We have already seen how these results may be traced in the state of French agriculture. They may also, we think, be discerned in the relative position which the landholders of France bear to other classes in the social scale. These, numbering between four and five millions, ought, as a class, to constitute the leaders of the nation. So far from this being the case, they are perhaps the most inert and uninfluential portion of the community, having apparently had little or no voice in the two revolutions which have swept over their heads within the last eighteen years, and as little in the erection, maintenance, or downfall of the Throne of the Barricades. It yet remains to be seen whether they will continue to accept every thing which the clubs of Paris are willing to force upon them. As tax-payers and cultivators of the soil, it can hardly suit them to be propagandists; as men who have something to lose, they will not readily give in to the dictatorial vagaries of Ledru Rollin. If, however, they would hold their own, it is time for them to be up and doing. France has been governed by a minority before now. We have always regarded it as one of the main advantages of a landed aristocracy, that it raises up a principle of social rank antagonistic to that of mere wealth. In France, the constant subdivision and transfer of land breaks down this influence, and causes land to be regarded as a mere marketable article and equivalent for money. "In countries where the custom of primogeniture exercises a powerful influence, families become identified with estates--the family representing the estate, and the estate the family. The wealth and consideration enjoyed by the latter depend upon, and are intimately connected with, the possession of the lands which have descended to them from their ancestors. They estimate their value by another than a mere pecuniary standard. They are attached to them by the oldest and most endearing associations; and they are seldom parted with except under the most painful circumstances. Hence the perpetuity of property in England in the same families, notwithstanding the limited duration of entails; great numbers of estates being at this moment enjoyed by those whose ancestors acquired them at or soon after the Conquest. But in France such feelings are proscribed. Estates and families have there no abiding connexion; and at the demise of an individual who has a number of children, his estate can hardly escape being subdivided. And this effect of the law tends to imbue the proprietors with corresponding sentiments and feelings. 'Non seulement,' says M. De Tocqueville, 'la loi des successions rend difficile aux familles de conserver intacts les mêmes domaines, mais elle leur òte le désir de le tenter, et elle les entraîne, en quelque sorte, à coopérer avec elle à leur propre ruine.'"--P. 85-86.