"They call it a toy,"[3344] said he, "but men are led by toys... Frenchmen are not changed by ten years of revolution.... See how the people prostrate themselves before foreign decorations: they have been surprised by them and accordingly do not fail to wear them.... The French cherish but one sentiment, honor: that sentiment, then, requires nourishing—they must have honors."

A very few are satisfied with their own achievements; ordinary men are not even content with the approbation they perceive in the eyes of others: it is too intermittent, too reserved, too mute; they need fame that is brilliant and noisy; they want to hear the constant hum of admiration and respect whenever they appear or whenever their name is mentioned. Even this does not suffice; they are unwilling that their merit should rest in men's minds in the vague state of undefined greatness, but that it should be publicly estimated, have its current value, enjoy undisputed and measured rank on the scale above all other lesser merits.—The new institution affords complete satisfaction to all these exigencies of human and French nature. On the 14th of July, 1804,[3345] the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, Napoleon administers the oath to the legionaries and, after a solemn mass, distributes the insignia under the dome of the Invalides in the presence of the empress and the court; and again one month later, August 16, 1804, on the anniversary of the Emperor's birth, in the camp at Boulogne, facing the ocean and in full view of the flotilla assembled to conquer England, before one hundred thousand spectators and the entire army, to the roll of eighteen hundred drums. No ceremony, probably, was ever more exciting. The eminent surgeon, Larrey, then decorated, a man of austere virtue, spoke of it with emotion to the end of his life and never alluded that unique day but with a trembling voice. On that day, nearly all the men of superior and tried merit and talent in France[3346] are proclaimed, each with the title proportionate his degree of eminence—chevaliers, officers, commanders, grand-officers, and, later on, grand-eagles; each on the same plane with his equals of a different class, ecclesiastics alongside of laymen, civilians alongside of soldiers; each honored by the company of his peers, Berthollet, Laplace and Lagrange alongside of Kellermann, Jourdan and Lefebvre, Otto and Tronchet alongside of Massena, Augereau, Ney, Lannes, Soult and Davout; four cardinals side by side with eighteen marshals, and likewise even down to corporal, and to Egyptian veterans blinded by ophthalmia on the banks of the Nile, comprising common soldiers who, through some brilliant achievement, had won a sword or a gun of honor, as, for instance, Coignet,[3347] who, dashing ahead with fixed bayonet, kills five Austrian artillerymen and takes their cannon himself alone. Six years before this he was a stable-boy on a farm and could neither read nor write; he is now mentioned among the first of those promoted, a colleague and almost a comrade of Monge, the inventor of descriptive geometry, of de Fontanes, grand-master of the university, of marshals, admirals, and the highest dignitaries, all sharing in common an inestimable treasure, the legitimate heirs of twelve years' accumulated glory by the sacrifice of so many heroic lives and all the more glorified because so few,[3348] and because, in these days, a man did not obtain the cross by twenty years of plodding in a bureau, on account of routine punctuality, but by wonderful strokes of energy and audacity, by wounds, by braving death a hundred times and looking it in the face daily.

Henceforth, legally as well as in public opinion, they form the staff of the new society, its declared, verified notables, enjoying precedences and even privileges. On passing along the street the sentinel presents arms; a company of twenty-five soldiers attends their funeral procession; in the electoral colleges of the department or arrondissement they are electors by right and without being balloted for, simply by virtue of their rank. Their sons are entitled to scholarships in La Fleche, at Saint-Cyr, and in the lycees, and their daughters at Ecouen or Saint-Denis. With the exception of a title, as formerly, they lack nothing for filling the place of the old nobility, and Napoleon re-creates this title for their benefit. The title itself of chevalier, count, duke or prince carries along with an idea of social superiority; when announced in a drawing room, when it precedes the first sentence of an address, those who are present do not remain inattentive; an immemorial prejudice inclines them to award consideration or even deference. The Revolution tried in vain to destroy this power of words and of history; Napoleon does better: he confiscates it; he arrogates to himself the monopoly of it, he steals the trade-mark from the ancient Regime; he himself creates 48,000 chevaliers, 1000 barons, 388 counts, 31 dukes and 4 princes. Furthermore, he stamps with his own mark the old nobles whom he introduces into his nobility: he coins them anew and often with an inferior title; this or that duke is lowered a notch and becomes simply a count: taken at par or at a discount the feudal coin must, in order to pass, receive the imperial stamp which gives it its recognized value in modern figures.

But, let the old-fashioned metal be what it may, whether gold, silver or copper, even crude and plebeian, the new coin is of good alloy and very handsome. Frequently, like the old currency, it displays coats of arms in high relief, a heraldic crown and the name of a locality; it no longer bears the name of territory, and it does not call to mind a primitive sovereignty. On the contrary, it bears the name of a victory or of a conquest and reminds one of recent exploits. Duc de Montebello or a Prince de la Moskowa is equivalent in the imagination contemporaries to a Duc de Montmorency or a Prince de Rohan; for, if the prince or duke of the empire is without ancestors, he is or will be an ancestor himself. To these prizes coveted by vanity Napoleon tacks on every substantial and pecuniary advantage, in ready money or landed property, not alone large salaries, adjunctive senatoreries, occasional munificent gifts,

* a million at one time to General Lasalle, but likewise vast revenues from the extraordinary domain[3349],

* 32,463,817 francs a year divided amongst 4970 persons,

* pensions from 250 to 5000 francs for all legionaries,

* villas, large estates, private incomes, distinct and superb endowments for those of the highest rank, a fortune of 100,000 livres income and more to 34 of these,

* a fortune of 450,000 livres in the public funds to Cambaceres, of 683,000 livres in the public funds to Massena, of 728,000 livres in the public funds to Ney, of 910,000 livres in the public funds to Davout, of 1,354,000 livres in the public funds to Berthier,

* and besides all this, three "sovereign principalities," Neufchatel to Berthier, Benevento to Talleyrand, and Ponte-Corvo to Bernadotte.—

This last attraction which, in these times of violent and premature death, is of no little account. Napoleon opens out hereditary and undefined prospects beyond the perspectives of life and of inferior interests. Each of the titles conferred by him, that of prince, duke, count, baron, and even that of chevalier, is transmissible in direct descent, according to primogeniture from father to son, and sometimes from uncle to nephew, under specified conditions which are very acceptable, and of which the first is the institution of an inalienable majority, inattackable, consisting of this or that income or real property, of bank stock or state securities, from 3000 francs for common chevaliers up to 200,000 francs for the dukes, that is to say, a certain fortune in perpetuity due to the sovereign's liberality, or to the prudence of the founder, and intended to support the dignity of the title from male to male and from link to link throughout the future chain of successive inheritors. Through this supreme reward, the subtle tempter has a hold on the men who care not alone for themselves but for their family: henceforth, the work as he does, eighteen hours a day, stand fire, and say to themselves, while sinking at their desks or facing cannon-ball that their pre-eminence survives them in their posterity:

"In any event my son will succeed me and even become greater by my death."

All the temptations which serve to overcome the natural lethargy of human matter are simultaneously united and; with the exception of personal conscience and the desire for personal independence, all other internal springs are strained to the utmost. One unusual circumstance gives to eager ambitions a further increase of energy, impulse and enthusiasm.—All these successful or parvenu men are contemporaries: all have started alike on the same line and from the same average or low condition in life; each sees old comrades superior to himself on the upper steps; he considers himself as good they are, suffers because he is not on their level, and strives and takes risks so as to mount up to them. But, however high he mounts, he still sees higher yet others who were formerly his equals; consequently, no rank obtained by them seems to him above his deserts, and no rank that he obtains suffices for his pretensions.

"See that Massena," exclaimed Napoleon,[3350] a few days before the battle of Wagram; "he has honors and fame enough, but he is not satisfied; he wants be a prince like Murat and Bernadotte: he will risk getting shot to-morrow simply to be a prince."—

Above these princes who have only the rank, the title and the money, come the grand-dukes and reigning viceroys like Murat, grand-duke of Berg, and Eugene, viceroy of Italy. Above Eugene and Murat are the vassal-kings, Louis, Joseph, Jerome, then Murat himself, who, among these, is in a better place, and Bernadotte, the only sovereign that is independent; all more or less envied by the marshals, all more or less rivals of each other, the inferior aspiring to the superior throne, Murat inconsolable at being sent to Naples and not to Spain, and at having only five millions of subjects instead of thirteen millions. From top to bottom of the hierarchy and even to the loftiest places, comprising thrones, the steps rise regularly above each other in continuous file, so that each leads to the following one, with nothing to hinder the first-comer, provided he is lucky, has good legs and does not fall on the way, from reaching the top of the staircase in twenty or thirty years. "It was commonly reported in the army—he has been promoted king of Naples, of Holland, of Spain, of Sweden, as formerly was said of the same sort of man, who had been promoted sergeant in this or that company."—Such is the total and final impression which lingers on in all imaginations; it is in this sense that the people interpret the new Regime, and Napoleon devotes himself to confirming the popular interpretation. Accordingly, the first duchy he creates is for Marshal Lefebvre

"purposely," as he says,[3351] because "this marshal had been a private and everybody in Paris had known him as a sergeant in the French guards."

