And how indeed could these sciences flourish in states where the greater number were stripped of all their natural rights? How could writers, inhaling so tainted an atmosphere, raise themselves to the high and pure considerations of justice and humanity? How could they feel the sublime laws of morality, and discover the benevolent intentions of Providence, taught as they were, to look upon the degradation and misery of their fellow-beings as an invincible necessity of social orderas an inflexible decree of destiny?

Among ourselves, also, the laws that robbed the greater number produced results proportionate to their severity. Where was the torch of arts and civilization first relumed? In those countries where servitude disappeared soonest-in the republics of Italy, and the free towns of Germany, where men, able to raise themselves to wealth by labour, put forth all the strength of their intellectual and physical faculties: agriculture, science, the fine arts, trade, manufactures, all flourished anew, all revived under hands freed from the shackles of feudal servitude; and the rest of Europe, to become prosperous, had only to follow in the path which they struck out. At the present day, we see what are the consequences of the inequalities that exist in the economical and moral condition of nations. Misery, ignorance, slavery; such is still, among those of the Slavonic race, the sad lot of the people, indifferent to the perfecting of an industry whose fruits would merely serve to increase the pride of their masters. Comfort, education, and liberty, are, on the contrary, the boon of those who were once the serfs of the feudal barons. It is because in France, as well as in Germany and England, the nobility not having been able to dispossess

entirely the inferior orders, the latter have had, in property, a base of action, a place of refuge for displaying their industrial powers, and by the progressive accumulation of commercial riches, raising themselves to better destinies.

It

These facts are positive and incontestable; they attest the importance of distributive justice in matters of government, and show how much the people have had to suffer from the laws created by privilege. has been indeed said, that at the time of their institution-the simple expression of circumstances—privileges were natural and necessary. Such is not my opinion: no doubt, there are times we cannot deny itwhen the masses can only find repose and security by submitting themselves to a small number of eminent chiefs; but since it only required the force of things to create a necessary aristocracy, is it not clear, that in after times the same cause would continue, without the aid of privilege, to raise to the top of the social edifice the superiorities and the powers which these times call for? Amongst ignorant nations, in particular, laws do not precede facts: it is not privilege that created a necessary aristocracy which existed before it ; it is aristocracy, on the contrary, which, abusing the advantages of its situation, finds in privilege a factitious and pernicious support. From thenceforth, to the action of natural tendencies is joined the influence of those that are artificial; and society, the victim of an unjust and spoliatory usurpation, has to struggle painfully against the obstacles which oppose to the progress of its well-being, and the development of its powers, institutions that are oppressive and antagonistic to the various and increasing wants of civilization.

We shall next proceed to examine with care, the spirit and the consequences of the laws which constitute the aristocracies of the monarchies of Europe.

CHAPTER III.

ON THE INSTITUTIONS WHICH PRIVILEGE THE ARISTOCRACY IN THE DIFFERENT MONARCHIES OF EUROPE.

I HAVE already spoken of the differences which mark the institutions of the nobility of the several monarchies of Europe. In those of Slavonic origin, a martial nobility, by depriving the serfs of all right to territorial property, founded their domination upon an unassailable basis. Vainly did there spring up in the lower ranks individuals endowed with superior faculties: incapable of acquiring the smallest capital, they dragged out their existence in a state of slavery; and industry, frozen at its source, had no means of expanding itself.

The institutions which prevailed in monarchies of a feudal origin, were less exclusive, and much more complicated. Taking their rise in various circumstances, they underwent numerous modifications: from persons, the bonds of vassalage passed to lands: several revolutions had successively changed them from grants into freeholds, and from freeholds into fiefs; and it was only during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, that the fiduciary or entail system, to which the nobility owed the preservation of their prerogatives, assumed the form under which we now propose to consider it.

In feudal Spain, the nobility was not at first organized into castes; each family of which it was composed,

derived its rights and powers from the domains which it possessed; and the laws, without taking away from the members of the inferior classes the possibility of bettering their condition by acquiring property, were confined to watching over the preservation of estates and the supremacy of privileges. Two means principally favoured these objects; the one sanctioning the exclusive right of primogeniture in successions, the other, the establishment of entails. By means of the first, the domain passed in all its entirety to the eldest son of the family; by the second, no possessor being permitted to alienate, sell, or burden the property irrevocably settled on the descendants, each privileged family was enabled to preserve its opulence. It is easy to perceive, that without entails, primogeniture would only have imperfectly served the interests of the nobility; but combined with entails, which substantially conferred on each heir in succession the mere usufruct or life-rent of the estate, it did more than guarantee an hereditary superiority,-it favoured the progressive increase of it.

For, suppose the soil of a province divided into a hundred estates entailed and transmissible in the line of primogeniture, and observe what influence time will produce on this distribution of wealth. Not only cannot the number of the original owners be augmented, but as nothing prevents any one of them from succeeding to several inheritances, it is clear that the gradual concentration of property must follow, from deaths, from the extinction of lines, and, in a word, from all the accidents which break in upon and disturb the established order of succession. Thus, in place of the hundred original families, you will have eighty, fifty,

and even fewer what a century may not produce, two will accomplish; till at last some houses, invested with the totality of the property of the caste, will become possessed of enormous wealth.

This is not all: whilst no portion of the property held under the fetters of an entail can escape from its holders, the latter are at liberty to acquire lands offered to public competition, and the accumulation of wealth in their hands favours their means of doing so. In this manner all the relations of territorial wealth are turned to their advantage; and it only depends on themselves to increase their estates to the detriment of the inferior classes.

Such were the advantages which the feudal nobility derived from the laws. Still, I do not mean to assert that these laws had positively such a result in view : on the contrary, it is quite clear that the right of primogeniture was the natural consequence of the obligations originally impressed on property-obligations, which the division of the land among several heirs would have infallibly defeated. In regard to entails, they equally arose from the right of reversion, which, in the event of the line of possessors becoming extinct, the Suzerain had reserved to himself over the lands which he had conceded. But whatever may have been the origin or object of these laws, it is not less certain that they became in succeeding ages the real foundation of the splendour of the nobility. By placing the fortunes of the privileged families out of the reach of the accidents of fortune, and investing historic names with the durable éclat of hereditary opulence, they assured to these families a train of dependents, whose strength made them formidable. It was these laws alone which