cision, we stand in need of a statement of the declarations of succession of 1826; but we can only consult that of 1823, and of the four years anterior to 1837.

However, as it is very certain, that the amount of movable and immovable property, transmitted by the decease of the proprietors, was inferior in 1823 to the amount of the same property in 1826; and, as the rate of increase, commencing in 1826, indicates that this difference cannot be less than three and one half, or four per cent, we shall take for a comparison with the declarations of succession for 1823 the amount of the values declared in 1826. Thus, instead of running the risk of exaggerating, we are assured of diminishing the results; and this will only add to our confidence in them. They are exhibited in the following table.

The increase of value in the amount of successions, between 1823 and 1836, proves how much, in attributing to the year 1823 the footing which belongs to 1826, we must have weakened the differences which they in reality present. Whatever it may be, it remains certain, that the successions declared have increased in average value eleven and one half per cent at least, and this fact attests that a like augmentation has been realized in private fortunes.

Such a change merits great attention. If the classes in possession of the advantages of property have not multiplied at the same rate as the rest of the community, they have nevertheless increased in the thirteen years anterior to 1836 a little more than four per cent; and the fortunes dif

fused among individuals, instead of being diminished during the same period, have increased with the progressive advancement of the general wealth, eleven and one half per cent at least. Nothing can show more conclusively, with what facility the rich classes not only preserve the property which they have acquired, but also draw into their hands the new wealth which the progress of order and of industry are continually bringing forth and diffusing.

We shall here terminate an investigation, which the want of authentic documents will not permit us to carry further without the risk of error. All that can be added is, that, within ten years, the transfers of movable property between living persons, by onerous or gratuitous titles, have augmented in importance more than in number. But, considering the impossibility of distinguishing clearly, and of classifying separately, according to their nature, acts of which the general accounts of the finances give but a summary indication, we shall not hazard any statements concerning them in figures. The data, which we have employed in our investigations, have been used with all the circumspection, made necessary by their small number; and we now proceed to sum up the facts, which they have enabled us to establish.

In the twenty years preceding 1836, the general population of France has increased fourteen per cent, and, as in the same period, the quantity of landed estates has increased only eight per cent, it is evident, that the number of proprietors, instead of increasing in the same proportion as the rest of the population, has diminished proportionally two and one half per cent; and what renders the fact still more significant is, that the great number of manufactories and houses erected in 1815 must necessarily have multiplied the landed estates, as well as furnished new and abundant elements of immovable property.

In the second place, movable property has become still

more concentrated than landed property. Judging by the comparative rate of deaths and declarations of succession, the proprietors of movable and immovable property, who, in 1823, formed five hundred and twenty thousandths of the whole population, constituted no more than four hundred and seventy-seven thousandths of it, twelve years afterwards. We have mentioned the reasons, which induce us to believe, that this change, however marked it may be, may very probably be in fact less than is indicated by the figures.

Finally, while the general wealth of France has increased sixteen per cent in ten years, private fortunes have increased at the rate of eleven and one half per cent, to the profit of a class of proprietors, who, during the same period, have only participated at the rate of four per cent in the development of the whole population, while the latter has increased at the rate of seven per cent.

Such are the changes which have taken place in France in the distribution and situation of private fortunes; and, so far from having led to more equality in the distribution of property, testamentary and hereditary divisions have left causes of inequality remaining, and a movement of concentration has been effected.

In view of such a fact, accomplished in presence of a system of inheritance, the most conformed to rules of equity, the best adapted to the interests of the popular classes, the most favorable to the diffusion of the benefits of ease and of property, it is impossible not to recognize the power of one of those primordial laws, to the dominion of which societies are bound to submit themselves, and the course of which they cannot attempt to arrest or change, without calling upon themselves misfortunes more grievous than those which they pretend to avoid.

If experience has shown that those institutions, which add to the activity of the natural causes of the inequality of

wealth, do not fail to weaken or corrupt the few, and to retain the masses in an indigence fruitful of physical suffering, and of intellectual and moral infirmities, every thing attests, that institutions destined to impose limits to the accumulation of private fortunes, or restrictions upon their hereditary transmission, would be still more injurious. In depriving individuals of the liberty of elevating themselves as high, as the faculties with which they are endowed will permit them, or of the right to prepare and assure to their children the best possible future, they would weaken or destroy the only motives which impress upon labor the utmost energy of which it is susceptible. The most capable men would stop at a given point of fortune, as soon as they had attained it; and society, deprived of the impulse which they communicate, would not be slow to decline and go backwards. Nothing, indeed, is better proved, than the principle, that all ameliorations of the social state are due to the inequalities in the distribution of wealth. It is this inequality, which, by assuring to one portion of the community the ease and leisure indispensable to mental culture, gives opportunity to the arts and sciences to flourish for the good of humanity; and every thing, which should stand in the way of its operation, would confine or extinguish the source of those lights, of which societies have need, in order to extend progressively their empire over external objects, and to continue to increase in well-being and in dignity.

It is certainly to be regretted, that the part of each individual in the goods of this world is not more ample, and that so much affliction and misery still subsist in the bosom of the most flourishing societies. But let us look back to the point of departure; let us recollect how destitute were the generations that first lived here below; and we shall acknowledge, that if civilization, as it advances, distributes with an unequal hand the wealth which it produces and multiplies, it does so without taking anything away from

those whom it treats with the least degree of favor. Even the day laborers, in those countries where its gifts are diffused, are better provided for than the richer members of communities yet uncivilized; and, where the wisdom of the laws sufficiently guaranties the security of property and persons, the continued development of arts and industry assures them a reward for their labor, which, as it increases, tends more and more to free them from the evils of indigence. The number of laborers then is of little importance; for if it increases, wealth increases still more rapidly, and its accumulation brings them new and larger means of enjoyment.

Such is the progress of things in all countries which are. in a prosperous condition. In France, within thirty years, the population has increased eight per cent; but wealth has increased more than sixteen per cent; and if the classes in possession of the advantages of property have seen their fortunes augmented, those which subsist upon daily wages. hate seen the stock which rewards their labors accumulate with more rapidity than the number of hands destined to share in it.

In these reflections, nothing has been dictated by a spirit of inconsiderate optimism. They would be going against their own end, if they could tend to weaken the solicitude which is so justly due to the poorer classes, or restrain the sacrifices destined to afford them, in the benefits of education, new elements of ease and of intellectual and moral elevation but there are some social facts which are the work of a wisdom superior to ours; and when the laws of succession in any country do not sanction any privilege of property; when they leave to each one the liberty to go as far as his faculties will permit him; when they give to the rights of succession no other limits than the degrees of relationship; it is to be presumed that they are irreproachable, and that the results which they produce are, for the time, at least, the most conformable to the true interests of all..