ation
of science; in other words, it shuts out manifoldness of development,
diversity of talent, and the luxury of social relations. Every single
farmer family is almost self-sufficient; itself produces directly the
greater part of what it consumes; and it earns its livelihood more by
means of an interchange with nature than by intercourse with society. We
have the allotted patch of land, the farmer and his family; alongside of
that another allotted patch of land, another farmer and another family.
A bunch of these makes up a village; a bunch of villages makes up a
Department. Thus the large mass of the French nation is constituted by
the simple addition of equal magnitudes--much as a bag with potatoes
constitutes a potato-bag. In so far as millions of families live under
economic conditions that separate their mode of life, their interests
and their culture from those of the other classes, and that place them
in an attitude hostile toward the latter, they constitute a class; in
so far as there exists only a local connection among these farmers, a
connection which the individuality and exclusiveness of their interests
prevent from generating among them any unity of interest, national
connections, and political organization, they do not constitute a class.
Consequently, they are unable to assert their class interests in their
own name, be it by a parliament or by convention. They can not represent
one another, they must themselves be represented. Their representative
must at the same time appear as their master, as an authority over
them, as an unlimited governmental power, that protects them from
above, bestows rain and sunshine upon them. Accordingly, the political
influence of the allotment farmer finds its ultimate expression in an
Executive power that subjugates the commonweal to its own autocratic
will.

Historic tradition has given birth to the superstition among the French
farmers that a man named Napoleon would restore to them all manner of
glory. Now, then, an individual turns I up, who gives himself out as
that man because, obedient to the "Code Napoleon," which provides that
"La recherche de la paternite est interdite," [#5 The inquiry into
paternity is forbidden.] he carries the name of Napoleon. [#6 L. N.
Bonaparte is said to have been an illegitimate son.] After a vagabondage
of twenty years, and a series of grotesque adventures, the myth is
verified, and that man becomes the Emperor of the French. The roo