《旧制度与大革命·卷二·第十六章·路易十六治世乃旧王朝最繁荣之时又何以加速革命》第8节
A witness worthy of credit, for he had seen these things with his own eyes and was better qualified than any other person to see them well, remarks on this subject:--‘The French were exposed to nothing but risks in their relations with their own Government. If they placed their capital in the State stocks, they could never reckon with certainty on the payment of interest to a given day; if they built ships, repaired the roads, clothed the army, they had nothing to cover their advance and no certainty of repayment, so that they were reduced to calculate the chances of a Government contract as if it were a loan on terms of the utmost risk.’ And the same person adds, very judiciously: ‘At this time, when the rapid growth of industry had developed amongst a larger number of men the love of property and the taste and the desire of comfort, those who had entrusted a portion of their property to the State were the more impatient of a breach of contract on the part of that creditor who was especially bound to fulfil his obligations.’ The abuses which are here imputed to the French administration were not at all new; what was new was the impression they produced. The vices of the financial system had even been far more crying in former times; but changes had taken place in Government and in society which rendered them infinitely more perceptible than they were of old. The Government, having become more active in the last twenty years, and having embarked in every species of undertaking which it had never thought of before, was at last become the greatest consumer of the produce of industry and the greatest contractor of public works in the kingdom. The number of persons who had pecuniary transactions with the State, who were interested in Government loans, lived by Government wages, or speculated in Government contracts, had prodigiously increased. Never before had the fortune of the nation and the fortunes of private persons been so much intermingled. The mismanagement of the public finances, which had long been no more than a public evil, thus became to a multitude of families a private calamity. In 1789 the State was indebted nearly 600 millions of francs to creditors who were almost all in debt themselves, and who inoculated with their own dissatisfaction against the Government all those whom the irregularity of the public Treasury caused to participate in their embarrassments. And it must be observed, that as malcontents of this class became more numerous, they also became more exasperated; for the love of speculation, the thirst for wealth, the taste for comfort, having grown and extended in proportion to the business transacted, the same evils which they might have endured thirty years before without complaint now appeared altogether insupportable.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这一段突然引入了一位“可信的证人”，并借他的口说出一个经济层面极其具体的困境。这位证人所描述的不是旧制度财政体系在制度上的不公，而是在日常商业交往中最实际的风险：个人一旦把资产交给国家，无论是买国债还是承包政府订单，都拿不到任何确定的回报日期与保障。为政府造船、修路、供应军需的人，垫出去的款项没有抵押，收回的日期全凭官僚意志。这种情形使得一笔政府…