On leaving these
assemblies the villager broods over what he has just heard. He sees
his grievances no longer singly as before, but in mass, and coupled
with the enormity of evils under which his fellows suffer. Besides
this, they begin to disentangle the causes of their misery: the King
is good -- why then do his collectors take so much of our money?
This or that canon or nobleman is not unkind -- why then do they
make us pay in their place? -- Imagine that a sudden gleam of reason
should allow a beast of burden to comprehend the contrast between
the species of horse and mankind. Imagine, if you can, what its
first ideas would be in relation to the coachmen and drivers who
bridle and whip it and again in relation to the good-natured
travelers and sensitive ladies who pity it, but who to the weight of
the vehicle add their own and that of their luggage.
Likewise, in the mind of the peasant, athwart his perplexed
brooding, a new idea, slowly, little by little, is unfolded: -- that
of an oppressed multitude of which he makes one, a vast herd
scattered far beyond the visible horizon, everywhere ill used,
starved, and fleeced.
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