hinks only of
himself, gets served quickly, consumes what he can lay his hands on, and
ends by finding out that, in a place of this sort, the best condition,
the wisest course, is to put all one's property into an annuity and live
a bachelor.--Formerly, among all classes and in all the provinces, there
were a large number of families that had taken root on the spot, living
there a hundred years and more. Not only among the nobles, but among
the bourgeoisie and the Third-Estate, the heir of any enterprise was
expected to continue his calling. This was so with the seignorial
chateau and extensive domain, as with the bourgeois dwelling and
patrimonial office, the humble rural domain, farm, shop and factory, all
were transmitted intact from one generation to another.[4185] Great or
small, the individual was not exclusively interested in himself; his
thoughts also traveled forward to the future and back to the past, on
the side of ancestors and on that of descendants, along the endless
chain of which his own life was but a link; he possessed traditions,
he felt bound to set examples. Under this twofold title, his domestic
authority was uncontested;[4186] his household and all his employees
followed his instructions without swerving and without resistance. When,
by virtue of this domestic discipline, a family had maintained itself
upright and respected on the same spot for a century, it could easily
advance a degree; it could introduce one of its members into the upper
class, pass from the plow or trade to petty offices, and from these to
the higher ones and to parliamentary dignities, from the four thousand
posts that ennoble to the legalized nobility, from the lately made
nobles to the old nobility. Apart from the two or three thousand gilded
drones living on the public honey at Versailles, apart from the court
parasites and their valets, three or four hundred thousand notables
and half-notables of France thus acquired and kept their offices,
consideration and fortune; they were therefore their legitimate
possessors. The peasant-proprietor and master-artisan had risen from
father to son, at four o'clock in the morning, toiled all day and never
drank. From father to son, the trader, notary, lawyer and office-holder,
had been careful, economical, skillful and attentive to business,
correct in their papers, precise in their accounts. From father to
son, the nobleman had served bravely, the parliamentarian had judged
equitably,