Page:Nicolae Iorga - My American lectures.djvu/73

 of bondage then prevalent in Transylvania: the peasants were no longer allowed to quit their former hereditary properties.

The « philosophy » of the 18th century brought some measure of comfort to the unlawfully despoiled farmers, of whom only a small minority had preserved their liberty. The philanthropic prince Constantin Mavrocordato consecrated, by the most solemn ceremonies of State and Church, the absolute equality of « villagers », no longer serfs, with the rest of the population. Thus, freedom was regained: not so property.

In the year 1834 by a new Constitution for both States, (the so-called Règlement Organique) the right of servitude upon their own soil was granted to the peasant, whose departure thence, however, was conditional upon the onerous task of paying all his debts. New regulations followed, the landlords endeavouring to retain the utmost possible of their diminished powers. After the union of the Principalities in 1859, a coup d’ètat (1864) was required before the elected Prince, Alexander Cuza, could proceed to the transformation of this servitude into that of property-holding by right.

But this was not all. The peasant had no capital, no direction and no solidarity. His right to the forest and to the grazing lands was not yet recognised. The natural increase of the population resulted in the appearance of some millions of landless peasants. Revolts broke out. Holding eighty per cent of the national soil, the landlords, most of them possessing neither historical nor national right thereto, but having the political power in their hands (the peasants voted in what was known as the third college, the illiterate of them only indirectly), resisted.

The Roumanian campaign in Bulgaria in 1913 was necessary before the landowners would recognise the benefits