taken from the Almanach, and bear in mind that they must be doubled, and more, to obtain the real revenue, and be quadrupled, and more, to obtain the actual value.  It is evident, that, with such revenues, coupled with the feudal rights, police, justiciary and administrative, which accompany them, an ecclesiastic or lay grand seignior is, in fact, a sort of prince in his district.  He bears too close a resemblance to the ancient sovereign to be entitled to live as an ordinary individual.  His private advantages impose on him a public character.  His rank, and his enormous profits, makes it incumbent on him to perform proportionate services, and that, even under the sway of the intendant, he owes to his vassals, to his tenants, to his feudatories the support of his mediation, of his patronage and of his gains.

To do this he must be in residence, but, generally, he is an absentee.  For a hundred and fifty years a kind of all-powerful attraction diverts the grandees from the provinces and impels them towards the capital.  The movement is irresistible, for it is the effect of two forces, the greatest and most universal that influence mankind, one, a social position, and the other the national character.  A tree is not to be severed from its roots with impunity.  Appointed to govern, an aristocracy frees itself from the land when it no longer rules.  It ceases to rule the moment when, through increasing and constant encroachments, almost the entire justiciary, the entire administration, the entire police, each detail of the local or general government, the power of initiating, of collaboration, of control regarding taxation, elections, roads, public works and charities, passes over into the hands of the intendant or of the sub-delegate, under the supreme direction of the comptroller-general or of the king’s council.[29] Civil servants, men “of the robe and the quill,” colorless commoners, perform the administrative work; there is no way to prevent it.  Even with the king’s delegates, a provincial governor, were he hereditary, a prince of the blood, like the Condés in Burgundy, must efface himself before the intendant; he holds no effective office; his public duties consist of showing off and providing entertainment.  Besides he would badly perform any others.  The administrative machine, with its thousands of hard, creaking and dirty wheels, as Richelieu and Louis XIV, fashioned it, can work only in the hands of workmen who may be dismissed at any time therefore unscrupulous and prompt to give way to the judgment of the State.  It is impossible to allow oneself to get mixed up with rogues of that description.  He accordingly abstains, and abandons public affairs to them.  Unemployed, bored, what could he now do on his domain, where he no longer reigns, and where dullness overpowers him?  He betakes himself to the city, and especially to the court.  Moreover, only here can he pursue a career; to be successful he has to become a courtier.