For its authority is derived from the same source as their property: it is established on the same principle as their rights of possession and by virtue of the same accomplished facts * because things are as they are and could not be different, * because ten years of revolution and eight years of war bear down on the present with too heavy a weight, * because too many and too deep interests are involved and enlisted on the same side, * because the interests of twelve hundred thousand purchasers are incorporated with those of the thirty thousand officers to whom the Revolution has provided a rank, along with that of all the new functionaries and dignitaries, including the First Consul himself, who, in this universal transposition of fortunes and ranks, is the greatest of parvenus and who must maintain the others if he wants to be maintained by them.
Naturally, he protects everybody, through calculation as well as sympathy, in the civil as in the military order of things, particularly the new property-owners, especially the smaller and the average ones, his best clients, attached to his reign and to his person through love of property, the strongest passion of the ordinary man, and through love of the soil, the strongest passion of the peasant.[3186] Their loyalty depends on their security, and consequently he is lavish of guarantees.
In his constitution of the year VIII,[3187] he declares in the name of the French nation that after a legally consummated sale of national property, whatever its origin, the legitimate purchaser cannot be divested of it." Through the institution of the Legion of Honor he obliges each member "to swear, on his honor, to devote himself to the conservation of property sanctioned by the laws of the republic."[3188] According to the terms of the imperial constitution[3189] "he swears" himself "to respect and to enforce respect for the irrevocability of the sale of national possessions." Unfortunately, a cannon-ball on the battle-field, an infernal machine in the street, an illness at home, may carry off the guarantor and the guarantees.[3190] On the other hand, confiscated goods preserve their original taint.

Rarely is the purchaser regarded favorably in his commune; the bargain he has made excites envy; he is not alone in his enjoyment of it, but the rest suffer from it.

Formerly, this or that field of which he reaps the produce, this or that domain of which he enjoys the rental, once provided for the parsonage, the asylum and the school; now the school, the asylum and the parsonage die through inanition for his advantage; he fattens on their fasting.

In his own house, his wife and mother often look melancholy, especially during Easter week; if he is old, or becomes ill, his conscience disturbs him; this conscience, through habit and heredity, is Catholic: he craves absolution at the last moment at the priest's hands, and says to himself that, at the last moment, he may not probably be absolved.[3191] In other respects, he would find it difficult to satisfy himself that his legal property is legitimate property; for, not only is it not so rightfully before the tribunal of conscience, but again it is not so in fact on the market; the figures, in this particular, are convincing, daily and notorious.

A patrimonial domain which brings in 3000 francs finds a purchaser at 100,000 francs; alongside of this a national domain which brings in just as much, finds a purchaser only at 60,000 francs; after several sales and resale, the depreciation continues and 40 % of the value of the confiscated property is lost.[3192] A low, indistinct murmur is heard, and reverberates from sale to sale, the muttering of private probity protesting against public probity, declaring to the new proprietor that his title is defective; it lacks one clause and a capital one, that of the surrender and cession, the formal renunciation, the authentic withdrawal of the former owner.