the social body, the heart, already so feeble, faints; deprived of
the blood which no longer reaches it, it ceases to propel to the
muscles the vivifying current which restores their waste and adds to
their energy.

"All controlling power is slackened," says Necker, "everything is a
prey to the passions of individuals." Where is the power to
constrain them and to secure to the State its dues? -- The clergy,
the nobles, wealthy townsmen, and certain brave artisans and
farmers, undoubtedly pay, and even sometimes give spontaneously.
But in society those who possess intelligence, who are in easy
circumstances and conscientious, form a small select class; the
great mass is egotistic, ignorant, and needy, and lets its money go
only under constraint; there is but one way to collect the taxes,
and that is to extort them. From time immemorial, direct taxes in
France have been collected only by bailiffs and seizures; which is
not surprising, as they take away a full half of the net income.
Now that the peasants of each village are armed and form a band, let
the collector come and make seizures if he dare ! -- " Immediately
after the decree on the equality of the taxes," writes the
provincial commission of Alsace,[28] "the people generally refused
to make any payments, until those who were exempt and privileged
should have been inscribed on the local lists." In many places the
peasants threaten to obtain the reimbursement of their installments,
while in others they insist that the decree should be retrospective
and that the new rate-payers should pay for the past year. "No
collector dare send an official to distrain; none that are sent dare
fulfill their mission." -- " It is not the good bourgeois" of whom
there is any fear, "but the rabble who make the latter and every one
else afraid of them;" resistance and disorder everywhere come from