It has lost Political Leadership.
The faults of the French noblesse have not led to its absolute destruction, for it still survives, but they have deprived it of political power. Unteachableness, rigidity, want of sympathy with the rest of the nation, lack of practical sense,—these are some of the defects that have reduced the French aristocracy to a plight which, politically speaking, is pitiable and without a future. Since they allowed themselves to be enslaved by Louis XIV. the nobles have been out of sympathy with the common people, and since the Revolution they have been hostile to them, except in the way of charity to the poor. It would, perhaps, be expecting too much of human nature to hope that an ancient noblesse could forget the rough treatment it received in the first unreasoning outburst of popular vengeance; but it would not have been so dealt with if it had lived less selfishly, and cared for other interests than its own. It had brilliant intelligence, it had charming graces, and all the éclat of personal bravery, in combination with the rarest degree of polish, yet it lost the due rewards of its admirable superiorities by its unkind scorn of the manant and the roturier. The “manant” and the “roturier” avenged themselves roughly when the time came. The people have improved their condition wonderfully, but it has been entirely by their own efforts, the consequence being that the aristocracy survives only as a caste, and has no political leadership.
Contempt for Work.
Contempt for Trade.
The present influence of the aristocratic caste in France is an evil influence in its discouragement of work. The caste includes a great number of people who have all been brought up to despise and abstain from the labour that earns bread. If the harm were confined to the caste itself it would be only a limited evil—unfortunately, it extends to all aspirants to aristocracy, to all the would-be genteel. This throws a degree of relative discredit on all money-earning occupations which certainly exceeds the prejudice of English gentility against them. Even literature and the fine arts become degrading as soon as they are lucrative,[70] a sentiment quite opposed to the more intelligent modern opinion in France. All the forms of trade are despicable for aristocrats, and when they hear of a family that has been in trade they say, with an air of genteel ignorance about the nature of the business, “Ils ont vendu quelque chose.” Their manners towards shopkeepers are often unpleasant, and exhibit a degree of morgue that is peculiarly irritating to a French tradesman.
The False Noblesse.
Great Scale of Usurpations.
New Recruits.
An aristocratic caste may be an institution for which there is no further necessity, it may be a survival that has become useless, but one likes to see it genuine of its kind, even in its latter days. Unfortunately the present French aristocracy, whilst encouraging idle habits by its contempt for work, encourages habits of imposture by the fatal facility with which it permits the encroachments of the false noblesse. I have often wondered how the old noble families ever tolerated these intruders, and I believe the only explanation to be that the intruders are such sure and subservient allies in politics and religion. It is really a system of recruiting.[71] The false noble fortifies his position by all available means, and there are none better than an ardent profession of those opinions that the genuine aristocracy approves. I said long ago in Round my House that the particle “de,” which is popularly supposed to indicate nobility, was extensively assumed by families belonging really to the bourgeoisie, but I was not fully aware at that time on what a prodigiously extensive scale these usurpations have been made. Here is a single example. A public functionary, whose duties required frequent reference to registers in a particular locality, told me that he had at first been embarrassed by the changes of name in certain families. Plain names of the bourgeoisie had been laid aside for territorial designations with the “de” before them, and it was difficult at first sight to understand and remember these transformations. Having a curious and investigating disposition, the functionary amused himself by tracing out as many of these cases as he could discover, and he told me that in a single neighbourhood he had found no less than fifty families who had raised themselves into what is ignorantly but generally considered to be the noble caste by the addition of the “de.” Amidst such an influx of new recruits the authentic old nobility is, in these days, completely overwhelmed. There being no strictly-kept peerage, as in England, there is nothing authoritative to refer to, and an injurious doubt is cast upon real coronets by the perplexing abundance of false ones. Besides the “de,” the most positive titles are coolly assumed and worn. You may meet with people who live in an old château and are very comme il faut, very simple and well bred, without any appearance of false pretension whatever, yet they have just one little bit of false pretension—their title. They call themselves Count and Countess, yet are not Count and Countess at all. Their fortune was made in business two generations ago, and the château purchased, and the title of the old family that once lived there gradually assumed by a too familiar process.
Absence of a pure Caste in England.