C’est le peuple qui s’asservit, qui se coupe la gorge; qui ayant le choix ou d’être serf ou d’être libre, quitte sa franchise et prend le joug; qui consent à son mal, ou plutôt le pourchasse.
It is the People who enslave themselves, who cut their own Throats: Who having the Choice of being Vassals or Freemen, reject their Liberty and submit to the Yoke, who consent to their own Evil, or rather procure it.
É. de La Boétie, A Discourse of Voluntary Servitude (anonymous translation published by T. Smith; original work composed ca. 1548).