But the abiding tyranny of institutions they unmurmuringly accept and submit to as their substitution. Louis XIV. and Napoleon ruled the people with a rod of iron; each combined in his personal prestige and power all the resources of the various institutions which, united, now represent the authority of a single man. The traditions of subservience that they left were not to be shaken off, in spite of revolutions and occasional canters down the wild road of anarchy. There dwell permanently in the race a terror and distrust of individualism and initiative. Since it has shaken off the shackles of kings and dictators, it must walk in willing servitude to the countless smaller, and, it must be admitted, less obnoxious, tyrannies it maintains for the clipping of its own wings, and which form a kind of stable throne for its prestige. For what would France be in the eyes of the world without its five Academies, without its École des Beaux Arts, its Théâtre Français, the house of Molière, without its high literary tradition, the distinction and elegance of all that emanates from its genius? The liberty of the gypsy is undoubtedly the greatest blessing of life, freedom to paint, to write, to act, to speak, to breathe, by spontaneous and untrammelled effort, freedom to ride upon the crests of inspiration unmindful of the approval of the fogies of tradition, to tilt against the windmills of discord in one's own
