continued, as was transmitted by
the laws that directly controlled its succession.

"With the coming in of Bonaparte, however, there was established a
new order of things, which has continued, with little modification,
ever since, and has had its full share in working out the great
changes in French society which we now witness. A few experiments
were first made, and then the great Civil Code, often called the
_Code Napoleon_, was adopted. This was in 1804. By this remarkable
code, which is still in force, a man, if he has but one child, can
give away by his last will, as he pleases, half of his
property,--the law insuring the other half to the child; if he has
two children, then he can so give away only one third,--the law
requiring the other two thirds to be given equally to the two
children; if three, then only one fourth under similar conditions;
but if he has a greater number, it restricts the rights of the
parent more and more, and makes it more and more difficult for him
to distribute his property according to his own judgment; the
restrictions embarrassing him even in his lifetime.

"The consequences of such laws are, from their nature, very slowly
developed. When Mr. Webster spoke in 1820, the French code had been
in operation sixteen years, and similar principles had prevailed
for nearly a generation. But still its wide results were not even
suspected. Those who had treated the subject at all supposed that
the tendency was to break up the great estates in France, and make
the larger number of the holders of small estates more accessible
to the influence of the government, then a limited monarchy, and so
render it stronger and more despotic.

"Mr. Webster held a different opinion. He said, 'In respect,
however, to the recent law of succession in France, to which I have
alluded, _I would, presumptuously perhaps, hazard a conjecture,
that, if the government do not change the law, the law in half a
century will change the government; and that this change will be,
not in favor of the power of the crown, as some European writers
have supposed, but against it_. Those writers only reason upon what
they think correct general principles, in relation to this subject.
They acknowledge a want of experience. Here we have had that
experience; an