《旧制度与大革命·卷二·第十九章·一场大行政革命先于政治革命而至》第6节
Nowhere, indeed, was the inequality of taxation more apparent than in the rural districts; nowhere was the population more effectually divided into different groups frequently hostile to one another. In order to make it possible to give to the villages a collective administration and a free government on a small scale, it would have been necessary to begin by subjecting all the inhabitants to an equal taxation and lessening the distance by which the classes were divided. This was not, however, the course taken when the reform was begun in 1787. Within each parish the ancient distinction of classes was maintained, together with the inequality of taxation, which was its principal token, but, nevertheless, the whole administration was placed in the hands of elective bodies. This instantly led to very singular results. When the electoral assembly met in order to choose municipal officers, the Curé and the Seigneur were not to appear; they belonged, it was alleged, to the orders of the nobility and the clergy, and this was an occasion on which the commonalty had principally to choose its representatives. When, however, the municipal body was once elected, the Curé and the Seigneur were members of it by right; for it would not have been decent altogether to exclude two such considerable inhabitants from the government of the parish. The Seigneur even presided over the parochial representatives in whose election he had taken no part, but in most of their proceedings he had no voice. For instance, when the assessment and division of the taille were discussed, the Curé and the Seigneur were not allowed to vote, for were they not both exempt from this tax? On the other hand, the municipal council had nothing to do with their capitation-tax, which continued to be regulated by the Intendant according to peculiar forms. For fear that this President, isolated as he was from the body which he was supposed to direct, should still exert an indirect influence prejudicial to the interests of the Order to which he did not belong, it was demanded that the votes of his own tenants should not count; and the Provincial Assemblies, being consulted on this point, gave it as their opinion that this omission was proper, and entirely conformable to principle. Other persons of noble birth, who might be inhabitants of the parish, could not sit in the same plebeian corporation unless they were elected by the peasants and then, as the by-laws carefully pointed out, they were only entitled to represent the lower classes.
注释摘要
托克维尔在此呈现的是1787年行政改革中的一个根本性悖论：人们在乡村推行选举制，却原封不动地保留了旧制度下最撕裂社会的税收等级。乡村的不平等比其他任何地方都更扎眼，人头税的负担、豁免、部分豁免将同一教区的居民切割成了彼此几乎不相往来的群体。本堂神甫和领主不纳 taille，一部分农民全免或半免，另一部分则独自承担全额。在这个意义上，一个教区内部不是由共同利…