《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7节
There were, however, at the same time in France certain districts in which the taxes were raised with regularity and moderation; these were called the pays d’état. It is true that to these districts the right of levying their own taxes had been left. In Languedoc, for example, the taille was assessed on real property, and did not vary according to the means of the holder. Its fixed and known basis was a survey which had been carefully made, and was renewed every thirty years, and in which the lands were divided, according to their fertility, into three classes. Every taxpayer knew beforehand exactly what his proportion of the charge amounted to. If he failed to pay, he alone, or rather his land alone, was liable. If he thought the assessment unjust, he might always require that his share should be compared with that of any other inhabitant of the parish, on the principle of what is now termed in France an appeal to proportionate equality. These regulations are precisely those which are now followed in France; they have not been improved since that time, but they have been generalised: for it deserves observation, that although the form of the public administration in France has been taken from the Government anterior to the Revolution, nothing else has been copied from that Government. The best of the administrative forms of proceeding in modern France have been borrowed from the old Provincial Assemblies, and not from the Government. The machine was adopted, but its produce rejected. The habitual poverty of the rural population had given birth to maxims little calculated to put an end to it. ‘If nations were well off,’ said Richelieu, in his Political Testament, ‘hardly would they keep within the rules.’ In the eighteenth century this maxim was modified, but it was still believed that the peasantry would not work without the constant stimulus of necessity, and that want was the only security against idleness. That is precisely the theory which is sometimes professed with reference to the negro population of the colonies. It was an opinion so generally diffused amongst those who governed that almost all the economists thought themselves obliged to combat it at length.
注释摘要
这一段的论说重心，是托克维尔在描绘旧制度下“任意征税”所造成的普遍苦难之后，忽然插入的一个对比性案例——那些被称为“pays d’état”的省份。他在此处的写作策略非常清晰：用一束难得的光亮，来反衬其余广大地区的黑暗。这束光来自朗格多克等仍保留着三级会议传统的省份，它们有权自行摊派税收，征税方式也与王国其余部分截然不同。 这里出现的“taille rée…