CHAPTER I. THE ORIGIN OF PRIVILEGES.

In 1789 three classes of persons, the Clergy, the Nobles and the
King, occupied the most prominent position in the State with all the
advantages pertaining thereto namely, authority, property, honors, or,
at the very least, privileges, immunities, favors, pensions,
preferences, and the like. If they occupied this position for so long
a time, it is because for so long a time they had deserved it. They
had, in short, through an immense and secular effort, constructed by
degrees the three principal foundations of modern society.

I. Services and Recompenses of the Clergy.

Of these three layered foundations the most ancient and deepest was
the work of the clergy. For twelve hundred years and more they had
labored upon it, both as architects and workmen, at first alone and
then almost alone. - In the beginning, during the first four
centuries, they constituted religion and the church. Let us ponder
over these two words; in order to weigh them well. One the one hand,
in a society founded on conquest, hard and cold like a machine of
brass, forced by its very structure to destroy among its subjects all
courage to act and all desire to live, they had proclaimed the "glad
tidings," held forth the "kingdom of God," preached loving resignation
in the hands of a Heavenly Father, inspired patience, gentleness,
humility, self-abnegation, and charity, and opened the only issues by
which Man stifling in the Roman 'ergastulum' could again breathe and
see daylight: and here we have religion. On the other hand, in a State
gradually undergoing depopulation, crumbling away, and fatally
becoming a prey, they had formed a living society governed by laws and
discipline, rallying around a common aim and a common doctrine,