THE FRENCH DEBATE ON FREEDOM OF BEQUEST.
IF any one were desirous of illustrating the wide difference of
feeling on matters of family and domestic life, he could scarcely have a better opportunity than is given by a debate which has recently taken place in the French Chamber on the law of bequest. In England an extravagant reverence is paid even to the caprices of the owners of property. Not only may they tie it up during the whole life of one who at, the time of their death is still an infant and twenty-one years more, but if they choose to leave it to what are called charit- able uses, they may make their fancies binding on all succeed- ing generations until the Legislature indignantly sweeps away the obsolete fabric of arrogance and folly. By way of countenancing these developments of self-will, the law itself when a man dies intestate gives all his real estate to his eldest son. It is true that is has become possible of late years to protest against institutions which in this extreme form are every day productive' of a certain amount of inconvenience and in jus- tice without being supposed to " threaten the bases of society." But a person who should seriously maintain at a middle-class dining-table the advisability of limiting the right of bequest, the right of the owner of property to leave it to exactly whom he pleased, to his children or to strangers, to one or many, would probably only escape the charge of being a socialist by being set down as a madman. He might insist on the fact that the French law divides the parents' property equally among all his children, allowing him to dispose by will only of a portion of it equal to the share of one child ; as, if he has three children, he may bequeath as he pleases one-fourth ; if four, one fifth, and so on. But middle-class Englishmen regard Frenchmen as mostly either lunatics or socialists, so that our Quixotic reasoner would gain little credit from his
associates. We are very far from advocating, as will be seen, the application to this country of the French law of com- pulsory division of property, which seems to us to be as mischievous an extreme in one direction as our law of primogeniture is in the other. But it is at least curious to observe the tenacity with which the French of all classes in society cling to their system, and how very much less magni- ficent a figure we present to them than to ourselves.
Fifty-six Deputies presented an amendment to the address It was couched in the vaguest, the most deprecatory terms, it merely suggested that the Government should consider whether the law of succession did not admit of "modifications favour. able to the extension of the rights of the father of the family." Yet even this was summarily rejected by a majority of 157, only forty-two even of the deputies who signed the amend- ment voting for it. And it, moreover, brought about the curious result of a union between the Opposition and the Government, the Vice-President of the Council of State on behalf of the Government refusing to concede even an inquiry, on the ground that it might seem to throw a doubt on the expediency of the law. Indeed the supporters of the amend- ment were so cowed by the unpopularity of their proposition, that they hardly ventured to argue the question on its merits. One and all of the speakers eagerly disclaimed any notion of wishing to revive the system of primogeniture in any shape, and while they did not conceal their belief that the existing system made children too independent of their parents, pre- ferred to insist on certain administrative inconveniences which it causes. It was a policy as futile as it was insincere. It is obvious that the proper remedy for these is an amendment of the laws of procedure, and the equal division of property among children is not necessarily connected either with the immediate sale of the parents' business, or the subdivision of lands beyond the point at which each farm will find full employment for one family. A business may be carried on by a manager for the benefit of the family until it can be sold to advantage, and a farm which cannot profitably be subdivided may be sold or let. Every one knows that either of these things is of every-day occurrence in this country, and unless the joint owners quarrel presents no practical difficulties what- ever. But the speakers against the amendment did not allow themselves to be drawn into the discussion of immaterial issues. They would discuss not the amendment, but the results at which it aimed. M. Gueroult naturally objected to it as an attack on equality, and unquestionably in a country where the equal division of all property among children is enforced the existence of an aristocracy is impossible. Probably in France —a country which is resolutely determined not to have an aristocracy, and which nevertheless has aristocratic traditions among its upper classes—this safeguard is really necessary to secure to the nation its objects. But the example of America and of most of our colonies is sufficient to show that there is no necessary connection between the two ideas. If the feeling of a country is thoroughly democratic it only needs for its satis- faction the prohibition of what in England is popularly called the system of entail. If the feeling of a country is thoroughly aristocratic, any family might, by constantly making wills in favour of the eldest son, protect its estates from everything but the extravagance of its own head. No doubt a man who had only daughters would be likely to prefer them to a nephew, but property constantly passes out of a family in that way, even under the English law of settlement. Probably an im- partial inquirer would have no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that the advantages of giving support to any par- ticular form of society could never be an equivalent for the economical disadvantages which result from any interference with liberty. The compulsory division of inheritances is after all but a law of entail without primogeniture.
