ndred thousand francs, two hundred thousand francs? Why!
not a civil list? What meanness! Are we really guilty of chaffering with
an artist like Mademoiselle Rachel?

It is said, in reply, that the managers of the theatre cannot give more
without incurring a loss; that they admit the superior talent of
their young associate; but that, in fixing her salary, they have been
compelled to take the account of the company's receipts and expenses
into consideration also.

That is just, but it only confirms what I have said; namely, that an
artist's talent may be infinite, but that its mercenary claims are
necessarily limited,--on the one hand, by its usefulness to the society
which rewards it; on the other, by the resources of this society: in
other words, that the demand of the seller is balanced by the right of
the buyer.

Mademoiselle Rachel, they say, brings to the treasury of the
Theatre-Francais more than sixty thousand francs. I admit it; but then I
blame the theatre. From whom does the Theatre-Francais take this
money? From some curious people who are perfectly free. Yes; but the
workingmen, the lessees, the tenants, those who borrow by pawning their
possessions, from whom these curious people recover all that they pay to
the theatre,--are they free? And when the better part of their products
are consumed by others at the play, do you assure me that their families
are not in want? Until the French people, reflecting on the salaries
paid to all artists, savants, and public functionaries, have plainly
expressed their wish and judgment as to the matter, the salaries of
Mademoiselle Rachel and all her fellow-artists will be a compulsory tax
extorted by violence, to reward pride, and support libertinism.

It is because we are neither free nor sufficiently enlightened, that we
submit to be cheated in our bargains; that the laborer pays the duties
levied by the prestige of power and the selfishness of talent upon the
curiosity of the idle, and that we are perpetually scandalized by these
monstrous inequalities which are encouraged and applauded by public
opinion.

The whole nation, and the nation only, pays its authors, its savants,
its artists, its officials, whatever be the hands through which their
salaries pass. On what basis should it pay them? On the basis of
equality. I have proved it by estimating the value of talent. I shall
confirm it in the following chapter, by proving the impossibility of all
social inequali