Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/145

but interfere in the destinies of the community and of the state with very genuine power. The instinct for equality seems to be exceptionally powerful in the French people. And yet it did not prevent them from erecting a new institution of nobility on the ruins of the old, which does not boast of titles and coats of arms perhaps, but possesses all the substantial attributes of an aristocracy, and whose ancestors—oh, irony of history!—were precisely those most fanatical equality enthusiasts of the great Revolution. I am not referring to the imperial aristocracy formed by Napoleon upon the model of the historical nobility, from the numbers of the regicides, but to those families which have inherited political influence and wealth since the days of the great Revolution, because their ancestors played more or less important roles at that time. If we examine the list of names of those who have, as ministers, senators, representatives and high public officials, governed France during the last four generations, we will find that certain names constantly reappear. The Carnots, Cambons, Andrieux, Brissons, Bessons, Periers, Aragos, etc., have founded powerful dynasties of politicians, and any one who is acquainted with the contemporaneous bearers of these name, will acquiesce in my assertion that they did not owe their first political positions to their own abilities, but to their names. The Ottoman Empire also has a strictly democratic constitution and with the exception of the Osman dynasty, and the disregarded descendants of the Prophet, is without an hereditary nobility. Every day common workmen, or barbers, become pashas, and the caprice of the Sultan, who alone has the right to distribute titles and honors, never enquires into the lineage of the favorite. And yet the country as a general thing, i governed by the sons of these parvenus, the effendis, and although the pasha can not bequeathe his title to his off-