Review of the agricultural statistics of France: with a notice of the works of MM. Rubichon, Mounier, and Passy, respecting its produce, and the condition of its rural population / [Anon].

  • Lovelace, William King-Noel, Earl of, 1805-1893.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Review of the agricultural statistics of France: with a notice of the works of MM. Rubichon, Mounier, and Passy, respecting its produce, and the condition of its rural population / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    they see only the victorious portion of the society, they take no account of the number of formerly independent nouns sub¬ stantive, now become mere adjectives and stipendiaries.” These fears in a French breast are not altogether groundless. Indeed it will be curious to observe, whether even this country with all its elements of stability and vis inertia, will succeed in dealing with men, societies, and corporations, wielding vast wealth and patronage, whose existence was unknown to the state or the legislature in the last generation. It remains yet for us to make the experiment how far the combination of executive authority and resources, whether of leagues or companies, by individuals more capable of controlling the state than likely to be controlled by it, while they muster in numbers on the benches of the House of Commons, is compatible with the continuance of the public liberties. But to revert to France. The rising power there, be it military despotism, bureaucratic or pecuniary corruption, finds in the forced equality the complete prostration of every class interest and element of resistance—a table rase for its opera¬ tions at its fit season. Long ago Mr. Malthus apprehended that a country with such institutions respecting inheritance was the natural birthplace of military tyranny. The deve¬ lopment of this may depend on the opportunities afforded by future events to the profession of arms; and hitherto, in Algeria and Tahiti, glory has been too closely allied with ridicule to admit of the soldiery saluting their leader imperator. But the Crown alone, as the legally recognised depository of civil power, through its responsible ministers, is scarcely a match, even with the army on its side, for the monied mate¬ rialism. All are entangled in its complication, corrupted by its allurements, or overborne by its might. The history of the late trials of MM. Cubieres, Parmentier, and Pallepra is an illustration of this. These unfortunate delinquents were pro¬ moted from a mere competence to bear sway in the most luxurious capital of the world; the city which is the chief abode of pleasure, taste, and wit; the royal exchange for the diplomacy and affluence of Europe. The corruption of func¬ tionaries so tempted is too natural for us to hope that the conviction that followed their accidental detection will ef¬ fectually abolish it. The danger to the state remains the same. Hitherto money, eloquence, arms, letters,—Laffitte, Thiers, Soult, Guizot,—every notability, in short, has been disarmed, led captive, or at least, been neutralised and played off one against the other by the prince who, for seventeen years, has filled the elective throne. But will its actual con-