an aristocracy is scarce a thousandth part of the body social, it
is bound today, as of old, to multiply its points of action, so as to
counterbalance the weight of the masses in a great crisis. And in our
days those means of action must be living forces, and not historical
memories.

In France, unluckily, the noblesse were still so puffed up with the
notion of their vanished power, that it was difficult to contend against
a kind of innate presumption in themselves. Perhaps this is a national
defect. The Frenchman is less given than anyone else to undervalue
himself; it comes natural to him to go from his degree to the one above
it; and while it is a rare thing for him to pity the unfortunates
over whose heads he rises, he always groans in spirit to see so many
fortunate people above him. He is very far from heartless, but too
often he prefers to listen to his intellect. The national instinct which
brings the Frenchman to the front, the vanity that wastes his substance,
is as much a dominant passion as thrift in the Dutch. For three
centuries it swayed the noblesse, who, in this respect, were certainly
pre-eminently French. The scion of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, beholding
his material superiority, was fully persuaded of his intellectual
superiority. And everything contributed to confirm him in his belief;
for ever since the Faubourg Saint-Germain existed at all--which is
to say, ever since Versailles ceased to be the royal residence--the
Faubourg, with some few gaps in continuity, was always backed up by the
central power, which in France seldom fails to support that side. Thence
its downfall in 1830.

At that time the party of the Faubourg Saint-Germain was rather like
an army without a base of operation. It had utterly failed to take
advantage of the peace to plant itself in the heart of the nation.
It sinned for want of learning its lesson, and through an utter
incapability of regarding its interests as a whole. A future certainty
was sacrificed to a doubtful present gain. This blunder in policy may
perhaps be attributed to the following cause.

The class-isolation so strenuously kept up by the noblesse brought about
fatal results during the last forty years; even caste-patriotism was
extinguished by it, and rivalry fostered among themselves. When the
French noblesse of other times were rich and powerful, the nobles
(_gentilhommes_) could choose their chiefs and obey them in the hour
of danger. As their power di