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pure convenience, the heart of a father revolts against the idea of abandoning to the hardships of poverty, the children whom the wrongs of fortune for the most part only render more dear to him. Uneasy as to their future condition, he tries to prevent them from falling into indigence; he leaves them all that he has in freehold estate, stock, and moveable effects; at need he cuts down his woods, and reduces his rents for a sum in hand; and the same things being repeated from one generation to another, the time arrives when the privileged heirs have only a property reduced in value, and which they are unable to dispose of.

To so many causes of impoverishment are joined other fruits, no less bitter, of the injustice of privilege. Without authority over a son whose fortune is independent of him, a father has no means of repressing his irregularities. On the other hand, family quarrels, springing from the jealousy which the inequality of division gives rise to betwixt brothers, cruelly disturb his repose; he foresees the time when his younger children, thrown upon the world without other support than a distinguished name, will have to struggle against the attacks of poverty; he sees his daughters without any other alternative than a compulsory celibacy, or late and ill-assorted marriages. Truly this is expiating too severely the advantages of supremacy, is paying too dear a price for the trappings of vanity!

Let us consider what advantages the nobility united to the exclusive possession of a vast portion of the soil, and we shall be astonished at the activity of the causes which led to its decline. In the greater part of the monarchies and principalities of Europe, it did not support the burdens of the social state, of which all the

advantages were its own. It was exempted from local and general taxation; it enjoyed an exclusive right to military offices, to the higher functions of the judiciary order, and to the benefices of the Church. In France especially, nothing was spared to add to the prosperity of noble families; they alone were received at court, and partook of the royal bounty; there were few ministers who did not think it their duty to add to the means of opulence and distinction which they enjoyed; but it was in vain that the public revenues were lavished on them,-that schools were opened for the education of their children,—that there remained reserved for them a number of places, employments, sinecures and pensions; all these advantages were found insufficient, and the cries of distress which they set up during every reign, proved that there is no solid and durable prosperity out of the sphere of justice and equality.

It is a thing well worthy of remark, that while the inferior classes, struggling against the inequality of institutions, found in their industry the means of raising themselves to an increasing height of prosperity, the privileged castes were seen falling from their primitive grandeur, and suffering from indigence upon that soil which was exclusively theirs.

Besides, it is to be noticed, that for a long time the French nobility complained of the obstacles to their activity which entails imposed. In the States General of 1560 and 1615, it made a great effort to obtain the suppression of entails; and the edict which limited them to three races in the provinces where the law was consuetudinary, was the result of that move

ment.

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If at a late period it seemed to have changed its opinion, it is because circumstances were no longer the same. Under the reign of Louis XIV. the number of quarterings of nobility became a positive title of royal preference to a number of lucrative places; from that time it was of consequence for the provincial nobility to be able to prove the antiquity of their race; and as the possession of the domains, to which were attached the names and arms of their families, offered them the surest means of this, these nobles became reconciled to the institutions destined to perpetuate them.

CHAPTER IX.

ON A TERRITORIAL ARISTOCRACY CONSIDERED IN ITS CONNEXION WITH PUBLIC LIBERTY.

EVERY privileged body that has existed has justified its prerogatives by contending that they are necessary for the general weal. So long as princes sovereignly disposed of the power of the state, the nobility held itself out as the natural safeguard of their rights, and pretended that their respective interests were so completely identified, that everything which went to restrain its peculiar advantages, would infallibly diminish the security of the throne. When the progress of wealth and intelligence had made a power of the people, this language was of necessity modified; it was then argued that aristocratical privileges were the surest ramparts of national liberties; and that if the nobility had at times been a check on the sallies of the

democracy, it had no less served to repress the encroachments of the arbitrary power of the monarchs. An opinion so favourable to the maintenance of privileged bodies was likely to be received the more easily that history seemed to attest its correctness.

How can it, indeed, be questioned, that, without the stubborn resistance of the great vassals, the royal power, prematurely exercised over a population too ignorant and weak to make itself respected, would have crushed the germs of development to which we are indebted for the benefits of a progressive civilization? But can we truly and sincerely honour the aristocracy for a result which emanated from no generous feeling or liberal sentiment? It was for power and dominion that it battled; and if victory had crowned the efforts of the barons, there are numerous examples to warrant us in believing that they would not have left to the inferior classes more liberty than the nobles of Poland granted to their peasantry.

The appearance of a third power on the political stage came fortunately to dissipate this danger. Unable to make head against their vassals, kings favoured the establishment of communes; the latter in a short time threw an important weight into the balance, and thenceforth a sort of ponderation, the effect of the combination of the social forces, tempered the violence of their action. Thus were born the liberties of checks and counterpoises, a species of liberties too highly extolled, since, on an analysis of them, they are found to be the mere results of a truce made betwixt powers equally selfish and pernicious.

Still these liberties, such as they were, were better than anarchy or despotism. Introduce into the empires

of the East privileged bodies, give them wealth and power, and there will soon be formed a nucleus of identical interests and opinions, which, setting bounds to the inordinate caprices of the despot, will render the condition of the people more tolerable. But let us not be deceived on this point: it is not liberty; it is neither the honour, the surety, nor the industrial interests of the inferior classes, which the castes invested with a factitious superiority seek to protect; these bodies only bestir themselves for the maintenance or the increase of their own distinct and special rights; and their temporary utility is owing, as Montesquieu says, to this, that every evil which sets limits to despotism is a good.

Besides, if we appeal to facts, the state of the people in past ages amply proves that they never found in the use which the aristocracy made of its power, the slightest indemnity for the sacrifices which its prerogatives imposed on them. If, from the concurrence of various unusual circumstances, the English nobility laboured in concert with the Commons for repressing the abuses of royalty, this extraordinary fact has no parallel in history; and in the rest of Europe we saw the people insulted, oppressed, and trampled on by the feudal barons, assisting the monarchs in overturning them. It is nevertheless certain that it was in the power of the aristocracy to obviate the abasement and ruin which this alliance of the kings and the people made them undergo. By making certain concessions, it would have changed the temper and feeling of its vassals ; but in order to that it would have been necessary to bestow on these villains the advantages of liberty, to emancipate them from an odious and

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