De la citoyenneté proclamée à la citoyenneté appliquée : l'exercice du droit de vote dans le district d'Arras en 1790

Abstract

The property-based electoral system ordered by the Constituent Assembly aims both at involving the citizen into responsibilities and the new socio-political order, and at restricting the access to actual responsibilities to those whose success qualifies as the most capable of managing public affairs. The comparison of the list of active and eligible citizens, of the ballot reports, etc., shows that, in the district of Arras, about three quarters of the male citizens aged 25 and more qualify as active ; this global proportion conceals noticeable local variations but basically it is enough mto pursue a non-domestic activity to have a right to vote. On the other hand the eligibility income criterion, from the moment when it is more rigorously applied bars from the access to elective functions half the active citizens : its leaves aside, in particular, the majority of those who are economically dependent. Beyond the legal definition of citizenship, the variation of participation in the many ballots of 1790 (high rural participation rate and urban abstention to municipal elections, neglect of the May 1790 primary assemblies mostly composed of eligible citizens), as well as the recruiting of the elected reveal a complex dynamics of commitment to or, on the contrary, of non-implication in the process of power devolution through voting. Earlier practices in matters of collective decision-making and the exercising of local power account, partly the problem of the stabilization of a regime which proclaims an equal right to citizenship for everybody but reserves the actual exercise of this right only to a minority.