Should any "rich egoist
refuse to contribute his contingent he is to be immediately
transferred to the jail at Perpignan." - Not to labor with one's own
hands, to be disqualified for work demanding physical strength, is of
itself a democratic stain, and the man who is sullied by this draws
down on himself, not alone an augmentation of pecuniary taxation, but
frequently an augmentation of personal compulsory labor. At
Villeneuve, Aveyron, and throughout the department of Cantal,[115]
Representative Taillefer and his delegate Deltheil, instruct the
Revolutionary Committees to "place under military requisition and
conscription all muscadins above the first class," that is to say, all
between twenty-five and forty years of age who are not reached by the
law. "By muscadins is meant all citizens of that age not married, and
exercising no useful profession," in other words, those who live on
their income. And, that none of the middle or upper class may escape,
the edict subjects to special rigor, supplementary taxes, and
arbitrary arrest, not alone property-holders and fund-holders, but
again all persons designated under the following heads, - aristocrats,
Feuillants, moderates, Girondists, federalists, muscadins, the
superstitious, fanatics the abettors of royalism, of superstition and
of federation, monopolists, jobbers, egoists, "suspects " of incivism,
and, generally, all who are indifferent to the Revolution, of which
local committees are to draw up the lists.
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