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the origins of contemporary france-3-第26部分

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upward suddenly from week to week and spreading everywhere; growing;

on the other side of the Atlantic; into civil war in St。 Domingo;

where wild beasts are let loose against their keepers; 50;000 blacks

take the field; and; at the outset; 1;000 whites are assassinated;

15;000 Negroes slain; 200 sugar…mills destroyed and damage done to the

amount of 600;000;000; 〃a colony of itself alone worth ten provinces;

is almost annihilated。〃'5'  At Paris; Condorcet is busy writing in his

journal that 〃this news is not reliable; there being no object in it

but to create a French empire beyond the seas for the King; where

there will be masters and slaves。〃 A corporal of the Paris National

Guard; on his own authority; orders the King to remain indoors;

fearing that he may escape; and forbids a sentinel to let him go out

after nine o'clock in the evening;'6' at the Tuileries; stump…speakers

in the open air denounce aristocrats and priests; at the Palais…Royal;

there is a pandemonium of public lust and incendiary speeches。'7'

There are centers of riot in all quarters; 〃as many robberies as there

are quarter…hours; and no robbers punished; no police; overcrowded

courts; more delinquents than there are prisons to hold them; nearly

all the private mansions closed; the annual consumption in the

faubourg St。 Germain alone diminished by 250 millions; 20;000 thieves;

with branded backs; idling away time in houses of bad repute; at the

theaters; in the Palais…Royal; at the National Assembly; and in the

coffee…houses; thousands of beggars infesting the streets; crossways;

and public squares。 Everywhere an image of the deepest poverty which

is not calling for one's pity as it is accompanied with insolence。

Swarms of tattered vendors are offering all sorts of paper…money;

issued by anybody that chose to put it in circulation; cut up into

bits; sold; given; and coming back in rags; fouler than the miserable

creatures who deal in it。〃'8'  Out of 700;000 inhabitants there are

100;000 of the poor; of which 60;000 have flocked in from the

departments;'9' among them are 30;000 needy artisans from the national

workshops; discharged and sent home in the preceding month of June;

but who; returning three months later; are again swallowed up in the

great sink of vagabondage; hurling their floating mass against the

crazy edifice of public authority and furnishing the forces of

sedition。  At Paris; and in the provinces; disobedience exists

throughout the hierarchy。  Directories countermand ministerial orders。

Here; municipalities brave the commands of their Directory; there;

communities order around their mayor with a drawn sword。  Elsewhere;

soldiers and sailors put their officers under arrest。 The accused

insult the judge on the bench and force him to cancel his verdict;

mobs tax or plunder wheat in the market; National Guards prevent its

distribution; or seize it in the storehouses。  There is no security

for property; lives; or consciences。 The majority of Frenchmen are

deprived of their right to worship in their own faith; and of voting

at the elections。 There is no safety; day or night; for the élite of

the nation; for ecclesiastics and the gentry; for army and navy

officers; for rich merchants and large landed proprietors; no

protection in the courts; no income from public funds; denunciations

abound; expulsions; banishments to the interior; attacks on private

houses; there is no right of free assemblage; even to enforce the law

under the orders of legal authorities。'10'   Opposed to this; and in

contrast with it; is the privilege and immunity of a sect formed into

a political corporation; 〃which extends its filiations over the whole

kingdom; and even abroad; which has its own treasury; its committees;

and its by…laws; which rules the government; which judges

justice;〃'11' and which; from the capital to the hamlet; usurps or

directs the administration。 Liberty; equality; and the majesty of the

law exist nowhere; except in words。  Of the three thousand decrees

given birth to by the Constituent Assembly; the most lauded; those the

best set off by a philosophic baptism; form a mass of stillborn

abortions of which France is the burying…ground。  That which really

subsists underneath the false appearances of right; proclaimed and

sworn to over and over again; is; on the one hand; an oppression of

the upper and cultivated classes; from which all the rights of man are

withdrawn; and; on the other hand; the tyranny of the fanatical and

brutal rabble which assumes to itself all the rights of sovereignty。







II。



The Assembly hostile to the oppressed and favoring oppressors。 

Decrees against the nobles and clergy。  Amnesty for deserters;

convicts; and bandits。   Anarchical and leveling maxims。



In vain do the honest men of the Assembly protest against this scandal

and this overthrow。 The Assembly; guided and forced by the Jacobins;

