These two obligations could not be canceled without indemnity; if it were done, more than one-half of the proprietors in France would be dispossessed in favor of the farmers.

Hence the distinction which the Assembly makes in the feudal dues .-- On the one hand it abolishes without indemnity all those dues which the noble receives by virtue of being the local sovereign, the ancient proprietor of persons and the usurper of public powers; all those which the lessee paid as serf, subject to rights of inheritance, and as former vassal or dependent.

On the other hand, it maintains and decrees as redeemable at a certain rate all those which the noble receives through his title of landed proprietor and of simple lessor; all those which the lessee pays by virtue of being a free contracting party, former purchaser, tenant, farmer or grantee of landed estate .-- By this division it fancies that it has respected lawful ownership by overthrowing illegitimate property, and that in the feudal scheme of obligations, it has separated the wheat from the chaff.[2221] But, through the principle, the drawing up and the omissions of its law, it condemns both to a common destruction; the fire on which it has thrown the chaff necessarily burns up the wheat .-- Both are in fact bound up together in the same sheaf.

If the noble formerly brought men under subjection by the sword, it is also by the sword that he formerly acquired possession of the soil.

If the subjection of persons is invalid on account of the original stain of violence, the usurpation of the soil is invalid for the same reason.