Poverty in France: A Review
The document, "Poverty in France" sounds almost familiar. In reading this I was correlating it with the United States current welfare program. We in the United States as a country make sure that those of who are poverty stricken are provided with the necessary tools to survive. These tools are formed in a way such that it reminds me of Bourdonnaye's proposed and accepted plan in eighteenth century France. M. de la Bourdonnaye knew that the people would do what ever they could to survive. He knew that if the taxes were not lowered than a lot would starve to death because they would have no money for food. He also knew that if the people who sold the seed were aware of how much power they had, because they were going to be the only ones to have the seed, they would take advantage of the people and charge an insane amount of money. This in turn would be nothing but trouble causing chaos and "riots". He proposed the plan that the beggars be weeded out with the poor who actually were willing to work in starting up a "work program". This would be good not only for the people in need of work but good it would provide much needed labor. The nature of poverty in France in the eighteenth century seemed to be concerning and generous. Mostly through out history we hear of the poor being treated like they were garbage, but not here. The Intendant of Bordeaux came up with a good plan to better the general population. It is refreshing that the king noticed this IS a problem that had to be fixed and made the necessary changes. Those of who were poverty stricken were provided with enough rations to survive, these rations would be paid for by the king. These rations would be stored out of the merchants hands so they could not use and abuse the people, the taxes were suspended AND work was provided. The nature in my opinion to say the least was caring and generous. The king and higher officials realized just in time that since they were in the position of running the country that