Frenchman will name as his typical national virtue.
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