Excerpt from The Works of Voltaire, Vol. 13: A Contemporary Version With Notes Liberty and property is the great national cry of the English. It is certainly better than St. George and my right, or St. Denis and Mont joie it is the cry of nature. From Switzerland to China the peasants are the real occupiers of the land. The right of conquest alone has, in some countries, deprived men of a right so natural. The general advantage or good of a nation is that of the sovereign, of the magistrate, and of the peo ple, both in peace and war. Is this possession of lands by the peasantry equally conducive to the prosperity of the throne and the people in all periods and circumstances? In order to its being the most beneficial System for the throne, it must be that which produces the most considerable revenue, and the most numerous and powerful army. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.