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[ "Correspondance de Mirabeau et du Comte de la Marck,"II., 74 (Letter of Mirabeau to the King, July 3, 1790): "Compare the new state of things with the ancient régime.... One portion of the acts of the national assembly (and that the largest) is evidently favorable to monarchical government. Is it to have nothing, then, to have no parliaments, no provincial governments, no privileged classes, no clerical bodies, no nobility? The idea of forming one body of citizens would have pleased Richelieu: this equalized surface facilitates the exercise of power. Many years of absolute rule could not have done so much for royal authority as this one year of revolution."—Sainte-Beuve, "Port-Royal," V., 25 (M. Harlay conversing with the supérieure of Port-Royal): "People are constantly talking about Port-Royal, about these Port-Royal gentlemen: the King dislikes whatever excites talk. Only lately he caused M. Arnaud to be informed that he did not approve of the meetings at his house; that there is no objection to his seeing all sorts of people indifferently like everybody else, but why should certain persons always be found in his rooms and such an intimate association among these gentlemen?... The King does not want any rallying point; a headless assemblage in a State is always dangerous."—Ibid., p.33: "The reputation of this establishment was too great. People were anxious to put their children in it. Persons of rank sent theirs there. Everybody expressed satisfaction with it. This provided it with friends who joined those of the establishment and who together formed a platoon against the State. The King would not consent to this: he regarded such unions as dangerous in a State.">[
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[ "Napoleon Ire et ses lois civiles," by Honoré Pérouse, 280: Words of Napoleon: "I have for a long time given a great deal of thought and calculation to the re-establishment of the social edifice. I am to-day obliged to watch over the maintenance of public liberty. I have no idea of the French people becoming serfs."—"The prefects are wrong in straining their authority."—"The repose and freedom of citizens should not depend on the exaggeration or arbitrariness of a mere administrator."—"Let authority be felt by the people as little as possible and not bear down on them needlessly."—(Letters of January 15, 1806, March 6, 1807, January 12, 1809, to Fouché, and of March 6, 1807, to Regnault.)—Thibaudeau, "Mémoires sur le Consulat," P. 178 (Words of the first consul before the council of state): "True civil liberty depends on the security of property. In no country can the rate of the tax-payer be changed every year. A man with 3000 francs income does not know how much he will have left to live on the following year; his entire income may be absorbed by the assessment on it... A mere clerk, with a dash of his pen, may overcharge you thousands of francs... Nothing has ever been done in France in behalf of real estate. Whoever has a good law passed on the cadastre (official valuation of all the land in France) will deserve a statue.">[
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[ Honoré Pérouse, Ibid, 274 (Speech of Napoleon to the council of state on the law on mines):" "Myself, with many armies at my disposition, I could not take possession of any one's field, for the violation of the right of property in one case would be violating it in all. The secret is to have mines become actual property, and hence sacred in fact and by law."—Ibid., 279:" "What is the right of property? It is not only the right of using but, again, of abusing it. ... One must always keep in mind the advantage of owning property. The best protection to the owner of property is the interest of the individual; one may always rely on his activity.... A government makes a great mistake in trying to be too paternal; liberty and property are both ruined by over-solicitude."—"If the government prescribes the way in which property shall be used it no longer exists.".—Ibid., 284 (Letters of Aug.21 and Sept. 7, 1809, on expropriations by public authority): "It is indispensable that the courts should supervise, stop expropriation, receive complaints of and guarantee property-owners against the enterprises of our prefects, our prefecture councils and all other agents.... Expropriation is a judicial proceeding.... I cannot conceive how France can have proprietors if anybody can be deprived of his field simply by an administrative decision."—In relation to the ownership of mines, to the cadastre, to expropriation, and to the portion of property which a man might bequeath, Napoleon was more liberal than his jurists. Madame de Staël, "Dix années d'exil," ch. XVIII. (Napoleon conversing with the tribune Gallois): "Liberty consists of a good civil code, while modern nations care for nothing but property."—"Correspondance," letter to Fouché, Jan. 15, 1805. (This letter gives a good summary of his ideas on government.) "In France, whatever is not forbidden is allowed, and nothing can be forbidden except by the laws, by the courts, or police measures in all matters relating to public order and morality.">[
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[ Roederer, "æuvres complètes," III., 339 (Speech by the First Consul, October 21, 1800): "Rank, now, is a recompense for every faithful service—the great advantage of equality, which has converted 20,000 lieutenancies, formerly useless in relation to emulation, into the legitimate ambition and honorable reward of 400,000 soldiers."—Lafayette, "Mémoires," V., 350: "Under Napoleon, the soldiers said, he has been promoted King of Naples, of Holland, of Sweden, or of Spain, as formerly it was said that a than had been promoted sergeant in this or that company.">[
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[ "The Ancient Régime," book I., ch.2, the Structure of Society, especially pp.19-21. (Laff. I. p. 21-22)]