onstitute the nature of
a monarchical government, in which a single man governs by means of
fundamental laws. The most natural of intermediary, subordinate powers
is that of a nobility. This is indeed an essential part of a monarchy,
of which the maxim is: "No king, no nobility; no nobility, no king."

There are some persons in certain countries of Europe who wish to
abolish all the rights of the nobility. They do not see that they want
to do what the English parliament did in the seventeenth century.
Abolish in a monarchy the prerogatives of the lords, of the clergy, of
the gentry, and of the towns, and you will soon have either a purely
popular government or a despotism.

I am not greatly prepossessed in favour of the privileges of the clergy,
but I should like to see their jurisdiction clearly fixed once for all.
It is not a question of discussing if it be right to establish it, but
of seeing if it is established, and if it forms part of the laws of the
country, and of deciding if a loyal subject is not within his rights in
upholding both the powers of his king and the limits which have from
time immemorial been set to that power. The power of the clergy is
dangerous in a republic, but convenient in a monarchy, and especially in
a monarchy tending to despotism. Where would Spain and Portugal be,
since they have lost their laws, without this power which alone arrests
the arbitrary force of their kings?

In order to advance liberty, the English have destroyed all the
intermediary powers that form their monarchy. They have good reason to
guard and cherish this liberty. If ever they lose it, they will be one
of the most enslaved races on earth.

It is not sufficient that there should be intermediary ranks in the
monarchy; there must also be a depository of laws. This depository
cannot be found anywhere save in political corporations, which announce
laws when they are made, and recall them when they are forgotten. The
ignorance natural to nobility, its inattention, its contempt for civil
government, require that there should be a corporation which unceasingly
recovers laws from the dust in which they are buried.

As democracies are ruined by the populace stripping the senate, the
magistrates, and the judges of their functions, so monarchies decay when
the prerogatives of the higher classes and the privileges of towns are
little by little destroyed. In the first case, things end in a despotism
of the multitude; in the