magnificent privileges, which divided France into distinct nations; which exhibited a nobility monopolizing the rewards and offices of the State, and a people degraded to political helotism. Men do not cordially resign such privileges, nor quickly, dismiss the sentiments which they have inspired. The ostentatious sacrifice of pecuniary exemptions in a moment of general fermentation is a wretched criterion of their genuine feelings. They affected to bestow as a gift what they would have been speedily compelled to abandon as an usurpation; and they hoped by the sacrifice of a part to purchase security for the rest.

"The suppression of Nobility has been in England most absurdly confounded with the prohibition of titles. The union of the orders in one Assembly was the first step towards the destruction of a Legislative Nobility. The abolition of their Feudal Rights, in the memorable session of the 4th of August, 1789, may be regarded as the second. They retained after these measures no distinction but what was purely nominal; and it remained to be determined what place they were to occupy in the new constitution. That question was decided by a decree of the 22d of December, in the same year, which enacted, that the Electoral Assemblies were to be composed without any regard to rank, and that Citizens of all orders were to vote in them indiscriminately. "Hitherto all had passed unnoticed; but no sooner did the Assembly, faithful to their prin

ciples, proceed to extirpate the external signs of ranks, which they no longer tolerated, than all Europe resounded with clamours against their Utopian and levelling madness. The incredible* Decree of the 19th of June, 1790, for the suppression of titles, is the object of all these invectives; yet without that measure the Assembly would certainly have been guilty of the grossest inconsistency and absurdity. An untitled Nobility, forming a Member of the State, had been · exemplified in some commonwealths of antiquity. Such were the patricians in Rome. But a titled Nobility, without legal privileges, or political existence, would have been a monster new in the annals of legislative absurdity. The power was possessed without the bauble by the Roman aristocracy. The bauble would have been reverenced, while the power was trampled on, if titles had been spared in France. A titled Nobility is the most undisputed progeny of feudal barbarism. Titles had in all nations denoted offices; it was reserved for Gothic Europe to attach them to ranks: yet this conduct of our remote ancestors admits explanation, for with them offices were hereditary, and hence the titles denoting them became hereditary too. But we, who have rejected hereditary office, retain an usuage to which it gave rise, and which it alone could justify.

"So egregiously is this recent origin of titled Nobility misconceived, that it has been even pre

*So called by M. Calonne.

tended

tended to be necessary to the order and existence of society. A titled Nobility was equally unknown to the splendid monarchies of Asia, and to the manly simplicity of the antient commonwealths. It arose from the peculiar circumstances of modern Europe; and yet its necessity is now erected on the basis of universal experience, as if these other renowned and polished States were effaced from the records of history, and banished from the society of nations. Nobility is the Corinthian capital of polished States.' The august fabric of society is deformed and encumbered by such Gothic ornaments. The massy Doric that sustains it is Labour; and the splendid variety of arts and talents that solace and embellish life, form the decorations of its Corinthian and Ionic capitals.

"Other motives besides the extirpation of feudality disposed the French Legislature to the suppression of titles. To give stability to a popular government, a democratic character must be formed, and democratic sentiments inspired. The sentiment of Equality, which titular dis tinctions have, perhaps, more than any other cause, extinguished in Europe, and without which democratic forms are impotent and short-lived, was to be revived: a free Government was to be established, by carrying the spirit of Equality and Freedom into the feelings, the manners, the most familiar intercourse of men. The badges of inequality, which were perpetually inspiring sentiments

sentiments adverse to the spirit of the Government, were therefore destroyed: distinctions which only served to unfit the Nobility for obedience, and the people for freedom, to keep alive the discontent of the one, and to perpetuate the servility of the other; to deprive the one of the moderation that sinks them into Citizens, and to rob the other of the spirit that exalts them into free men. A single example can alone dispel inveterate prejudices. Thus thought our ancestors at the Revolution, when they deviated from the succession to destroy the prejudice of its sanctity. Thus also did the Legislators of France feel, when, by the abolition of titles, they gave a mortal blow to the slavish prejudices which unfitted their country for Freedom. It proceeded on the principle that the security of a revolution of Government can only arise from a revolution of character.

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"To these reasonings it has been opposed, that hereditary distinctions are the moral treasure of a State, by which it excites and rewards public virtue, and public service, which, without national injury or burden, operates with resistless force on generous minds. To this I answer, that of personal distinctions this description is most true, but that this moral treasury of honour is in fact impoverished by the improvident profusion that has made them hereditary. Personal distinctions then every wise State will cherish as its surest and noblest resource; but of hereditary

title, at least in the circumstances of France*, the abolition seems to have been just and politic.

"A slender reform amuses and lulls the people; the popular enthusiasm subsides, and the moment of effectual reform is irretrievably lost. No important political improvement was ever obtained in a period of tranquillity. The corrupt interest of the governors is so strong, and the cry of the people so feeble, that it were vain to expect it. If the effervescence of the popular mind is suffered to pass away without effect, it would be absurd to expect from languor what enthusiasm has not obtained. If radical reform is not, at such a moment, procured, all partial changes are evaded, and defeated in the tranquillity which succeeds †. The gradual reform that arises from the presiding principle exhibited in the specious theory of Mr. Burke, is belied by the experience of all

ages. Whatever excellence, whatever freedom, is discoverable in Governments, has been infused into them by the shock of a Revolution, and their subsequent progress has been only the ac

* I have been grossly misunderstood by those who have supposed this qualification an assumed or affected reserve. I believe the principle only as qualified by the circumstances of different nations.

+Ignore-t-on que c'est en attaquant, en reversant tous les abus à la fois, qu'on peut espérer de s'en voir de livré sans retour-que les reformes lentes et partielles ont toujours fine par ne rien reformer: enfin que l'abus que l'on conserve devient l'appui et bientôt le restaurateur de tous ceux qu'on croioit avoir detruits?"-Addresse aux Francois l'Evêque d'Autun-11 Fevrier 1790.

cumulation