"
From Monroe's departure until the year 1802, little is known of Paine.
He is said to have lived in humble lodgings with one Bonneville, a
printer, editor of the "Bouche de Fer" in the good early days of the
Revolution. He must have kept up some acquaintance with respectable
society; for we find his name on the lists of the _Cercle
Constitutionnel_, a club to which belonged Talleyrand, Benjamin
Constant, and conservatives of that class who were opposed to both the
_bonnet-rouge_ and the _fleur-de-lis_. Occasionally he appears above
the surface with a pamphlet. Politics were his passion, and to write a
necessity of his nature. If public matters interested him, an essay of
some kind made its way into print. When Baboeuf's agrarian conspiracy
was crushed, Paine gave the world his views on "Agrarian Justice."
Every man has a natural right to a share in the land; but it is
impossible that every man should exercise this right. To compensate him
for this loss, be should receive at the age of twenty-one fifteen
pounds sterling; and if he survive his fiftieth year, ten pounds _per
annum_ during the rest of his life.
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