《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8节
The primary object of the taille was to enable the King to purchase recruits so as to dispense the nobles and their vassals from military service; but in the seventeenth century the obligation of military service was again imposed, as we have seen, under the name of the militia, and henceforth it weighed upon the common people only, and almost exclusively on the peasantry. The infinite number of police reports from the constables, which are still to be found amongst the records of any intendancy, all relating to the pursuit of refractory militia-men or deserters, suffice to prove that this force was not raised without obstacles. It seems, indeed, that no public burden was more insupportable to the peasantry than this: to evade it they frequently fled into the woods, where they were pursued by the armed authorities. This is the more singular, when we see the facility with which the conscription works in France in the present times. This extreme repugnance of the peasantry of France before the Revolution to the militia was attributable less to the principle of the law than to the manner in which the law was executed; more especially from the long period of uncertainty, during which it threatened those liable to be drawn (they could be taken until forty years of age, unless they were married)--from the arbitrary power of revision, which rendered the advantage of a lucky number almost useless--from the prohibition to hire a substitute--from disgust at a hard and perilous profession, in which all hope of advancement was forbidden; but, above all, from the feeling that this oppressive burden rested on themselves alone, and on the most wretched amongst themselves, the ignominy of this condition rendering its hardships more intolerable. I have had means of referring to many of the returns of the draft for the militia, as it was made in 1769 in a large number of parishes. In all these returns there are some exemptions: this man is a gentleman’s servant; that, the gamekeeper of an abbey; a third is only the valet of a man of inferior birth, but who, at least, ‘lives like a nobleman.’ Wealth alone afforded an exemption; when a farmer annually figured amongst those who paid the largest sum in taxes, his sons were dispensed from the militia; that was called encouragement of agriculture. Even the economists, who, in all other points, were great partisans of social equality, were not shocked by this privilege; they only suggested that it should be extended, or, in other words, that the burden of the poorest and most friendless of the peasants should become more severe. ‘The low pay of the soldier,’ said one of these writers, ‘the manner in which he is lodged, dressed, and fed, and his entire state of dependence, would render it too cruel to take any but a man of the lowest orders.’
注释摘要
托克维尔在这里把军役税和民兵役并置，构成一个关于负担转移的冷酷论证。军役税最初设立的目的是让国王有钱去招募士兵，从而豁免贵族及其附庸亲身服兵役的义务，这本是一种以金钱置换人身服务的封建契约安排。但到了十七世纪，国王又以民兵的名义重新把兵役召唤回来，这一次它只落在平民身上，而且几乎完全压在农民肩上。托克维尔要追问的不是兵役本身是否正当，而是这项负担的分配方式…