《旧制度与大革命·卷二·第六章·旧制度下的行政积习》第8节
Agricultural inspectors and crosses of honour! Such means of encouraging agriculture never would have entered into the head of a Suffolk farmer. In the eyes of the majority of the French the Government was alone able to ensure public order; the people were afraid of nothing but the patrols, and men of property had no confidence in anything else. Both classes regarded the gendarme on his rounds not merely as the chief defender of order, but as order itself. ‘No one,’ says the provincial assembly of Guyenne, ‘can fail to observe that the sight of a patrol is well calculated to restrain those most hostile to all subordination.’ Accordingly every one wanted to have a squadron of them at his own door. The archives of an intendancy are full of requests of this nature; no one seemed to suspect that under the guise of a protector a master might be concealed. Nothing struck the émigrés so much on their arrival in England as the absence of this military force. It filled them with surprise, and often even with contempt, for the English. One of them, a man of ability, but whose education had not prepared him for what he was to see, wrote as follows:--‘It is perfectly true that an Englishman congratulates himself on having been robbed, on the score that at any rate there is no patrol in his country. A man may lament anything that disturbs public tranquillity, but he will nevertheless comfort himself, when he sees the turbulent restored to society, with the reflection that the letter of the law is stronger than all other considerations. Such false notions, however,’ he adds, ‘are not absolutely universal; there are some wise people who think otherwise, and wisdom must prevail in the end.’ But that these eccentricities of the English could have any connection with their liberties never entered into the mind of this observer. He chose rather to explain the phenomenon by more scientific reasons. ‘In a country,’ said he, ‘where the moisture of the climate, and the want of elasticity in the air, give a sombre tinge to the temperament, the people are disposed to give themselves up to serious objects. The English people are naturally inclined to occupy themselves with the affairs of government, to which the French are averse.’
注释摘要
托克维尔在这一段里做了一个非常尖锐的心理对比。他刚讲完法国的农夫会写信要求政府派遣农业督查员来教他们如何养牛、如何赶集，并建议给优秀农民颁发十字勋章，然后笔锋一转，用几乎带着反讽的语气说，这种念头绝不会出现在一个萨福克郡的农夫脑子里。这句话的力道在于，它不是比较两个国家的农业技术或政府效率，而是在比较两种根深蒂固的精神习惯：法国人已经习惯了一切改善都必须由…