l the oligarchical selfishness so necessary to the
existence of modern society, and which England has practised with such
success for the last three centuries. Whatever may be said or done,
land-owners will never understand the necessity of the sort of internal
discipline which made the Church such an admirable model of government,
until, too late, they find themselves in danger from one another.
The audacity with which communism, that living and acting logic of
democracy, attacks society from the moral side, shows plainly that the
Samson of to-day, grown prudent, is undermining the foundations of the
cellar, instead of shaking the pillars of the hall.

CHAPTER VII. CERTAIN LOST SOCIAL SPECIES

The estate of Les Aigues could not do without a steward; for the general
had no intention of renouncing his winter pleasures in Paris, where he
owned a fine house in the rue Neuve-des-Mathurines. He therefore looked
about for a successor to Gaubertin; but it is very certain that his
search was not as eager as that of Gaubertin himself, who was seeking
for the right person to put in his way.

Of all confidential positions there is none that requires more trained
knowledge of its kind, or more activity, than that of land-steward to
a great estate. The difficulty of finding the right man is only fully
known to those wealthy landlords whose property lies beyond a certain
circle around Paris, beginning at a distance of about one hundred and
fifty miles. At that point agricultural productions for the markets of
Paris, which warrant rentals on long leases (collected often by other
tenants who are rich themselves), cease to be cultivated. The farmers
who raise them drive to the city in their own cabriolets to pay their
rents in good bank-bills, unless they send the money through their
agents in the markets. For this reason, the farms of the Seine-et-Oise,
Seine-et-Marne, the Oise, the Eure-et-Loir, the Lower Seine, and the
Loiret are so desirable that capital cannot always be invested there at
one and a half per cent. Compared to the returns on estates in Holland,
England, and Belgium, this result is enormous. But at one hundred miles
from Paris an estate requires such variety of working, its products are
so different in kind, that it becomes a business, with all the risks
attendant on manufacturing. The wealthy owner is really a merchant,
forced to look for a market for his products, like the owner of
ironworks or cotton facto