prietor, owes the latter
an indemnity; since the privilege of prescription is nothing but
expropriation for the sake of public utility.

But here is something stronger:--

"In society a place cannot remain vacant with impunity. A new man arises
in place of the old one who disappears or goes away; he brings here his
existence, becomes entirely absorbed, and devotes himself to this post
which he finds abandoned. Shall the deserter, then, dispute the honor of
the victory with the soldier who fights with the sweat standing on his
brow, and bears the burden of the day, in behalf of a cause which he
deems just?"

When the tongue of an advocate once gets in motion, who can tell where
it will stop? M. Troplong admits and justifies usurpation in case of
the ABSENCE of the proprietor, and on a mere presumption of his
CARELESSNESS. But when the neglect is authenticated; when the
abandonment is solemnly and voluntarily set forth in a contract in the
presence of a magistrate; when the proprietor dares to say, "I cease to
labor, but I still claim a share of the product,"--then the absentee's
right of property is protected; the usurpation of the possessor would
be criminal; farm-rent is the reward of idleness. Where is, I do not say
the consistency, but, the honesty of this law?

Prescription is a result of the civil law, a creation of the legislator.
Why has not the legislator fixed the conditions differently?--why,
instead of twenty and thirty years, is not a single year sufficient to
prescribe?--why are not voluntary absence and confessed idleness as good
grounds for dispossession as involuntary absence, ignorance, or apathy?

But in vain should we ask M. Troplong, the philosopher, to tell us
the ground of prescription. Concerning the code, M. Troplong does not
reason. "The interpreter," he says, "must take things as they are,
society as it exists, laws as they are made: that is the only sensible
starting-point." Well, then, write no more books; cease to reproach your
predecessors--who, like you, have aimed only at interpretation of the
law--for having remained in the rear; talk no more of philosophy and
progress, for the lie sticks in your throat.

M. Troplong denies the reality of the right of possession; he denies
that possession has ever existed as a principle of society; and he
quotes M. de Savigny, who holds precisely the opposite position, and
whom he is content to leave unanswered. At one time, M. Troplong asserts