TAXATION.[Footnote: "I must again remark that clear accounts are not to
be looked for in the complex mountain of French finances." A. Young, i.
578. Young reckons the revenue at the entire command of Louis XVI. at
680,664,943 livres, i. 575. See also Stourm, ii. 182.]
The gross amount paid in taxes by the French nation before the
Revolution will never be accurately known; the subject is too vast and
complicated, and the accounts were too loosely kept. Necker in his work
on the "Administration of the Finances" reckons the sum annually paid by
the people at five hundred and eighty-five million livres. Bailly (whose
book appeared in 1830 and has not been superseded) makes the gross
amount eight hundred and eighty millions. But from this should be
deducted feudal dues and fees for membership of trade guilds, which
Bailly includes in his estimate, and which were certainly private
property, however objectionable in their character. There will remain
less than eight hundred and thirty-seven million livres as the amount
paid by about twenty-six million Frenchmen, in general and local
taxation, including tithes; an average of about thirty-two livres a
head. Was this amount excessive? Probably not, if the load had been
rightly distributed. If we allow the franc of to-day one half of the
purchasing power of the livre of 1789, the modern Frenchman yet pays
more than his great-grandfather did. But there can be little doubt that
he pays it more easily to himself. In the eighteenth century the
Englishman was probably better off than his French neighbor, but his
advantage was not undoubted. Grenville, in 1769, speaks of the
comparative lightness of taxes and cheapness of living which, he says,
must make France an asylum for British manufacturers and artificers.
Young, twenty years later, asserts that the taxes in England are much
more than double those in France, but more easily borne. Necker says
that England bears as large a burden of taxation as France, in spite of
a smaller number of inhabitants and a less amount of money in
circulation; but bears it more readily because it is better distributed.
And Chastellux, while arriving at a similar conclusion, remarks that
after all the French is, of all nations, the one that suffers most from
taxation.[Footnote: Necker, _De l'Administration_, i. 35, 51.
Bailly, ii. 275. Grenville, _The Present State of the Nation_, 35;
but this statement is made in a political pamphlet, answered and
apparently refuted by Burke, _Observations on a Late State of the
Nation._ A. Young, i. 596. Chastellux, ii. 169. For 1891 the average
taxation per head amounts to 86 francs, for 1789 to 34 livres,
_Statesman's Year Book_, 1891, p. 472, and Bailly.]
Under the old monarchy the taxes were unequally assessed in two ways.
There were differences of places and differences of persons. This is
pretty sure to be true of all countries, but in France the differences
were very large and were not sanctioned by the popular conscience. In a
country which had become strongly conscious of its unity, and which was
full of national feeling, some provinces were taxed much more heavily
than others, not for their own local purposes, but for the support of
the central government. In the first place came those provinces which
were included in the general assessment of taxes. These were divided
into twenty-four districts (_generalités_), over each of which was
an intendant. Twenty of these districts formed the heart of old France,
extending irregularly from Amiens on the north to Bordeaux on the south,
and from Grenoble on the east to the sea. To these were added the
conquered or ceded provinces: Alsace, Lorraine, Bar, the Three
Bishoprics, Franche Comté, Flanders, and Hainault, forming among them
four districts and enjoying privileges superior to those of old France.
All these formed the Lands of Election (_pays d'Election_). On the
other hand were the Lands of Estates (_pays d'États_), provinces
which had retained their assemblies, and with them some of their ancient
rights of taxing themselves, or at least of levying in their own way
those taxes which the central government imposed. This was a privilege
highly prized by the provinces which possessed it. These provinces
formed a fringe round France, and included Languedoc, Provence, the
duchy of Burgundy, Artois, Brittany, and some others. The central
administration was so oppressive, at the same time that it was clumsy
and inefficient, that every province and city was anxious to compound
for its taxes, and to settle them at a fixed rate, though a high one.
This was accomplished on the largest scale by the Lands of Estates, but
similar privileges, to a greater or less extent, were maintained by most
of the cities. We must remember, here as elsewhere, that France had not
sprung into being as a homogeneous nation with her modern boundaries.
From the accession of the House of Capet in the tenth century, province
after province had been added to the dominions of the crown. Many of
them had preserved ancient rights. Customs and tolls differed among
them, duties were exacted in passing from one to the other. Privileges,
the prizes of old wars, rights assured in some cases by solemn treaties,
had to be regarded. The wars of the Middle Ages were waged chiefly
concerning legal claims. The end of the period found all Europe full of
privileged territories, persons, or corporations. Privileges and rights
were regarded as property. Modern struggles have been for ideas, and
among the most cherished of these have been equality and uniformity. The
sacredness of property and of contract have in a measure gone down
before them.[Footnote: Necker, _De l'Administration_, i. ix.
