How could they
remit dues in grain and in wine when these constitute their bread and
wine for the entire year? How could they dispense with the fifth and
the fifth of the fifth (du quint et du requint) when this is the only
coin they obtain? Why, being needy should they not be exacting?
Accordingly, in relation to the peasant, they are simply his
creditors; and to this end come the feudal r?gime transformed by the
monarchy. Around the chateau I see sympathies declining, envy raising
its head, and hatreds on the increase. Set aside in public matters,
freed from taxation, the seignior remains isolated and a stranger
among his vassals; his extinct authority with his unimpaired
privileges form for him an existence apart. When he emerges from it,
it is to forcibly add to the public misery. From this soil, ruined by
the tax-man, he takes a portion of its product, so much it, sheaves of
wheat and so many measures of wine. His pigeons and his game eat up
the crops. People are obliged to grind in his mill, and to leave with
him a sixteenth of the flour. The sale of a field for the sum of six
hundred livres puts one hundred livres into his pocket.
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