《旧制度与大革命·卷二·第十七章·何以施恩反而激起民变》第3节
Until the very end of the monarchy the strife which subsisted among the different administrative powers gave occasion for all sorts of demonstrations of this kind; the contending parties readily imputed to each other the miseries of the people. A strong instance of this appeared in the quarrel which arose, in 1772, between the Parliament of Toulouse and the King, with reference to the transport of grain. ‘The Government, by its bad measures, places the poor in danger of dying of hunger,’ said the Parliament. ‘The ambition of the Parliament and the avidity of the rich are the cause of the general distress,’ retorted the King. Thus both the parties were endeavouring to impress the minds of the common people with the belief that their superiors are always to blame for their sufferings. These things are not contained in the secret correspondence of the time, but in public documents which the Government and the Parliaments themselves took care to have printed and published by thousands. The King took occasion incidentally to tell very harsh truths both to his predecessors and to himself. ‘The treasure of the State,’ said he on one occasion, ‘has been burdened by the lavish expenditure of several successive reigns. Many of our inalienable domains have been granted on leases at nominal rents.’ On another occasion he was made to say, with more truth than prudence, ‘The privileged trading companies mainly owed their origin to the fiscal avidity of the Crown.’ Farther on, he remarked that ‘if useless expenses have often been incurred, and if the taille has increased beyond all bounds, it has been because the Board of Finance found an increase of the taille the easiest resource inasmuch as it was clandestine, and was therefore employed, although many other expedients would have been less burdensome to our people.’ All this was addressed to the enlightened part of the nation, in order to convince it of the utility of certain measures which private interests rendered unpopular. As for the common people, it was assumed that if they listened they did not understand.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这一段里揭示了一种罕见的政治动态：不是某一个人、某一个机构在煽动民众，而是旧制度末期互相敌对的各种行政与司法权力在公开争吵中，竞相把民众苦难的责任推到对方头上。他举了 1772 年图卢兹高等法院与国王之间关于粮食运输的争执：高等法院说政府的恶劣措施让穷人濒于饿死，国王反过来指责高等法院的野心和富人的贪婪造成了普遍的困苦。每一方都用民众的苦难作为攻…