—With such an example before them, and so many others like it, not less striking, there is no ambition that does not become exalted, and often to delirium.

"At this time," says Stendhal, who seized the master-idea of the reign, "there was no apothecary's apprentice in his back shop, surrounded by his drugs and bottles, filtering and pounding away in his mortar, who did not say to himself that, if he chanced to make some great discovery, he would be made a count with fifty thousand francs a year."

In those days there was no under-clerk who, in his labored penmanship, inscribed names on a piece of parchment, that did not imagine his own name appearing some day on a senatorial or ministerial diploma. At this time the youthful corporal who dons his first stripes of gold braid already fancies that he hears the beating of the drums, the blast of the trumpet, and the salvos of artillery which proclaim him marshal of the Empire.[3352]



V. Self-esteem and a good Reputation.

The inward spring from 1789 to 1815.—Its force.—Its decline.—How it ends in breaking the machine down.

A new force, extraordinary, is just apparent in history, a spiritual force analogous to that which formerly stimulated souls in Spain in the sixteenth century, in European the time of the crusades, and in Arabia in the time of Mahomet. It stimulates the faculties to excess, increases energy tenfold, transports man beyond or above himself, creates enthusiasts and heroes, blinding or rendering men crazy, and hence the irresistible conquerors and rulers. It stamps its imprint and leaves its memorials in ineffaceable characters on men and things from Cadiz to Moscow. It overrides all natural barriers and transcends all ordinary limits. "The French soldier," writes a Prussian officer after Jena,[3353] "are small and puny. One of our Germans could whip any four of them. But, under fire, they become supernatural beings. They are swept along by an indescribable ardor of which there is not a trace among our soldiers.... What can you do with peasants whom nobles lead into battle, but whose danger they share without any interest in their passions or recompenses!"—Coupled with the physical needs which requires a certain amount of ease and of daily food, and which, if too strenuously opposed, produces passing jacqueries, there is a still more potent longing which, on suddenly encountering its object, seizes on it, clings to it, gorges it, and produces revolutions that last: this longing is the desire to contemplate one-self with satisfaction and complacency, forming of one's self a pleasing, flattering image, and of trying to impress and plant this image in the minds of others; in short, the ambition for a great self-esteem and of becoming greatly esteemed by others.[3354] This sentiment, according to the quality of the person and according to circumstances, gives birth sometimes to the noblest virtues and the most sublime devotion, and at other times to the worst misdeeds and the most dangerous delirium: the man becomes transfigured, the sleeping god or demon which both live within him is suddenly aroused. After 1789, both appear and both together; from this date onward, says an eye-witness,[3355] and, during one quarter of a century, "for most Frenchmen and in whatever class," the object of life is displaced; each has put it outside of himself; from now on, the essential thing for everybody is "to have lived," or "to have died for something," for an idea. A man becomes the slave of his idea, gives himself up to it; consequently, he has experienced the intense satisfaction of considering himself a noble being, of superior essence, foremost among the first, and of seeing himself regarded in that light and proclaimed and glorified as such.—This keen, profound and intense pleasure was first enjoyed by the French on listening to the Declaration of the Rights of Man; from then, and in good faith, they felt themselves citizens, philosophers, the destroyers of prejudices and wrongs, zealots in behalf of truth, liberty and equality, and then, when the war of 1792 came, the defenders of the country, missionaries and propagators of every grand principle.[3356]—Towards 1796, principles began to recede in the background;[3357] in the ideal portrait which man makes of himself the liberator and benefactor of mankind gradually gives way to the admirable and admired hero capable of great achievements. This inner portrait of himself suffices for his happiness for some years to come: vanity[3358] properly so called and a calculating ambition are not the incentives of action; if he obtains promotion it is without asking for it; his aspiration is simply to display himself, to be lavish of himself and live or die courageously and gaily[3359] along with his comrade; to be considered, outside the service, the equal, friend and brother of his subordinates and of his chiefs.[3360] Pillage, nevertheless, has begun; for, a long continuance of war depraves the conqueror; brutality, indifference to property and to life grows on him; if callous, or he wishes to become so, he eats, drinks and enjoys the passing hour; if provident and wary, he scrapes together what he can or levies contributions and hoards money.—Under the Empire, and especially towards 1808 and 1809, the ideal figure degenerates still more; from now on, it is the successful or the coming officer, with his rank and its accouterments, his gold-embroidered uniform and badges, exercising authority over so many hundreds and thousands of men and enjoying a certain notable sum of regular salaries, besides other gratifications bestowed on him by the master, along with the profits he can make out of the vanquished.[3361] All that he now cares for is rapid promotion, and in any way, noble or ignoble, at first, of course, on the main road, that is in straining himself and risking his life, but likewise on a new road, in an affectation of zeal, in practicing and professing blind obedience, in abandoning all political ideas, in devoting himself no longer to France, but to the sovereign: sympathy for his comrades gives way to harsh rivalry; soldierly friendships, under the anticipation of advancement, die out. A vacancy due to death is for the benefit of survivors and they know it. "At Talavera," says Stendhal, "two officers stood together at their battery, while a ball comes and the captain falls. 'Good,' says the lieutenant, 'now Francois is dead and I shall be captain.' 'Not yet,' says Francois, who was only stunned and who gets up on his feet. These two men were neither unfriendly nor inimical, only the lieutenant wanted to rise a step higher in rank." And this shrewd observer adds: "Such was the furious egoism then styled love of glory and which, under this title, the Emperor had communicated to the French."

On this slope the slide is rapid and abject. Each, at first, thinks of himself; the individual makes of himself a center. The example, moreover, comes from above. Is it for France or for himself that Napoleon works?[3362] So many immense enterprises, the conquest of Spain, the expedition into Russia, the installation of his brothers and relations on new thrones, the constant partition and rearrangement of Europe, all those incessant and more and more distant wars, is it for the public good and common safety that he accumulates them? What does he himself desire if not to push his fortunes still farther?—He is too much ambitious (trop ambitionnaire), say his own soldiers;[3363] and yet they follow him to the last. "We have always marched along with him," replied the old grenadiers,[3364] who had traversed Poland to penetrate into Russia; "we couldn't abandon him this time and leave him alone by himself."—But others who see him nearer by, those who stand first and next to him, do as he does; and, however high these have mounted, they want to mount still higher, or, otherwise, to keep their places, or, at least, provide for themselves and hold on to something substantial. Massena has accumulated forty millions and Talleyrand sixty;[3365] in case of a political crash the money remains. Soult tried to have himself elected king of Portugal,[3366] and Bernadotte finds means to have himself elected king of Sweden. After Leipsic, Murat bargains with the allies, and, to retain his Neapolitan kingdom, he agrees to furnish a contingent against France; before the battle of Leipsic, Bernadotte is with the allies and fights with them against France. In 1814, Bernadotte and Joseph, each caring for himself, the former by intrigues and with the intriguers of the interior, also by feeling his way with the foreign sovereigns while the latter, in the absence of Napoleon, by "singular efforts" and "assiduities" beforehand with Marie Louise thinks of taking the place of the falling emperor.[3367] Prince Eugene alone, or almost alone, among the great personalities of the reign, is really loyal, his loyalty remaining always intact exempt from concealed motives and above suspicion. Everywhere else, the coming crash or sinister rumors are heard or anticipated; alarm descends from high places, spreads through the army and echoes along the lines of the lowest ranks. In 1815, the soldier has full confidence in himself and in Napoleon; "but he is moody, distrustful of his other leaders.... Every march incomprehensible to him makes him uneasy and he thinks himself betrayed."[3368] At Waterloo, dragoons that pass him with their swords drawn and old corporals shout to the Emperor that Soult and Vandamme, who are at this moment about going into battle, are haranguing their troops against him or deserting him; that General Dhenin, who has repulsed a charge of the enemy and whose thigh is fractured by a cannon-ball, has just passed over to the enemy. The mechanism which, for fifteen years, has worked so well, breaks down of itself through its own action; its cog-wheels have got out of gear; cracks show themselves in the metal which seemed so sound; the divinations of popular instinct verify this; the exaggerations of the popular imagination expand it and suddenly the whole machine rattles down to the ground.

