‘The nation,’ said Turgot, with an air of melancholy, in a secret report addressed to the King, ‘is a community, consisting of different orders ill compacted together, and of a people whose members have very few ties among themselves, so that every man is exclusively engrossed by his personal interest. Nowhere is any common interest discernible. The villages, the towns, have not any stronger mutual relations than the districts to which they belong. They cannot even agree among themselves to carry on the public works which they require. Amidst this perpetual conflict of pretensions and of undertakings your Majesty is compelled to decide everything in person or by your agents. Your special injunctions are expected before men will contribute to the public advantage, or respect the rights of others, or even sometimes before they will exercise their own.’ It is no slight enterprise to bring more closely together fellow-citizens who have thus been living for centuries as strangers or as enemies to each other, and to teach them how to carry on their affairs in common. To divide them was a far easier task than it then becomes to reunite them. Such has been the memorable example given by France to the world. When the different classes which divided the ancient social system of France came once more into contact sixty years ago, after having been isolated so long, and by so many barriers, they encountered each other on those points on which they felt most poignantly, and they met in mutual hatred. Even in this our day their jealousies and their animosities have survived them. FOOTNOTES: [43] See Note XXXVII., Arthur Young’s Tour. [44] See Note XXXVIII. [45] See Note XXXIX., Violation of Vested and Corporate Rights. [46] [This remark must be taken with some qualification as to the fact. These distinctions are not wholly eradicated at the present day in England, but they are mere questions of property, not of personal rank or political influence.] [47] See Note XL. [48] See Note XLI., Exemptions of Public Officers from Taxation. [49] See Note XLII. CHAPTER XI. OF THE SPECIES OF LIBERTY WHICH EXISTED UNDER THE OLD MONARCHY, AND OF THE INFLUENCE OF THAT LIBERTY ON THE REVOLUTION. If the reader were here to interrupt the perusal of this book, he would have but a very imperfect impression of the government of the old French monarchy, and he would not understand the state of society produced by the Revolution. Since the citizens of France were thus divided and thus contracted within themselves, since the power of the Crown was so extensive and so great, it might be inferred that the spirit of independence had disappeared with public liberty, and that the whole French people were equally bent in subjection. Such was not the case; the Government had long conducted absolutely and alone all the common affairs of the nation; but it was as yet by no means master of every individual existence.