This new experiment has succeeded like all the rest. Every honest mind,
every true lover of liberty and humanity, must rejoice to find that
injustice is not always good policy, nor rapine the high-road to riches.
I subjoin with pleasure, in a note, the able and spirited observations
of M. de Calonne on this subject.[133]
In order to persuade the world of the bottomless resource of
ecclesiastical confiscation, the Assembly have proceeded to other
confiscations of estates in offices, which could not be done with any
common color without being compensated out of this grand confiscation of
landed property. They have thrown upon this fund, which was to show a
surplus disengaged of all charges, a new charge, namely, the
compensation to the whole body of the disbanded judicature, and of all
suppressed offices and estates: a charge which I cannot ascertain, but
which unquestionably amounts to many French millions. Another of the new
charges is an annuity of four hundred and eighty thousand pounds
sterling, to be paid (if they choose to keep faith) by daily payments,
for the interest of the first assignats. Have they ever given themselves
the trouble to state fairly the expense of the management of the Church
lands in the hands of the municipalities, to whose care, skill, and
diligence, and that of their legion of unknown under-agents, they have
chosen to commit the charge of the forfeited estates, and the
consequence of which had been so ably pointed out by the Bishop of
Nancy?
But it is unnecessary to dwell on these obvious heads of incumbrance.
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