operty and at every sale. The
people were compelled to grind their corn at their landlord's mill, to
press their grapes in his press, and bake their bread in his oven. In
consequence of these feudal laws and customs, the people were very
poor, their houses dark and comfortless, their dress ragged and
miserable, their food coarse and scanty. Not half of the enormous
taxes which they paid reached the royal treasury, or even the pockets
of the great proprietors. Officers were indefinitely multiplied. The
governing classes looked upon the people only to be robbed. Their cry
was unheard in the courts of justice, while the tear of sorrow was
unnoticed amid the pageantry of the great, whose extravagance,
insolence, and pride were only surpassed by the misery and degradation
of those unfortunate beings on whose toils they lived. Justice was
bought and sold like any other commodity, and the decisions of judges
were influenced by the magnitude of the bribes which were offered
them. Besides feudal taxes, the clergy imposed additional burdens, and
swarmed wherever there was plunder to be obtained. The people were so
extravagantly taxed that it was no object to be frugal or industrious.
Every thing beyond the merest necessaries of life was seized by
various tax-gatherers. In England, severe as is taxation, three
fourths of the produce of the land go to the farmer, while in France
only one twelfth went to the poor peasant. Two thirds of his earnings
went to the king. Nor was there any appeal from this excessive
taxation, which ground down the middle and lower classes, while the
clergy and the nobles were entirely exempted themselves. Nor did the
rich proprietor live upon his estates. He was a non-resident, and
squandered in the cities the money which was extorted from his
dependents. He took no interest in the condition of the peasantry,
with whom he was not united by any common ties. Added to this
oppression, the landlord was cruel, haughty, and selfish; and he
irritated by his insolence as well as oppressed by his injustice. All
situations in the army, the navy, the church, the court, the bench,
and in diplomacy were exclusively filled by the aristocracy, of whom
there were one hundred and fifty thousand people--a class insolent,
haughty, effeminate, untaxed; who disdained useful employments, who
sought to live by the labor of others, and who regarded those by whose
toils they were enabled to lead lives of dissipation and pleasure,