the stout hands of these
Lesdiguieres, men without brains to think or hearts to be touched?
Consider what it is that must be defended against the assault of us
others--canaille. Consider a few of these feudal rights that are in
danger of being swept away should the Privileged yield even to the
commands of their sovereign; and admit the Third Estate to an equal vote
with themselves.
"What would become of the right of terrage on the land, of parciere on
the fruit-trees, of carpot on the vines? What of the corvees by which
they command forced labour, of the ban de vendage, which gives them the
first vintage, the banvin which enables them to control to their own
advantage the sale of wine? What of their right of grinding the last
liard of taxation out of the people to maintain their own opulent
estate; the cens, the lods-et-ventes, which absorb a fifth of the value
of the land, the blairee, which must be paid before herds can feed on
communal lands, the pulverage to indemnify them for the dust raised on
their roads by the herds that go to market, the sextelage on everything
offered for sale in the public markets, the etalonnage, and all the
rest? What of their rights over men and animals for field labour, of
ferries over rivers, and of bridges over streams, of sinking wells, of
warren, of dovecot, and of fire, which last yields them a tax on
every peasant hearth? What of their exclusive rights of fishing and of
hunting, the violation of which is ranked as almost a capital offence?
"And what of other rights, unspeakable, abominable, over the lives and
bodies of their people, rights which, if rarely exercised, have never
been rescinded. 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 the
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