"Autre motif d’orgueuil, que d’être citoyen! Cela consiste pour les
pauvres à soutenir et à conserver les riches dans leur puissance et
leur oisivité. Ils y doivent travailler devant la majestueuse égalité
des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les
ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain."
"Another reason for pride, that of being a citizen! For the poor
citizenship consists of supporting and sustaining the power and
idleness of the rich. They must work for those goals before the
majestic equality of the laws, which forbids rich and poor alike to
sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread."
(http://home.inreach.com/tstroll/quotations.htm)
Anatole France (pseudonym for Jacques Anatole François Thibault) wrote
this in chapter 7 of Le Lys Rouge [The Red Lily], published in 1894.
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/afrance.htm has a short biography and
bibliography of this author.
There are several variations of this quote present on the web. The
one who is closest to your question is "The law, in its majestic
impartiality, forbids the rich and poor alike to sleep under the
bridges of Paris" (http://overlawyered.com/articles/huber/clozaril.html).
Other variations of the quote are:
"The law gives the rich man precisely the same right as the beggar to
sleep under the bridges of Paris."
(http://www.ycl.org.uk/~ycl/challenge/ch3/chr.htm)
"The rich and the poor are not equally free to [choose whether to]
sleep under the bridges of Paris."
(http://www.uuca.org/pamphlets/engagementwiththeworld.html)
"Both the rich and the poor are allowed to sleep under the bridges of
Paris." (http://www.lacnet.org/srilanka/politics/devolution/item689.html) |
