Revolt of the tramps

The revolt of the tramps (sometimes called flip-flop ) is a popular rising which touched the Normandy in 1639 following the decision of Louis XIII to found the gabelle in the Cotentin in the place of the privilege of quarter-bubble.

Context

The rising of the Flip-flops is the result of a succession of disorders or “emotions” which agitate Normandy since more than one decade. For a long time the royal budget is in deficit (of 58 million books in 1639 for a total of expenditure of 172 million). The royalty has recourse, to be financed, with tax expédients. Normandy, one of the richest provinces of the kingdom, is put at strong contribution. Each time the tax pressure causes disorders, such as for example with Rouen in 1623, to protest against the obligation to buy with the tax department the loads of brouettiers, ragmen… or in 1628 and 1634 to protest against a tax on the marking of leather.

Starting from 1635, the French military intervention in the Guerre Thirty Year old increases the tax pressure, whereas the epidemics of plague limited harvests and the commercial exchanges, and thus the money re-entries necessary to the payment of the taxes. In 1636, the creation of the news Généralité of Alençon makes it possible to sell 57 “offices”, the creation of the Court of the Assistances of Caen 93 “offices”, the creation of the new Election of Saint-Lo 41 “offices”. The royal cases are reinflated but the old and new “officers” record a fall of the incomes of their “offices”. In December 1636, the cities are subjected to the compulsory loan: Rouen must sell part of its real inheritance. In January 1639, the creation of a loan compulsory on the “easy” inhabitants obliges them to provide the list of their inheritance.

In January 1639, the government decides to remove the privilege of quarter-bubble from which Cotentin profited. One made boil salted sand: a quarter of the production was allocated to the king (who resold it with tax), the three remaining quarters were marketed by the producers (without tax). From now on all the production is subjected to the gabelle ) and is sold exclusively in the royal attics with salt to facilitate control of it, which triples the price of salt.

Unfolding

The July 16th 1639, Charles Poupinel, charged to collect the taxes, is assassinated by the population of Avranches. The disorders are spread quickly in the whole of the area, until Caen, Rouen and Bayeux. The general of the insurrectionists, Jean Quetil, takes the name of Jean Nu-Pied.

The Jacquerie gathers almost all the social categories: the peasants (manouvriers, salt makers…), of Plowman S, of Clerk, of Gentleman S, (often impoverished), which takes care of the military exercise, but also of small the robins which is jealous of the officers of gabelle who succeeded.

According to their predecessors in the area, the Gautiers which supported the catholic Ligue, their revolt is very nun. They are placed under the patronage of Saint Jean-Baptiste. The priests are very influential in the revolt Norman and frame revolted.

The idea is spread that under the terms of the right old man of the Charte to Norman the of 1315, they are the Norman ones which must fix the tax. There is a strong regional cohesion. The most cultivated insurrectionists write proclamations where the time of the dukes is rented where Normandy was independent but also time of the good kings (Louis XII and Henri IV) where the centralism, as well as the taxes, were weak.

On order of Richelieu which wants to make an example, this sedition is savagely repressed by Jean de Gassion placed under the orders of the chancellor Pierre Séguier. The revolt is finally crushed the November 30th 1639 with Avranches, the persons in charge are judged and the Normans cities lose their privileges.

Etymology

The term “tramp” appears in 1639 in the work of Antoine Fauvelet of the Fake, Histoire of the Secretaries of State , under the C-W communication “Goes nuds feet” then in 1646, in the columns of the Mercure François , under name “Jean goes Nuds-feet”. The expression is at the origin of the substantive “tramp”, of invariable form.

References

Pierre Carel, a riot in Caen under Louis XIII and Richelieu (1639): the revolt of the Flip-flops in Basse-Normandie , Caen, E. Valin, 1886
Madeleine Foisil, the revolt of the flip-flops and the revolts Normans of 1639 , Paris, PUF, 1970;
Jean-Louis Ménard, the revolt of the flip-flops in Normandy at the 17th century , Paris, Dittmar, 2005
Boris Porchnev, popular risings in France of 1623 with 1648 , S.E.V.P.E.N., Paris, 1963; republished under the title popular risings in France at the 17th century , Flammarion, Paris, 1972.

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