The History of French Revolution. Taine Hippolyte
[ The right to an income from trust funds. (SR.)]
2205 (return) [ Arthur Young, I. 209, 223. "If the communes steadily refuse what is now offered to them, they put immense and certain benefits to the chance of fortune, to that hazard which may make posterity curse instead of bless their memories as real patriots who had nothing in view but the happiness of their country."]
2206 (return) [ According to valuations by the Constituent Assembly, the tax on real estate ought to bring 240,000,000 francs, and provide one-fifth of the net revenue of France, estimated at 1,200,000,000. Additionally, the personal tax on movable property, which replaced the capitation, ought to bring 60,000,000. Total for direct taxation, 300,000,000, or one-fourth—that is to say, twenty-five per cent, of the net revenue.—If the direct taxation had been maintained up to the rate of the ancient régime (190,000,000, according to Necker's report in May, 1689), this impost would only have provided one-sixth of the net revenue, or sixteen percent.]
2207 (return) [ Dumont, 267. (The words of Mirabeau three months before his death:) "Ah, my friend, how right we were at the start when we wanted to prevent the commons from declaring themselves the National Assembly! That was the source of the evil. They wanted to rule the King, instead of ruling through him."]
2208 (return) [ Gouverneur Morris, April 29, 1789 (on the principles of the future constitution), "One generation at least will be required to render the public familiar with them."]
2209 (return) [ Cf. "The Ancient Régime," book II, ch. III.]
2210 (return) [ French women did not obtain the right to vote until 1946. (SR.)]
2211 (return) [ According to Voltaire ("L'Homme aux Quarante Écus"), the average duration of human life was only twenty-three years.]
2212 (return) [ Mercure, July 6, 1790. According to the report of Camus (sitting of July 2nd), the official total of pensions amounted to thirty-two millions; but if we add the gratuities and allowances out of the various treasuries, the actual total was fifty-six millions.]
2213 (return) [ I note that today in 1998, 100 years after Taine's death, Denmark, my country, has had total democracy, that is universal suffrage for women and men of 18 years of age for a considerable time, and a witty author has noted that the first rule of our unwritten constitution is that "thou shalt not think that thou art important". I have noted, however, that when a Dane praises Denmark and the Danes even in the most excessive manner, then he is not considered as a chauvinist but admired as being a man of truth. In spite of the process of 'democratization' even socialist chieftains seem to favor and protect their own children, send them to good private schools and later abroad to study and help them to find favorable employment in the party or with the public services. A new élite is thus continuously created by the ruling political and administrative upper class. (SR.).]
2214 (return) [ "The Ancient Régime," p.388, and the following pages.— "Le Duc de Broglie," by M. Goizot, p. 11. (Last words of Prince Victor de Broglie, and the opinions of M. d'Argenson.)]
2215 (return) [ De Ferrières, I. p.2.]
2216 (return) [ Moniteur, sitting of September 7, 1790, I. 431–437. Speeches, of MM. de Sillery, de Lanjuinais, Thouret, de Lameth, and Rabaut-Saint-Etienne. Barnave wrote in 1791: "It was necessary to be content with one single chamber; the instinct of equality required it. A second Chamber would have been the refuge of the aristocrats."]
2217 (return) [ Lenin should later create an elite, an aristocracy which, under his leadership was to become the Communist party. Lenin could not have imagined or at least would not have been concerned that the leadership of this party would fall into the hands of tyrants later, under the pressure of age and corruption, to be replaced by the KGB and later the FSB. (SR.)]
2218 (return) [ "De Bouillé," p. 50: "All the old noble families, save two or three hundred, were ruined."]
2219 (return) [ Cf. Doniol, "La Révolution et la Féodalité."]
2220 (return) [ Moniteur, sitting of August 6, 1789. Speech of Duport: "Whatever is unjust cannot last. Similarly, no compensation for these unjust rights can be maintained." Sitting of February 27, 1790. M. Populus: "As slavery could not spring from a legitimate contract, because liberty cannot be alienated, you have abolished without indemnity hereditary property in persons." Instructions and decree of June 15–19, 1791: "The National Assembly has recognized in the most emphatic manner that a man never could become the proprietor of another man, and consequently, that the rights which one had assumed to have over the person of the other, could not become the property of the former." Cf. the diverse reports of Merlin to the Committee of Feudality and the National Assembly.]
2221 (return) [ Duvergier, "Collection des Lois et Décrets." Laws of the 4–11 August, 1789; March 15–28, 1790; May 3–9, 1790; June 15–19, 1791.]
2222 (return) [ Agrier percières—terms denoting taxes paid in the shape of shares of produce. Those which follow: lods, rentes, quint, requint belong to the taxes levied on real property. 22Tr.]
2223 (return) [ Doniol ("Noveaux cahiers de 1790"). Complaints of the copy-holders of Rouergues and of Quercy, pp. 97–105.]
2224 (return) [ See further on, book III. ch. II. § 4 and also ch. III.]
2225 (return) [ Moniteur, sitting of March 2, 1790. Speech by Merlin: "The peasants