The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder's moral perceptions are known and conceded, the world over; and a privileged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name.

This has a harsh sound, and yet should not be offensive to any--even to the noble himself--unless the fact itself be an offense: for the statement simply formulates a fact.
The repulsive feature of slavery is the _thing_, not its name.

One needs but to hear an aristocrat speak of the classes that are below him to recognize--and in but indifferently modified measure -- the very air and tone of the actual slaveholder; and behind these are the slaveholder's spirit, the slaveholder's blunted feeling.
They are the result of the same cause in both cases: the possessor's old and inbred custom of regarding himself as a superior being.
The king's judgments wrought frequent injustices, but it was merely the fault of his training, his natural and unalterable sympathies.
He was as unfitted for a judgeship as would be the average mother for the position of milk-distributor to starving children in famine-time; her own children would fare a shade better than the rest.
One very curious case came before the king.

A young girl, an orphan, who had a considerable estate, married a fine young fellow who had nothing.

The girl's property was within a seigniory held by the Church.