shortly after. A relative of the Duke of
Mortemart, shooting on his property, was attacked by peasants who
insisted that he should cease his sport. They treated him with much
brutality, and even threatened to fire on him and his attendants,
'_claiming to be free masters of their lands_.' Here was the main root
of the great French Revolution. A fair consideration of the details of
such an undertaking as Turgot's administration of the Limousin helps us
to understand two things: first, that all the ideas necessary for the
pacific transformation of French society were there in the midst of it;
second, that the system of privilege had fostered such a spirit in one
class, and the reaction against the inconsiderate manifestation of that
spirit was so violent in the other class, that good political ideas were
vain and inapplicable.

It is curious to find that, in the midst of his beneficent
administration, Turgot was rating practical work very low in comparison
with the achievements of the student and the thinker. 'You are very
fortunate,' Condorcet said to him, 'in having a passion for the public
good, and in being able to satisfy it; it is a great consolation, and of
a very superior order to the consolation of mere study.' 'Nay,' replied
Turgot, in his next letter, 'whatever you may say, I believe that the
satisfaction derived from study is superior to any other kind of
satisfaction. I am perfectly convinced that one may be, through study, a
thousand times more useful to men than in any of our subordinate posts.
There we torment ourselves, and often without any compensating success,
to secure some small benefits, while we are the involuntary instrument
of evils that are by no means small. All our small benefits are
transitory, while the light that a man of letters is able to diffuse
must, sooner or later, destroy all the artificial evils of the human
race, and place it in a position to enjoy all the goods that nature
offers.' It is clear that we can only accept Turgot's preference, on
condition that the man of letters is engaged on work that seriously
advances social interests and adds something to human stature. Most
literature, nearly all literature, is distinctly subordinate and
secondary; it only serves to pass the time of the learned or cultured
class, without making any definite mark either on the mental habits of
men and women, or on the institutions under which they live. Compared
with such literature as this, the wor