ON EQUALIZING PROPERTY. 17 



multiplicity of privileges from which the more numerous 

 classes of the population had then so much to suffer ; 

 finally, after having divided mankind into two categories, 

 the workers and the idlers, he goes so far as to say of 

 these latter, who alone, according to him, have been 

 taken into account in the constitution of modern society, 

 that " they do not begin to be useful till the moment in 

 wliich they die, for they do not vivify the earth except 

 by reentering it." Such, Gentlemen, are the bold 

 opinions wdiich an Academy rewarded in 1784 ; which 

 called forth from Buffon, who certainly cannot be ac- 

 cused of having been an innovator in matters of govern- 

 ment, these words so flattering to the successful orator : 

 — " Your style is noble and flowing ; you have done, sir, 

 an agreeable and useful work ; " and which inspired the 

 brother of an absolute king with the desire of attaching 

 Carnot, Avhose " friend " he declared himself to be, to the 

 service of Prussia ; which gained for the young officer 

 the favour of the prince whom Worms and Coblentz 

 witnessed a few years afterwards at the head of the 

 emigration ! Who then will dare to call our revolution 

 of 1789 an effect without a cause, a meteor of whose 

 arrival there had been no warning ? The moral trans- 

 formations of society are subjected to the law of con- 

 tinuity; they rise and grow hke the productions of the 

 earth, by imperceptible gradations. 



Each century develops, discusses, and adapts to itself, 

 in some degree, truths — or, if you prefer it, principles — 

 of which the conception belonged to the preceding cen- 

 tury ; this work of the mind usually goes on without 

 being perceived by the vulgar ; but when the day of 

 application ai'rives, when principles claim their part in 

 practice, when they aim at penetrating into political life, 



