On the Nobility
The nobility is an instrument
polished by time.
The nobility, in the eyes of the
people, is a sort of religion of which gentlemen are the priests and towards
which, among the bourgeois, more are impious than are unbelieving.
The nobles are more or less
ancient coins which time has turned into medals.
On the People
Sovereigns ought never to forget
that, the people being a permanent child, the government must always be a
father.
Philosophy, being the fruit of long meditation and the product of an entire life, cannot and ought never to be presented to the people, which is always at the beginning of its life.
The people has no taste for
freedom except, as with pungent liquor, as a means to excite and infuriate
itself.
The people is a sovereign who
demands only food: Her Majesty is serene while she is digesting.
Note
From Esprit
de Rivarol (Paris, 1808), except
for the last on the nobility, which is from Écrits politiques et littéraires,
ed. Victor-Henry Debidour (Paris: Grasset, 1956), p. 149.
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