Philippe d'IRIBARNE: The image of the serf "cutable and corvéable at will" remains present in the imagination. Why did a reform that passed without great difficulty in all European countries have so much difficulty in passing in our country? We cannot understand what is happening without taking into account the way in which a solution has been found, in France as it has been elsewhere.
The path of conciliation that prevailed everywhere was marked by a traditional image of a free man.