To this day if a noble returning from the
hunt were to slay two of his serfs to bathe and refresh his feet in
their blood, he could still claim in his sufficient defence that it
was his absolute feudal right to do so.
"Rough-shod, these million Privileged ride over the souls and bodies
of twenty-four million contemptible canaille existing but for their
own pleasure. Woe betide him who so much as raises his voice in
protest in the name of humanity against an excess of these already
excessive abuses. I have told you of one remorselessly slain in
cold blood for doing no more than that. Your own eyes have witnessed
the assassination of another here upon this plinth, of yet another
over there by the cathedral works, and the attempt upon my own life.
"Between them and the justice due to them in such cases stand these
Lesdiguieres, these King's Lieutenants; not instruments of justice,
but walls erected for the shelter of Privilege and Abuse whenever it
exceeds its grotesquely excessive rights.
"Do you wonder that they will not yield an inch; that they will
resist the election of a Third Estate with the voting power to
sweep all these privileges away, to compel the Privileged to submit
themselves to a just equality in the eyes of the law with the
meanest of the canaille they trample underfoot, to provide that the
moneys necessary to save this state from the bankruptcy into which
they have all but plunged it shall be raised by taxation to be borne
by themselves in the same proportion as by others?
"Sooner than yield to so much they prefer to resist even the royal
command.
Pages:
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119