rison, and
fined or disgraced the small local elite; having degraded to the level
of prostitutes and felons under surveillance, reputable women and
honorable men who are, by law, most esteemed under a normal system of
government and who, under the revolutionary system are, by law, the
least so.[41118]

IX. The Jacobin Citizen Robot.

Two characteristics of the upper class, wealth and
education.--Each of these is criminal.--Measures against
rich and well-to-do people.--Affected in a mass and by
categories.--Measures against cultivated and polite people.
--Danger of culture and distinction.--Proscription of "honest
folks."

Two advantages, fortune and education, each involving the other, cause
a man to be ranked in the upper class; hence, one or the other,
whether each by itself or both together, mark a man out for spoliation,
imprisonment and death.--In vain may he have demonstrated his
Jacobinism, and Jacobinism of the ultra sort. Herault-Sechelles, who
voted for murdering the King, who belongs to the Committee of Public
Safety, who, in the Upper-Rhine, has just carried out the worst
revolutionary ordinances,[41119] but who has the misfortune to be rich
and a man of the world, is led to the scaffold, and those devoted to
the guillotine readily explain his condemnation: he is no patriot,--how
could he be, enjoying an income of two hundred thousand livres, and,
moreover, is he not a general-advocate?[41120] One of these offenses is
sufficient.--Alone and by itself, "opulence," writes Saint-Just, "is a
disgrace," and, according to him, a man is opulent "who supports fewer
children than he has thousands of livres income; in effect, among the
persons confined as "rich and egoists" we find, according to the very
declaration of the Revolutionary Committee, persons with incomes of only
4,000, 3,700, 1,500, and even 500 livres.[41121] Moreover, a fortune or
a competence, inspires its possessor with anti-revolutionary sentiments;
consequently, he is for the moment an obstruction; "You are rich," says
Cambon, making use of a personification, "you cherish an opinion, which
compels us to be on the defensive; pay then, so as to indemnify us and
be thankful for our indulgence which, precautionary and until peace
is declared, keeps you under bolt and bar."[41122] Rich,
anti-revolutionary, and vicious," according to Robespierre,[41123]
"these three traits depend on each other, and, therefore, the