STUDY XIII. 117 



penfe of an Author who did not know, fometirnes, 

 where to find a dinner. We fliould not have ften, 

 for inliance, in our own days, the pofterity of Cor- 

 neille and of La Fontaine reduced to fubfift on 

 alms, while the bookfellers of Paris have been 

 building palaces out of the fale of their Works. 



Immenfe landed property is ftill more injurious 

 than thac of money and of employments, becaufe it 

 deprives the other citizens, at once, of the focial 

 and of the natural patriotifm. Befides, it comes, in 

 procefs of time, into the poffeffion of thofe who 

 have the employments and the money ; it reduces 

 all the fubjeds of the State to dépendance upon 

 them, and leaves them no refource for fubfiftence 

 but the cruel alternative, of degrading rhemfelves 

 by a bafe flattery of the paffions of thofe who have 

 got all the power and weakh in their hands, or of 

 going into exile. Thefe three caufes combined, 

 the laft efpecially, precipitated the ruin of the 

 Roman Empire, from the reign oï Trajan, as Pliny 

 has very juflly remarked. They have already ba- 

 niflied from France more fubjefts than the revo- 

 cation of the Edld of Nantes did. When I was in 

 Pruffia, in the year 1765, of the hundred and fifty 

 thoufand regular troops which the King then main- 

 tained, a full third was computed to confifl: of 

 French deferters. I by no means confider that 



I 3 number 



