《旧制度与大革命·卷二·第十章·政治自由毁弃与阶级隔绝乃旧制度致死之由》第3节
Observe how that wound widened with the course of years; follow step by step that fact to its consequences. Forbonnais says with truth in his learned ‘Researches on the Finances of France,’ that in the Middle Ages the sovereigns generally lived on the revenues of their domains; and ‘as the extraordinary wants of the State,’ he adds, ‘were provided for by extraordinary subsidies, they were levied equally on the clergy, the nobility, and the people.’ The greater part of the general subsidies voted by the three Orders in the course of the fourteenth century were, in point of fact, so levied. Almost all the taxes established at that time were indirect, that is, they were paid indiscriminately by all classes of consumers. Sometimes the tax was direct; but then it was assessed, not on property, but on income. The nobles, the priests, and the burgesses were bound to pay over to the King, for a year, a tenth, for instance, of all their incomes. This remark as to the charges voted by the Estates of the Realm applies equally to those which were imposed at the same period by the different Provincial Estates within their own territories. It is true that already, at that time, the direct tax known by the name of the taille was never levied on the noble classes. The obligation of gratuitous military service was the ground of their exemption; but the taille was at that time partially in force as a general impost, belonging rather to the seignorial jurisdictions than to the kingdom. When the King first undertook to levy taxes by his own authority, he perceived that he must select a tax which did not appear to fall directly on the nobles; for that class, formidable and dangerous to the monarchy itself, would never have submitted to an innovation so prejudicial to their own interests. The tax selected by the Crown was, therefore, a tax from which the nobles were exempt, and that tax was the taille.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这一段里做的是财政史的手术：他把法国君主制在征税权上的一个关键转折，当作阶级彻底断裂的起点。他引福尔博内是为了建立一个对照性的起点：中世纪时期，国王日常靠领地收入过活，遇到非常开支才征特别税，而这些特别税是由三级会议表决、由教士、贵族与第三等级共同承担的。那时的税大多是间接税，落到消费行为上，不分等级一律缴纳；即便偶有直接税，也是按收入而非财产征…