The Middle Classes and the Rich.
He has the advantage, also, of living in a country where the middle classes are proud of the wealth of the rich. They talk of the large incomes of the nobility with an interest that may be a survival of ancient feudal sentiments, a vassal’s pride in his liege lord. It is a pleasure to them to think that the Duke of Westminster can drive out with his guests from Eaton Hall in a procession of his own carriages. Even the freaks of the last Duke of Portland are not displeasing to them, because his mole-burrowing was done on such a costly scale. The vast estates of Sutherland and Breadalbane seem to give every Scotchman a superiority over the comparatively landless French noblesse. The British nature is so inclined to be happy in wealth that when the individual Briton has little of his own to rejoice in he generously takes pleasure in that of the nearest lord. This pleasure is the more pure for him that he is almost incapable of envy.[74]
French Feeling about Riches.
Separableness of Rank and Wealth in France.
The state of French feeling about riches is more difficult to define with perfect accuracy. It varies very much with different localities. In a trading town money is everything, being the sign of superiority in trade, and the biggest capitalist is the greatest man. In an aristocratic centre money without caste counts for very little, and the rich bourgeois keeps his place, retaining the most simple and unpretending manners. I should say that rank and wealth are much more separate, or at least separable, in France than in England. People are accustomed to see nobles of high rank with very moderate fortunes, and they are also accustomed to meet with rich bourgeois who do not aspire to aristocracy either for themselves or their descendants. Amongst the noblesse themselves money is regarded merely as a great convenience, and rank is respected still, and fully recognised, even in combination with very narrow means. This is the purely aristocratic as opposed to the plutocratic sentiment.
French Equality.
French equality does not bring together the noblesse and the bourgeoisie, as the noblesse is exclusive, except towards the false noblesse that has once got itself adopted.[75] But equality often produces a degree of familiarity, astonishing to an Englishman, between the rich bourgeoisie and the common people. This may be explained by the absence of the word “gentleman” and of that separation of classes, without the help of title, which the word “gentleman” implies. The rich bourgeois, in France, is nothing but a bourgeois; he has never thought “I am a gentleman,” and the difference between him and a common man is but a pecuniary difference.
Sanctity of Wealth in England.
Wealth has a dignity and almost a sanctity in England which seems to be connected with religious beliefs, and especially with the familiar knowledge of the Old Testament, almost an unknown book in France. In this respect the English hold a middle place between the French and the Jews. I certainly have myself known rich English people who believed that Divine Providence had appointed them, personally, to have authority over the poor, and that the poor owed them much deference for that reason. It is a kind of divine right, and it is even capable of a sort of scientific proof, for wealth is one of the natural forces, and, in the last analysis, an accumulation of solar energy given into the hand of a man.[76]
Sentiments of the Poor towards the Rich.