the
individual limited the powers of the State. The Roman law bowed to
the will of the citizen, and an emperor--Commodus, if I remember
rightly--abandoned the project of enlarging the forum out of respect for
the rights of the occupants who refused to abdicate. Property is a
real right, _jus_ _in re_,--a right inherent in the thing, and whose
principle lies in the external manifestation of man's will. Man leaves
his imprint, stamps his character, upon the objects of his handiwork.
This plastic force of man, as the modern jurists say, is the seal which,
set upon matter, makes it holy. Whoever lays hands upon it, against the
proprietor's will, does violence to the latter's personality. And yet,
when an administrative committee saw fit to declare that public utility
required it, property had to give way to the general will. Soon, in
the name of public utility, methods of cultivation and conditions of
enjoyment will be prescribed; inspectors of agriculture and manufactures
will be appointed; property will be taken away from unskilful hands,
and entrusted to laborers who are more deserving of it; and a general
superintendence of production will be established. It is not two years
since I saw a proprietor destroy a forest more than five hundred acres
in extent. If public utility had interfered, that forest--the only one
for miles around--would still be standing.

But, it is said, expropriation on the ground of public utility is only
an exception which confirms the principle, and bears testimony in
favor of the right. Very well; but from this exception we will pass to
another, from that to a third, and so on from exceptions to exceptions,
until we have reduced the rule to a pure abstraction.

How many supporters do you think, sir, can be claimed for the project
of the conversion of the public funds? I venture to say that everybody
favors it, except the fund-holders. Now, this so-called conversion is
an extensive expropriation, and in this case with no indemnity whatever.
The public funds are so much real estate, the income from which the
proprietor counts upon with perfect safety, and which owes its value
to the tacit promise of the government to pay interest upon it at the
established rate, until the fund-holder applies for redemption. For,
if the income is liable to diminution, it is less profitable than
house-rent or farm-rent, whose rates may rise or fall according to the
fluctuations in the market; and in that case, what