A constitution, whether oligarchic, monarchist, or aristocratic, is simply an instrument, good if it attains this end, and bad if it does not attain it, and which, to attain it, must, like every species of mechanism, vary according to the ground, materials, and circumstances.

The most ingenious is illegitimate if it dissolves the State, while the clumsiest is legitimate if it keeps the State intact.

There is none that springs out of an anterior, universal, and absolute right.

According to the people, the epoch, and the degree of civilization, according to the outer or inner condition of things, all civil or political equality or inequality may, in turn, be or cease to be beneficial or hurtful, and therefore justify the legislator in removing or preserving it.

It is according to this superior and salutary law, and not according to an imaginary and impossible contract, that he is to organize, limit, delegate and distribute from the center to the extremities, through inheritance or through election, through equalization or through privilege, the rights of the citizen and the power of the community.
III .-- The estates of a society.
Political aptitude of the aristocracy .-- Its disposition in 1789 .-- Special services which it might have rendered .-- The principle of the Assembly as to original equality.
-- Rejection of an Upper Chamber .-- The feudal rights of the aristocracy .-- How far and why they were worthy of respect.
-- How they should have been transformed .-- Principle of the Assembly as to original liberty .-- Distinction established by it in feudal dues; application of its principle .-- The lacunae of its law .-- Difficulties of redemption .-- Actual abolition of all feudal liens .-- Abolition of titles and territorial names .-- Growing prejudice against the aristocracy .-- Its persecutions .-- The emigration.
Was it necessary to begin by making a clean sweep, and was it advisable to abolish or only to reform the various orders and corporations ?--Two prominent orders, the clergy and the nobles, enlarged by the ennobled plebeians who had grown wealthy and acquired titled estates, formed a privileged aristocracy side by side with the Government, whose favors it might receive on the condition of seeking them assiduously and with due acknowledgment, privileged on its own domains, and taking advantage there of all rights belonging to the feudal chieftain without performing his duties.