This explains the annihilation of the aristocracy of the nobility in France. Between it and royalty, as between royalty and the English aristocracy, there was a long struggle, but the results were as different as the characters of the nations. In France, monarchical unity triumphed; Louis XI. struck down the aristocracy; Richelieu muzzled it; Louis XIV. obliged it to wear the collar. Thus reduced in a political point of view, it was left in possession of the field of taste and art, which it devoted to the promotion of irreligion and corruption of manners. When, therefore, it was weighed in 1789, it was found wanting; the decree of destiny had gone forth, and the revolution executed it with a cannibal ferocity. The unhappy aristocracy remembered its lofty nature only at the point of death; it mounted the scaffold with dignity.
For the same reason, the idle portion of the Middle Class tends towards its fall, for it accomplishes no purpose, which cannot be effected without it. It does not enrich society by its labour, although it lays claim to be reckoned in the number of producers, under the pretext that it holds the soil and exercises a sort of superintendence over its cultivation. The truth is, that it is wholly ignorant of agriculture; it has received by tradition a certain routine, but the peasantry is as fully possessed of the tradition, and needs no teachers on that matter. The proprietor is sometimes, indeed, paid in kind by the peasant, and then sells the grain himself; but the peasant could easily attend to that business, and would manage it quite as well as his landlord. Neither does this class serve as the representative of knowledge; for in this respect, its acquisitions are limited to a little polite literature, an agreeable accomplishment surely, but not answering to the wants and spirit of the age.
Where a nobility exists and maintains its prerogatives, as in England, it performs a twofold office. In the first place, it devotes itself to the most difficult of all arts, that of governing men, and in this it excels; whether because it cultivates it by the traditions of experience, or because it vigilantly recruits its ranks by enlisting in them such men as have already proved their superiour knowledge of the different interests of society. This reason cannot be urged by our idle Middle Class as an argument for its preservation; for it is notoriously ignorant of the science of government.
The second office of a nobility, not less essential than the first in our polished age, is to serve as a pattern and example in the art of living, to teach the art of consuming, without which that of producing procures only partial and illusive gratification, and to encourage the fine arts. On this head nothing can be said in favour of the class alluded to. It excels neither in grace, nor elegance, nor address. The importance which it has acquired by the destruction of the aristocracy, has been fatal to the old French politeness, to that exquisite courtesy on which our fathers prided themselves. Within the last fifty years, whilst the English have been improving in this respect, much more successfully than their stiff and unpliant humour seemed to promise, we have forgotten much and unlearned much, under the controlling influence of our Middle Class.
As for the art of consuming with grace and living well, and that care of the person, the only fraction of which that they can be sensible to, the English call comfort, our Middle Class has lessons to learn, but none to give. It is not, however, the fault of nature; for no people has received finer and acuter senses than ours. Surely, our nerves are more sensitive, our ear and our palate more delicate than those of the English. Our superiority on these points, is attested by the fact, that, from one end of the world to the other, we are in possession of most of the trades which relate to the person; the office of cook, head-dresser, dancing-master, valet, or tailor, is everywhere monopolised by the French. But to surround oneself with the English comfort, and that more refined comfort which we can conceive of, one must be rich. Now our Middle Class is poor, and politically considered this is one of its greatest faults; it grows poorer daily, either by the operation of the law which commands the equal partition of estates, or of that idleness which condemns it to a stationary income, whilst public wealth and luxury are increasing all around it. It cannot, therefore, encourage the fine arts, for the patronage of the arts is costly; besides taste is growing rare in France since the fall of the aristocracy.
Nor can it be affirmed that the unemployed Middle Class in France represents the element of order, and that if it were to disappear, France itself would perish in frightful convulsions. For the labouring class is already ripe for a better state of society, and requires only the advantages of instruction, and of more favourable terms and more numerous opportunities for industry, to be in a condition to exercise all the rights of a citizen as usefully as the greater portion of the Middle Class. And even if the latter represents in whole or in part the element of order, it is only by the aid and the instrumentality of four hundred thousand bayonets, exclusive of those of the Middle Class itself, and thus it retains its predominance only by opposing the multitude to the multitude; a critical and dangerous position, which cannot long be held, for the very bayonets are beginning to become intelligent.
The bourgeoisie oisive has, then, only one course to take; that is, to pass into the ranks of the working men, to fit themselves to become the leaders of the people in its labours. When this is done, our fields, which belong especially to their domain, will change their aspect as if by enchantment, and our peasants, who, it cannot be too often repeated, at present form the poorest and most numerous class in France, will be raised to a better condition, of which they are worthy. The idle Middle Class must now become with the government, to which the first step in all great projects of improvement belong, responsible for the progress of twentyfive millions of agricultural labourers.
In this change it has every thing to gain itself. By this means it will maintain and confirm its own social rank, for it will thus recover the confidence of the multitude, and will turn its superiority to a good account by exercising a beneficent patronage towards its inferiors. It will exchange a straitened condition for competency or even wealth, and the tedium of a life of inaction for the satisfaction of having done well, the consciousness of having faithfully performed a great duty. This honourable desertion of the standard of idleness for that of industry is now going forward daily. Let us rejoice at it: let us pray that it may speedily become universal. Let us especially urge government to accelerate it, by encouraging the development of industry, by all the means and aids that can improve the condition and resources of agriculture, and inspire the young generation with a desire to devote themselves to this first of arts.