TRINCO The sovereign Nation had taken possession of the lands of the nobility and clergy to sell them at a low price to the middle classes and the peasants.

The middle classes and the peasants thought that the revolution was a good thing for acquiring lands and a bad one for retaining them.
The legislators of the Republic made terrible laws for the defence of property, and decreed death to anyone who should propose a division of wealth.

But that did not avail the Republic.

The peasants who had become proprietors bethought themselves that though it had made them rich, the Republic had nevertheless caused a disturbance to wealth, and they desired a system more respectful of private property and more capable of assuring the permanence of the new institutions.
They had not long to wait.

The Republic, like Agrippina, bore her destroyer in her bosom.
Having great wars to carry on, it created military forces, and these were destined both to save it and to destroy it.