《旧制度与大革命·卷二·第十二章·何以十八世纪法国农民处境反不如十三世纪》第1节
In the eighteenth century the French peasantry could no longer be preyed upon by petty feudal despots; they were seldom the object of violence on the part of the Government; they enjoyed civil liberty, and were owners of a portion of the soil; but all the other classes of society stood aloof from this class, and perhaps in no other part of the world had the peasantry ever lived so entirely alone. The effects of this novel and singular kind of oppression deserve a very attentive separate consideration. As early as the beginning of the seventeenth century, Henry IV. complained, as we learn from Péréfix, that the nobles were quitting the rural districts. In the middle of the eighteenth century this desertion had become almost general; all the records of the time indicate and deplore the fact, economists in their writings, the Intendants in their reports, agricultural societies in their proceedings. A more authentic proof of the same fact is to be found in the registers of the capitation tax. The capitation tax was levied at the actual place of residence, and it was paid by the whole of the great nobility and by a portion of the landed gentry at Paris. In the rural districts none remained but such of the gentry as their limited means compelled to stay there. These persons must have found themselves placed in a position with reference to the peasants, his neighbours, such as no rich proprietor can be conceived to have occupied before. Being no longer in the position of a chief, they had not the same interest as of old to attend to, or assist, or direct the village population; and, on the other hand, not being subject to the same burdens, they could neither feel much sympathy with poverty which they did not share, nor with grievances to which they were not exposed. The peasantry were no longer the subjects of the gentry; the gentry were not yet the fellow-citizens of the peasantry--a state of things unparalleled in history. This gave rise to a sort of absenteeism of feeling, if I may so express myself, even more frequent and more effectual than absenteeism properly so called. Hence it arose that a gentleman residing on his estate frequently displayed the views and sentiments which his steward would have entertained in his absence; like his steward, he learned to look upon his tenants as his debtors, and he rigorously exacted from them all that he could claim by law or by custom, which sometimes rendered the application of the last remnant of feudal rights more harsh than it had been in the feudal times.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这一段里提出的核心命题，是一种奇特压迫形态的出现。十八世纪的法国农民，既不遭受地方小封建主的直接掠夺，也极少遭遇政府赤裸裸的暴力；他们享有人身自由，甚至拥有一部分土地。按照启蒙时代的一般期待，这些变化应当意味着处境的改善。可托克维尔却指出，农民陷入了一种过去从未有过的孤立。其他阶级纷纷从农村撤离，农民被单独遗弃在社会的角落里。这种压迫不再以直接的…