《旧制度与大革命·卷二·第十七章·何以施恩反而激起民变》第5节
The Provincial Assembly of Lower Normandy said, in 1787, ‘We have too frequently seen the money destined by the King for roads serve only to increase the prosperity of the rich without any benefit to the people. It has often been employed to embellish the approach to a country mansion instead of making a more convenient entrance to a town or village.’ In the same assembly the Orders of nobility and clergy, after describing the abuses of compulsory labour, spontaneously offered to contribute out of their own funds 50,000 livres towards the improvement of the roads, in order, as they said, that the roads of the province might be made practicable without any further cost to the people. It would probably have cost these privileged classes less to abolish the compulsory system, and to substitute for it a general tax of which they should pay their quota; but though willing to give up the profit derived from inequality of taxation, they liked to maintain the appearance of the privilege. While they gave up that part of their rights which was profitable, they carefully retained that which was odious. Other assemblies, composed entirely of landowners exempt from the taille, and who fully intended to continue so, nevertheless depicted in the darkest colours the hardships which the taille inflicted on the poor. They drew a frightful picture of all its abuses, which they circulated in all directions. But the most singular part of the affair is that to these strong marks of the interest they felt in the common people, they from time to time added public expressions of contempt for them. The people had already become the object of their sympathy without having ceased to be the object of their disdain. The Provincial Assembly of Upper Guienne, speaking of the peasants whose cause they so warmly pleaded, called them coarse and ignorant creatures, turbulent spirits, and rough and intractable characters. Turgot, who did so much for the people, seldom spoke of them otherwise. These harsh expressions were used in acts intended for the greatest publicity, and meant to meet the eyes of the peasants themselves. It seemed as though the framers of them imagined that they were living in a country like Galicia, where the higher classes speak a different language from the lower, and cannot be understood by them. The feudalists of the eighteenth century, who frequently displayed towards the ratepayers and others who owed them feudal services, a disposition to indulgence, moderation, and justice, unknown to their predecessors, still spoke occasionally of ‘vile peasants.’ These insults seem to have been ‘in proper form,’ as the lawyers say.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这一段里讨论的已经不只是行政措施，而是旧制度末期特权阶层的一种奇特心理：他们开始同情人民，却从未停止鄙视人民。下诺曼底省议会那番关于道路资金的话，正好暴露了这种分裂。贵族和教士指出，王室拨下来修路的钱常常被拿去美化富人的乡间别墅，而不是方便城镇村落，这等于是当众承认公共资源长期为私人权势服务。然而他们接下来的动作最能说明问题：他们不是主张废除徭役…