Visiting a Winegrower’s House in the Time of Balzac: An inventaire après décès from 1836

Attempts to reconstruct the material conditions of low-income rural residents of early nineteenth-century France are limited by a scarcity of documentation. One type of legal document, however, the inventaire après décès, proves especially useful in this regard, furnishing a wealth of detailed information on the dwelling and possessions of certain individuals whose entire property is meticulously recorded in the document. The example chosen by way of illustration inventories the property of a winegrower living in northern France in 1836.