Bailly, ii. 276. Horn, 258. Bois-Guillebert, 207. _(La détail de la
France Partie_, ii. c. vii.); Stubbs _Lectures_, 217. Walloon
Flanders was in the anomalous position of forming part of a
_généralité_, but possessing Estates. _Bailly_, ii. 327.]
Although the Provincial Estates differed in the various provinces which
possessed them, they included in almost every case members of the three
orders. The Clergy were usually represented by bishops, abbots, and
persons deputed by chapters; the Nobility either by all nobles whose
title was not less than a hundred years old, or by the possessors of
certain fiefs; the third estate, or Commons, by the mayors and deputies
of the towns. The three Orders sometimes sat apart, sometimes together.
In the intervals between their sessions their powers were delegated to
intermediate commissions, small boards for the regulation of current
affairs. There was nothing democratic in such a constitution. Even the
representatives of the commonalty were taken from among the most
privileged members of their order. Nor were the powers of the Estates
extensive. They bargained with the royal intendants for the gross amount
of the taxes to be assessed on their provinces. They divided this sum
and charged it to the various subdivisions of their territory. They
levied it by taxes similar to those of the general government.
[Footnote: Lucay, _Les assemblées provinciales_, 111. Necker,
_Mémoire au roi sur l'établissement des administrations provinciales,
passim_.]
But in spite of all drawbacks the Provincial Estates were much valued by
the provinces which possessed them. They were at least a guarantee that
some local knowledge and local patriotism would be applied to local
affairs. Moreover, they had the right of petition, a right essential to
good government, both for the information of rulers and for giving vent
to the feelings of subjects. This right is, and has long been, so nearly
free in English-speaking countries, that it is hard to realize that
there are civilized lands where men may not quietly and respectfully
express their wishes. Yet in old France, as in a large part of
Continental Europe to-day, the citizen who publicly gave an opinion on
public matters, or who pointed out a well-known public grievance, was
considered a disturber of the peace. Under such circumstances, a body of
men who were allowed to discuss and recommend might render a great
service to their country by simply using that freedom. The complaints of
the Estates of each province were transmitted to the king in council, by
a document known as a _cahier_, and the wishes thus expressed often
formed a basis of legislation, or of administrative orders.
Among the spasmodic efforts at reform made under Louis XVI. were two
attempts to extend the system of local self-government. The first was
made by Necker in 1778 and 1779. Provincial assemblies were established
in those years by way of experiment in two provinces, Berry and Haute
Guyenne. These assemblies were composed of forty-eight and fifty-two
members respectively, one half being taken from among the clergy and
nobility, one half from the Third Estate of the towns and the country. A
third of the members of the Assembly of Berry were appointed by the
king, and these elected their fellow-members, care being taken to
preserve the equality of classes. One third of the members were to be
renewed by the assembly itself once in three years. The body was,
therefore, in no way dependent on popular election. The assembly met and
voted as one chamber. Its functions were almost purely administrative,
the assessment of taxes, the care of roads and the management of
charitable institutions. All this was done under close supervision of
the intendant and, through him, of the minister. The assembly sat only
once in two years, for a time not exceeding one month, but an
intermediate commission carried on its work between its sessions. The
general plan of the Assembly of Haute Guyenne was similar to that of the
Assembly of Berry.
Eight years passed between the establishment of these experimental
assemblies and the convocation of the first Assembly of Notables at
Versailles,--eight important years in French history. Necker was driven
from power, but the two new bodies survived the reactionary policy of
his successors, and did some good service. The fallen minister kept his
popularity and his influence with the public at large. His great book on
the "Administration of the Finances" was in all hands, eighty thousand
copies having been rapidly sold. In it he expounds his favorite scheme
of Provincial Assemblies, and praises the working of the two that have
been established. He points out that they are not representative bodies,
empowered to make bargains with the king and to impede the government,
but administrative boards, entrusted by the sovereign with the duty of
watching over the interests of the people of their districts. The
Assembly of Notables of 1787 and the minister Brienne adopted Necker's
views, but not completely. They established provincial assemblies
throughout France on a plan of their own. One half of the members of
these new bodies were to be chosen in the first place by the king; the
second half being elected by the first. But at the end of three years
one quarter part of the assembly was to retire, and its place was to be
filled by a true election. This, however, was not to be direct, but in
three stages. A parochial board was to be created in every village,
composed of the lord and the priest ex officio, and of several elected
members. These parochial boards were to elect the district boards,
(_assemblées d'élection_) and the latter were to elect the new
members of the Provincial Assembly. The march of events after 1787
prevented these elections from taking place. But the nominated
assemblies met twice, once for organization and once for business. They
came too late to prevent a catastrophe, but lasted long enough to give
well-founded hopes of usefulness. The great National Assembly of 1789
and its successors might have had a far less stormy history, had all
France been accustomed, though only for one generation, to political
bodies restrained by law.[Footnote: Necker, _Compte rendu_, 74.
