Seated at the public banqueting table they help themselves
first, and help themselves copiously.
A second windfall, equally gross. Enjoying the right to dispose
arbitrarily of fortunes, liberties and lives, they can traffic in
these, while no traffic can be more advantageous, both for buyers and
sellers. Any man who is rich or well-off, in other words, every man
who is likely to be taxed, imprisoned or guillotined, gladly consents
"to compound," to redeem himself and those who belong to him. If he
is prudent, he pays, before the tax, so as not to be over-taxed; he
pays, after the tax, to obtain a diminution or delays; he pays to be
admitted into the popular club. When danger draws near he pays to
obtain or renew his certificate of civism, not to be declared
"suspect," not to be denounced as a conspirator. After being
denounced, he pays to be allowed imprisonment at home rather than in
the jail, to be allowed imprisonment in the jail rather than in the
general prison, to be well treated if he gets into this, to have time
to get together his proofs in evidence, to have his record (dossier)
placed and kept at the bottom of the file among the clerk's registers,
to avoid being inscribed on the next batch of cases in the
revolutionary Tribunal.
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