Recollections (Souvenirs)

The French Revolution, which aboh'shed all privileges and destroyed all exclusive rights, has allowed one to remain, that of landed property. Let not the landlords deceive themselves as to the strength of their position, nor think that the rights of property form an insurmountable barrier because they have not as yet been surmounted ; for our times are unlike any others. When the rights of property were merely the origin and commencement of a number of other rights, they were easily defended, or rather, they were never attacked ; they then formed the surrounding wall of society, of which all other rights were the outposts ; no blows reached them ; no serious attempt was ever made to touch them. But to-day, when the rights of property are nothing more than the last remnants of an overthrown aristocratic world ; when they alone are left intact, isolated privileges amid the universal levelling of society ; when they are no longer protected behind a number of still more controversible and odious rights, the case is altered, and they alone are left daily to resist the direct and unceasing shock of democratic opinion. . . . "... Before long, the political struggle will be restricted to those who have and those who have not ; property will form the great field of battle ; and the principal political questions will turn upon the more or less important modifications to be introduced into the rights of landlords. We shall then have once more among us great public agitations and great political parties. " How is it that these premonitory symptoms escape the general view ?…