silly substitutions,--that the
lords have enjoyed their usurpation too long,--and that, if they allow
to these lay monks any charitable pension, they ought to be thankful to
the bounty of the true proprietor, who is so generous towards a false
claimant to his goods.

When the peasants give you back that coin of sophistic reason on which
you have set your image and superscription, you cry it down as base
money, and tell them you will pay for the future with French guards and
dragoons and hussars. You hold up, to chastise them, the second-hand
authority of a king, who is only the instrument of destroying, without
any power of protecting either the people or his own person. Through
him, it seems, you will make yourselves obeyed. They answer,--"You have
taught us that there are no gentlemen; and which of your principles
teach us to bow to kings whom we have not elected? We know, without your
teaching, that lands were given for the support of feudal dignities,
feudal titles, and feudal offices. When you took down the cause as a
grievance, why should the more grievous effect remain? As there are now
no hereditary honors and no distinguished families, why are we taxed to
maintain what you tell us ought not to exist? You have sent down our old
aristocratic landlords in no other character and with no other title but
that of exactors under your authority. Have you endeavored to make these
your rent-gatherers respectable to us? No. You have sent them to us with
their arms reversed, their shields broken, their impresses defaced,--and
so displumed, degraded, and metamorphosed, such unfeathered two-legged
things, that we no longer know them. They are strangers to us. They do
not even go by the names of our ancient lords. Physically they may be
the same men,--though we are not quite sure of that, on your new
philosophic doctrines of personal identity. In all other respects they
are totally changed. We do not see why we have not as good a right to
refuse them their rents as you have to abrogate all their honors,
titles, and distinctions. This we have never commissioned you to do; and
it is one instance among many, indeed, of your assumption of undelegated
power. We see the burghers of Paris, through their clubs, their mobs,
and their national guards, directing you at their pleasure, and giving
that as law to you, which, under your authority, is transmitted as law
to us. Through you, these burghers dispose of the lives and fortunes of
u