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UMI University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Z eeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9014397 Crime and the transition to modernity in nineteenth century France: The Morbihan, 1825—1925, a case study Bisson, Cynthia Story, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1989 UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Aibor, MI 48106 CRIME AND THE TRANSITION TO MODERNITY IN NINETEENTH CENTURY FRANCE: THE MORBIHAN, 1825-1925, A CASE STUDY DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Cynthia Story Bisson, B.A., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University Dissertation Committee Approved by John A.M. Rothney John C. Rule AdvIser James Bartholomew Department of Hldltory VITA May 20. 1953 ................... Born - Lexington, Kentucky 1975 ............................ B.A., Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky 1979 ............................ M.A., Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky 1987 ............................ Assistant Adjunct Professor, Department of History and Political Science, Belmont College, Nashville, Tennessee FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Nineteenth Century France Studies in: Ancien Regime France, 1589-1789 Modern Japan European Military and Diplomatic History, 1870-1945 i i TABLE OF CONTENTS V I T A i i LIST OF TABLES ......................................... iv LIST OF FIGURES ........................................v CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION ............................... 1 II. THE MORBIHAN AND THE MORBIHANNAIS .......... 21 III. THE AGENCIES OF CHANGE ...................... 69 IV. THE PATTERN OF CRIME .......................... 109 V. CONCLUSION................ 142 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................ 151 i i i LIST OF TABLES TABLE PAGE 1. Population of the Morbihan. 1821-1926 . 28 2. Urban/Rural Population, 1846-1921 .... 30 3. Population by Arrondissement. 1821-1921 . 31 4. Population Density by Arrondissement. 1861-1921 .............................. 3L 5. Population by Age. 1851-1921 ........... 34 6. Crops Grown in the Morbihan, 1840-1929 . 48 7. Roads in the Morbihan, 1834-1925 .... 79 8. Literacy Among Army Recruits, 1831-1859 . 95 9. Literacy Among Army Recruits, 1898-1922 . 97 10. Literacy in the Morbihan, 1866-1921 . 99 11. Theft Rates in the Morbihan, the Seine Inférieure, and France, 1825-1925 . 114 12. Theft Rates by Arrondissement. 1825-1925 .............................. 121 13. Assault and Battery Rates in the Morbihan, the Seine-Inférieure, and France, 1825-1925 .............................. 123 14. Assault and Battery Rates by Arrondissement. 1825-1925 .............................. 127 15. Homicide Rates in the Morbihan, the Seine- Infërieure, and France, 1825-1925 . 128 16. Assault and Battery and Theft Rates in the Morbihan, 1825-1925 ................... 131 17. Theft-Violence Ratio for the Morbihan. 134 IV LIST OF FIGURES FIGURES PAGE 1. Map of France ....................... 27 2. Map of the M o r b i h a n ................ 27 3. Population by Age and S e x ..........36 4. Completed and Proposed Railway Lines in Brittany, 1878 ........................ 83 5. Assault and Battery and Theft Rates in the Morbihan, 1825-1925 ............. 132 6. Crimes Against Persons, 1831-1880 . 136 7. Violence: Felonies and Misdemeanors, 1878-1887 ............................. 138 8. Assault and Battery and Theft Rates in the Morbihan, 1825-1925 ............. 145 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In Peasants Into Frenchmen, his brilliant study of the modernization of rural France in the 19th century, Eugen Weber noted that "... we have no rigorous analysis of court records to give us a view of rural crime in its specific detail."' Moreover, no study exists of a rural département in the nineteenth century which tells whether or not patterns of crime changed during this period, and, if they did why they changed. I propose to fill this gap in the history of rural France and the study of crime by analyzing the court records and statistics for the Morbihan, a rural département in Brittany. I shall examine patterns of rural crime and determine when and why they changed in the first century during which national crime statistics were recorded in France, 1825 to 1925. My findings will enable me to construct a "moral portrait" of the Morbihan from the available evidence and also demonstrate how it changed between 1825 and 1925. Before beginning a discussion of patterns of crime in ’Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchment The Modernization of Rural France (Palo Alto, 1978), 53. 2 the Morbihan, however, it is necessary to know the types of crime patterns discerned by historians of crime for this period, and why they think these patterns change. Historians of crime have discerned three patterns of crime: traditional, modern, and transitional.^ A higher rate of crimes against persons than of property crimes marks traditional crime patterns, while modern crime patterns reveal a higher rate of property crimes than of crimes against persons. This phenomena is the result of the decline in the rate of crimes against persons in modern crime patterns. Transitional crime patterns also show higher rates of property crimes than of crimes against persons but the rate of crimes against persons continues ^Howard Zehr, Crime and the Development of Modern Society. (London, 1976), 12, 82, 133, 138, 141: Louise Shelley, Crime and Modernization:_____ The Impact of Industrialization and Urbanization on Crime CCarbondale, 111., 1981), 19-20, 35-36. Pre-modern and modern patterns of crime are set forth in Abdul Lodhi and Charles Tilly, "Urbanization, Crime, and Collective Violence in 19th Century France," in the American Journal of Sociology. Vol 79, no. 2, 1973, 296-318. In David Cohen and Eric A. Johnson, "French Criminality: Urban-Rural Differences in the Nineteenth Century," Journal of Interdisciplinary History. XIII: 3 (Winter, 1982), 477-501, urban crime patterns resemble those patterns Zehr called modern, while rural crime patterns are similar to Zehr's traditional crime patterns. Modern crime patterns are also described in Ted Robert Gurr, "Development and Decay," in History and Crime: Implications for criminal Justice Policy. edited by James A. Inciardi and Charles Faupel (London, 1980). 3 to rise.s Why, then, do patterns of crime change? According to many historians of crime, the changes accompany modernization. Traditional crime patterns occur in traditional societies; modern crime patterns occur in modern societies. Transitional crime patterns occur in societies that are no longer traditional, but not yet modern.* Most historians of crime define modern society as urban and industrial, while traditional societies are rural and agricultural.= Historians of crime expressed the relationship between the development of society and changing patterns of crime in several works; however they usually limited their studies to areas that experienced the rapid changes of urbanization and industrialization. Two important examples are Howard Zehr's Crime and the Development of Modern Society and Louise Shelley's Crime and =Zehr, Crime and Development. 82-83, 133, 138; Shelley, Crime and Modernization. 19-20, 24-25, 36; Gurr, "Development and Decay," 34; Cohen and Johnson, "French Criminality," 485-486. *Shelley, Crime and Modernization, xiii, 4, 19, 22; Gurr, "Development and Decay," 31; Zehr, Crime and Development. 9, 12; Cohen and Johnson, "French Criminality," 495; Lodhi and Tilly, "Urbanization," 296; Gabriel Désert, "Aspects de la criminalité en France et en Normandie" in Marginalité, deviance, et pauvreté en France XIV*-XIX* siècles (Caen, 1981) 243-270. “Shelley, Crime and Modernization. 4, 19-21; Zehr, Crime and Development. 21-22, 134; Cohen and Johnson, "French Criminality," 478. 4 Modernization. In Crime and the Development of Modern Society. Zehr seeks to discover the impact of modernization on patterns of crime in France