Respectable housewives and workwomen
had nothing to do with it, nor "working-people of any class." The
sole actors of this administrative parody are " scamps, a few
bullies of houses of ill-fame, and a portion of the dregs of the
female sex." - To this end comes the dictatorship of instinct,
yonder let loose on the highway in a massacre of priests, and here,
in the second city of France, in the government of strumpets.
III.
Egotism of the tax-payer. - Issoudun in 1790. - Rebellion against
taxation. - Indirect taxes in 1789 and 1790. - Abolition of the
salt tax, excise, and octrois. - Direct taxation in 1789 and 1790.
- Delay and insufficiency of the returns. - New levies in 1791
and 1792. - Delays, partiality, and concealment in preparing the
rolls. - Insufficiency of, and the delay in, the returns. -
Payment in assignats.- The tax-payer relieves himself of one-half.
- Devastation of the forests. - Division of the communal
property.
The fear of starvation is only the sharper form of a more general
passion, which is the desire of possession and the determination not
to give anything up.
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