Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/482

 for control over the State, as was nobility, or ownership of land, in the Middle Ages.

This principle of property qualification remains (with the exception of a very short period during the French Republic of 1793, which perished from its own indefiniteness and from the whole state of society at the time, which I cannot here discuss further) the leading principle of all constitutions which originated in the French Revolution.

In fact, with the consistency which all principles have, this one was soon forced to develop into a different quantitative scope. In the constitution of 1814, according to the classified list promulgated by Louis XVIII., a direct tax of three hundred francs (eighty thalers) was established, in place of the value of three days' work, as a condition of the franchise. The July Revolution of 1830 broke out, and nevertheless, by the law of April 19, 1831, a direct tax of two hundred francs (about fifty-three thalers) was required as a condition of the franchise.

What under Louis Philippe and Guizot was called the pays légal—that is, the country as a legal entity—consisted of 200,000 men; for there were not more than 200,000 electors in France who could meet the property requirement, and these exercised sovereignty over more than 30,000,000 inhabitants. It is here to be noted that it makes no difference whether the principle of property qualification, the exclusion of those without property from the franchise, appears, as in the constitutions referred to, in direct and open form, or in a form in one way or another disguised. The effect is always the same.

So the second French Republic in 1850 could not possibly revoke the general direct franchise, once proclaimed, which we shall later consider, but adopted the expedient of granting the franchise (law of May 31, 1850) only to such citizens as had been domiciled in a place without interruption for at least three years. For, because workingmen in France are frequently compelled by conditions to change their domicile and to look for work in another commune, it was