The Attack on Feudalism in Eighteenth-Century France

First published in 2006. Feudalism is normally associated with eighteenth-century France only in its more bizarre survivals, as in The Marriage of Figaro, when his seigneur claims the rights to spend the first night with the bride. If feudalism menat no more in the eighteenth century than a few quaint customs that could tickle an audence at the Comedie Francaise, why did French writers attack it so furiously? The author suggests that contemporary writers saw remnants of the feudal regime as...