《旧制度与大革命·卷三·第五章·绝对权力一旦被制伏革命的真面目立刻显现》第7节
The discussion roused by the King’s Edicts, after having run round a vast circumference of institutions and laws, always ended at the two following points, which practically expressed the objects of the contest. 1. In the States-General, then about to meet, were the commons to have a greater number of representatives than each of the two other Orders, so that the total number of its deputies should be equal to those of the nobility and clergy combined? 2. Were the Orders to deliberate together or separately? This reduplication of the commons and the fusion of the three Orders in one assembly appeared, at the time, to be things less novel and less important than they were in reality. Some minor circumstances which had long existed, or were then in existence, concealed their novelty and their magnitude. For ages the provincial Estates of Languedoc had been composed and had sat in this manner, with no other result than that of giving to the middle class a larger share of public business, and of creating common interests and greater facility of intercourse between that class and the two higher Orders. This example had been copied, subsequently, in the two or three provincial assemblies which were held in 1779: instead of dividing the classes, it had been found to draw them together. The King himself appeared to have declared in favour of this system; for he had just applied it to the provincial assemblies, which the last edict had called into being in all the provinces having previously no Estates of their own (1788). It was still imperfectly seen, without a clear perception of the fact, that an institution which had only modified the ancient constitution of the country, when established in a single province, could not fail to bring about its total and violent overthrow the moment it was applied to the whole State. It was evident that the commons, if equal in number to the two other Orders in the General Assembly of the nation, must instantly preponderate there;--not as participating in their business, but as the supreme master of it. For the commons would stand united between two bodies, not only divided against each other, but divided against themselves--the commons having the same interests, the same passions, the same object: the two other Orders having different interests, different objects, and frequently different passions: these having the current of public opinion in their favour, those having it against them. This preference from without could not fail to drive a certain number of nobles and priests to join the commons; so that whilst it banded all the commons together, it detached from the nobility and the clergy all those who were aiming at popularity or seeking to track out a new road to power.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这一段里把纷乱的论战收拢为两个看似技术性的问题：第三等级的代表人数是否应该加倍，使平民代表的总数等于贵族与教士代表的总和；以及三个等级是分开议事还是合并成一个议会。他随即指出，这两个问题在当时被严重低估了。人们觉得这不过是沿袭某种已有先例的做法。朗格多克省的省级三级会议早就是这个样子，第三等级代表人数与另外两个等级合起来相当，三个等级同堂议事，结…