We have passed a law[2170] by which the public treasury shall, through a tax on large fortunes, "furnish to each commune or district the necessary funds for adapting the price of bread to the rate of wages." Our representatives in the provinces impose on the wealthy the obligation of "lodging, feeding, and clothing all infirm, aged, and indigent citizens and orphans of their respective cantons."[2171] Through the decree on monopolization and the establishment of the "maximum" we bring within reach of the poor all objects of prime necessity.

We pay them forty sous a day for attending district meetings; and three francs a day for serving on committees of surveillance.

We recruit from amongst them our revolutionary army;[2172] we select amongst them the innumerable custodians of sequesters: in this way, hundreds of thousands of sans-culottes enter into the various public services .-- At last, the poor are taken out of a state of poverty: each will now have his plot of ground, his salary or pension; "in a well-ordered republic nobody is without some property."[2173] Henceforth, among individuals, the difference in welfare will be small; from the maximum to the minimum, there will be only a degree, while there will be found in every dwelling about the same sort of household, a plain, simple household, that of the small rural proprietor, well-off farmer or factory foreman; that of Rousseau at Montmorency, or that of the Savoyard Vicar, or that of Duplay, the carpenter, with whom Robespierre lodges.[2174] There will be no more domestic servitude: "only the bond of help and gratitude will exists between employer and employee."[2175]--He who works for another citizen belongs to his family and sits at his table."[2176]--Through the transformation of lower social classes into middle class conditions we restore human dignity, and out of the proletarian, the valet and the workman, we begin to liberate the citizen.
VII.

Socialist projects.
Repression of Egoism .-- Measures against farmers, manufacturers and merchants .-- Socialist projects.
-- Repression of Federalism .-- Measures against the local, professional and family spirit.
Two leading obstacles hinder the development of civism, and the first is egoism.

Whilst the citizen prefers the community to himself, the egoist prefers himself to the community.