5.2.4 Conclusion
By 1650, French law had developed a clear freedom principle, which could be found in a loose collection of rulings based on customary principles of French law, popular tales and scholarly writing.
When black slaves from the colonies first arrived in the metropolis, this principle was acknowledged by the French government. However, as the influx of slaves increased and colonial interests pressed for a solution, the government intervened to limit and eventually abrogate the French freedom principle.Three great pieces of legislation were made to solve the issue, namely the edict of 1716, the declaration of 1738 and the declaration of 1777. There are three points of interest concerning this legislation. First, the legislation became progressively more prohibitive on the introduction of slaves in France. The first legislation left many inroads for masters, the second started to restrict the time of stay in France and the third measure simply banned the entrance of people of colour in France. Second, the legislation showed the development of an evolution from status to race as a basis for policy. Whereas the first two acts were based on the distinction between free and enslaved, the third piece of legislation tried to contain the two categories in the term domestique. Third, none of the three pieces of legislation ever fully succeeded, as all of them partially unravelled soon after they were made.
Barring enforcement from above, it is the situation on the ground which can teach us the most about the French freedom principle. And here we see a bifurcated France. In Paris, less dependent on the colonies for its economic development and influenced by Jansenist thought, the idea of the French freedom principle reigned. The Admiralty of France and the Parlement of Paris consistently ruled in favour of freedom, and even the successful registration of the Declaration of 1777 did not stop this.
This did not happen in cities such as Bordeaux and Nantes. Though we lack an analysis of the judgments of their Admiralty Courts, the fact that they registered the first two pieces of royal legislation without any problems, but opposed the enforcement of the police des noirs, gives us reason to believe that a case such as Catherine Morgan’s was standard procedure in this part of France. Throughout the Ancien Régime then, France was divided in a part which recognised the freedom principle, and a part where the soil had become unfree. That being said, the slave himself had to petition for his freedom in Paris, an avenue which was clearly only open to a small minority of slaves, as masters were clearly not restricted in any other way in their use of slaves serving them in France.Eventually, it took two Revolutions to rid France of slavery. The French Revolution succeeded in eradicating it from French soil a first time, but abolitionism had not gained full strength in France at that point, and it was re-established by Napoléon soon afterwards. Though the number of blacks in France was smaller than before, the freedom principle had been abrogated again. It was only after the July Revolution and right before French colonial slavery itself was permanently abolished in 1848 that the government chose to reassert the French freedom principle for once and for all.