Page:Ferdinand Lassalle - The Working Man's Programme - tr. Edward Peters (1884).djvu/18

 taking place, which completely transformed the aspect of society, and brought about in the heart of it a revolution, which was only proclaimed, but not really created by what is called the French Revolution in the year 1789.

Do you ask in what this revolution consisted?

Nothing had been changed in the legal position of the nobles. By law the nobles and the clergy were the two ruling classes, the Bourgeoisie remained everywhere the neglected and oppressed class. But if nothing had been changed de jure, yet de facto the change that had actually taken place in the relations of these classes was all the more extraordinary.

Through the creation and accumulation of capital, that is to say of moveable in opposition to landed property, in the hands of the Bourgeoisie, the nobles had sunk into complete insignificance; nay, often into real dependence on this Bourgeoisie which had become rich. Already they were obliged, if they wished to be somewhat on a par with them, to abandon all the principles of their class, and to begin to make use of the same means of obtaining money through industry, to which the Bourgeoisie owed their wealth and therefore their actual power.

The Comedies of Molière, who lived in the time of Louis XIV., show us as early as that date a highly interesting phenomenon, the noble of that day despising the rich citizen, and at the same time playing the parasite at his table.

We see Louis XIV. himself, that proudest of kings, doffing his hat, and humbling himself in his palace of