* Courier Francois, 30th July, 1790. Assemblee Nationale, Numero
210.
The leaders teach the people to abhor and reject all feudality
as the barbarism of tyranny, and they tell them afterwards how much of
that barbarous tyranny they are to bear with patience. As they are
prodigal of light with regard to grievances, so the people find them
sparing in the extreme with regard to redress. They know that not only
certain quitrents and personal duties, which you have permitted them
to redeem (but have furnished no money for the redemption), are as
nothing to those burdens for which you have made no provision at
all. They know that almost the whole system of landed property in
its origin is feudal; that it is the distribution of the possessions
of the original proprietors, made by a barbarous conqueror to his
barbarous instruments; and that the most grievous effects of the
conquest are the land rents of every kind, as without question they
are.
The peasants, in all probability, are the descendants of these
ancient proprietors, Romans or Gauls. But if they fail, in any degree,
in the titles which they make on the principles of antiquaries and
lawyers, they retreat into the citadel of the rights of men. There
they find that men are equal; and the earth, the kind and equal mother
of all, ought not to be monopolized to foster the pride and luxury
of any men, who by nature are no better than themselves, and who, if
they do not labor for their bread, are worse.
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