re why it has at
length reached them.

It has been often observed, that the two extremes of society are nearly
the same in all countries; the great resemble each other from education,
the little from nature. Comparisons, therefore, of morals and manners
should be drawn from the intervening classes; yet from this comparison
also I believe we must exclude farmers, who are every where the same, and
who seem always more marked by professional similitude than national
distinction.

The French farmer exhibits the same acuteness in all that regards his own
interest, and the same stupidity on most other occasions, as the mere
English one; and the same objects which enlarge the understanding and
dilate the heart of other people, seem to have a contrary effect on both.
They contemplate the objects of nature as the stock-jobber does the
vicissitudes of the public funds: "the dews of heaven," and the
enlivening orb by which they are dispelled, are to the farmer only
objects of avaricious speculation; and the scarcity, which is partially
profitable, is but too often more welcome than a general abundance.--They
consider nothing beyond the limits of their own farms, except for the
purpose of making envious comparisons with those of their neighbours; and
being fed and clothed almost without intermediate commerce, they have
little necessity for communication, and are nearly as isolated a part of
society as sailors themselves.

The French revolutionists have not been unobserving of these
circumstances, nor scrupulous of profiting by them: they knew they might
have discussed for ever their metaphysical definitions of the rights of
man, without reaching the comprehension, or exciting the interest, of the
country people; but that if they would not understand the propagation of
the rights of man, they would very easily comprehend an abolition of the
rights of their landlords. Accordingly, the first principle of liberty
they were taught from the new code was, that they had a right to assemble
in arms, to force the surrender of title-deeds; and their first
revolutionary notions of equality and property seem to have been
manifested by the burning of chateaux, and refusing to pay their rents.
They were permitted to intimidate their landlords, in order to force them
to emigration, and either to sell their estates at a low price, or leave
them to the mercy of the tenants.

At a time when the necessities of the state had been great enough to