《旧制度与大革命·卷二·第十五章·何以法国人先求改革后求自由》第9节
Voltaire, who had long been absent from Paris, imagined that public opinion still remained at the point where he had left it. But he was mistaken. The French people no longer confined themselves to the desire that their affairs should be better conducted; they began to wish to conduct their affairs themselves, and it was manifest that the great Revolution, to which everything was contributing, would be brought about not only with the assent of the people, but by their hands. From that moment, I believe that this radical Revolution, which was to confound in common ruin all that was worst and all that was best in the institutions and condition of France, became inevitable. A people so ill-prepared to act for themselves could not undertake a universal and simultaneous reform without a universal destruction. An absolute sovereign would have been a less dangerous innovator. For myself, when I reflect that this same Revolution, which destroyed so many institutions, opinions, and habits adverse to freedom, also destroyed so many of those things without which freedom can hardly exist, I incline to the belief that had it been wrought by a despot it would perhaps have left the French nation less unfit one day to become a free people, than wrought as it was by the sovereignty of the people and by the people themselves. What has here been said must never be lost sight of by those who would understand the history of the French Revolution. When the love of the French for political freedom was awakened, they had already conceived a certain number of notions on matters of government, which not only did not readily ally themselves with the existence of free institutions, but which were almost contrary to them. They had accepted as the ideal of society a people having no aristocracy but that of its public officers, a single and all-powerful administration, directing the affairs of State, protecting those of private persons. Meaning to be free, they by no means meant to deviate from this first conception: only they attempted to reconcile it with that of freedom.
注释摘要
托克维尔用伏尔泰的误判来揭示一个微妙的转折点。伏尔泰长年远离巴黎，以为舆论还冻结在他离开时的老样子：人们只求王国治理得更好，并不渴望亲手治理。1771 年，路易十五解散高等法院，伏尔泰对此叫好，认为废除卖官鬻爵、让王室承担领主司法开支，是实实在在的改良；他无法理解全国上下为何群情激愤。这正是他看走眼的地方。托克维尔要指出的是，那道分水岭正踩在这件事上——法…