ird on a branch.--In the second place, there
was a limit to his ambition; he did not keep constantly thinking of
mounting a step higher in the hierarchy; or how to pass from a small
town to a large one and hold on to his title; this would have been a too
troublesome and complicated matter; he would first have had to find
a purchaser and then sell his place, and next find a seller and buy
another at a higher price; a stock broker at Bordeaux, a notary at
Lyons, is not an aspirant for the post of stock broker or notary at
Paris.--Nothing then bore any resemblance to the itinerant groups of
functionaries of the present day which, in obedience to orders from
above, travels about governing each of our towns, strangers on the wing,
with no personal standing, without local landed property, interests
or means, encamped in some hired apartment, often in a furnished room,
sometimes stopping at a hotel, eternal nomads awaiting a telegram,
always prepared to pack up and leave for another place a hundred leagues
off in consideration of a hundred crowns extra pay, and doing the same
detached work over again. Their predecessor, belonging to the country,
was a stable fixture and contented; he was not tormented by a craving
for promotion; he had a career within the bounds of his corporation and
town; cherishing no wish or idea of leaving it, he accommodated himself
to it; he became proud of his office and professional brethren, and
rose above the egoism of the individual; his self-love was bent on
maintaining every prerogative and interest belonging to his guild.
Established for life in his native town, in the midst of old colleagues,
numerous relatives and youthful companions, he esteemed their good
opinion. Exempt from vexatious or burdensome taxes, tolerably well off,
owning at least his own office, he was above sordid preoccupations
and common necessities. Used to old fashioned habits of simplicity,
soberness and economy, he was not tormented by a disproportion between
his income and expenses, by the requirements of show and luxury, by the
necessity of annually adding to his revenue.--Thus guided and free, the
instincts of vanity and generosity, the essence of French character,
took the ascendant; the councilor or comptroller, the King's agent,
regarded himself as a man above the common run, as a noble of the
Third-Estate; he thought less of making money than of gaining esteem;
his chief desire was to be honored and honorable; "he pas