Weekly national intelligencer., 1857-10-10


time, and sought to substitute on their ruins so
cial and civil system more uniform and simple, and
which should have legal equality for its base. L
In this convulsive effort the people, like Samson
blind and strong, only buried themselves in the
wreck Of social order it may be but just to consider
that, like the DANTE Hercules, they too had beer
goaded to desperation by oppression greater than
they could bear; for, though it is of the very ma
ture of oppression (and herein consists its sorrow
and shame) that it tends by its prevalence to inca
pacitate its subjects for the enjoyment of the liberty
which is won by spasmodic effort, it is no less
true that there is point where forbearance, even
though it may not cease to be virtue, yet ceases
to be tolerable in the judgment of spirited people
Social changes should be the offspring of national
tendencies /; but when these latter are unduly re-
pressed ob erra it is not wonderful that the pent
up energies of people, working ab intra, should
burst the swaddling- bands in which their infant
limbs were swathed, and break the leading-strings
by which their infant steps were guided. This the
Revolution did for France, and it remains to show
which gave to it such CHASTITY complexion and dis
astrous issue.
Fuedalism in France, as already intimated, had
stubbornly refused or blindly neglected to conform
itself to the new civilization which was gradually
evolving from the disntegrated elements of the
dieval social system It still claimed to enjoy the
rights and immunities with which it had been i'm
memorially invested, and recognised the change of
it's position in the sphere of the State only by re-
nouncing or evading the duties which had once re-
conced the peasantry to the tutelage of their feu-
dal patrons. The knight had dofed his coat-of-mal
and ceased longer to protect the peaceful burgher
but he had not laid aside his fuedal pride, omit
ted to demand the exactions for which the peasant
received no longer an adequate return. The motto
of nobesse obge had ceased to be descriptive of the
French seigneurs.
And this restiveness of the humber and untitled
classes, under the ungrateful domination of the
privileged ORDERS was quckened by the fact (Which
may be regarded as historical discovery of M. de
Tocqueville) that the French peasanfry had be-
come freeholders, and that the landed property of
France had been minutely subdivided in their hands
many years prior to the Revolution. 1t has been
commonly supposed that these were consequences
Of the Revolution, but M. de Tocquevile shows con-
cusively that they its antecedens and deserve
prominent place in the enumeration of its causes.
The Revolution did not greatly add to the number
of the landed proprietors of France as is proved by
comparison of the tax returns under the law of
1870 with the rolls of the present holders. The
petty and vexatious levies of the nobility, under
this state of things home directly to the bust
ness and bosoms of the peasantry, and what those
levies were, in kind and degree, may be gathered
from the following remarks Of NJ de Tocqueville:
"Picture to yourself French peasant of the eigh-
eenth century, might rather say, the peasant
before your eyes, for the is the same his condi
ton is altered but his character Take him he is
described in the documents have quoted, passion
atey enamored of the soil that he will spend all his
ngs to purchase it. and to purchase it any price. To
complete this purchase he must first pay tax, not to the
Government but to other landowners of the neghbor
hood, unconnected himself with the administration
of public affairs, and hardly influential than he
s He possesses it at last; his heart is buried in it.
with the seed he sows This little nook of ground which
is his own in this vast universe, fills him with pride and
independence But again, these neghbors call him from
his furrow, and compel him to to work for them
without wages He tries defend his young crops from
their game again they prevent him. As he the
river they wait for his passage to levy toll He finds
them at the market, where they sell him the right of
selling his produces and when his return home,
he wants to the remainder of his wheat for his
sustenance-of that wheat which was planted by his
hands, and has grown under his eyes-he cannot touch
it till he has ground at the mill and baked it the bake
house Of these same portion of the income of
his little property is paid away in qut-rens to them
also. and these dues neither be extinguished
redeemed
Whatever he does these troublesome neighbors are
pswiih his labor to consume his proiits and wasn
ese are dismissed others in the black garb of the
Church present themselves to carry off the ceares profit
Of his harvest Picture to yourself the condition, the
wants the character the passions Of this man. and
pute, you able, the of hatred and of envy
which accumulated in his heart.
Feudalism still remained the greatest Of all the civil
institutions Of France though had ceased to be po
tcal institution Reduced to these proportions the
hatred excited greater than ever and il may be
said with truth that the destruction Of part of the in
sutions Of the middle ages rendered hundred times
more odious that portion which still survived"
1t is common to suppose that the principle of
Capitalization which has consolidated all civil power
in the hands of the Government at Paris was
product of the French Revolution. This M. de
Tocqueville shows to be an error, and points out,
in detail, the agencies by which this concentration
Of power was gradually effected. Paramount among
these agencies was the Kings Council" which, of
ancient establishment, had imperceptibly assumed,
under the good pleasure of the King, the functions
of a second providence for the whole of France
This body;Jit must be admitted, ordinarily acted
with modesty and exhibited less of pretension than
it exercised of power and in this way it possessed
of ITSELF but little ecla or, to speak more properly
"was lost in the spendor of the throne with which
it was so closely connected" So powerful that its
hand reached every thing in France it was yet at
the same time obscure that it has almost escaped
the notice of history.
And if the entire administration of the country
was directed by this unique body, the executive
ulSCudIRe VI luGeTudl dudlIS was C0nQQeQ to the
hands of single agent, the Controller General
and what the Controller General was for all France
the htendent was for each department, who had
beneath him, in each canton, a functionary, re-
movable at pleasure, named the Sab Delegate.
Thus it was that civil life gradually died out in
the members of the body polite and became wholly
concentrated in the head. Even the guardianship
of the public peace undertaken, throughout the
whole State, by the Mare Chaussee, or mounted
police of the Government, which, like the Santa
Hermandad of Spain, was dispersed over the whole
kingdom in small detachments. $50 completely"
says M. de Tocqueville, " had the Government al
ready changed its duty as sovereign into that of
guardian"
g The towns of France at this period could neither
establish octroi articles of consumption, levy
rate, mortgage SELL sue, farm their pro-
perty, administer that property nor even employ
their surplus revenues without the of