II.10 - How the Destruction of Political Liberty and the Separation of Classes Caused Nearly All the Maladies That Proved Fatal to the Ancien Régime

Summary

Of all the maladies that afflicted the constitution of the Ancien Régime and condemned it to perish, I have just described the most mortal. I want now to take another look at the source of this most strange and dangerous malady and show how many other ills stemmed from it as well.

If, beginning in the Middle Ages, the English had lost all of their political liberty and all the local freedoms that cannot survive for long without it, the various classes that make up their aristocracy would more than likely have split apart from one another, as happened not only in France but also, to one degree or another, on the rest of the continent, while at the same time they would have separated themselves as a group from the people. But liberty forced all classes to maintain contact with one another so that when necessary they could find common ground.

It is interesting to observe how the English nobility, driven by ambition, was able to mingle with its inferiors and treat them as equals whenever it saw the need to do so. Arthur Young, whom I quoted earlier, and whose book is one of the most instructive works about old France that exists, tells how one day he happened to find himself at the country home of the duc de Liancourt, to whom he mentioned his wish to question some of the cleverer and wealthier farmers of the region.