The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1909-02-18
THE GUARDED MINE
Incomes Small as Compared with
Present-day Cresuses
ACCUMULATION PROCESS CHANGED
Very Rich of To-day Six Times rs
Rich and Twelve Times as Num-
,rous as Those of the "Ancien
.egime"--Accumula by Law.
Il Force.

Imagination has clothed the courts
O. me Gings of France since the last
Z, ~sade with a glamour of wealth
anu splendor unparalleled in our
own days. Their palaces have been
pictured as perpetual panoramas OF
magniticence that contemporary mil
lionaires for all their lavish expendi-
lures have not reproduced. Yet ac-
cording to Vicomte Georges dave
mel, in the Revue des DeuX Mondes,
their incomes were relatively small
compared with those of present-day
merchants and bankers of France.
After painstaking research he proves
that the very rich of to-day are SIX
times as rich, or those of equal for
tune are twelve times as numerous,
as the richest men of the 'ancien
regime;' they are ten times as ricn
or twent..' times as numerous as the
most opulent princes of feudal
times" At the same time the labor
ing classes, the people who live Dy
the work of their hands. are twice as
rich as their ancestors.
Cnuef me Iulfu hepuDilc l,OGJ
persons have incomes exceeding
100000. OF these 1000 there are
$50 with incomes of more tnan
100000, 120 nave an annual rev
enue of more than S2OU,UUU, my
more than 100000 ana about teA
more than $1,000,000.
For purposes of exact comparison
Nj. d'Avenel estimates all fortunes
and incomes of gone times in terms
of their equivalent value to-day, not
as mere nominal sums. Up TO the
end of the sixteenth century, he
shows, no one had an income OF
$l,OOO,0O0. Louis TX. in the eXcep-
tional year of the crusade of 1851
Years War, in 1450, Charles Wis
budget was S212,000. In 1916 Fran
els L., noted for his taste for luxury,
had only $259,00O for his person
and his court. Napoleon Ills civil
lst amounted to S5,OOO,UOO, but
ais XIV. had less than $4,000
for all expenses of an extrava-
t court. Richelieu and MaZarln
lived tremendous incomes from
;ir privileges, Mazarin leaving by
Il nearly $4C,000,O00 to the ning,
,.Ao refused 1t and let it pass to
Mazarin's eight nephews and nieces.
Except these three no person up 20
the time of the Revolution enjoyed
an income of $1,000,000, and the
revenues of Richelieu anu Mazarn
were subject In fact to charges real
ly connected with the state. Nine.
{. Maintenon during the twenty
ears of her reign received $4,000
900, but did not leave enough to pay
her brothers debts.
Most of the royal princesses from
the thirteenth to the fifteenth CEN
tury received dowries of only about
$4,000. The daughter of the Pres
ident Jeannin, whose daughter had
the greatest marriage of Paris in the
latter part of the sixteenth century,
received only $4,000. Among the
nobility similar sums were very rare.
Individual fortunes, M. d'Avenel
says, were accumulated in the mid
die ages not by force of the law lut
by the law Of force: ! the shifting
OF existing wealth, not by the ac-
cumulation of new riches. There
was great inequality of wealth by
reason of privilege. Modern laws
and political systems have changed
the processes of accumulation, but
nr. prevented ne inequality result
ing from changed conditions of COM
merge and industry. In making tle
poorest class I day twice as we'll of
in regard to earnings as their grand
fathers were, time with all Its
changes has given to the richest
class in France the oportunity by
their factories nd banks to become
four or six timcs as rich as the rich.
est functionaries of the old mon
archy. And yet France is poor II
nlllionaires and French millionaire
poor in millions compared with ou
American princes of trade and prop
erty.