On religious or patriotic zeal has followed the
craving for prosperity and comfort, and the new motive is as
powerful as the others; for in our industrial, democratic, and
utilitarian societies it is this which governs almost all lives, and
excites almost all efforts. Kept down for centuries, the passion
recovers itself by throwing off government and privilege, the two
great weights which have borne it down. At the present time this
passion launches itself impetuously with its whole force, with
brutal insensibility, athwart every kind of proprietorship that is
legal and legitimate, whether it be public or private. The
obstacles it encounters only render it the more destructive , beyond
property it attacks proprietors, and completes plunder with
proscriptions.
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Notes:
[1] The expression is that of Jean Bon Saint-Andr? to Mathieu Dumas,
sent to re-establish tranquillity in Montauban (1790): "The day of
vengeance, which we have been awaiting for a hundred years, has
come!"
[2] De Dampmartin, I.
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