placed within the reach of the people. Poetry, eloquence, and memory,
the grace of wit, the glow of imagination, the depth of thought, and all
the gifts which are bestowed by Providence with an equal hand, turned
to the advantage of the democracy; and even when they were in the
possession of its adversaries they still served its cause by throwing
into relief the natural greatness of man; its conquests spread,
therefore, with those of civilization and knowledge, and literature
became an arsenal where the poorest and the weakest could always find
weapons to their hand.

In perusing the pages of our history, we shall scarcely meet with a
single great event, in the lapse of seven hundred years, which has not
turned to the advantage of equality. The Crusades and the wars of the
English decimated the nobles and divided their possessions; the erection
of communities introduced an element of democratic liberty into the
bosom of feudal monarchy; the invention of fire-arms equalized the
villein and the noble on the field of battle; printing opened the same
resources to the minds of all classes; the post was organized so as to
bring the same information to the door of the poor man's cottage and to
the gate of the palace; and Protestantism proclaimed that all men are
alike able to find the road to heaven. The discovery of America offered
a thousand new paths to fortune, and placed riches and power within
the reach of the adventurous and the obscure. If we examine what has
happened in France at intervals of fifty years, beginning with the
eleventh century, we shall invariably perceive that a twofold revolution
has taken place in the state of society. The noble has gone down on the
social ladder, and the roturier has gone up; the one descends as the
other rises. Every half century brings them nearer to each other, and
they will very shortly meet.