It is not, however, the political aspect of the question which principally attracts Frenchmen. Their whole way of looking at a man's rights is entirely different from ours. Our laws regard him as an individual, French laws as a citizen. The idea on which society rests, said M. Marie in a speech which dealt with the principles of the law of property with the precision and familiarity of an accomplished jurist, is not the individual, but the family. There can be no doubt that this view of the subject—whether it is or is not the more philo- sophical—is the more ancient. In early times the idea of individual property scarcely existed. The head of the family was rather the ruler of a little kingdom—the colonel of a regiment—than the exclusive owner of the property, which all the family helped to increase and to defend. In every society the right of bequest was recognized slowly, and to this day the law of the whole Continent of Europe is, according to the Vice-President of the Council of State: subject to some not very important modifications, sub- stantially one with that of France. What were the causes which gave so strong an impulse and so early a de- velopment to the idea of individual ownership of property in this country would be an interesting subject of inquiry, but they are quite clear about it in France. Our system is, in the eyes of the Vice-President, an insular, exceptional, and even rather, not to say altogether, brutal one. It is an abso- lute right of property somewhat softened down in practice, but subject to no sense of duty. "It is the legislation of a people of vast energy, of a people a little hard, which has the faults of those qualities, which does not trouble itself about the protection which the weakness of individuals may require, but abandons everybody to his own resources." The family, too, he says, is differently constituted with us. Fathers in England send their sons to India quite young, and when the family is broken up the same community of feelings and in- terests does not exist as in France, where they all continue to live together, and often even to inhabit the same house. It would be something shocking, he thinks, if after a life passed in ease in the midst of his family, the child should be in an instant deprived of everything by being disinherited. It is, we think, only fair to confess that there is very much truth at all events in the latter portion of these censures. Whether it be the cause or the effect of freedom of bequest, the English are not, we think, remarkable for family affection. The English are a domestic people, and the French on the other hand essentially social. But a man may live much in society and be devoted to his family, and may detest society and lead his wife and children the lives of dogs. Generally we should say that a family which lives in complete seclusion is not apt to be particularly harmonious or amiable any more than an individual, who is almost sure to become something of a bear. Families in England are rather famous for quarrel- ling, and the general feeling towards relations has been defined by a warm-hearted philanthropist as a willingness to make any protestations of affection—by letter, and to meet them at any time—in the house of a third person. And what do rela- tions quarrel about? Always money, in some shape or other. Let any of our readers consider the families of his acquaint- ance, and reckon up how many of them are perfectly united, and how many of these squabbles are not in some way due to jealousy about money matters. Certainly nothing is more remarkable than the way in which married children abroad continue to reside with their parents, so that there are often three or four families under the same roof. This, however, may be as much due to their greater sociability, as to the freedom from pecuniary rivalries which flows from their law of succession.
On the other hand, the speakers exaggerated the evils of freedom to an absurd extent. If we may trust M. Gueroult, a parent would never make a just will. The French are no doubt more impulsive than we are, but that is scarcely the result of English experience. An estate inherited by an, eldest son is generally transmitted to an eldest son, but a sense of justice in ordinary cases overpowers the leaning of our laws to primogeniture. Unless a man can found a family, unless he makes a great fortune, he divides his property pretty equally. And it is certainly in favour of equality that his perfect freedom enables him to take into account any advances he may have made to certain children during his life, or any provision which m ly have been made for them by other relations. As for that independence of temper which often truly enough degenerates into rudeness of manners, it has its good side, too, and it would be easy to depict that Epicurean levity which keeps Frenchmen who in- herit an income of a few hundred francs dawdling their lives away at home in terms as opprobrious. If Frenchmen regard our self-reliance in its extreme form with disgust, we regard their supineness in its extreme form with contempt. Pro- bably, too, both nations attribute too much importance to social legislation. We believe it to be more commonly an effect than a cause, at all events in its origin. And that even now the abolition of the law of primogeniture would not im- pair English self-reliance, nor that of the law of compulsory division of property break up French family concord. Putting it as a mere matter of common sense, freedom of bequest seems to follow from freedom to alienate. If a man may disinherit his family by spending his property, why not by bequeathing it? Nor does one see that children have any moral right to anything more than a fair start in life in the station in which they have been brought up, and the satisfaction of any ex- press promises which the parent may have made to them. Is the possession of a great fortune always an advantage ? So empty and frivolous are the desires of most of us, that it pro- bably almost always seems so both to parent and child. But how few- are the people who can make leisure profitable, or even pleasant !
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