ht it
necessary that the constitution of the Provincial Estates should be
reformed. Thanks to a combination, as the _Avis_ declares, of the
municipalities of the towns with the _noblesse_ and the higher order of
the clergy, the _cures_--'that most interesting class of men who are
alone in a position to make the needs of the people understood and to
work for their relief--were entirely excluded from the Provincial
Estates in 1669, as were also the farmers, who alone can supply the
means of perfecting our agriculture.'

'Here,' said the _Avis_, 'is the true cause of the prostration of our
rural interests.' They proposed to apply a remedy by recasting the
representation in the Provincial Estates, and giving 'two deputies out
of three to the rural population.'

This having been done, so that agriculture might get in Artois the voice
which the author of the _Avis_ believed it to have in England, they then
proposed a reconstruction of the system of taxation. On this point they
inclined to adopt, from the South of France, the system of paying the
taxes not in money but in kind. The system of the tithes, too, needed a
complete overhauling, not with the mere object of abolishing the tithes,
but in order that the gross inequalities which the _Avis_ sets forth as
existing, in regard to the impact of the tithes, both territorial and
personal, might be done away with, and the support of religion put upon
a sound basis. This led naturally to a demand for the release of great
areas of valuable soil in Artois from the control of religious
communities, like the Abbey of St.-Waast, not a few of which were no
longer in a condition to put these possessions to the best uses, either
for the Church or for the country. In Artois, as in French Flanders, the
extent of these ecclesiastical domains which had once been an advantage
to the people, is admitted to have become disadvantageous to French
agriculture with the decline of the feudal aristocracy and the growth of
the royal power. Short leases only were granted in general by the Church
and the monasteries, and under these short leases the farmers hesitated
to improve their holdings.

The authors of the _Avis_ desire that it may be made possible to obtain
leases of even twenty-five years which should not be treated by the
Treasury as an 'alienation' of the property leased. With such leases,
they say, 'the farmer would not hesitate to lay out money upon his land,
because he would feel sure o