itizens. For of what use would
this precaution be, if there were nothing to gain by it? No one would
think of ordaining that none but astronomers and geographers should be
pilots, nor of prohibiting stutterers from acting at the theatre and
the opera. The nation was still aping the kings: like them it wished
to award the lucrative positions to its friends and flatterers.
Unfortunately, and this last feature completes the resemblance, the
nation did not control the list of livings; that was in the hands of its
agents and representatives. They, on the other hand, took care not to
thwart the will of their gracious sovereign.

This edifying article of the Declaration of Rights, retained in the
charters of 1814 and 1830, implies several kinds of civil inequality;
that is, of inequality before the law: inequality ofstation, since the
public functions are sought only for the consideration and emoluments
which they bring; inequality of wealth, since, if it had been desired
to equalize fortunes, public service would have been regarded as a duty,
not as a reward; inequality of privilege, the law not stating what
it means by TALENTS and VIRTUES. Under the empire, virtue and talent
consisted simply in military bravery and devotion to the emperor; that
was shown when Napoleon created his nobility, and attempted to connect
it with the ancients. To-day, the man who pays taxes to the amount
of two hundred francs is virtuous; the talented man is the honest
pickpocket: such truths as these are accounted trivial.

The people finally legalized property. God forgive them, for they
knew not what they did! For fifty years they have suffered for their
miserable folly. But how came the people, whose voice, they tell us,
is the voice of God, and whose conscience is infallible,--how came the
people to err? How happens it that, when seeking liberty and equality,
they fell back into privilege and slavery? Always through copying the
ancient regime.

Formerly, the nobility and the clergy contributed towards the expenses
of the State only by voluntary aid and gratuitous gift; their property
could not be seized even for debt,--while the plebeian, overwhelmed by
taxes and statute-labor, was continually tormented, now by the
king's tax-gatherers, now by those of the nobles and clergy. He whose
possessions were subject to mortmain could neither bequeath nor inherit
property; he was treated like the animals, whose services and offspring
belong to their