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[ 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.">[
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[ Beugnot, "Mémoires," 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.">[
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[ D'Haussonville, "l'Église romaine et le Premier Empire," I., chs X. and XI.]
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[ 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 curés 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.]
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[ "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.">[