Consequently, * we (the Jacobins) have dethroned the King and cut off his head;[2139] * we have suppressed, without indemnity, the entire feudal debt, comprising the rights vested in the seigneurs by virtue of their being owners of real-estate, and merely lessors; * we have abandoned their persons and possessions to the claims and rancor of local jacqueries; * we have reduced them to emigration; * we imprison them if they stay at home; * we guillotine them if they return.
(As the aristocrats are)Reared in habits of supremacy, and convinced that they are of a different species from other men, the prejudices of their race are incorrigible; they are incapable of companionship with their social equals; we cannot too carefully crush them out, or, at the very least, hold them firmly down.[2140] Besides, they are guilty from the fact of having existed; for, they have taken both the lead and the command without any right to do so, and, in violation of all right, they have misused mankind; having enjoyed their rank, it is but just that they should pay for it.

Privileged in reverse, they must be treated the same as vagabonds were treated under their reign, * stopped by the police and sent off with their families into the interior, * crowded into prisons, * executed in a mass, or, at least, * expelled from Paris, the seaports and fortified towns, put on the limits, * compelled to present themselves daily at the municipality, * deprived of their political rights, * excluded from public offices, "popular clubs, committees of supervision and from communal and section assemblages."[2141] Even this is indulgence; branded with infamy, we ought to class them with galley-slaves, and set them to work on the public highways.[2142] "Justice condemns the people's enemies and the partisans of tyranny to eternal slavery."[2143] But that is not enough, because, apart from the aristocracy of rank, there are other aristocracies which the Constituent Assembly has left untouched,[2144] especially the aristocracy of wealth.

Of all the sovereignties, that of the rich man over the poor one is the most burdensome.

In effect, not only, in contempt of equality, does he consume more than his share of the common products of labor, and without producing anything himself, but again, in contempt of liberty, he may fix wages as he pleases, and, in contempt of humanity, he always fixes them at the lowest point.

Between himself and the needy he never makes other than the most unjust contracts.