14, according to the classified list promulgated by
Louis XVIII., a direct tax of three hundred francs (eighty thalers)
was established, in place of the value of three days' work, as a
condition of the franchise. The July Revolution of 1830 broke out, and
nevertheless, by the law of April 19, 1831, a direct tax of two
hundred francs (about fifty-three thalers) was required as a condition
of the franchise.

What under Louis Philippe and Guizot was called the _pays legal_--that
is, the country as a legal entity--consisted of 200,000 men; for there
were not more than 200,000 electors in France who could meet the
property requirement, and these exercised sovereignty over more than
30,000,000 inhabitants. It is here to be noted that it makes no
difference whether the principle of property qualification, the
exclusion of those without property from the franchise, appears, as in
the constitutions referred to, in direct and open form, or in a form
in one way or another disguised. The effect is always the same.

So the second French Republic in 1850 could not possibly revoke the
general direct franchise, once proclaimed, which we shall later
consider, but adopted the expedient of granting the franchise (law of
May 31,1850) only to such citizens as had been domiciled in a place
without interruption for at least three years. For, because workingmen
in France are frequently compelled by conditions to change their
domicile and to look for work in another commune, it was hoped, and
with good reason, that extremely large numbers of workingmen, who
could not bring proof of three years uninterrupted residence in the
same place, would be excluded from the franchise.

Here you have a property qualification in disguised form. It is still
worse in our country, since the promulgation of the three-class
election law, under which, with variations according to locality,
three, ten, thirty, or more voters without property, of the third
class of electors, have only the same franchise as one single
capitalist who belongs to the first class; so that, in fact, if the
proportion were only one to ten, nine men out of every ten who had the
franchise in 1848 have lost it through the three-class election law of
1849, and exercise it only in appearance.[48]

But this is only the average situation. In reality, conditions vary
greatly in different localities, and they are often still more
unfavorable, most unfavorable in fact where the inequality of pro