Apart from the two or three thousand gilded drones living
on the public honey at Versailles, apart from the court parasites and
their valets, three or four hundred thousand notables and half-
notables of France thus acquired and kept their offices, consideration
and fortune; they were therefore their legitimate possessors. The
peasant-proprietor and master-artisan had risen from father to son, at
four o'clock in the morning, toiled all day and never drank. From
father to son, the trader, notary, lawyer and office-holder, had been
careful, economical, skillful and attentive to business, correct in
their papers, precise in their accounts. From father to son, the
nobleman had served bravely, the parliamentarian had judged equitably,
as a point of honor, with a salary inferior to the interest of the sum
paid by him to acquire his rank or post. Each of these men received
no more than his due; his possessions and his rank were the savings of
his ascendants, the price of social services rendered by the long file
of deserving dead, all that his ancestors, his father and himself had
created or preserved of any stable value; each piece of gold that
remained in the hereditary purse represented the balance of a
lifetime, the enduring labor of some one belonging to his line, while
among these gold pieces, he himself had provided his share.
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