lution, there were three or four hundred
thousand of the privileged, recognizable by their red caps or their
carmagnoles.[3205] The most privileged of all, the three or four
thousand verified nobles, presented at court and of racial antiquity,
who, by virtue of their parchments, rode in the royal carriages, were
succeeded by three or four thousand Jacobins of a fresh sprout, no less
verified and accepted, who, by virtue of their civic patent, sat in
the club of the rue Saint-Honore and the latter coterie was still
more dominant, more exclusive, more partial than the former one.
Consequently, before the Revolution, the burden of taxation was light
for the rich or the well-to-do, crushing for the peasants or the common
people; after the Revolution, on the contrary, the peasants, the common
people, paid no more taxes,[3206] while from the rich and the well-to-do
the government took all, not alone their income but their capital.--On
the other hand, after having fed the court of Versailles, the public
treasury had to feed the rabble of Paris, still more voracious; and,
from 1793 to 1796, the maintenance of this rabble cost it twenty-five
times as much as, from 1783 to 1786, the maintenance of the court.[3207]
Finally, at Paris as at Versailles, the subordinates who lived on the
favored spot, close to the central manger, seized on all they could get
and ate much more than their allowance. Under the ancient Regime, "the
ladies of honor, every time they travel from one royal country-house to
another, gain 80 %. on the cost of the journey," while the queen's first
chambermaid gains, over and above her wages, 38,000 francs a year out
of the sales of half-burnt candles.[3208] Under the new Regime, in the
distribution of food, "the matadors of the quarter," the patriots of the
revolutionary committees, deduct their portions in advance, and a very
ample portion, to the prejudice of the hungry who await their turn, one
taking seven rations and another twenty.[3209] Thus did the injustice
remain; in knocking it over, they had simply made matters worse; and had
they wished to build permanently, now was the time to put an end to it;
for, in every social edifice it introduced an imbalance. Whether the
plumb-line deflects right or left is of little consequence; sooner or
later the building falls in, and thus had the French edifice already
fallen twice, the first time in 1789, through imminent bankruptcy and
hatred of the ancient Regime, and