has done much against the Scotch,
but I cannot see that he has done anything against my interests." Louis
XIV. often said: "If I follow the wishes of the people, I cannot act the
king." Even such phrases as "misfortunes of the State," "safety of the
State," filled Louis XIV. with wrath.

Could nature make a law which should assure virtue and wisdom invariably
in these privileged castes that perpetuate themselves on thrones, there
would be no objection to their hereditary succession. But let us pass
Europe in review: all of its monarchs are the meanest of men. This one
a tyrant, that one an imbecile, another a traitor, the next a debauchee,
while some muster all the vices. It looks as if fate and nature had
aimed to show our epoch, and all nations, the absurdity and enormity of
Royalty.

But I mistake: this epoch has nothing peculiar. For, such is the
essential vice of this royal succession by animal filiation, the peoples
have not even the chances of nature,--they cannot even hope for a good
prince as an alternative. All things conspire to deprive of reason
and justice an individual reared to command others. The word of young
Dionysius was very sensible: his father, reproaching him for a shameful
action, said, "Have I given thee such example?" "Ah," answered the
youth, "thy father was not a king!"

In truth, were laughter on such a subject permissible, nothing would
suggest ideas more burlesque than this fantastic institution of
hereditary kings. Would it not be believed, to look at them, that there
really exist particular lineages possessing certain qualities which
enter the blood of the embryo prince, and adapt him physically
for royalty, as a horse for the racecourse? But then, in this wild
supposition, it yet becomes necessary to assure the genuine family
descent of the heir presumptive. To perpetuate the noble race of
Andalusian chargers, the circumstances pass before witnesses, and
similar precautions seem necessary, however indecent, to make sure that
the trickeries of queens shall not supply thrones with bastards, and
that the kings, like the horses, shall always be thoroughbreds.

Whether one jests or reasons, there is found in this idea of hereditary
royalty only folly and shame. What then is this office, which may be
filled by infants or idiots? Some talent is required to be a simple
workman; to be a king there is need to have only the human shape, to be
a living automaton. We are astonished when reading