The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Vol. 3 (of 4) — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Vol. 3 (of 4)
John Stuart Mill · en
The complement of this negative measure was the creation of the right
to transmit together, and for an indefinite time, a title and the
realty on which its dignity reposed. Though the restoration of this
institution was slightly anterior in time to the other as to its
beginnings, yet the final decree was not published until 1808, and
logically it is complementary and subsequent to it. To this day many
men of ancient and honorable name in France have not ceased to bemoan
the destruction of primogeniture by the Revolution and the Code
Napoleon. They are proud to transmit their title untarnished to their
descendants, are ready to make serious sacrifices in its behalf, to
exercise the rigid self-denials of family control for its sake, and to
engrave the motto of "noblesse oblige" on their hearts in order to
sustain it; but they bitterly complain that without the majorat, and
the transmission of outward, visible supports in land and houses to
strengthen it, the empty sound carries little weight. The compulsory
subdivision of estates at the death of the owner enables every scion
to live, if not to thrive, on the home stock. The failure of France in
colonization is largely due to the absence of men from good families
among the colonizers, while England sends her younger sons to the ends
of the earth, there to found new houses and perpetuate the old line
under favorable conditions. Hence, too, the petty dimensions of
aristocratic French life: little fortunes, little ambitions, little
establishments, little families, among that very class in society
which by cultivating the sentiment of honor should leaven the
practical, materialistic temper of the multitude. At the present time,
when the burghers amass in trade far greater fortunes than the
aristocracy possess, when the learned secure greater power by
intellectual vigor, when the demagogues grow mightier by the command
of votes, titles alone carry little weight, and the virtues of honor,
of chivalry, of elegance, can with difficulty display their example.