factories — in hundreds of localities the small industry undergoes a complete modification, or it changes its character in such cases — than in the decay of the population as agriculturists. Continually we see that only when the small landholders have been ruined, as such, by a group of causes — the loss of communal meadows, or abnormally high rents, or the havoc made in some locality by the marchands de biens (swindlers enticing the peasants to buy land on credit), or the bankruptcy of some shareholders’ company whose shares had been eagerly taken by the peasants140 — only then do they abandon both the land and the rural industry and emigrate towards the towns.
Otherwise, a now industry always grows up when the competition of the factory becomes too acute — a wonderful, hardly suspected adaptability being displayed by the small industries; or else the rural artisans resort to some form of intensive farming, gardening, etc., and in the meantime some other industry makes its appearance. A closer study of France under