mies as well as itself by forced
contributions on conquered territories, it ends in bankruptcy; it
repudiates two-thirds of its debt, and its credit is so low that the
remaining third which it has consolidated and guaranteed afresh, loses
eighty-three per cent. the very next day. In its hands, the State has
itself suffered as much as the private individuals.--Of the latter, more
than 1 200 000 have suffered physically: several millions, all who owned
anything, great or small, have suffered through their property.[4147]
But, in this multitude of the oppressed, it is the notables who are
chiefly aimed at and who, in their possessions as well as in their
persons, have suffered the most.

II. The Value of Notables in Society.

Various kinds and degrees of Notables in 1789.--The great
social staff.--Men of the world.--Their breeding.--Their
intellectual culture.--Their humanity and philanthropy.
--Their moral temper.--Practical men.--Where recruited,--Their
qualifications.--Their active benevolence.--Scarcity of them
and their worth to a community.

On estimating the value of a forest you begin by dividing its vegetation
into two classes; on the one hand the full-grown trees, the large or
medium-sized oaks, beeches and aspens, and, on the other, the saplings
and the undergrowth. In like manner, in estimating society, you divide
the individuals composing it into two groups, one consisting of its
notables of every kind and degree, and the other, of the common run of
men. If the forest is an old one and has not been too badly managed,
nearly the whole of its secular growth is found in its clusters of
full-grown trees. Nearly all the useful wood is to be found in the
mature forest. A few thousand large handsome trees and the three or four
hundred thousand saplings, young and old, of the reserve, contain more
useful and valuable wood than the twenty or thirty millions shrubs,
bushes and heathers put together. It is the same in a community which
has existed for a long time under a tolerably strict system of justice
and police; almost the entire gain of a secular civilization is found
concentrated in its notables, which, taking it all in all, was the state
of French society in 1789.[4148]

Let us first consider the most prominent personages.--It is certain,
that, among the aristocracy, the wealthiest and most conspicuous
families had ceased to render services proportionate to the cost of
the