Community Life

 

in

 

“My Father’s Life”

 

by Nicolas Restif

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TO: Mr. Schwartz

FROM: Denitsa Tilkidjieva

SUBJECT: Family, Community, and Class

DATE: March 9^th, 2002

Main Point

In “My Father’s Life” Restif described the life in a village in his own special way - although to some extent unrealistic and biased, his account is sincere and informative.  The reader receives detailed observations about the way villagers lived, worked, and sustained themselves. As shown by Restif, it was a time of common efforts and joys under the strict rules of patriarchy and social norms.  The historians that commented on his piece draw important relationships present within the community and added to my understanding of this historical work.

Historical Change

It is incredible how Restif’s piece is a biography of three generations.  By describing the full life of Edme (1692-1763), the author gives invaluable insight about Pierre’s life (1670-1730) and his own life as well (1734-1806).  Thus, some important historical changes that occurred at the turn of the eighteenth century come into sight.  When telling of Edme’s adolescence and his early attempts to get married, Restif reveals the dislike that village people had towards the big city and its inhabitants.  Pierre is strongly against the idea of a union between these two communities: “His father, Pierre, had never left his native province, and he held the strangest views about the capital.” (Restif 39). Furthermore, he is absolutely convinced that Parisians have corrupted his son: “Mere hussies! They’d bewitched you!” (Restif 44).  It is interesting to note that Parisians did not in return have a negative view of the village. On the contrary, they considered peasants “active and hard-working young men from the provinces who are thrifty, strong and healthy in mind and body, and without any weaknesses and eccentricities.” (Restif 35).  Having been in touch with this attitude, however, Edme adopts a much more realistic view of the importance of the city-village relationship.  He grows out of his father’s rigid beliefs and proves this by letting his own children associate with the town as much as they want: “The second [daughter] wishes to go to town as an apprentice.  She can go.”  (Restif 98).  He should be very well aware of the “faults of our Parisian admirers” (Restif 33), but allows his daughter to seek happiness beyond the realms of the home village.  All this sums up to the conclusion that villagers needed time to become comfortable in their communication with the city people, and Edme is a sign of this gradual change.

Representation by the Observer

In his strive to portray his father as the ideal peasant, Nicolas Restif probably felt inclined to exaggerate certain details of his life and overlook the importance of other details.  The writer’s representation of community life seems largely biased and molded to fit Edme’s image.  Could it be possible for one man alone to think of so many ways to improve the village life?  The ideas to remove the stones from the soil, replant the vines and avoid the floods could all be products of the common effort of the peasants. It is plausible then that Restif combined the good traits of all peasants and created a composite image of the “good peasant” in the face of Edme.  So although his account of the events could be biased and even untrue in some respects, it is still a worthy source of information.

Realities of the Observed

Nicolas Restif describes the experiences of the peasant community and specifically how the villagers communicated among themselves ideas for improving their lives.  They shared the same advantages and drawbacks of their land; therefore, any successful attempt to make it better was immediately followed.  Restif tells of his father’s innovative methods and how he managed to make his land more fertile by removing rocks, replanting the vines, and keeping the excessive water away.  The fellow villagers quickly picked up such ameliorating practices: “When the inhabitants of Sacy saw how successful he was, they immediately followed his example.”  (Restif 60).  It can be inferred from the text that peasants indeed worked together to improve their lives.  To live a healthy life it was vital for them to extract as much from their lands as possible, and the common effort shows how reasonable and practical they were.

Historian’s Differing Interpretations

Poster speaks of the mutual influence that peasant and the village community have on each other, and he emphasized particularly Edme’s role. Although certainly Edme is a salient figure in his village, he fits in with the other peasantsand is in no way separated from the community: “Whatever Edme did accrued to everyone in Sacy and, when appropriate, was copied by all.  His initiative was bound up with the destiny of Sacy, not just with his own welfare.”  (Poster 225).

Ladurie takes a somewhat different perspective. While talking about the peasant power, he notes: “…various external conflicts raged beneath the surface of village life.  They are only obliquely referred to by Nicolas, but even so they indicate a certain pattern of social forces within the community, a pattern by no means unique in Northern France.”  (Ladurie 258).  He focuses more on the hierarchy in the village and specifically how this hierarchy affected the peasants.  In his opinion, it created desire for power and conflicts.

Connections

In his work “Voyage d’Auvergne” Pierre Jean Baptiste Le Grand d’Aussy describes community life in some detail and focuses on the daily practices of village people.  He writes how “Ordinarily several households get together; and if one of them has a stable that is larger or warmer than the others, that is where the day is spent and the assembly is held.” (d’Aussy 147). Restif, on the other hand, does not pay particular attention to winter life.  Therefore, the comparison is not completely proportional, but the lack of household gatherings in his account cannot be disregarded.  True, the household itself did not consist of the nuclear family only, but also of workers and servants. But it is still a separate unit that (at least in Restif’s account) rarely interacted closely with other units of its kind.

Empathetic Historical Understanding

When Restif speaks of the schoolmaster Berthier, it seems that this worthy person is responsible for building his pupils’ value systems by careful instruction and dedication.  This is supported by the long speeches he gives and the fact that he spent all of his vacation monitoring the children’s actions.  He is portrayed as an unselfish, kind, compassionate, and pious person whose only wish is to help his students lead a good life and be proud of themselves when they grow old. He says, “My dear children, no young boy or girl who tries to remember what I told them will ever go astray.  We are all brothers in this parish.”  (Restif 6).  All of his words convey a semi-religious preaching, which is mixed with lessons about life – how one can help his neighbors, for example.  Later the author notes that people like the “virtuous schoolmaster” and the priest are the ones who guide the people in the village in their moral dilemmas.

“You will discover, if you turn to L’Ecole des Peres the importance that these worthy citizens attached to having a good priest and a good schoolmaster, and you will also come to realise that the well-being of a rural community, high moral standards and, as a result, the prosperity of the State are dependent upon the example of those two men.” (Restif 11)

 

Improvement

The main way in which I tried to improve my writing is by arranging my thoughts more clearly and always supporting them with evidence from the text.  I also tried to go beyond my initial impressions and dig deeper into the matter.  I had particular difficulty with discerning between representation by the observer and realities of the observed, but with Tina, comments and by organizing my evidence, I think I was able to distinguish them well in my paper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Le Grand d’Aussy, Pierre Jean Baptiste. Voyage d’Auvergne. Paris: Eugene Onfroy, 1788, as excerpted in France on the Eve of the Revolution, ed. By Jeffry Kaplow. New York: John Wiley, 1971, pp. 145-48.

Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel.  8: Rétif de la Bretonne as a Social Anthropologist: Rural Burgundy in the Eighteenth Century. from The Mind and Method of the Historian. The University of Chicago Press, 1981, pp. 211-269.

Poster, Mark. Patriarchy and Sexuality: Restif and the Peasant Family. from The Eighteenth Century. 1984, pp. 217-240.

Restif. My Father’s Life.  Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd: 1986, pp. 1-143.