All this is due to Napoleon having introduced into it the craving for success as central motor, as the universal main-spring, unscrupulous ambition, in short, a crude egoism, and in the first place his own egoism, [3369] and this incentive, strained to excess,[3370] puts the machine out of order and then ruins it. After him, under his successors, the same machinery is to work in the same manner, and break down in the same way, at the expiration of a more or less extensive period. Thus far, the longest of these periods has lasted less than twenty years.

*****

[Footnote 3301: "Most of the French provinces down to the time of Richelieu still possessed a special representative body which consented to and levied the taxes; most of these bodies were supported by the all-powerful minister and replaced by intendants who, from that time on, administered, or rather exhausted, the country, divided into thirty-two generalities. A few provinces, however, Brittany, Burgundy, Languedoc, a part of Provence, Flanders, Artois, and some small districts in the Pyrenees kept their old representative body and were called pays d'etat, whilst other provinces were designated, by a strange abuse of language, under the name of pays d'election." (Translated from" Madame de Stael et son Temps," vol. I., p. 38.) TR.]

[Footnote 3302: Cf. on the antiquity of this sort of mind, evident from the beginning of society and of French literature, my "History of English Literature," vol. I., and "La Fontaine et ses fables," pp.10 to 13.]

[Footnote 3303: In relation to this sentiment, read La Fontaine's fable of "The Rat and the Elephant." La Fontaine fully comprehended its social and psychological bearing. "To believe one's self an important personage is very common in France.... A childish vanity is peculiar to us. The Spaniards are vain, but in another way. It is specially a French weakness."]

[Footnote 3304: Beugnot, "Memoires," I., 317. "This equality which is now our dominant passion is not the noble kindly sentiment that affords delight by honoring one's self in honoring one's fellow, and in feeling at ease in all social relationships; no, it is an aversion to every kind of superiority, a fear lest a prominent position may be lost; this equality tends in no way to raise up what is kept down, but to prevent any elevation whatever."]

[Footnote 3305: D'Haussonville, "l'Eglise romaine et le Premier Empire," I., chs X. and XI.]

[Footnote 3306: Decree of March 17, 1808, on the organization of the Israelite cult. The members of the Israelite consistories and the rabbis must be accepted by the government the same as the ministers of the other cults; but their salary, which is fixed, must be provided by the Israelites of the conscription; the State does not pay this, the same as with cures or pastors. This is not done until under the monarchy of July, when the assimilation of the Israelite with the other Christian cults is effected.]

[Footnote 3307: "Travels in France during the years 1814 and 1815 "(Edinburgh, 1806) I., 176. "The nobility, the great landed proprietors, the yeomanry, the lesser farmers, all of the intermediate ranks who might oppose a check to the power of a tyrannical prince, are nearly annihilated."—Ibid., 236. "Scarcely an intermediate rank was to be found in the nation between the sovereign and the peasant."—Ibid., II. 239. "The better class of the inhabitants of the cities, whether traders and manufacturers or the bourgeoisie of France, are those who were the most decided enemies of Bonaparte."]

[Footnote 3308: Napoleon, desirous of forming an opinion of him, said to Roederer, "Send me his books." "But," said Roederer, "he is only a translator." "No matter," replied Napoleon, "I will read his prefaces,"]

[Footnote 3309: Cf. the "Dictionnaire biographique," published at Leipsic, 1806-1808 (by Eymory) 4 vols., and the "Almanach imperial" for 1807 to 1812; many other historic names are found there, and among these the ladies of the palace. In 1810, Comte de la Rochefoucauld is ambassador to Holland and Comte de Mercy-Argenteau ambassador to Bavaria.]

[Footnote 3310: "The Revolution," II., 323. (Ed. Laffont I. 773, note 1)]

[Footnote 3311: "The Revolution," vol. III., PP. 318~322. (Ed. Laff. II. pp. 237-240.)]

[Footnote 3312: "The Ancient Regime," pp. 116-119, 128. (Ed. Laff. I. pp. 90-92, 100-101.)]

[Footnote 3313: De Tilly, "Memoires," I., 153. "The difference between the tone and language of the court and that of the city was about as great as that between Paris and the provinces."]

[Footnote 3314: Hence the lack of success of the Maupeou parliament.]

[Footnote 3315: See the collections of songs previous to the Revolution, especially military songs such as "Malgre la bataille,"—"Dans les gardes francaises," etc.—At the time of the Restoration, the pastoral or gallant songs of Florian, Bouffiers and Berquin were still sung in bourgeois families, each person, young or old, man or woman, singing one at the dessert. This undercurrent of gayety, geniality and amiability lasted throughout the Revolution and the Empire. ("Travels through the South of France, 1807 and 1808," p.132, by Lieutenant-Colonel Pinkney, of the United States.) "I must once for all say that the Memoirs of Marmontel are founded in nature." He cites a great many facts in proof of this, and testifies in all classes to a prompt and social nature, a natural benevolence or habitual civility which leads them instinctively, and not unfrequently impertinently, into acts of kindness and consideration."—The same impression is produced on comparing the engravings, fashion-plates, light subjects and caricatures of this period with those of the present epoch. The malicious sentiment begins only with Beranger; and yet his early pieces ("Le Roi d'Yvetot," "le Senateur") display the light air, accent and happy, instead of venomous, malice of the old song. Nobody now sings in the lower bourgeoisie or in gatherings of clerks or students, while, along with the song, we have seen the other traits which impressed foreigners disappear, the gallantry, the jesting humor, the determination to regard life as so many hours (une serie de quarts d'heures, each of which may be separated from the others, be ample in themselves and agreeable to him who talks and to him or her who listens.]

[Footnote 3316: Read the novels of Pigault-Lebrun: books of the epoch the best adapted to the men of the epoch, to the military parvenus, swift, frank, lusty and narrow-minded.]

[Footnote 3317: Candide (Recit de la Vieille).]

[Footnote 3318: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. "I am sure that his imagination was more taken with Ghengis-Khan than with Caesar."]

[Footnote 3319: "The Revolution," II., 12, 22. (Laff. I. pp. 574, 582.) (Articles by Mailet-Dupan, "Mercure de France," Dec. 30, 1791, and April 7, 1792.)—Napoleon, "Memorial" (Sept. 3, 1816), thinks so too and states the essential characteristic of the Revolution. This consisted in "telling everybody who held office, every one who had a place or a fortune: 'Get out.'"]

[Footnote 3320: Roederer, III., 534 (January 1809, on Normandy), "Children in every situation think of becoming soldiers to get the cross (legion of honor), and the cross secures the chevalier. The desire of distinction, of passing ahead of some one else, is a national sentiment."]

[Footnote 3321: "The Revolution," II., 248. (Laff. I. p. 747.)]

[Footnote 3322: Napoleon, "Memoires "(edited by M. de Montholon, III., 11-19), on the extraordinary ignorance of Cartaux.—Ibid., 23, on Doppet's incapacity, the successor of Cartaux.]

[Footnote 3323: "The Revolution," III., 310. (Laff. II. pp. 178-179.)]

[Footnote 3324: They called themselves exclusives under the Directory.—Cf. "The Revolution, II.", 23, 187, 196, 245, 297-303, 340-351, 354; book III., ch, 2 and 3, and book IV. (Ed. Laff. I. pp. 582, 701, pp. 709-710, 745, 782-787, 821-823 and in Vol. II. pp. 131-167, pp. 167-215 and pp 311-357.)]

[Footnote 3325: The declaration of Human Rights in 1789 stated that: "art. 1st, Sec. 5. Tous les citoyens sont egalement admissible aux emplois publics. Les peuples ne connaissent d'autres motifs de preference, dans elections, que les vertus et les talents." Virtue in French is virtue in English while talent in French must be translated as being both talent and skill. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3326: Madame de Remusat, passim.—Roederer, III., 538 (January 1809). (Words of Napoleon) "I took a few of the old court into my household. They remained two years without speaking to me and six months without seeing me... I don't like them—they are no good for anything—their conversation is disagreeable to me."]

[Footnote 3327: Napoleon, "Memoires."]

[Footnote 3328: Roederer, "Memoires."]

[Footnote 3329: Taine uses the French expression "esprit" which might both mean spirit, wit, mind or sense.]

