“Article II. These rights are equality, liberty, security, property.
“Article III. All men are equal by nature and before the law.”[299]
Here the new statement begins to appear. Men are equal by nature and before the law.
“Equal before the law.” This term, which, by its essential accuracy and self-limitation, excludes all uncertainty, exaggeration, or vagueness, was already known in the literature of France. Voltaire, whose wonderful genius was so peculiarly French, with that constant clearness which is the boast of the French language, had used it in one of his philosophical poems, where political truth is commended in the manner of Pope. The first of these was in 1734, on “Equality of Conditions,” where he says, “Mortals are equal; their mask is different”; and then, “To have the same rights to happiness, this is for us the perfect and only equality”;[300] thus, like our Declaration of Independence, placing “the pursuit of happiness” among natural rights. This assertion of equal rights was defined in the poem on “The Law of Nature,” addressed to Frederick, King of Prussia, and written in 1752, where he says, “The law in every State ought to be universal; mortals, whoever they may be, are equal before it.” But I cite the precise words:—
“La loi dans tout État doit être universelle:
Les mortels, quels qu’ils soient, sont égaux devant elle.”[301]
This happy statement naturally passed from the poem to the Constitution.
It was much to declare equality; it was more still to do it with accuracy of form defying assault. This conquest of the Revolution assumed its most precise enunciation on the restoration of the Bourbons, when it appeared as the first article in the Constitutional Charter of Louis the Eighteenth, promulgated in 1814.
“Article I. Frenchmen are equal before the law, whatever may otherwise be their titles and their ranks.”[302]
And it was repeated by Napoleon, April 22, 1815, on his return from Elba.[303]