ery much as the same formula, applied to the _noblesse_ of a
century ago, represented, among the large farmers of that day, the
'principles of 1789.'

Both then and now the formula simply means 'the man who has what I want
to have is an aristocrat.' I think I have observed something like this
in other countries--as, for example, in Ireland--where the guilty
possessor of acres, however, is not only an 'aristocrat' but an 'alien,'
as appears from a song popular in Kerry:--

The alien landlords have no right
To the land God made for you;
So we'll blow them up with dynamite,
The thieving, hellish crew!

Dynamite was unknown in Picardy a century and a half ago. And the Picard
has very little, except his religion, in common with the Irish Celt. But
the sentiment of this simple and pleasing little ditty glowed deep in
the Picard heart long before the Revolution of 1789. The 'earth hunger,'
which has given the act of 'land-grabbing' the first place in the
category of human crimes, invented, long ago in Picardy, and especially
in that part of Picardy now known as the Department of the Somme, a
custom called the _coutume de mauvais gre_ or the _droit de marche_.
Under this custom a tenant-farmer in Picardy considered himself entitled
to sell the right to till his landlord's fields to anybody he liked, to
give it as a dowry to his daughter, or to leave it to be divided among
his heirs; and all this without reference to the expiration of his
lease. If the landlord objected and went so far as to lease his land to
another person, the previous tenant was regarded by his friends and by
other farmers as a _depointe_, entitled to take summary vengeance upon
the 'land-grabber.' He might kill off his cattle, burn his crops and his
buildings, and, if occasion served, shoot or knock him in the head. As
the whole country was in a conspiracy, either of terror or of sympathy,
to protect the _depointe_ against the vengeance of the law, this
cheerful 'custom' had a liberalising effect upon the Picard landholders.
Rents fell, and if the value of landed property rose the landed
proprietor got no advantage from that. The torch and the musket kept
down the demand, which was equivalent practically to increasing the
supply. The results of this 'custom' were such that in 1764, a quarter
of a century before the Revolution of 1789, the king intervened, but in
vain, to put a stop to it. The 'oppressed and downtrodden peasant' of
Picardy und