The Napoleonic Cadaster (land registry)
(Cadastre napoléonien – Section I de la commune de Caen)
I’ve compiled a list quotes about the Cadaster in France. According to the exhibition by the European Union’s digital collections, Europeana, the Napoleonic Cadaster was “a tool for equality before the law”.
“In an attempt to make sure that these obligations were equitable, Bonaparte in the Year X ordered the formation of a commission to determine how to allocate real-estate taxes with the greatest possible equality. The commission demanded a survey of ownership. Its recommendation was in keeping with the feeling of the Revolutionaries that only a Cadaster, or general survey of the whole nation for appraisal purposes, could make sure everybody paid his fair share; the Convention had ordered a general Cadaster in 1793, but, despite increasing evidence of the need for one, it was begun only under the Consulate.”
— Robert B. Holtman, The Napoleonic Revolution
“Land tenure was better established with the creation of the Cadastre, decided on June 30, 1802, tested from November 2 and extended on October 20, 1803. This Cadastre (the idea of which had been under study since the beginning of the Revolution) was to make it possible to make the land contribution fairer by giving their true value to the plots.”
— Thierry Lentz, Le Grand Consulat
“A law of September 15, 1807, ordered a general survey of each parcel of land, such as the Convention had had in mind. Until the survey was completed in a commune, the value of a parcel of land was to be determined by acts of sale or by the amount charged for leases. The principle of stability of cadastral evaluations laid down by the 1807 law, that an assessment would remain fixed for a long time and would be changeable only with respect to gains or losses of taxable items, has governed French evaluation ever since.”
— Robert B. Holtman, The Napoleonic Revolution
“The cadastre was improved and enhanced under Napoleon with the so-called 'Napoleonian cadastre' (1807). It allowed a fairer taxation, taking into account the rental value of each parcel and the income of each owner. His system was implemented, often complementing existing ones, in several countries such as the Netherlands, Germany and Italy, in which we still find the traces in nowadays cadastre. Far from being only a tax instrument, the cadastre aims to bring equality of all before the law. Therefore property tax can no longer be linked to social conditions: it is now an individual matter, and property is recognised as a sacred and inviolable right.”
— (Europeana exhibition: Napoleon and urbanism in the 19th century / City planning)
“He was inordinately proud of having overseen the introduction of the cadastre, the land registry, which he described as being tantamount to a new constitution in itself, since it fixed everyone's rights to the property they possessed but also because it fixed their taxable status and therefore their position in society. They no longer needed to fear having their property seized, but in return had to submit to the state, in which they thereby gained a stake.”
— Adam Zamoyski, Napoleon: A Life
“The state was there to govern and to lead everyone, without exception. To this end, in 1807, Napoleon himself ordered the most ambitious land survey ever undertaken in France, the Cadastre Parcellaire. This sought to register every piece of property in France, according to ownership and usage. France was divided into twelve districts, each with an inspector-general in charge of the survey, and by 1814 9,000 French communes out of a total of 40,000 had been fully surveyed, and the work continued under the Restoration. The practical aim of the survey was to set taxation on a more accurate footing following complaints from officials and property-owners, alike, over the less detailed cadastre drawn up in 1805. Its significance is much wider, however. Napoleon had both the will and the means to undertake the survey; he had the untrammeled power to make landowners open their properties to government agents, and a civil service ready to carry out the work. He told his Finance Minister, ‘Half measures are always a waste of time and money. The only way forward is to survey all the land in all the communes of the empire.’”
— Michael Broers, Europe Under Napoleon
“The general plot land registry, known as ‘Napoleonic’, was set up by the Finance Act dated 15th September 1807 (decree dated 27th January 1808). Like the land registry by crop mass and nature, it allowed for taxation by distribution, a fairer type of taxation since it took into account the rental value of each plot and the income of each owner.”
“A ‘plot’ was defined as a portion of land with the same type of crop and belonging to the same owner. To establish the land registry, the plots of land in each commune were surveyed, mapped and classified according to soil fertility. Properties, whether they were built (such as houses and buildings) or not (such as meadows, vineyards, fields and so on) were identified, along with each plot owner. The project, which included measuring, estimating and drawing plots of land in about 40,000 communes, i.e. several hundred million plots, would be carried out over several decades.”
“In addition to their fiscal purpose, cadastral documents also had an administrative purpose: proving property ownership. The land registry was made up of two main types of documents: topographical land documentation (plans) and handwritten land documentation (registers). Three documents were produced in the 19th century: the plan, the section status and the matrix. The plot plans showed every plot of land in the commune, with each plot being numbered. In section statuses, the plots of land in a section were listed by number and for each of them, the name of the owner, the nomenclature and the tax data on the date the land registry was drawn up were indicated. Cadastral matrices were registers indicating the list of plots belonging to each owner.”
“For each commune, cadastral plans were drawn up in two copies: the minute plan was kept in the commune and was the one on which the chief surveyor worked, and the ‘department’ or ‘prefecture’ copy was kept at the property tax office to which the commune belonged (there was one office per district). The latter copy was deposited in the Department archives.”
— (Napoléon en Seine-et-Marne)
“A general land register is a monstrous operation which will cost more than thirty million and will take at least twenty years. Measuring and evaluating are not the most difficult operations. It is the knowledge of the relationships between the various departments.”
— Antoine Claire Thibaudeau, Mémoires sur le Consulat
“Speaking of the land register, as he had decided on it, the Emperor said that it could have been considered in itself as the true constitution of the Empire, that is to say the guarantee of properties and the independence of each: because once established and the legislature having fixed the tax, each immediately made his own account, and no longer had to fear the arbitrariness of the authority or that of the assessors; which is an essential point, and the surest means of forcing submission.”
— Las Cases, Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène
