in our country was actively checked, became in France almost universal.301 By this, the great lords having granted lands on condition of fealty and other services to certain persons, these last subgranted them; that is, made them over on similar conditions to other persons, who had likewise the power of bestowing them on a fourth party, and so on in an endless series;302 thus forming a long chain of dependence, and, as it were, organizing submission into a system.303 In England, on the other hand, such arrangements were so unsuited to the general state of affairs, that it is doubtful if they were ever carried on to any extent; and, at all events, it is certain that, in the reign of Edward I., they were finally stopped by the statute known to lawyers as Quia emptores.304
Thus early was there a great social divergence between France and England. The consequences of this were still more obvious when, in the fourteenth century, the feudal system rapidly decayed in both countries. For in England, the principle of protection being feeble, men were in some degree accustomed to self-government; and they were able to hold fast by those great institutions which would have been ill adapted to the more obedient habits of the French people. Our municipal privileges, the rights of our yeomanry, and the security of our copyholders, were, from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, the three most important guarantees for the liberties of England.305 In France such guarantees were impossible. The real division being between those who were noble, and those who were not noble, no room was left for the establishment of intervening classes; but all were compelled to fall into one of these two great ranks.306 The French have never had any thing answering to our yeomanry; nor were copyholders recognized by their laws. And, although they attempted to introduce into their country municipal institutions, all such efforts were futile; for, while they copied the forms of liberty, they lacked that bold and sturdy spirit by which alone liberty can be secured. They had, indeed, its image and superscription; but they wanted the sacred fire that warms the image into life. Every thing else they possessed. The show and appliances of freedom were there. Charters were granted to their towns, and privileges conceded to their magistrates. All, however, was useless. For it is not by the wax and parchment of lawyers that the independence of men can be preserved. Such things are the mere externals; they set off liberty to advantage; they are as its dress and paraphernalia, its holiday-suit in times of peace and quiet. But, when the evil days set in, when the invasions of despotism have begun, liberty will be retained, not by those who can show the oldest deeds and the largest charters, but by those who have been most inured to habits of independence, most accustomed to think and act for themselves, and most regardless of that insidious protection which the upper classes have always been so ready to bestow, that, in many countries, they have now left nothing worth the trouble to protect.
And so it was in France. The towns, with few exceptions, fell at the first shock; and the citizens lost those municipal privileges which, not being grafted on the national character, it was found impossible to preserve. In the same way, in our country, power naturally, and by the mere force of the democratic movement, fell into the hands of the House of Commons; whose authority has ever since, notwithstanding occasional checks, continued to increase at the expense of the more aristocratic parts of the legislature. The only institution answering to this in France was the States-General; which, however, had so little influence, that, in the opinion of native historians, it was hardly to be called an institution at all.307 Indeed, the French were, by this time, so accustomed to the idea of protection, and to the subordination which that idea involves, that they were little inclined to uphold an establishment which, in their constitution, was the sole representative of the popular element. The result was, that, by the fourteenth century, the liberties of Englishmen were secured;308 and, since then, their only concern has been to increase what they have already obtained. But in that same century, in France, the protective spirit assumed a new form; the power of the aristocracy was, in a great measure, succeeded by the power of the crown; and there began that tendency to centralization which, having been pushed still further, first under Louis XIV., and afterwards under Napoleon, has become the bane of the French people.309 For by it the feudal ideas of superiority and submission have long survived that barbarous age to which alone they were suited. Indeed, by their transmigration, they seemed to have gained fresh strength. In France, every thing is referred to one common centre, in which all civil functions are absorbed. All improvements of any importance, all schemes for bettering even the material condition of the people must receive the sanction of government; the local authorities not being considered equal to such arduous tasks. In order that inferior magistrates may not abuse their power, no power is conferred upon them. The exercise of independent jurisdiction is almost unknown. Every thing that is done must be done at head quarters.310 The government is believed to see every thing, know every thing, and provide for every thing. To enforce this monstrous monopoly there has been contrived a machinery well worthy of the design. The entire country is covered by an immense array of officials;311 who, in the regularity of their hierarchy, and in the order of their descending series, form an admirable emblem of that feudal principle, which ceasing to be territorial, has now become personal. In fact, the whole business of the state is conducted on the supposition that no man either knows his own interest, or is fit to take care of himself. So paternal are the feelings of government, so eager for the welfare of its subjects, that it has drawn within its jurisdiction the most rare, as well as the most ordinary, actions of life. In order that the French may not make imprudent wills, it has limited the right of bequest; and, for fear that they should bequeath their property wrongly, it prevents them from bequeathing the greater part of it at all. In order that society may be protected by its police, it has directed that no one shall travel without a passport. And when men are actually travelling, they are met at every turn by the same interfering spirit, which, under pretence of protecting their persons, shackles their liberty. Into another matter, far more serious, the French have carried the same principle. Such is their anxiety to protect society against criminals, that, when an offender is placed at the bar of one of their courts, there is exhibited a spectacle which is no idle boast to say we, in England, could not tolerate for a single hour. There is seen a great public magistrate, by whom the prisoner is about to be tried, examining him in order to ascertain his supposed guilt, re-examining him, cross-examining him, performing the duties, not of a judge, but of a prosecutor, and bringing to bear against the unhappy man all the authority of his judicial position, all his professional subtlety, all his experience, all the dexterity of his practised understanding. This is, perhaps, the most alarming of the many instances in which the tendencies of the French intellect are shown; because it supplies a machinery ready for the purposes of absolute power; because it brings the administration of justice into disrepute, by associating with it an idea of unfairness; and because it injures that calm and equable temper, which it is impossible fully to maintain under a system that makes a magistrate an advocate, and turns the judge into a partizan. But this, mischievous as it is, only forms part of a far larger scheme. For, to the method by which criminals are discovered, there is added an analogous method, by which crime is prevented. With this view, the people, even in their ordinary amusements, are watched and carefully superintended. Lest they should harm each other by some sudden indiscretion, precautions are taken similar to those with which a father might surround his children. In their fairs, at their theatres, their concerts, and their other places of public resort, there are always present soldiers, who are sent to see that no mischief is done, that there is no unnecessary crowding, that no one uses harsh language, that no one quarrels with his neighbour. Nor does the vigilance of the government stop there. Even the education of children is brought under the control of the state, instead of being regulated by the judgment of masters or parents.312 And the whole plan is executed with such energy, that, as the French while men are never let alone, just so while children they are never left alone.313 At the same time, it being
‘Originally there was no limit to subinfeudation.’
A living French historian boasts that, in his own country, ‘toute la société féodale formait ainsi une échelle de clientelle et de patronage.’
This is 18 Edw. I. c. 1; respecting which, see
The history of the decay of that once most important class, the English yeomanry, is an interesting subject, and one for which I have collected considerable materials; at present, I will only say, that its decline was first distinctly perceptible in the latter half of the seventeenth century, and was consummated by the rapidly-increasing power of the commercial and manufacturing classes early in the eighteenth century. After losing their influence, their numbers naturally diminished, and they made way for other bodies of men, whose habits of mind were less prejudiced, and therefore better suited to that new state which society assumed in the last age. I mention this, because some writers regret the almost total destruction of the yeoman freeholders; overlooking the fact, that they are disappearing, not in consequence of any violent revolution or stretch of arbitrary power, but simply by the general march of affairs; society doing away with what it no longer requires. Compare
This is stated as an admitted fact by French writers living in different periods and holding different opinions; but all agreed as to there being only two divisions: ‘comme en France on est toujours ou noble, ou roturier, et qu'il n'y a pas de milieu.’
‘Les états-généraux sont portés dans la liste de nos institutions. Je ne sais cependant s'il est permis de donner ce nom à des rassemblemens aussi irréguliers.’
This is frankly admitted by one of the most candid and enlightened of all the foreign writers on our history,
See an account of the policy of Philip the Fair, in
As several writers on law notice this system with a lenient eye
Mr. Bulwer, writing twenty years ago, says: ‘Not only cannot a commune determine its own expenses without the consent of the minister or one of his deputed functionaries, it cannot even erect a building, the cost of which shall have been sanctioned, without the plan being adopted by a board of public works attached to the central authority, and having the supervision and direction of every public building throughout the Kingdom.’
M. Tocqueville, writing in the present year (1856), says, ‘Sous l'ancien régime,
The number of civil functionaries in France, who are paid by the government to trouble the people, passes all belief, being estimated, at different periods during the present century, at from 138,000 to upwards of 800,000.
‘The government in France possesses control over all the education of the country, with the exception of the colleges for the education of the clergy, which are termed seminaries, and their subordinate institutions.’
Much attention is paid to the
