《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5节
Privileges granted in perpetuity were perpetually resumed. If we could bestow our compassion on the disappointments of a foolish vanity, the fate of those luckless persons might deserve it who purchased letters of nobility, but who were exposed during the whole of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to buy over and over again the empty honours or the unjust privileges which they had already paid for several times. Thus Louis XIV. annulled all the titles of nobility acquired in the preceding ninety-two years, though most of them had been conferred by himself; but they could only be retained upon furnishing a fresh subsidy, all these titles having been obtained by surprise, said the edict. The same example was duly followed by Louis XV. eighty years later. The militia-man was forbidden to procure a substitute, for fear, it was said, of raising the price of recruits to the State. Towns, corporations, and hospitals were compelled to break their own engagements in order that they might be able to lend money to the Crown. Parishes were restrained from undertaking works of public improvement, lest by such a diversion of their resources they should pay their direct taxes with less punctuality. It is related that M. Orry and M. Trudaine, of whom one was the Comptroller-General and the other the Director-General of Public Works, had formed a plan for substituting, for the forced labour of the peasantry on the roads, a rate to be levied on the inhabitants of each district for the repair of their thoroughfares. The reason which led these able administrators to forego that plan is instructive: they feared, it is said, that when a fund had been raised by such a rate it would be impossible to prevent the Treasury from appropriating the money to its own purposes, so that ere long the ratepayers would have had to support both the new money payment and the old charge of forced labour. I do not hesitate to say that no private person could have escaped the grasp of the criminal law who should have managed his own fortune as the Great Louis in all his glory managed the fortune of the nation.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这一段里集中展示的是旧制度下一种根深蒂固的财政逻辑：法律上的永久承诺，在实际行政操作中可以随时被收回，只要国库缺钱。他不是在讲司法腐败，而是在解剖一种更根本的病理——君主制国家在长期拒绝召开三级会议、无法通过政治协商获取税收之后，被迫发展出一整套用特权换现金的权宜之计，而这些权宜之计一旦制度化，就变成反复盘剥臣民的工具。出售贵族头衔就是最典型的例…