Page:Ferdinand Lassalle - The Working Man's Programme - tr. Edward Peters (1884).djvu/13

 seat and a vote in that assembly if they had acquired the privileges of a free town of the Empire.

To proceed, thirdly, to the exemption of the great landed proprietors from taxation. Now it is a characteristic and an ever recurring phenomenon, gentlemen, that every ruling privileged class invariably seeks to throw the burden of maintaining the existence of the State on the oppressed classes which have no property; and they do this openly or covertly, either directly or indirectly. When Richelieu in the year 1641 demanded six millions of francs from the clergy, as an extraordinary tax to help the necessities of the State, the clergy, through the mouth of the Archbishop of Sens, gave this characteristic answer—"The ancient usage of the Church during its vigour was that the people contributed its goods, the nobility its blood, the clergy its prayers to the necessities of the State."

Fourthly, we may mention the contempt with which every other kind of labour than that which was occupied with the land was socially regarded. To engage in industrial undertakings, to gain money by a trade or profession, was considered disgraceful, and dishonouring to the two privileged ruling classes, the nobles and the clergy, for whom it was only deemed honourable to derive their income from the possession of land.

These four great and important facts, which determine the fundamental character of any epoch, are amply sufficient for our purpose, and show how it was that the possession of land everywhere fixed its impress on the period of which we are treating, and formed its ruling principle.