From Alaric to Napoleon the soldier had served as an independent vent to energy. Often, even when opposed to capital, he had been victorious, and the highest function of a leader of men had been, in theory at least, military command. The ideal statesman had been one who, like Cromwell, Frederic the Great, Henry IV., William III., and Washington, could lead his followers in battle, and, on the Continent, down to 1789, the aristocracy had professedly been a military caste. In France and Germany the old tradition lasted to within a generation. Only after 1871 came the new era, an era marked by many social changes. For the first time in their history the ruler of the French people passed admittedly from the martial to the monied type, and everywhere the same phenomenon appeared; the whole administration of society fell into the hands of the economic man. Nothing so radical happened at Rome, or even at Byzantium, for there the pressure of the barbarians necessitated the retention of the commander at the head of the State; in Europe he lost this importance. Since the capitulation of Paris the soldier has tended to sink more and more into a paid official, receiving his orders from financiers with his salary, without being allowed a voice even in questions involving peace and war. The same fate has overtaken the producing classes; they have failed to maintain themselves, and have become subjects of the possessors of hoarded wealth. Although the conventions of popular government are still preserved, capital is at least as absolute as under the Cæsars, and, among capitalists, the money-lenders form an aristocracy. Debtors are in reality powerless, because of the extension of that very system of credit which they invented to satisfy their needs. Although the volume of credit is gigantic, the basis on which it rests is so narrow that it may be manipulated by a handful of men. That basis is gold; in gold debts must be paid; therefore, when gold is withdrawn, the debtor is helpless and becomes the servant of his master. The elasticity of the age of expansion has gone. The aristocracy which wields this autocratic power is beyond attack, for it is defended by a wage-earning police, by the side of which the legions were a toy; a police so formidable that, for the first time in history, revolt is hopeless and is not attempted. The only question which preoccupies the ruling class is whether it is cheaper to coerce or to bribe.