The present influence of the aristocratic caste in France is an evil influence in its discouragement of work. The caste includes a great number of people who have all been brought up to despise and abstain from the labour that earns bread. If the harm were confined to the caste itself it would be only a limited evil--unfortunately, it extends to all aspirants to aristocracy, to all the would-be genteel. This throws a degree of relative discredit on all money-earning occupations which certainly exceeds the prejudice of English gentility against them. Even literature and the fine arts become degrading as soon as they are lucrative,[70] a sentiment quite opposed to the more intelligent modern opinion in France. All the forms of trade are despicable for aristocrats, and when they hear of a family that has been in trade they say, with an air of genteel ignorance about the nature of the business, “_Ils ont vendu quelque chose_.” Their manners towards shopkeepers are often unpleasant, and exhibit a degree of _morgue_ that is peculiarly irritating to a French tradesman. [Sidenote: The False _Noblesse_.] [Sidenote: Great Scale of Usurpations.] [Sidenote: New Recruits.] An aristocratic caste may be an institution for which there is no further necessity, it may be a survival that has become useless, but one likes to see it genuine of its kind, even in its latter days. Unfortunately the present French aristocracy, whilst encouraging idle habits by its contempt for work, encourages habits of imposture by the fatal facility with which it permits the encroachments of the false _noblesse_. I have often wondered how the old noble families ever tolerated these intruders, and I believe the only explanation to be that the intruders are such sure and subservient allies in politics and religion. It is really a system of recruiting.[71] The false noble fortifies his position by all available means, and there are none better than an ardent profession of those opinions that the genuine aristocracy approves. I said long ago in _Round my House_ that the particle “de,” which is popularly supposed to indicate nobility, was extensively assumed by families belonging really to the _bourgeoisie_, but I was not fully aware at that time on what a prodigiously extensive scale these usurpations have been made. Here is a single example. A public functionary, whose duties required frequent reference to registers in a particular locality, told me that he had at first been embarrassed by the changes of name in certain families. Plain names of the _bourgeoisie_ had been laid aside for territorial designations with the “de” before them, and it was difficult at first sight to understand and remember these transformations. Having a curious and investigating disposition, the functionary amused himself by tracing out as many of these cases as he could discover, and he told me that in a single neighbourhood he had found no less than fifty families who