[Footnote 3330: Roederer, "Memoires, "III., 281. "Men, under his government, who had hitherto been considered incapable are made useful; men hitherto considered distinguished found themselves mixed in with the crowd; men hitherto regarded as the pillars of the State found themselves useless ... An ass or a knave need never be ambitious to approach Bonaparte, they will make nothing out of him."]

[Footnote 3331: Fievee, "Correspondance," III., 33.—Roederer, III., 381.]

[Footnote 3332: Beugnot, "Memoires," II., 372.]

[Footnote 3333: Lefebvre, a former sergeant in the French guards, who became marshal of the empire and Duc de Dantzig, with 150,000 francs a year, received the visit of a comrade who, instead of having mounted the ladder as he had done, had remained at the bottom of it. The marshal, a fine fellow, welcomed his comrade heartily, and showed him over his hotel. The visitor's face gradually grew somber, and bitter words escaped from his lips; he often murmured, "Ah, how lucky you are!"—At last, the marshal, impatient, said to him, "Well, I will make all this over to you on one condition."—"What is it?"—"You must go down into the court. I will post two grenadiers at the window with their guns, and they shall fire at you. If they miss, you shall have the hotel and everything in it."—"Ah, no, thanks!"—"My friend, more shots than these have been fired at me and nearer by!"]

[Footnote 3334: Roederer, III., 332 (Aug. 2, 1800).]

[Footnote 3335: Papers of Maine de Biran. (Note communicated by M. Naville.) Letter of Baron Maurice, prefect of Dordogne, to M. Maine de Biran, sub-prefect of Bergerac, transmitting to him by order of the minister of the interior a blank form to be filled up by him presenting the "Statistics of young ladies belonging to the most notable families of the arrondissement." The form annexed contained several columns, one for names and given names, others for the future inheritance of real and personal estate, etc. A clever or energetic prefect, provided with this list, was able and was expected to take an active part in marriages and see that all the large dowries were appropriated on the right side.—"Memoires de Madame de———," part 3rd, ch. VIII., p. 154. (These very instructive memoirs by a very sincere and judicious person are still unpublished. I am not authorized to give the name of the author.) "It was at this time that the emperor took it into his head to marry as he saw fit the young girls who had more than 50,000 livres rental." A rich heiress of Lyons, intended for M. Jules de Polignac, is thus wedded to M. de Marboeuf. M. d'Aligre, by dint of address and celerity, evades for his daughter first M. de Caulaincourt and then M. de Faudoas, brother-in-law to Savary, and in stead weds her to M. de Pommereu.—Baron de Vitrolles, Memoires, I. 19. (His daughter was designated by the prefect of the Basses-Alpes.)—Comte Joseph d'Estourmel, "Souvenirs de France et d'Italie," 239. (Details of this description of the young ladies to be married and the circular from the duke de Rovigo, minister of police.) the eight column of the form was "reserved to describe the physical charms and deformities, the talents, the conduct and the religious principles of each of the young ladies."]

[Footnote 3336: "Statistiques des Prefets." (Doubs, by Debry, p. 60; Meurthe, by Marquis, p. 115, Ain, by Bossi, p.240.)]

[Footnote 3337: "Statistique de l'Ain," by Bossi, p. 1808. From 1140 in 1801, the number of employees and others under state pay amounts to 1771 in 1806. This increase is attributed by the prefect to causes just stated.]

[Footnote 3338: Napoleon, "Correspondance." (Note of April 11, 1811.) "There will always be at Hamburg, Bremen and Lubeck from 8,000 to 10,000 French, either employees or gendarmes, in the customs and depots."]

[Footnote 3339: One officer may be counted to every 50 men in the infantry; in the cavalry 1 officer to every 25 or 30 men,—This ratio of one officer to every fifty men indicates that, among the 1,700,000 men who perished between 1804 and 1815, there were 24,000 officers, which gives about 3,000 vacancies per annum, to which must be added the vacancies due to the wounded, disabled and and retired. It must be noted, moreover, that the death or retirement of an officer above the grade of second-lieutenant makes several vacancies, vacancies which are more numerous the higher the rank. When a captain is killed there are three promotions and so on.]

[Footnote 3340: "The Revolution" III., 335. (Laff. II. p. 250)—Already, in 1795, the need of competent and specialized men was so great that the government sought, even among royalists, for financial and diplomatic heads of these services; it made offers to M. Dufresne and to M. de Rayneval.—Ib. 406.—(Cf. "Memoires" by Gaudin, Miot de Melito and Mollien.)]

[Footnote 3341: Words of Bouquier, reporter of the law on education (session of the Convention, Frimaire 22, year II).]

[Footnote 3342: The reader is recommended to do as I have done and consult biographies on point, also the souvenirs of his grandparents. (H.A.Taine.)]

[Footnote 3343: Thibaudeau, "Memoires sur la Consulat," p.88. (Exposition of motives by Roederer to the corps Legislatif, Floreal 25, year X.) "After all, it is the creation of a new currency of quite different value from that which issues from the public treasury, a currency of unchangeable worth and of an inexhaustible mine, since it lies in French honor; a currency which can solely reward actions regarded as above any recompense."]

[Footnote 3344: Thibaudeau, ibid., 83. (Address by the First Consul to the council of State, Floreal 14, year X.)—Also "Memorial": "Old and corrupt nations are not governed the same as young and virtuous ones; sacrifices have to be made to interest, to enjoyments, to vanity. This is the secret of the return to monarchical forms, to titles. crosses, ribbons, harmless baubles suited to exciting the respect of the multitude while at the same time enforcing self-respect."]

[Footnote 3345: "La Legion d'honneur," by M. Mazas, passim. Details on the nomination ceremonials. "The veritable date was July 15th, as the 14th was Sunday. Augereau and about sixty officers, "bad fellows" who disliked the mass, refused to go into the chapel and remained outside in the court."]

[Footnote 3346: Several generals, Lecourbe, Souham, etc., were excluded as being too republican or suspect and hostile. Lemercier, Ducis, Delille, and Lafayette refused. Admiral Truguet, through pique and discontent, had at first declined the grade of grand-officer, but finally changed his mind and became at first commander and then grand-officer.]

[Footnote 3347: "Les Cahiers du capitaine Coignet," passim and pp. 95, 145. "When the ceremony was over, handsome women who could get at me to examine my cross, asked me if they might give me a kiss."—At the Palais Royal the proprietor of a cafe says to him: "Order whatever you want, the Legion of Honor is welcome to anything."]

[Footnote 3348: Mazas, ibid., p. 413.—Edmond Blanc, "Napoleon, ses institutions civiles et administratives," p. 279.—The number of decorated, at first, was to be 6,000. In 1806, the emperor had nominated 14,500, and taking his entire reign, until his fall, about 48,000. The real force of legionaries, however, then living does not surpass at this time 30,000, of which only 1,200 are in civil careers. At the present time, December 1, 1888 (documents furnished by the records of the Legion d'honneur), there are 52.915 decorated persons, of which 31,757 are soldiers and 21,158 civilians. Under the empire there was in all 1 cross to every 750 Frenchmen; at that time, out of 50 crosses there were 2 for civil services, while in our day there are nearly 20. (QUID informs us that on 30-11-1994 the strength amounted to 207,390 persons. SR.)]

[Footnote 3349: Edmond Blanc, ibid., 276-299, 325 and 326. (List of titles of prince and duke conferred by the emperor, and of gifts of 100,000 francs rental or of above that sum.)]

[Footnote 3350: Mathieu Dumas, "Memoires," III., 363.]

[Footnote 3351: Napoleon, "Memoires."]

[Footnote 3352: Compare with the Brothers Grimm's fairytale: "The Fisherman and his Wife."]

[Footnote 3353: Thiers, "Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire," V. III., p. 210.]

[Footnote 3354: Thiers, ibid., p.195 (October 1806). Napoleon, in one of his bulletins, had mentioned Murat's cavalry alone, omitting to mention the infantry of Lannes, which behaved as well. Lannes, disappointed, did not dare read this bulletin to his men, and spoke to the emperor about it. 'What reward can they look for if they don't find their names published by the hundred-tongued voice of Fame which is under your control!" Napoleon replies: "You and your men are children—glory enough for all!... One of these days your turn will come in the bulletins of the grand army." Lannes reads this to his troops on the great square of Stettin and it is received with outbursts of enthusiasm.]

[Footnote 3355: Madame de Remusat. III., 129.]

