After eight hundred years, in spite of so many strokes of the royal ax, and the immense change in the culture of society, the old feudal root lasts and still vegetates.

We remark it first in the distribution of property.[1204] A fifth of the soil belongs to the crown and the communes, a fifth to the Third-Estate, a fifth to the rural population, a fifth to the nobles and a fifth to the clergy.

Accordingly, if we deduct the public lands, the privileged classes own one-half of the kingdom.

This large portion, moreover, is at the same time the richest, for it comprises almost all the large and imposing buildings, the palaces, castles, convents, and cathedrals, and almost all the valuable movable property, such as furniture, plate, objects of art, the accumulated masterpieces of centuries .-- We can judge of it by an estimate of the portion belonging to the clergy.

Its possessions, capitalized, amount to nearly 4,000,000,000 francs.[1205] Income from this amounts to 80 or 100 millions.