enjoy
these, they calmly submitted to taxation, furnished recruits for his
conscription, and supported him in every measure.

In tracing the causes and effects of the various revolutions which take
place among civilized nations, political writers have paid too little
attention to the effects of property. France affords us an interesting
field for investigation on this interesting question; but the narrow
limits of our work will not admit of our indulging in such speculations.
We cannot, however, avoid remarking by the way, that the facility of
effecting a revolution in the government of France, so often shewn of
late, has arisen, in a great measure, from this state of the property
of the peasantry. Under the revolution they gained this property, and
they respected and supported the revolutionists. Under Napoleon, their
property was respected, and they bore with him, and admired him. Louis
commenced by encouraging them in the idea that their rights would be
respected, and they remained quiet:--his Ministers commenced their plans
of restoring to the noblesse their estates, and the King immediately
lost the affections of the peasantry. They welcomed Napoleon a second
time, because they knew his principles: They have again welcomed their
King, because they are led to suppose that experience has changed the
views of his Ministers: but they suspect him, and on the first symptom
of another change they will join in his expulsion.

The nobility, the great landed proprietors, the yeomanry, the lesser
farmers, all the intermediate ranks who might oppose a check to the
power of a tyrannical prince, are nearly annihilated. The property of
these classes, but more particularly of the nobility, has been
subdivided and distributed among the peasants; become their own, it has,
no doubt, been much better managed, for it is their immediate interest
that not an acre of waste ground should remain. They till it with their
own hands, and, without any intermediate agents, they draw the profits.
Lands thus managed, must, of course, be found in a very different state
from those whose actual proprietor is perhaps never on the spot, who
manages through stewards, bailiffs, and other agents, and whose rank
prevents the possibility of his assisting, or even superintending, the
labour of his peasantry.

Having shewn the causes of the present appearance of France, we must
describe the effects, by presenting to our readers the picture which was
every