possession
of the superfluous is an infallible sign of aristocracy, a visible
mark of incivism" and, as Fouche says, "a stamp of reprobation." "The
superfluous is an evident and unwarrantable violation of the people's
rights; every man who has more than his wants call for, cannot use, and
therefore he must only abuse."[41124] Whoever does not make over to the
masses the excess of what is strictly necessary.... places himself
in the rank of 'suspects.' Rich egoists, you are the cause of our
misfortunes!"[41125] "You dared to smile contemptuously on the
appellation of sans-culottes;[41126] you have enjoyed much more than
your brethren alongside of you dying with hunger; you are not fit to
associate with them, and since you have disdained to have them eat at
your table, they cast you out eternally from their bosom and
condemn you, in turn, to wear the shackles prepared for them by your
indifference or your maneuvers." In other words, whoever has a good
roof over his head, or wears good clothes, man or woman, idler or
industrious, noble or commoner, is available for the prison or the
guillotine, or, at the very least, he is a taxable and workable serf
at pleasure; his capital and accumulations, if not spontaneously
and immediately handed over, form a criminal basis and proof of
conviction.--The orders of arrest are generally issued against him on
account of his wealth; in order to drain a town of these offenders
one by one, all are penned together according to their resources; at
Strasbourg,[41127] 193 persons are taxed, each from 6,000 to 300,000
livres, in all 9 million livres, payable within twenty-four hours,
by the leading men of each profession or trade, bankers, brokers,
merchants, manufacturers, professors, pastors, lawyers, physicians,
surgeons, publishers, printers, upholsterers, glass-dealers,
rope-makers, master-masons, coffee-house and tavern keepers. And let
there be no delay in responding to these orders within the prescribed
time! Otherwise the delinquents will be placed in the stocks, on the
scaffold, face to face with the guillotine. "One of the best citizens
in the commune, who had steadily manifested his attachment to the
Revolution, being unable to realize a sum of 250,000 livres in one day,
was fastened in the pillory."[41128] Sometimes the orders affected an
entire class, not alone nobles or priests, but all the members of any
bourgeois profession or even of any handicraft. At Strasbourg, a little
lat