“This financier,” he thought as he stood on the landing, “merely sucked money from a king who in turn sucked it from him. This made them quits. It is unwise to brag about the finances of the monarchy, since, in the end, it was the financial deficit that brought about the downfall of the system. But this point is noteworthy, that the king was then the sole owner of all property, both real and personal, throughout the kingdom. Every house belonged to the king, and in proof of this, the subject who actually enjoyed the possession of it had to place the royal arms on the slab at the back of the hearth. It was therefore as owner, and not in pursuance of his right of taxation, that Louis XIV sent his subjects’ plate to the Mint in order to defray the expenses of his wars. He even had the treasures of the churches melted down, and I read lately that he carried off the votive-offerings of Notre-Dame de Liesse in Picardy, among which was found the breast that the Queen of Poland had deposited there in gratitude for her miraculous recovery. Everything then belonged to the king, that is to say, to the state. And yet neither the Socialists, who to-day demand the nationalisation of private property, nor the owners who intend to hold fast their possessions, pay any heed to the fact that this nationalisation would be, in some respects, a return to the ancient custom. It gives one a philosophic pleasure to reflect that the Revolution really was for the benefit of those who had acquired private ownership of national possessions and that the Declaration of the Rights of Man has become the landlords’ charter. “This Pauquet, who used to bring here the prettiest girls from the opera, was no knight of Saint-Louis. To-day he would be commander of the Legion of Honour and to him the finance ministers would come for their instructions. Then it was money he enjoyed; now it would be honours. For money has become honourable. It is, in fact, the only nobility we possess. We have destroyed all the others to put in their place the most oppressive, the most insolent, and the most powerful of all orders of nobility.” M. Bergeret’s reflections were distracted at this point by the sight of a group of men, women, and children coming out of M. Raynaud’s flat. He saw that it was a band of poor relations who had come to wish the old man a happy New Year: he fancied he could see them smelling about, under their new hats, for some profit to themselves. He went on up the stairs, for he lived on the third floor, which he delighted to call the third “room,” using the seventeenth-century phrase for it. And to explain this ancient term he loved to quote La Fontaine’s lines: Where is the good of life to men of make like you, To live and read for ever in a poor third room? Chill winter always finds you in the dress of June, With for lackey but the shadow that is each man’s due.[6]