will only amend the law to damn the oppressed and to authorize their

oppressors。  Without making any distinction between armed

assemblages at Coblentz; which it had a right to punish; and refugees;

three times as numerous; old men; women and children; so many

indifferent and inoffensive people; not merely nobles but

plebeians;'12' who left the soil only to escape popular outrages; it

confiscates the property of all emigrants and orders this to be

sold。'13'  Through the new restriction of the passport; those who

remain are tied to their domiciles; their freedom of movement; even in

the interior; being subject to the decision of each Jacobin

municipality。'14' It completes their ruin by depriving them without

indemnity of all income from their real estate; of all the seignorial

rights which the Constituent Assembly had declared to be

legitimate。'15' It abolishes; as far as it can; their history and

their past; by burning in the public depots their genealogical

titles。'16'  To all unsworn ecclesiastics; two…thirds of the French

clergy; it withholds bread; the small pension allowed them for food;

which is the ransom of their confiscated possessions;'17' it declares

them 〃suspected of revolt against the law and of bad intentions

against the country;〃 it subjects them to special surveillance; it

authorizes their expulsion without trial by local rulers in case of

disturbances; it decrees that in such cases they shall be

banished。'18'  It suppresses 〃all secular congregations of men and

women ecclesiastic or laic; even those wholly devoted to hospital

service will take away from 600;000 children the means of learning to

read and write。〃'19'  It lays injunctions on their dress; it places

episcopal palaces in the market for sale; also the buildings still

occupied by monks and nuns。'20' It welcomes with rounds of applause a

married priest who introduces his wife to the Assembly。  Not only is

the Assembly destructive but it is insulting; the authors of each

decree passed by it add to its thunderbolt the rattling hail of their

own abuse and slander。



 〃Children;〃 says a deputy; 〃have the poison of aristocracy and

fanaticism injected into them by the congregations。〃'21'



〃Purge the rural districts of the vermin which is devouring them!〃 …

〃Everybody knows;〃 says Isnard; 〃that the priest is as cowardly as he

is vindictive。 。 。  Let these pestiferous fellows be sent back to

Roman and Italian lazarettos 。 。  What religion is that which; in its

nature; is unsocial and rebellious in principle?〃



Whether unsworn; whether immigrants actually or in feeling; 〃large

proprietors; rich merchants; false conservatives;〃'22' are all

outspoken conspirators or concealed enemies。 All public disasters are

imputed to them。 〃The cause of the troubles;〃 says Brissot;'23' 〃which

lay waste the colonies; is the infernal vanity of the whites who have

three times violated an engagement which they have three times sworn

to maintain。〃 Scarcity of work and short crops are accounted for

through their cunning malevolence。



 〃A large number of rich men; 〃says Fran?ois de Nantes;'24' 〃allow

their property to run down and their fields to lie fallow; so as to

enjoy seeing the suffering of the people。〃



France is divided into two parties; on the one hand; the aristocracy

to which is attributed every vice; and; on the other hand; the people

on whom is conferred every virtue。'25'



〃The defense of liberty;〃 says Lamarque;'26' 〃is basely abandoned

every day by the rich and by the former nobility; who put on the mask

of patriotism only to cheat us。 It is not in this class; but only in

that of citizens who are disdainfully called the people; that we find

pure beings; those ardent souls really worthy of liberty。〃  One step

more and everything will be permitted to the virtuous against the

wicked; if misfortune befalls the aristocrats so much the worse for

them。  Those officers who are stoned; M。 de la Jaille and others;

〃wouldn't they do better not to deserve being sacrificed to popular

fury?〃'27' Isnard exclaims in the tribune; 〃it is the long…continued

immunity enjoyed by criminals which has rendered the people

executioners。 Yes; an angry people; like an angry God; is only too

often the terrible supplement of silent laws。〃'28'  In other words

crimes are justified and assassinations still provoked against those

who have been assassinated for the past two years。



By a forced conclusion; if the victims are criminals; their

executioners are honest; and the Assembly; which rigorously proceeds

against the former; reserves all its indulgence for the latter。 It

reinstates the numerous deserters who abandoned their flags previous

to the 1st of January; 1789;'29' it allows them three sous per league

mileage; and brings them back to their homes or to their regiments to

become; along with their brethren whose desertion is more recent;

either leaders or recruits for the mob。 It releases from the galleys

the forty Swiss guards of Chateauroux whom their
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