And if the sanction and guarantee of the State could not justify the first act of brigandage, they could not justify the second; and, since the rights which are derived from unjust sovereignty are abolished without indemnity, the rights which are derived from unjust proprietorship should be likewise abolished without compensation .-- --The Assembly, with remarkable imprudence, had declared in the preamble to its law that "it abolished the feudal system entirely," and, whatever its ulterior reservations might be, the fiat has gone forth.

The forty thousand sovereign municipalities to which the text of the decree is read pay attention only to the first article, and the village attorney, imbued with the rights of man, easily proves to these assemblies of debtors that they owe nothing to their creditors.
There must be no exceptions nor distinctions: no more annual rents, field-rents, dues on produce, nor contingent rents, nor lord's dues and fines, or fifths.[2222] If these have been maintained by the Assembly, it is owing to misunderstanding, timidity, inconsistency, and on all sides, in the rural districts, the grumbling of disappointed greed or of unsatisfied necessities is heard:[2223] "You thought that you were destroying feudalism, while your redemption laws have done just the contrary.

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