[Footnote 3356: "The Revolution," pp. 356-358. (Laff. I. pp. 825-826.)—Marmont, "Memoires," I. 122. (Letter to his mother, January 12, 1795.) "Behold your son zealously fulfilling his duties, deserving of his country and serving the republic.... We should not be worthy of liberty if we did nothing to obtain it."]

[Footnote 3357: Compare the "Journal du sergent Fricasse," and "les Cahiers du capitaine Coignet." Fricasse is a volunteer who enlists in the defence of the country; Coignet is a conscript ambitious of distinguishing himself, and he says to his masters: "I promise to come back with the fusil d'honneur or I shall be dead."]

[Footnote 3358: Marmont, I., 186, 282, 296. (In Italy, 1796.) "At this epoch, our ambition was quite secondary; we were solely concerned about our duties and amusements. The frankest and most cordial union existed amongst us all.... No sentiment of envy, no low passion found room in our breasts. (Then) what excitement, what grandeur, what hopes and what gayety!... Each had a presentiment of an illimitable future and yet entertained no idea of personal ambition or calculation."—George Sand, "Histoire de ma vie." (Correspondence of her father, Commander Dupin.)—Stendhal, "Vie de Napoleon." "At this epoch (1796), nobody in the army had any ambition. I have known officers to refuse promotion so as not to quit their regiment or their mistress."]

[Footnote 3359: Roederer, III., 556. (Burgos, April 9, 1809, conversation with General Lasalle written down the same evening.) "You pass through Paris?" "Yes, it's the shortest way. I shall get there at five in the morning; I shall order a pair of boots, get my wife with child and then leave for Germany."—Roederer remarks to him that one risks one's life and fights for the sake of promotion and to profit by rising in the world. "No, not at all. One takes pleasure in it. One enjoys fighting; it is pleasure enough in itself to fight! You are in the midst of the uproar, of the action, of the smoke. And then, on acquiring reputation you have had the fun of making it. When you have got your fortune you know that your wife and children won't suffer. That is enough. As for myself, I could die to-morrow." (The details of this conversation are admirable; no document gives a better idea of the officer of the epoch.)]

[Footnote 3360: Compare with the idea of an ideal Chaver (kibbutznik).: Melford E. Spiro, wrote "Kibbutz. Venture in Utopia." 60 and described how the Israeli kibbutzim as early as 1917 wanted the ideal kibbutzim to be:

Loyal to his people A brother to his fellows A man of truth A helpful and dependable brother A lover of nature Obedient to the orders of his leaders Joyful and gay Economical and generous A man of courage Pure in thoughts, words, and deeds (opposition to drinking, smoking and sexual relationships).]

[Footnote 3361: Balzac has closely studied and admirably portrayed this type in a "Menage de Garcon."—See other similar characters in Merimee ("Les Mecontens," and "les Espagnols en Danemark"); in Stendhal ("le Chasseur vert"). I knew five or six of them in my youth.]

[Footnote 3362: Words of Marshal Marmont: "So long as he declared 'Everything for France,' I served him enthusiastically; when he said, 'France and myself' I served him zealously; when he said, 'myself and France,' I served him with devotion. It is only when he said, 'Myself without France,' that I left him."]

[Footnote 3363: An expression found by Joseph de Maistre.]

[Footnote 3364: An expression heard by Mickiewicz in his childhood.]

[Footnote 3365: These sums are given, the former by Merimee and the latter by Sainte—Beuve.]

[Footnote 3366: M. de Champagny "Souvenirs," III., 183. Napoleon, passing his marshals in review, said to him (1811): "None of them can take my place in the command of my armies; some are without the talent, and others would carry on war for their own benefit. Didn't that burly Soult want to be king of Portugal?" "Well, sire, war need not be carried on any longer." "Yes, but how maintain my army? And I must have an army."]

[Footnote 3367: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. IV., 112. (According to the papers of Savary, many of Napoleon's letters and statements by M. de Saint-Aignan.)]

[Footnote 3368: "Memorial," Aug.26, 1816.]

[Footnote 3369: The driving motor of unlimited capitalism as well, a driving force only to be tempered by the law and by a desire for social admiration of different kinds. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3370: "Travels in France during the years 1814 and 1815." (Edinburgh, 1816, 2 vols.)—The author, a very good observer, thus sums up the principle of the system: "To give active employment to all men of talent and enterprise." There is no other condition: "Birth, education, moral character were completely set aside."—Hence the general defect of the system. "The French have literally no idea of any duties which they must voluntarily, without the prospect of reward, undertake for their country. It never enters their heads that a man may be responsible for the neglect of those public duties for the performance of which he receives no regular salary."]



BOOK FOURTH. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM.



CHAPTER I. LOCAL SOCIETY.



I. Human Incentives.

The two Stimuli of human action.—The egoistic instinct and the social instinct.—Motives for not weakening the social instinct.—Influence on society of the law it prescribes. —The clauses of a statute depend on the legislator who adopts or imposes them.—Conditions of a good statute.—It favors the social instinct.—Different for different societies. —Determined by the peculiar and permanent traits of the society it governs.—Capital defect of the statute under the new regime.

So long as a man takes an interest only in himself, in his own fortune, in his own advancement, in his own success, his interests are trivial: all that is, like himself, of little importance and of short duration. Alongside of the small boat which he steers so carefully there are thousands and millions of others of like it; none of them are worth much, and his own is not worth more. However well he may have provisioned and sailed it, it will always remain what it is, slight and fragile; in vain will he hoist his flags, decorate it, and shove ahead to get the first place; in three steps he has reached its length. However well he handles and maintains it, in a few years it leaks; sooner or later it crumbles and sinks, and with it goes all his effort. Is it reasonable to work so hard for this, and is so slight an object worth so great an effort?

Fortunately, man has, for a better placement of his effort, other aims, more vast and more substantial: a family, a commune, a church, a country, all the associations of which he is or becomes a member, all the collective undertakings in behalf of science, education, and charity, of local or general utility, most of them provided with legal statutes and organized as corporations or even as a legal entity. They are as well defined and protected as he is, but more precious and more viable: for they are of service to a large number of men and last for ever. Some, even, have a secular history, and their age predicts their longevity. In the countless fleet of boats which so constantly sink, and which are so constantly replaced by others, they last like top rated liners. The men from the flotilla now and then sign on these large vessels, and the result of their labor is not, as it is at home, futile or short-lived; it will remain above the surface after he and his boat have disappeared. It has entered into the common mass of work which owes its protection to its mass; undoubtedly the portion he contributes may be worked over again later on; but its substance remains, and often also its form:

* like a precept of Jesus,

* like Archimedes' theorem

which rests a definite acquisition, intact and permanently fixed for two thousand years, immortal from the first day.—Consequently, the individual may take an interest, no longer merely in his own boat, but again in some ship, in this or that particular one, in this or that association or community, according to his preferences and his aptitudes, according to attractiveness, proximity, and convenience of access, all of which is a new motivation for his activities, opposing his egoism, which, powerful as it may be, may still be overcome, since a soul might be very generous or qualified by long and special discipline. Out of this issues every sacrifice, the surrender of one's-self to one's work or to a cause,

* the devotion of the sister of charity or of the missionary,

* the abnegation of the scientist who buries himself for twenty years in the minutia of a thankless task,

* the heroism of the explorer who risks himself on a desert or among savages,

* the courage of the soldier who stakes his life in defense of his flag.

But these cases are rare; with the mass of men, and in most of their actions, personal interest prevails against common interest, while against the egoistic instinct the social instinct is feeble. Hence the danger of weakening this. The temptation of the individual to prefer his own boat to the large ship is only too great; if it is desirable for him to go aboard and work there, he must be provided with the facilities and motives which prompt him to go aboard and do the work; at the very least, he must not be deprived of them. Now, that depends on the State, a sort of central flag-ship, the only one that is armed, and which has all subordinate vessels under its guns; for, whatever the society may be, provincial or municipal, educational or charitable, religious or laic, it is the State which sanctions or adopts its statues, good or bad, and which, by its laws, tribunals, and police, insures their execution, whether rigidly or carelessly. Therefore, on this point, it is responsible; it must adopt or impose the proper statute, the most suitable social form for strengthening the social instinct, for maintaining disinterested zeal, for the encouragement of voluntary and gratuitous labor.

