big scale, and murderer
within the sphere of another jurisdiction. It is as if we threw into our
neighbours' fields the stones which incommode us in our own.

Those who have written on the rights of men, have been much tormented to
know for certain if a man who has been banished from his fatherland
still belongs to his fatherland. It is nearly the same thing as asking
if a gambler who has been driven away from the gaming-table is still one
of the gamblers.

If to every man it is permitted by natural right to choose his
fatherland, he who has lost the right of citizen can, with all the more
reason, choose for himself a new fatherland; but can he bear arms
against his former fellow-citizens? There are a thousand examples of it.
How many French protestants naturalized in Holland, England and Germany
have served against France, and against armies containing their own
kindred and their own brothers! The Greeks who were in the King of
Persia's armies made war on the Greeks, their former compatriots. One
has seen the Swiss in the Dutch service fire on the Swiss in the French
service. It is still worse than to fight against those who have banished
you; for, after all, it seems less dishonest to draw the sword for
vengeance than to draw it for money.

_BANKRUPTCY_

Few bankruptcies were known in France before the sixteenth century. The
great reason is that there were no bankers. Lombards, Jews lent on
security at ten per cent: trade was conducted in cash. Exchange,
remittances to foreign countries were a secret unknown to all judges.

It is not that many people were not ruined; but that was not called
_bankruptcy_; one said _discomfiture_; this word is sweeter to the ear.
One used the word _rupture_ as did the Boulonnais; but rupture does not
sound so well.

The bankruptcies came to us from Italy, _bancorotto, bancarotta,
gambarotta e la giustizia non impicar_. Every merchant had his bench
(_banco_) in the place of exchange; and when he had conducted his
business badly, declared himself _fallito_, and abandoned his property
to his creditors with the proviso that he retain a good part of it for
himself, be free and reputed a very upright man. There was nothing to be
said to him, his bench was broken, _banco rotto, banca rotta_; he could
even, in certain towns, keep all his property and baulk his creditors,
provided he seated himself bare-bottomed on a stone in the presence of
all the merchants. This was a mild der