f this royal succession by animal filiation, the peoples
have not even the chances of nature,--they cannot even hope for a good
prince as an alternative. All things conspire to deprive of reason
and justice an individual reared to command others. The word of young
Dionysius was very sensible: his father, reproaching him for a shameful
action, said, "Have I given thee such example?" "Ah," answered the
youth, "thy father was not a king!"

In truth, were laughter on such a subject permissible, nothing would
suggest ideas more burlesque than this fantastic institution of
hereditary kings. Would it not be believed, to look at them, that there
really exist particular lineages possessing certain qualities which
enter the blood of the embryo prince, and adapt him physically
for royalty, as a horse for the racecourse? But then, in this wild
supposition, it yet becomes necessary to assure the genuine family
descent of the heir presumptive. To perpetuate the noble race of
Andalusian chargers, the circumstances pass before witnesses, and
similar precautions seem necessary, however indecent, to make sure that
the trickeries of queens shall not supply thrones with bastards, and
that the kings, like the horses, shall always be thoroughbreds.

Whether one jests or reasons, there is found in this idea of hereditary
royalty only folly and shame. What then is this office, which may be
filled by infants or idiots? Some talent is required to be a simple
workman; to be a king there is need to have only the human shape, to be
a living automaton. We are astonished when reading that the Egyptians
placed on the throne a flint, and called it their king. We smile at
the dog Barkouf, sent by an Asiatic despot to govern one of his
provinces.(*) But mon-archs of this kind are less mischievous and less
absurd than those before whom whole peoples prostrate themselves. The
flint and the dog at least imposed on nobody. None ascribed to them
qualities or characters they did not possess. They were not styled
'Father of the People,'--though this were hardly more ridiculous than
to give that title to a rattle-head whom inheritance crowns at eighteen.
Better a mute than an animate idol. Why, there can hardly be cited an
instance of a great man having children worthy of him, yet you will have
the royal function pass from father to son! As well declare that a wise
man's son will be wise. A king is an administrator, and an hereditary
administrator is as absurd