This form, of course, differs according to different societies; the same charter or constitution is not proper for a church system and a commune, nor for a Protestant church and a Catholic church, nor for a town of one hundred thousand inhabitants and a village of five hundred. Each association has its own peculiar and distinctive features, which grade it according to its kind, according to its spiritual or temporal aims, according to its liberal or authoritative spirit, according to is small or large dimensions, according to the simplicity or complexity of its affairs, according to the capacity or incapacity of its members: features which within it are both efficient and permanent; whatever the legislator may do, these will remain and will regulate all activity. Thus let him, in each case, keep this in mind. But in all cases his office is the same; always, on drawing up and countersigning a statute, he intervenes in the coming conflict between the social instinct and the egoistic instinct; every provision which he enacts will contribute, nearby or at a distance, to the final ascendancy of the former or of the latter. Now, the legislator the natural ally of the former, for the former is his indispensable auxiliary. In every work or enterprise of public utility, if the legislator is the external promoter, social instinct is the internal promoter; and on the inner spring becoming weak or breaking, the impulsion from outside remains without effect. Hence it is that, if the legislator would accomplish anything, otherwise than on paper, he must, before any object or interest, concern himself with the social instinct[4101]; thus preserving and humoring it; find room for it and its usefulness; let it have full play; getting all the service it is capable of rendering, and especially not twist or release it.—In this respect, any blunder might prove disastrous; and in every statute for each society, for each of the human vessels which gather together and serve as a retinue of individual vessels, there are two capital errors. On the one hand, if the statute, in fact and practically, is or becomes too grossly unjust, if the rights and benefits which it confers are not compensated by the duties and obligations it imposes; if it multiplies excessive burdens for some and sinecures for others; if, at last, the exploited individual discovers that he is overcharged beyond his due,—thereafter he refuses on his own to add voluntarily to his load. Let others, let the favored and the privileged bear the gratuitous, extra weight. Far from stepping forward and offering his shoulders, he gets out of the way, hides himself, and lightens his load as much as he can; he even rebels when he has a chance, and violently casts off every legal burden, be it tax or due of any kind. Thus did the ancient regime perish.—On the other hand, if the statute withdraws the management of the ship from those who are concerned; if, on this vessel, which belongs to them, it permanently installs a foreign crew, which assumes and exercises all command, then the owner of the vessel, reduced to the humble condition of a mere subject and quiescent taxpayer, will no longer feel concerned. Since the intruders exercise all authority, let them have all the trouble; the working of the ship concerns them and not him; he looks on as a spectator, without any idea of lending a hand; he folds his arms, remains idle, and becomes critical.—Against the first defect, the new regime is on its guard: there must be neither the preferred nor the disgraced, neither favors nor exemptions, neither exclusions nor releases, no more misappropriation, embezzlement, or robbery, not alone in the State, but elsewhere in any direction,—in the department, in the commune, in the Church, or in educational and benevolent institutions. It excels in practicing distributive justice. The second defect is its hidden flaw: the legislator having introduced this into all local and special statutes, its effects differ according to different societies; but all these effects converge, paralyzing in the nation the best half of the soul, and, worse still, to leading the will astray and perverting the public mind, transforming generous impulses into evil outbursts, and organizing lasting inertia, ennui, discontent, discord, feebleness, and sterility.[4102]



II. Local Community.

Local societies.—Their principal and distinctive character.—Their type on a small scale.—A dwelling-house in Annecy or Grenoble.—Compulsory association of its inmates.—Its object and limits.—Private in character.

Let us first consider local society whether a province, a department, or a county. For the past ten years (1789-99), the legislator has unceasingly deformed and assaulted. On his side, he refuses to open his eyes; preoccupied with theories, he will not recognize it for what it is in reality, a society of a distinct species, different from the State, with its own peculiar aims, its limits marked out, its members prescribed, its statutes drawn up, everything formed and defined beforehand. As it is local, it is founded on the greater or less proximity of its habitations. Thus, to comprehend it, we must take a case in which this proximity is greatest that of certain houses in some of our southeastern towns, as, for example, Grenoble and Annecy. Here, a house often belongs to several distinct owners, each possessing his story, or apartment on a story, one owning the cellar and another the attic, each enjoying all the rights of property over his portion, the right of renting it, selling it, bequeathing it, and mortgaging it, but all holding it in common for the maintenance of the roof and the main walls.—Evidently, their association is not a free one; willingly or not, each forms a member of it, for, willingly or not, each benefits or suffers through the good or bad state of the roof and the principal walls: therefore, all must furnish their quota of the indispensable expenses; even a majority of votes would not rid them of these; one claimant alone would suffice to hold them responsible; they have no right to impose on him the danger which they accept for themselves, nor to shirk expenses by which they profit as well as himself. Consequently, on the report of an expert, the magistrate interferes, and, willingly or not, the repairs are made; then, willingly or not, both by custom and in law, each pays his quote, calculated according to the locative value of the portion belonging to him.—But here his obligations cease. In fact as in law, the community (of property) is restricted; the associates take good care not to extend this, not to pursue other aims at the same time, not to add to their primitive and natural purpose a different and supplementary purpose, not to devote one room to a Christian chapel for the residents of the house, another room for a kindergarten for the children that live in it, and a side room to a small hospital for those who fall ill; especially, they do not admit that a tax may be imposed for these purposes and each of them be subject to a proportional increase of assessment at so many additional centimes per franc.[4103] For, if the proprietor of the ground-floor is an Israelite, the proprietor of a room on the second story is a bachelor, the proprietor of the fine suite of rooms on the first story is rich, and has a doctor visit him at the house, these must pay for a service for which they get no return.—For the same reason, their association remains private; it does not form part of the public domain; they alone are interested in it; if the State let us use its tribunals and officials, it is the same as it is with ordinary private individuals. It would be unjust both against it and against itself if it would exclude or exempting it from common right, if it put it on its administrative rolls. It would deform and disrupt its work if it interfered with its independence, if added to its functions or to its obligations. It is not under its tutelage, obliged to submit its accounts to the prefect; it delegates no powers and confers no right of justice, or police; in short, it is neither its pupil nor its agent. Such is the lien which permanent proximity establishes between men; we see that it is of a singular species: neither in fact, nor in law, can the associates free themselves from it; solely because they are neighbors, they form a community for certain indivisible or jointly owned things, an involuntary and obligatory community. To make amends, and even owing to this, I mean through institution and in the natural order of things, their community is limited, and limited in two ways, restricted to its object and restricted to its members, reduced to matters of which proprietorship or enjoyment is forcibly in common, and reserved to inhabitants who, on account of situation and fixed residence, possess this enjoyment or this property.i



III. Essential Public Local Works.

Analysis of other local societies, commune, department, or province.—Common interests which necessitate local action. —Two objects in view: care of public roads and means of protection against spreading calamities.—Why collaboration is an obligation.—Neighbors involuntarily subject to a common bond on account of proximity.—Willingly or not each shares in its benefits.—What portion of the expense belongs to each.—Equal advantages for each.—The unequal and proportionate advantages for each in his private expenses, industrial or commercial gains, and in the locative value of his real estate.—Each person's quota of expense according to his equal and proportionate share in advantages.

All local societies are of this kind, each limited to a certain territory and included with others like it inside a larger area, each possessing two budgets depending on whether it is a distinct body or member of a larger corporation, each, from the commune to the department or province, instituted on a basis of interests which make them jointly but involuntarily liable.—There are two of these important interests which, as in the Annecy building, elude human arbitrariness, which demand common action and distribution of the expense, because, as in the Annecy building, they are the inevitable results of physical proximity:

First, comes care for the public highways, by land or by water, river navigation, canals, towing-paths, bridges, streets, public squares, by-roads, along with the more or less optional and gradual improvements which public roads demand or prescribe, such as their laying-out, sidewalks, paving, sweeping, lighting, drainage, sewers, rolling, ditches, leveling, embankments, and other engineering works, which establish or increase safety and convenience in circulation, with facilities for and dispatch in transportation.

Next, comes protection against the spread of calamities, such as fires, inundations, contagious diseases, epidemics, along with the more or less optional and remote precautions which this protection exacts or recommends, night watchers in Russia, dikes in Holland, levees in the valleys of the Po and the Loire, cemeteries and regulations for interment, cleanliness of the streets, ventilation of holes and corners, drainage of marshes, hydrants, and supplies of drinkable water, disinfecting of contaminated areas, and other preventive or necessary hygienic measures which remove or prevent insalubrities growing out of neighborhood or contact.

