526 
Rxiral Economy of France since 1789. 
slnunk in the same ratio ; and the other is the system of giving 
adequate marriage-portions to daughters, without which they 
have little chance of finding suitors. It is easy to conceive that 
in such a state of society the accession of property brought by 
marriage goes far to counteract the laws of subdivision of inheri- 
tance, and on the whole that the number of small proprietors in- 
clines more to diminution than increase at present. 
It is generally thought that the equal division of property was 
only enforced by law after the Revolution. This is not correct : 
under the old I'egime the estates of the nobles were those alone 
entailed : the equal division of inheritance existed for the middle 
class and the people. The Revolution merely extended this law 
to all estates. M. de Lavergne greatly approves of this measure, 
and certainly adduces very cogent reasons to support his views ; 
but this is a point, and perhaps the only one, in which we do 
not agree with him ; and few who can appreciate the social and 
intellectual influence exercised by the aristocracy of this country 
will concur with M. de Lavergne on the subject of the privilege 
of primogeniture. We need only point to the efforts made by 
the large landowners of England to bring agricultural practice 
into unison with scientific discoveries by costly experiments, 
which they alone could afford to make, and by the happy results 
of which the agriculture of the whole world has benefited to a 
degree which it is difficult to realize. It would indeed be idle, 
when addressing English readers, to expatiate upon the advantages 
which all the institutions, nay, all the interests, of England have 
derived, and derive more and more, from the high status of her 
aristocracy. There is not a single page of English history in 
which the aristocracy are not associated with its glorious records ; 
and although we are not prepared to combat M. de Lavergne's 
arguments in respect to the French aristocracy — who during the 
last few reigns previous to the Revolution were certainly more 
remarkable for their courtly and dissolute habits than their devo- 
tion to the public weal, and until the last few years never did 
anything to promote agricultural progress — yet we maintain that 
the two cases are by no means parallel, and that in England the 
law of primogeniture, by preserving the entirety of large estates, 
by concentrating the powerful means of wealth into the hands of 
intelligent, patriotic, and benevolent men, has been and is still 
one of the strongest bulwarks of English prosperity ; whilst, on 
the other hand, one of the most fatal gifts of the Revolution, 
as regards the agricultural progress of France, was the law of 
inheritance. No proprietor can be certain that his estate will 
come into the hands of any of his children. Should he die before 
they are all of age, the law steps in and forcibly sells his estates, 
an order to divide the proceeds among them ; or else the task of 
