self alone. Public security
emanates wholly from myself; I am its supreme custodian. My people are
one only with me; national rights and interests, of which an attempt is
made to form a body separate from those of the monarch, are necessarily
combined with my own, and rests only in my hands."]

CHAPTER II. THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES.

I. Number of the Privileged Classes.

The privileged classes number about 270,000 persons, comprising of
the nobility, 140,000 and of the clergy 130,000.[1201] This makes from
25,000 to 30,000 noble families; 23,000 monks in 2,500 monasteries, and
37,000 nuns in 1,500 convents, and 60,000 curates and vicars in as
many churches and chapels. Should the reader desire a more distinct
impression of them, he may imagine on each square league of
territory[1202], and to each thousand of inhabitants, one noble family
in its weathercock mansion. In each village there is a curate and his
church, and, every six or seven leagues, a community of men or of
women. We have here the ancient chieftains and founders of France; thus
entitled, they still enjoy many possessions and many rights.

II. Their Possessions, Capital, and Revenue.

Let us always keep in mind what they were, in order to comprehend what
they are. Great as their advantages may be, these are merely the remains
of still greater advantages. This or that bishop or abbot, this or
that count or duke, whose successors make their bows at Versailles, was
formerly the equals of the Carlovingians and the first Capets. A Sire de
Montlhery held King Philippe I in check.[1203] The abbey of St. Germain
des Pres possessed 430,000 hectares of land (about 900,000 acres),
almost the extent of an entire department. We need not be surprised that
they remained powerful, and, especially, rich; no stability is greater
than that of an associative body. After eight hundred years, in spite
of so many strokes of the royal ax, and the immense change in the
culture of society, the old feudal root lasts and still vegetates. We
remark it first in the distribution of property.[1204] A fifth of the
soil belongs to the crown and the communes, a fifth to the Third-Estate,
a fifth to the rural population, a fifth to the nobles and a fifth to
the clergy. Accordingly, if we deduct the public lands, the privileged
classes own one-half of the kingdom. This large portion, moreover, is
at the same time the richest, for it comprises almost all the large and
impo