Ibid., _De l'Administration_, ii. 225, 292. Lavergne, _Les
Assemblées provinciales sous Louis XVI_. Lucay, _Les Assemblées
provinciales sous Louis XVI_., 163.]
Within a given province or district, there was no proportional equality
among persons in the matter of taxation. It was sometimes said that the
noble paid with his blood, the villein with his money. But the order of
the Nobility had come to include many persons who never thought of
shedding their blood for their country; to include, in fact, the rich
and prosperous generally. These were not (as they are sometimes
represented to have been), quite free from taxation. Something like one
half of the taxes were indirect, and might be supposed to be paid by all
classes in proportion to their consumption. Yet even for the indirect
taxes, privileged persons managed to find ways partially to escape. Some
of the direct taxes were deducted from salaries, or imposed on incomes,
but it was said that the rich and powerful often succeeded in having
their incomes lightly assessed. By way of increasing the inequality of
taxation, the government had a habit, when in need of more money than
usual, of adding a percentage to some old tax, instead of devising a new
one, thus bearing most heavily with the new impost on those classes
which were most severely taxed already.
First among French taxes, both in blundering unfairness and in evil
fame, came the Land Tax or _Taille_, producing for the twenty-four
districts a revenue of about forty-five million livres, or with its
accessory taxes, of about seventy-five millions.[Footnote: Bailly, ii.
307. Necker, _De l'Administration_, i. 6, 35, puts the taille at 91
millions, but I think he includes the tailles abonnées, paid by the Pays
d'états, although not those paid by cities.]
The taille was of feudal origin, and in the Middle Ages was paid to the
lord by his tenants. In the fifteenth century, however, it had already
been diverted to the royal treasury, and its product was employed in the
maintenance of troops. It was therefore paid only by villeins, for the
nobles served in person, and the clergy by substitute, if at all.
The exemption of the upper orders from liability to the taille clung
to that tax after the reason for such freedom had ceased to exist. The
tax itself early grew to be of two kinds, real and personal. The
_taille réele_, common in the southern provinces of France, was a true
land-tax, assessed according to a survey and valuation on all lands
not accounted noble, nor belonging to the church, nor to the
public. The distinction between noble and peasant lands was an old
one; and the peasant lands paid the tax even when owned by privileged
persons. [Footnote: Turgot, iv. 74.]
Over the greater part of France, however, the _taille réele_ did
not exist, and only the _taille personelle_ was in force. This bore
on the profits of the land and on all forms of industry; but the
churchmen and the nobles were exempt, at least in part.[Footnote: There
appears to have been a limit to the exemption of nobles cultivating
their own lands.] Owing to its personal nature, the tax was payable at
the residence of the person taxed. If a peasant lived in one parish and
derived most of his income from land situated in another, he was taxable
at the place of his residence, at a rate perhaps entirely different from
that of the parish in which his farm was situated. It might happen that
a large part of the lands of a parish were owned by non-residents, and
that the ability of the parish to pay its taxes was thus reduced. But
there were exceptions to the rule by which the tax followed the person,
and the whole matter was so complicated as to be a fertile cause of
dispute and of double taxation.[Footnote: Turgot, iv. 76.]
