as an author by birthright.

* See the first year of La Feuille Villageoise, No. 42.--
Author. [Cf. Montaigne's Essays, chap. xii.--_Editor._]

Royalty is thus as contrary to common sense as to com-mon right. But it
would be a plague even if no more than an absurdity; for a people who
can bow down in honor of a silly thing is a debased people. Can they be
fit for great affairs who render equal homage to vice and virtue, and
yield the same submission to ignorance and wisdom? Of all institutions,
none has caused more intellectual degeneracy. This explains the
often-remarked abjectness of character under monarchies.

Such is also the effect of this contagious institution that it renders
equality impossible, and draws in its train the presumption and the
evils of "Nobility." If you admit inheritance of an office, why not that
of a distinction? The Nobility's heritage asks only homage, that of
the Crown commands submission. When a man says to me, 'I am born
illustrious,' I merely smile; when he says 'I am born your master,' I
set my foot on him.

When the Convention pronounced the abolition of Royalty none rose
for the defence that was expected. On this subject a philosopher, who
thought discussion should always precede enactment, proposed a singular
thing; he desired that the Convention should nominate an orator
commissioned to plead before it the cause of Royalty, so that the
pitiful arguments by which it has in all ages been justified might
appear in broad daylight. Judges give one accused, however certain
his guilt, an official defender. In the ancient Senate of Venice there
existed a public officer whose function was to contest all propositions,
however incontestible, or however perfect their evidence. For the rest,
pleaders for Royalty are not rare: let us open them, and see what the
most specious of royalist reasoners have said.

1. _A king is necessary to preserve a people from the tyranny of
powerful men_.

Establish the Rights of Man(1); enthrone Equality; form a good
Constitution; divide well its powers; let there be no privileges, no
distinctions of birth, no monopolies; make safe the liberty of industry
and of trade, the equal distribution of [family] inheritances, publicity
of administration, freedom of the press: these things all established,
you will be assured of good laws, and need not fear the powerful men.
Willingly or unwillingly, all citizens will be under the Law.

1 The reader s