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Typos — p. 130: Propperty's [= Property's]; p. 130: profferred [= proffered]
- p. 128 - XX Aristocracy's Sins Against Itself All those people, whether historians, politicians or mere voting proletarians — and there are still many of them — who, on the strength of Louis XVI's death and the lamentable history of the Bourbon Dynasty so brilliantly started by Henry IV, are prepared to condemn hereditary monarchy and even to question the validity of the laws of heredity as well, should have serious doubts about their rapacity to learn any useful lessons whatsoever from the history of their race. For brief though my account of this French dynasty had necessarily to be, it has I hope been in all essentials accurate; and what it teaches is the very reverse of what Liberals have persistently believed. First of all, it shows conclusively that the failure of Henry IV's successors casts no adverse reflection whatsoever on hereditary monarchy as an institution and secondly that, far from invalidating the laws of heredity, it proves on the contrary that they are so constantly reliable that when they are ignored they exact a penalty proportionate to the gravity of their infraction. In view of the gross errors committed by their forebears in the matter of mating, only if Louis XIII, XIV, XV and XVI had been superb specimens of humanity and exemplary monarchs, could any intelligent student of history have reasonable grounds for doubting the validity of the laws of heredity. The facts relating to the failure and decline of our European aristocracy, although somewhat similar to those accounting for the evanescence of genuine monarchy (i.e. monarchy in which the king really rules and does not merely "reign" (à l'anglaise), are however sufficiently peculiar to demand a special inquiry. And this is all the more necessary as their own sins against themselves and their Order have from the very first been overlooked by the Liberal intelligentsia who have consistently ascribed the vices of the rule of the "Best", not to the absence
At all events, the decline of Aristocracy in the civilisation of the West has in one sense been less forgivable, because more avoidable, than that of genuine monarchy, and for the simple reason that nowhere have aristocratic families felt themselves under the perilous obligation of ransacking the whole Continent for suitable mates of so-called "Blue-blood." They were thus spared this potent source of blood-adulteration and were free to choose mates for their sons and daughters among families who were at least of their own nationality and more or less of their own type. Only when, as we shall see, this liberty was abused and their sons stooped, in response to a romantic misunderstanding of their overpowering lust, to choose mates unlikely to help in maintaining the family quality, was this most important advantage over Royalty forfeited. Apart from this one advantage which was peculiar to their Order, the sins the aristocrats committed against themselves and against the political institution to which they gave effect, were in many respects similar to those committed by Royalty. A brief preliminary examination of these sins may now serve as a preface to the more elaborate treatment of them which will follow. Although empirically the fact has been known to farmers and live-stock breeders for thousands of years, most of the aristocratic houses of Europe failed to understand, or never knew, that as the laws of heredity do not guarantee the transmission of a family's most precious qualities to its first-born male, the principle of primogeniture was bound in countless cases to mean a fall, not merely in the quality of their rule, but also in that of their stock. Occasionally difficulty might arise in deciding which of two or more sons was the superior, and where differences happened to be slight the rule of primogeniture might leave the family line unaffected one way or the other. But there could be no excuse for observing the rule when the senior son was palpably inferior, and to insist on doing so could only call down disaster on his stock. Apart from the rule of primogeniture, however, there were often other considerations, politic, financial or otherwise acquisitive, which led aristocratic families to seek mates for their sons, who from the point of view neither of physique nor of
Generation after generation, the aristocrats failed to apply the principle that the Sanctity of Private Property resides in its relation to its appropriate owners: therefore, that it is desecrated whenever it is transferred to an owner unqualified to possess it, whereby the community is impoverished. This aristocratic attitude to Private Possessions was recognised above all in Mediaeval times, when, owing to the terms under which land was held and the military implications of its tenure, daughters and widows of land-owners were compelled by their Feudal Lord to marry only a man of his choice. This was a necessary and logical result of the view of Private Propperty's Sanctity which I have described as aristocratic. Because only a well-informed authority — certainly not the spinster heiress herself or the widow — was in a position to select the man least likely to desecrate the Sanctity of the Private Holding. Hallam tells us, "Neither the maiden's coyness nor the widow's affliction, neither aversion to the profferred candidate nor love to one more (romantically) favoured, seem to have passed as legitimate excuses. Only one plea could come from the lady's mouth who was resolved to hold her land in single blessedness. It was that she was past sixty years of age; and after this unwelcome confession the Lord could not decently press her into matrimony." (View of the State of Europe During the Middle Ages, Vol. I, Part I, Chap. II). In spite of the compelling reasonableness of this custom, it was naturally regarded as oppressive by the women concerned, especially if (as was usually the case) they utterly failed to appreciate its raison d'être; and many Liberal-minded people, including even some historians, are sufficiently shallow and imbued with the modern vulgar attitude to Property, to agree with the popular female view of Feudal times. Even Hallam himself speaks of the usage as appearing "outrageous to our ideas"
Generation after generation of aristocrats in both England and on the Continent of Europe have failed to respect the obligation privilege imposes, with the result that high rank itself became almost a synonym of oppression and licence. "There are no rights whatever," said Coleridge, "without corresponding duties." (Table Talk, 20.9.1831). And the very fact that he thought it necessary, six years before Victoria ascended the throne, to pronounce this doctrine without dreading to sound platitudinous, is a sad reflection on his Age and the years that followed. How the aristocrats had long overlooked the doctrine in question and continued to do so, and how they thus contributed to the contempt in which all privilege and property came to be held, so that finally a semblance of validity was imparted to the most extreme forms of Socialism, is now a matter of history. And if to-day the idea of possessions beyond those necessary for supplying the needs of bare sustenance has, in the minds of the common people, come to mean no more than the wherewithal for having "a good time", we may with perfect justice ascribe this untoward change to the influence of a misguided aristocracy. For when once, thanks to the example of the mighty, the personal control of affluence was believed by the masses to be no more than a means of living in the best hotels, going to the most expensive tailors, and wintering in the sunshine of the Mediterranean, they soon learnt that there was nothing at all difficult about it. On the contrary, anybody could do it; and forthwith privilege without corresponding duties became the order of the day. How this inevitably culminated in the Communist belief that the best administrator of wealth is the State, hardly requires explaining. The aristocracies of most European countries, and certainly of England, France and Germany, committed the fatal error of omitting to establish within their own Order a supervising body or council, composed of the most respected and experienced among them, which could function both as the Authority re-
Had such a supreme council of aristocrats been established in England, for instance, we should have been spared the ignominy of having led the world into the sophistries and psychological fallacies of Liberalism, and we should have escaped all the rigours, political and social, which this political philosophy (or lack of it) has brought in its train. Above all our civilisation would have preserved the only practical method of creating for the masses a model or pattern for a decent way of life. As we have seen, Government has not only an administrative function. Equally important is its duty of setting a good Tone in the community; and the ideal means of doing this is not by pulpit exhortation which is futile, but by giving effect to the emulative instincts of the populace and setting a worthy and impressive example constantly before them. Only an aristocracy is capable of performing this important function; and the fact that to-day the general tone of our society has suffered a marked decline, is the best proof we could have of the absence of a genuine aristocracy amongst us. It is, however, essential always to bear in mind that although these sins which the aristocrats have committed, have imposed hardships on the general population, their principal victims have been the aristocrats themselves and the Class and Order which they represent, and that the most conspicuous howler of Liberal philosophy has been consistently to look on these sins as inherent in the political institution of Aristocracy itself. |
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