All this has to be provided for, and the enterprise, if not wholly and in its developments, at least in itself and in what is necessary, imposes itself, collectively, on all the inhabitants of the conscription, from the highest to the lowest. For, in the absence of a public road, none of them can do his daily work, travel about, or even leave his premises; while transportation ceases and trade is suspended; hence, commerce and other pursuits languish, industry is arrested, agriculture becomes impracticable or fruitless; the fields are no longer cultivated; while provisions, food, including bread,[4104] everything is wanting; the dwellings becoming uninhabitable, more so than the Annecy houses when the roofs fall in and let in the rain.—On the other hand, for lack of protection against calamities, these get a free rein: the day arrives when an equinoctial tide submerges the flat coastal area, when the river overflows and devastates the countryside, when the conflagration spreads, when small-pox and the cholera reach a contagious point, and life is in danger, far more seriously imperiled than when, in the Annecy domicile, the main walls threaten to tumble down.[4105]

Undoubtedly, I can personally accept this miserable condition of things, resign myself to it, and consent, as far as I am concerned, to shut myself up within my own walls, to fast there, and run the risk, more or less imminent, of being drowned, burnt, or poisoned; but I have no right to condemn another to do this, nor to refuse my contribution to a protection by which I am to profit. As to my share of the expense it is fixed beforehand, and fixed through my share in the benefit:

Whoever receives, owes, and in proportion to what he receives;

such is an equitable exchange; no society is prosperous and healthy without this; it is essential that, for each member of it, the duties should exactly compensate the advantages, and that the two sides of the scale should balance. In the local community, the care taken of public roads and the precautions taken against natural calamities are useful in two ways: one, which especially improves the condition of persons, and the other, which especially improves the condition of things. The first is equal and the same for all. The poor man, quite as much as the rich one, needs to go and come and to look after his affairs; he uses the street, pavement, sidewalks, bridges, highways, and public fountains quite as much; he equally benefits by the sweeping and lighting of the public gardens. It may be claimed that, in certain respects, he derives more benefits from all this; for he suffers sooner and more keenly when bad roads stop transportation, arrest labor, and increase the cost of food; he is more subject to contagion, to epidemics, to all physical ills; in case of a fire, the risks of a workman in his garret, at the top of steep, narrow stairs, are greater than those of the opulent proprietor on the first story, in a mansion provided with a broad range of steps. In case of inundation, the danger is more suddenly mortal for the humble villager, in his fragile tenement, than for the gentleman farmer in his massive constructions. Accordingly, under this heading, the poor man owes as much as the rich one; the rich man, at least, owes no more than the poor one; if, each year, the poor man cannot pay but one franc, the rich one, each year, should not pay more than that sum likewise.—The second advantage, on the contrary, is not equal for all, but more or less great for each, according to what he spends on the spot, according to his industrial or commercial gains, and according to his local income. Indeed, the more perfect the public highway is, the more are the necessities and conveniences of life; whatever is agreeable and useful, even distant and remote, more within reach, and at my disposition, in my very hands, I enjoy it to the utmost, the measure of my enjoyment of it being the importance of my purchases, everything I consume, in short, my home expenditure.[4106] If I am, besides, industrial or in commerce, the state of the public highway affects me even more; for my transportation, more or less costly, difficult and slow, depends on that, and next, the receipt of my raw materials and goods, the sale of my manufactures, the dispatch of my merchandise, bought and sold, while the measure of this special interest, so direct and so intense, is the annual sum-total of my business, or, more strictly speaking, the probable sum of my profits.[4107] If, finally, I own real estate, a house or land, its locative value increases or diminishes according to the salubrity and convenience of its site, together with its facilities for cultivating, selling, and distributing its crops, for its various outlets, for its security against floods and fires, and, after this, to improvements in public transit, and to the collective works which protect both soil and buildings against natural calamities.[4108] It follows that the inhabitant who benefits from these services, owes a second contribution, greater or lesser according to the greater or lesser advantage which he derives from them.



IV. Local associations.

Local society, thus constituted, is a collective legal entity.—The sphere of its initiation and action.—Its relation to the State.—Distinction between the private and the public domain.

Such is in itself local society and, with or without the legislator's permission, we find it to be a private syndicate,[4109] analogous to many others.[4110] Whether communal or departmental, it concerns, combines, and serves none but the inhabitants of one circumscription; its success or failure does not interest the nation, unless indirectly, and through a remote reaction, similar to the slight effect which, for good or ill, the health or sickness of one Frenchman produces on the mass of Frenchmen. That which directly and fully affects a local society is felt only by that society, the same as that which affects a private individual is felt only by him; it is a close corporation, and belongs to itself within its physical limits, the same as he, in his, belongs to himself; like him, then, it is an individual, less simple, but no less real, a human combination, endowed with reason and will, responsible for its acts, capable of wronging and being wronged; in brief, a legal entity. Such, in fact, it is, and, through the explicit declaration of the legislator, who constitutes it a legal entity, capable of possessing, acquiring, and contracting, and of prosecuting in the courts of law: he likewise confers on the eighty-six departments and on the thirty-six thousand communes all the legal capacities and obligations of an ordinary individual. The State, consequently, in relationship to them and to all collective persons, is what it is with respect to a private individual, neither more nor less; its title to intervene between them is not different. As justiciary, it owes them justice the same as to private persons, nothing more or less; only to render this to them, it has more to do, for they are composite and complex. By virtue even of its mandate, it is bound to enter their domiciles in the performance of its duty, to maintain probity and to prevent disorder, to protect there not alone the governed against the governors and the governors against the governed, but again the community, which is lasting, against its directors, who are temporary, to assign to each member his quota of dues or of charges, and his quote of influence or of authority, to regulate the way in which the society shall support and govern itself, to decide upon and sanction the equitable statute, to oversee and impose its execution, that is to say, in sum to maintain the right of each person and oblige each to pay what he owes.—This is difficult and delicate. But, being done, the collective personality is, as much as any individual, complete and defined, independent and distinct from the State; by the same title as that of the individual, it has its own circle of initiation and of action, its separate domain, which is its private affair. The State, on its side, has its own affairs too, which are those of the public; and thus, in the nature of things, both circles are distinct; neither of them should prey upon or encroach on the other.—Undoubtedly, local societies and the State may help each other, lend each other their agents, and thus avoid employing two for one; may reduce their official staff, diminish their expenses, and, through this interchange of secondary offices, do their work better and more economically. For example, the commune and the department may let the State collect and deposit their "additional centimes," borrow from it for this purpose its assessors and other accountants, and thus receive their revenues with no drawback, almost gratis, on the appointed day. In the like manner, the State has very good reason for entrusting the departmental council with the re-distribution of its direct taxes among the districts, and the district council with the same re-distribution among the communes: in this way it saves trouble for itself, and there is no other more effective mode of ensuring an equitable allocation. It will similarly be preferable to have the mayor, rather than anybody else, handle petty public undertakings, which nobody else could do as readily and as surely, with less trouble, expense, and mistakes, with fewer legal document, registers of civil status, advertisements of laws and regulations, transmissions by the orders of public authorities to interested parties, and of local information to the public authorities which they need, the preparation and revision of the electoral lists and of conscripts, and co-operation in measures of general security. Similar collaboration is imposed on the captain of a merchant vessel, on the administrators of a railway, on the director of a hotel or even of a factory, and this does not prevent the company which runs the ship, the railway, the hotel, or the factory, from enjoying full ownership and the free disposition of its capital; from holding meetings, passing resolutions, electing directors, appointing its managers, and regulating its own affairs, preserving intact that precious faculty of possessing, of willing and of acting, which cannot be lost or alienated without ceasing to be a personality. To remain a personality (i.e. a legal entity), such is the main interest and right of all persons, singly or collectively, and therefore of local communities and of the State itself; it must be careful not to abdicate and be careful not to usurp.—It renounces in favor of local societies when, through optimism or weakness, it hands a part of the public domain over to them; when it gives them the responsibility for the collection of its taxes, the appointment of its judges and police-commissioners, the employment of its armed forces, when it delegates local functions to them which it should exercise itself, because it is the special and responsible director, the only one who is in a suitable position, competent, well provided, and qualified to carry them out. On the other side, it causes prejudice to the local societies, when it appropriates to itself a portion of their private domain, when it confiscates their possessions, when it disposes of their capital or income arbitrarily, when it imposes on them excessive expenses for worship, charity, education, and any other service which properly belongs to a different association; when it refuses to recognize in the mayor the representative of the commune and the government official, when it subordinates the first of these two titles to the second, when it claims the right of giving or taking away, through with the second which belongs to it, the first which does not belong to it, when in practice and in its grasp the commune and department cease to be private companies in order to become administrative compartments.—According to the opportunity and the temptation, it glides downhill, now toward the surrender of its duty, and now toward the meddlesome interference of an intruder.



