supremacy of the great
is no offense to their inferiors. People live together harmoniously
when living together from birth to death, familiarly, and with the same
interests, occupations and pleasures; like soldiers with their
officers, on campaigns and under tents, in subordination although in
companionship, familiarity never endangering respect. "The seignior
often visits them on their small farms,[1305] talks with them about
their affairs, about taking care of their cattle, sharing in the
accidents and mishaps which likewise seriously affect him. He attends
their children's weddings and drinks with the guests. On Sunday there
are dances in the chateau court, and the ladies take part in them." When
he is about to hunt wolves or boars the curate gives notice of it in the
sermon; the peasants, with their guns gaily assemble at the rendezvous,
finding the seignior who assigns them their posts, and strictly
observing the directions he gives them. Here are soldiers and a captain
ready made. A little later, and of their own accord, they will choose
him for commandant in the national guard, mayor of the commune, chief of
the insurrection, and, in 1792, the marksmen of the parish are to march
under him against "the blues" as, at this epoch against the wolves. Such
are the remnants of the good feudal spirit, like the scattered remnants
of a submerged continent. Before Louis XIV., the spectacle was similar
throughout France. "The rural nobility of former days," says the Marquis
de Mirabeau, "spent too much time over their cups, slept on old chairs
or pallets, mounted and started off to hunt before daybreak, met
together on St. Hubert's, and did not part until after the octave of
St. Martin's. . . . These nobles led a gay and hard life, voluntarily,
costing the State very little, and producing more through its residence
and manure than we of today with our tastes, our researches, our cholics
and our vapors. . The custom, and it may be said, the obsession of
making presents to the seigniors, is well known. I have, in my lifetime,
seen this custom everywhere disappear, and rightly so. . . . The
seigniors are no longer of any consequence to them; is quite natural
that they should be forgotten by them as they forget. . . . The seignior
being no longer known on his estates everybody pillages him, which is
right."[1306] Everywhere, except in remote comers, the affection and
unity of the two classes has disappeared; the shepherd is separ