- The Jacobins are to do all this, for it is the inevitable
result of the theory that they have proclaimed and which they apply.
According to this theory the stern, strong, deep-seated instinct
through which the individual stubbornly holds on to what he has, to
what he makes for himself and for those that belong to him, is just
the unwholesome fiber that must be rooted out or paralyzed at any
cost; its true name is "egoism, incivism," and its operations consist
of outrages on the community, which is the sole legitimate proprietor
of property and products, and, yet more, of all persons and services.
Body and soul, all belongs to the State, nothing to individuals, and,
if need be, the State has the right to take not only lands and
capital, but, again, to claim and tax at whatever rate it pleases all
corn and cattle, all vehicles and the animals that draw them, all
candles and sugar; it has the right to appropriate to itself and tax
at whatever rate it pleases, the labor of shoemaker, tailor, miller,
wagoner, ploughman, reaper and thrasher. The seizure of men and
things is universal, and the new sovereigns do their best at it; for,
in practice, necessity urges them on; insurrection thunders at their
door; their supporters, all crackbrains with empty stomachs, the poor
and the idle, and the Parisian populace, listen to no reason and
blindly insist on things haphazard; they are bound to satisfy their
patrons at once, to issue one on top of the other all the decrees they
call for, even when impracticable and mischievous to starve the
provinces so as to feed the city, to starve the former to-morrow so as
to feed the latter to-day.
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