But in the course of the nineteenth century, the
City Usurer stepped into the shoes of the Feudal Lord, the Mortgage
substituted the Feudal Duties formerly yielded by the soil, bourgeois
Capital took the place of the aristocracy of Landed Property. The former
allotments are now only a pretext that allows the capitalist class to
draw profit, interest and rent from agricultural lands, and to leave to
the farmer himself the task of seeing to it that he knock out his wages.
The mortgage indebtedness that burdens the soil of France imposes upon
the French farmer class they payment of an interest as great as the
annual interest on the whole British national debt. In this slavery of
capital, whither its development drives it irresistibly, the allotment
system has transformed the mass of the French nation into troglodytes.
Sixteen million farmers (women and children included), house in hovels
most of which have only one opening, some two, and the few most favored
ones three. Windows are to a house what the five senses are to the head.
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