《旧制度与大革命·卷三·第二章·这股茫然的骚动何以在法国骤然变为炽烈的激情》第3节
Public opinion instantly rose in their favour, and threw its whole weight on their side. Then was witnessed the strange spectacle of a Government proposing measures favourable to the people without ceasing to be unpopular, and of an Assembly resisting these measures with the support of public favour. Thus the Government proposed to reform the salt tax (la gabelle), which pressed so heavily and often so cruelly on the people. It would have abolished forced labour, reformed the taille, and suppressed the twentieths, a species of tax from which the upper classes had continued to make themselves exempt. In place of these taxes, which were to be abolished or reformed, a land-tax was to be imposed, on the very same basis which has since become the basis of the land-tax of France, and the custom-houses, which placed grievous restrictions on trade and industry, were to be removed to the frontier of the kingdom. Beside, and almost in the place of, the Intendants who administered each province, an elective body was to be constituted, with the power not only of watching the conduct of public business, but, in most cases, of directing it. All these measures were conformable to the spirit of the times. They were resisted or postponed by the Notables. Nevertheless, the Government remained unpopular, and the Notables had the public cry in their favour. Fearing that he had not been understood, the Minister, Calonne, explained in a public document that the effect of the new laws would be to relieve the people from a portion of the taxes, and to throw that portion on the rich. That was true, but the Minister was still unpopular. ‘The clergy,’ said he elsewhere, ‘are, before all things, citizens and subjects. They must pay taxes like all the rest. If the clergy have debts, a part of their property must be sold to discharge them.’ That again was to aim at one of the tenderest points of public opinion: the point was touched, but the public were unmoved. On the question of the reform of the taille, the Notables opposed it on the ground that it could not relieve those who paid it without imposing an excessive burden on the other tax-payers, especially on the nobility and clergy, whose privileges on the score of taxation had already been reduced to almost nothing. The abolition of internal custom-houses was objected to peremptorily on behalf of the privileges of certain provinces, which were to be treated with great forbearance.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这里描绘的是一幅深刻的政治反常景象：一个试图推行有利于民众之改革的政府，竟然沦为全民公敌；而一个由特权阶层组成、处处阻挠改革的显贵会议，反而赢得满堂喝彩。这种倒错的背后，不是某项具体政策的得失之争，而是整个社会对专制权力结构的总体性反叛。政府提出的措施——改革盐税、废除强迫劳役、取消各省内部关税、甚至用由选举产生的机构来取代国王派往各省的总督——…