the poor that serves; and these two are subdivided into a thousand, and
these thousand still have different gradations.

When the prizes are drawn you come to us: "I am a man like you," you
say. "I have two hands and two feet, as much pride as you, nay more, a
mind as disordered, at least, as inconsequent, as contradictory as
yours. I am a citizen of San Marino, or of Ragusa, or Vaugirard: give
me my share of the land. In our known hemisphere there are about fifty
thousand million arpents to cultivate, some passable, some sterile. We
are only about a thousand million featherless bipeds in this continent;
that makes fifty arpents apiece: be just; give me my fifty arpents."

"Go and take them in the land of the Cafres," we answer, "or the
Hottentots, or the Samoyedes; come to an amicable arrangement with them;
here all the shares are taken. If among us you want to eat, be clothed,
lodged, warmed, work for us as your father did; serve us or amuse us,
and you will be paid; otherwise you will be obliged to ask charity,
which would be too degrading to your sublime nature, and would stop your
being really the equal of kings, and even of country parsons, according
to the pretensions of your noble pride."


SECTION II

All the poor are not unhappy. The majority were born in that state, and
continual work stops their feeling their position too keenly; but when
they feel it, then one sees wars, like that of the popular party against
the senate party in Rome, like those of the peasants in Germany, England
and France. All these wars finish sooner or later with the subjection of
the people, because the powerful have money, and money is master of