s a ravenous wolf," says Renauldon, "let loose on the estate. He
draws upon it to the last sou, he crushes the subjects, reduces them
to beggary, forces the cultivators to desert. The owner, thus rendered
odious, finds himself obliged to tolerate his exactions to able to
profit by them."

Imagine, if you can, the evil which a country usurer exercises, armed
against them with such burdensome rights; it is the feudal seigniory
in the hands of Harpagon, or rather of old Grandet. When, indeed, a tax
becomes insupportable we see, by the local complaints, that it is nearly
always a fermier who enforces it.[1346] It is one of these, acting for
a body of canons, who claims Jeanne Mermet's paternal inheritance on the
pretense that she had passed her wedding night at her husband's house.
One can barely find similar exactions in the Ireland of 1830, on those
estates where, the farmer-general renting to sub-farmers and the latter
to others still below them. The poor tenant at the foot of the ladder
himself bore the full weight of it, so much the more crushed because his
creditor, crushed himself measured the requirements he exacted by those
he had to submit to.

Suppose that, seeing this abuse of his name, the seignior is desirous
of withdrawing the administration of his domains from these mercenary
hands. In most cases he is unable to do it: he too deeply in debt,
having appropriated to his creditors a certain portion of his land, a
certain branch of his income. For centuries, the nobles are involved
through their luxury, their prodigality, their carelessness, and through
that false sense of honor, which consists in looking upon attention to
accounts as the occupation of an accountant. They take pride in their
negligence, regarding it, as they say, living nobly.[1347] "Monsieur the
archbishop," said Louis XVI. to M. de Dillon, "they say that you are
in debt, and even largely." "Sire," replied the prelate, with the irony
of a grand seignior, "I will ask my intendant and inform Your Majesty."
Marshal de Soubise has five hundred thousand livres income, which is not
sufficient for him. We know the debts of the Cardinal de Rohan and of
the Comte Artois;[1348] their millions of income were vainly thrown
into this gulf. The Prince de Guemenee happens to become bankrupt on
thirty-five millions. The Duke of Orleans, the richest proprietor in the
kingdom, owed at his death seventy-four millions. When became necessary
to pay the creditors o