V. Local versus State authority.

Case in which the State abdicates.—Anarchy during the Revolution.—Case in which the State usurps.—Regime of the year VIII.—Remains of local independence under the ancient regime.—Destroyed under the new regime.—Local society after 1800.

From and after 1789, the State, passing through intermittent fits and starts of brutal despotism, had resigned its commission. Under its almost nominal sovereignty, there were in France forty-four thousand small States enjoying nearly sovereign power, and, most frequently, sovereignty in reality.[4111] Not only did the local community manage its private affairs, but again, in the circumscription, each exercised the highest public functions, disposed of the national guard, of the police force, and even of the army, appointed civil and criminal judges, police commissioners,[4112] the assessors and collectors of taxes. In brief, the central State handed over, or allowed the seizure of the powers of which it ought never to deprive itself, the last of its means by which alone it acts effectively and on the spot,

* its sword, which it alone should wield,

* its scales of justice, which it alone should hold,

* its purse, for it to fill, and we have seen with what harm to individuals, to the communes, and to itself, with what a lamentable series of disastrous results:

* universal, incurable, persistent anarchy,

* impotence of the government,

* violation of the laws,

* complete stoppage of revenue, an empty treasury,

* despotism of the strong, oppression of the weak,

* street riots,

* rural brigandage,

* extortions and waste at the town halls,

* municipal usurpations and abdications,

* ruin of the highways, and all useful public works and buildings, and

* the ruin and distress of the communes.[4113]

In contrast with this, and through disgust, the new Regime takes the other side, and even goes to the other extreme; the central State, in 1800, no longer a party that has resigned, as formerly, becomes the interloper. Not only does it take back from local communities the portion of the public domain which had been imprudently conceded to them, but, again, it lays its hand on their private domain; it attaches them to it by way of appendices, while its systematic, uniform usurpation, accomplished at one blow, spread over the whole territory, again plunges them all, communes and departments alike, into a chaos in which, under the old monarchy, they would never have fallen.

Before 1789, collective legal entities (persons), provincial and communal, still existed. On the one hand, five or six great local bodies, represented by elective assemblies, full of life and spontaneously active, among others those of Languedoc and Brittany, still provided for and governed themselves. The other provinces, which the central power had reduced to administrative districts, retained, at least, their historic cohesion, their time-honored name, the lament for, or at least the souvenir of, their former autonomy, and, here and there, a few vestiges or fragments of their lost independence; and, better yet, these old, paralyzed, but not mutilated bodies, had just assumed new life, and under their renewed organism were striving to give the blood in their veins a fresh start. Twenty-one provincial assemblies, instituted over the entire territory, between 1778 and 1787, and provided with powers of considerable importance, undertook, each in its own sphere, to direct provincial interests. Communal interest, also, had its representatives in the urban or rural communes. In the towns, a deliberative assembly, composed of the leading notables and of delegates elected by all the corporations and communities in the place, formed an intermittent municipal council the same as to-day, but much more ample, which voted and passed resolutions on important occasions; there was a board of management at the head of it, "the town corps," comprising the various municipal officials, the mayor, his lieutenant, sheriffs, prosecuting attorney, treasurer, and clerk,[4114] now elected by the deliberative assembly, now the legal purchasers, heirs, and proprietors of their office, the same as a notary or advocate of to-day owns his office, protected against administrative caprices by a royal acquittance, and, for a money consideration, titular in their towns, the same as a parliamentarian in his parliament, and hence planted in, or grafted upon, the commune like a parliamentarian among his peers, and, like him, defenders of local interests against the central power.—In the village, the heads of families met together on the public square, deliberated in common over common affairs, elected the syndic, likewise the collectors of the taille, and deputies to the intendant; of their own accord, but with his approval, they taxed themselves for the support of the school, for repairs to the church or fountain, and for beginning or carrying on a suit in court.—All these remains of the ancient provincial and communal initiative, respected or tolerated by monarchical centralization, are crushed out and extinguished. The First Consul very soon falls upon these local societies and seizes them in his claws; in the eyes of the new legislator they scarcely seem to exist; there must not be any local personalities for him. The commune and department, in his eyes, are merely territorial districts, physical portions of the public domain, provincial workshops to which the central State transfers and uses its tools, in order to work effectively and on the spot. Here, as elsewhere, he takes the business entirely in his own hands; if he employs interested parties it is only as auxiliaries, at odd times, for a few days, to operate with more discernment and more economy, to listen to complaints and promises, to become better informed and the better to apportion changes; but, except this occasional and subordinate help, the members of the local society must remain passive in the local society; they are to pay and obey, and nothing more. Their community no longer belongs to them, but to the government; its chiefs are functionaries who depend on him, and not on it; it no longer issues its mandate; all its legal mandatories, all its representatives and directors, municipal or general councilors, mayors, sub-prefects or prefects, are imposed on it from above, by a foreign hand, and, willingly or not, instead of choosing them, it has to put up with them.



VI. Local Elections under the First Consul.

Lists of notables.—Senatus-consultes of the year X. —Liberal institution becomes a reigning instrument. —Mechanism of the system of appointments and candidatures. —Decree of 1806 and suppression of candidatures.

At the beginning, an effort was made to put in practice the constitutional principle proposed by Sieyes: Power in future, according the accepted formula, must come from above and confidence from below. To this end, in the year IX, the assembled citizens appointed one-tenth of their number, about 500,000 communal notables, and these, likewise assembled, appointed also one-tenth of their number, about 50,000 departmental notables. The government selected from this list the municipal councilors of each commune, and, from this second list, the general councilors of each department.—The machine, however, is clumsy, difficult to set going, still more difficult to manage, and too unreliable in its operation. According to the First Consul, it is an absurd system, "a childish piece of ideology; a great nation should not be organized in this way."[4115] At bottom,[4116] "he does not want notables accepted by the nation. In his system, he is to declare who the notables of the nation shall be and stamp them with the seal of the State; it is not for the nation to present them to the head of the State stamped with the national seal." Consequently, at the end of a year, he becomes, through the establishment of electoral colleges, the veritable grand-elector of all the notables; he has transformed, with his usual address, a liberal institution into a reigning instrumentality.[4117] Provisionally, he holds on to the list of communal notables, "because it is the work of the people, the result of a grand movement which must not prove useless, and because, moreover, it contains a large number of names.... offering a wide margin from which to make good selections.[4118] He brings together these notables in each canton, and invites them to designate their trusty men, the candidates from which he will choose municipal councilors. But, as there are very few cultivated men in the rural districts, "nearly always it is the old seignior who would get himself designated";[4119] it is essential that the hand of the government should not be forced, that its faculty of choosing should not be restricted. Thus, the presentation of municipal councilors of that category must cease, there must no longer be any preliminary candidates. Now, according the senatus-consulte, this category is a large one, for it comprises all communes of less than 5000 souls, and therefore over 35,000 municipal councils out of 36,000, whose members are appointed arbitrarily, without the citizens whom they represent taking any part in their nomination.—Four or five hundred average or large communes still remain, in which for each municipal post, the cantonal assembly designates two candidates between whom the government chooses. Let us see this assembly duly installed and at work.

Its president, as a precautionary step, is imposed upon it. He is appointed in advance by the government, and is well informed as to what the government wants. He alone controls the police of the chamber and the order of all deliberations. On opening the session, he draws a list from his pocket, which list, furnished by the government, contains the names of one hundred of the heaviest taxpayers of the canton, from whom the assembly must select its candidates. The lists lies spread out on the table, and the electors advance in turn, spell the names, and try to read it over. The president would not be very adroit and show but little zeal did he not help them in reading it, and if he did not point out by some sign, a tone of the voice, or even a direct word, what names were agreeable to the government. Now, this government, which has five hundred thousand bayonets at command, dislikes opposition: the electors know it, and look twice before expressing any counter opinion; it is very probable that most of the names suggested by the government are found on their ballots; were only one-half of them there, these would suffice; of the two candidates proposed for each place, if one is acceptable this one will be elected; after making him a candidate the government makes sure that he will become titular. The first act of the electoral comedy is played, and it is not long before no trouble whatever is taken to play it. After January, 1806, by virtue of a decree which has passed himself, Napoleon is the only one[4120] who will directly fill every vacancy in the municipal councils; from now on these councils are to owe their existence wholly to him. The two qualities which constitute them, and which, according to Sieyes, are derived from two distinct sources, are now derived from only one source. Only the Emperor can confer upon them both public confidence and legal power.