François-Noël Babeuf Quotes

Admitting inequality is subscribing to a depravity of the species.

François-Noël Babeuf, the self-educated son of a gabellou and himself a man whose business it was before 1789 to show the rich how they might become richer by squeezing the peasants for feudal dues, did somehow produce the first modern and coherent communist political strategy.

Admettre l'inégalité, c'est souscrire à une dépravation de l'espèce.

The knowledge of feudal practices is the reason why I was perhaps the most formidable scourge of feudalism.

We must advance ... because Christianity and freedom are incompatible

Il n'est et ne sera que l'avocat des pauvres. (1786)

...enfans de l'ignorance qui ont fait en tous tems le malheur des races humaines.

The ultimate ideal of Babeuf and his Conspiracy was absolute equality. Nature, they claimed, calls for perfect equality; all inequality is injustice: therefore community of property was to be established. ... In the ideal communist society sought by the Conspiracy, private property would be abolished, and all property would be communal and stored in communal storehouses. From these storehouses, the goods would be distributed “equitably” by the superiors — apparently, there was to be a cadre of “superiors” in this oh so “equal” world!

Feudalism is but a system of Slaves and Tyrants; my country, desiring to be free, can no longer preserve anything in this system.

If the people are sovereign, they must themselves exercise as much as they can of the sovereignty.

Il faut avancer... parce que le christianisme et la liberté sont incompatibles

He is and will be an advocate only for the poor.

It was in the dust of the seigneurial archives that I discovered the frightful mysteries of the usurpations of the noble caste.

I confess today in good faith that I am angry with myself for having formerly seen in a bad light, and the revolutionary government, and Robespierre and Saint-Just. I believe that these men were worth more on their own than all the revolutionaries together.

La connaissance des pratiques féodales « est la raison pour laquelle je fus peut-être le plus redoutable fléau de la féodalité. »