The method of assessment and levy was peculiar. The gross amount of the
taille was determined twice a year by the royal council, and apportioned
arbitrarily among the twenty-four districts (generalités) of France, and
then subdivided by various officials among the sub-districts (élections)
and the parishes. The divisions thus made were very unequal; some
provinces, sub-districts, and parishes being treated much more severely
than others, apparently rather by accident or custom than for any
equitable reason. An influential person could often obtain a diminution
of the tax of his village. When the work of subdivision was completed,
the syndics and other parish officers were notified of the tax laid on
their parishes, which were thenceforth liable for the amount. But the
taille had still to be apportioned among the inhabitants. For this
purpose from three to seven collectors were elected in every rural
community by popular vote. The collectors assessed their neighbors at
their own discretion, and were personally responsible to the government
for the whole amount assessed on the parish. In consideration of this,
and of their labor, they were allowed to collect a percentage in
addition to the taille, for their own pay.[Footnote: "Six deniers par
livre" = 2 1/2 per cent. Turgot, vii. 125. Sometimes 5 per cent. Babeau,
Le Village, 225.] The whole process was the cause of endless bickerings
and disputes, lawsuits and appeals, and the collectors were frequently
ruined in spite of all their efforts. They were ignorant peasants,
unused to accounts, sometimes unable to read. In some of the mountain
parishes of the Pyrenees their accounts were kept on notched sticks to a
period not very long before the Revolution.[Footnote: Bailly, ii. 159.
Horn, 224 Babeau, Le Village, 222, 224. Turgot, vii. 122, iv. 51.
_Encyclopédie_, xv. 841 (_Taille_). A similar practice existed
in the English Court of Exchequer, to a later date.]
The liability to the taille was joint. A gross sum was laid on the
parish, and if one person escaped, or was unable to pay, his share had
to be borne by the rest. On the other hand, if one man were
overcharged, the burden of his neighbors was lightened. Thus it was
every one's interest to seem poor. And the taxes were so important a
matter, taking so large a part of the yearly income, that they
modified the whole conduct of life. People dared not appear at their
ease, lest their shares should be increased. They hid their wealth and
took their luxuries in secret. One day, Jean Jacques Rousseau,
traveling on foot, as was his wont, entered a solitary farm-house, and
asked for a meal. A pot of skimmed milk and some coarse barley bread
were set before him, the peasant who lived in the house saying that
this was all he had. After a while, however, the man took courage on
observing the manners and the appetite of his guest. Telling Rousseau
that he was sure he was a good, honest fellow, and no spy, he
disappeared through a trap-door, and presently came back with good
wheaten bread, a little dark with bran, a ham, and a bottle of wine.
An omelet was soon sizzling in the dish. When the time came for
Rousseau to pay and depart, the peasant's fears returned. He refused
money, he was evidently distressed. Rousseau made out that the bread
and the wine were hidden for fear of the tax-gatherer; that the man
believed he would be ruined, if he were known to have anything.
[Footnote: Rousseau, xvii. 281 (_Confessions_, Part i. liv. iv.).
Vauban, 51, and _passim_. Bois-Guillebert, 191.]
As it was for the advantage of individuals to be thought poor, so it was
best for villages to appear squalid. The Marquis of Argenson writes in
his journal: "An officer of the _élection_ has come into the
village where my country-house is, and has said that the taille of the
parish would be much raised this year; he had noticed that the peasants
looked fatter than elsewhere, had seen hens' feathers lying about the
doors, that people were living well and were comfortable, that I spent a
great deal of money in the village for my household expenses, etc. This
is what discourages the peasants. This is what causes the misfortunes of
the kingdom. This is what Henry IV. would weep over were he living now."
[Footnote: D'Argenson, vi. 256 (Sept. 12, 1750). See also vi. 425, vii.
55, viii. 8, 35, 53.]
The country people had grown to be very distrustful and suspicious
wherever officials of the government were concerned. "I remember a
singular feature of this subject," says Necker. "I think it was twenty
years ago that an intendant, with the laudable intention of encouraging
the manufacture of honey and the cultivation of bees, began by asking
for statistics as to the number of hives kept in the province. The
people did not understand his intentions, they were, perhaps, suspicious
of them, and in a few days almost all the hives were destroyed."
[Footnote: _De l'Administration_, iii. 232.]
No one could be induced to pay promptly, lest he should be thought to
have money. The tax was due in four payments, from the first of October
to the last of April, but the collection of one instalment was seldom
completed before the following one was due; that of one year seldom made
before the next had come. The peasants obliged the collectors to wring
out the hard-earned copper pieces one or two at a time. The tardy were
vexed with fines and distraints. Furniture, doors, the very rafters and
floors were sold for unpaid taxes. In the time of Louis XV., if a whole
village fell too much behindhand, its four principal inhabitants might
be seized and carried off to jail. This corporal joint-liability was
ended by a law passed under the ministry of Turgot, and apparently not
repealed on his fall.[Footnote: Horn, 238; Vauban; Bailly, ii. 203;
Stourm, i. 52; Turgot, vii. 119.]
The assessment and collection of the taille presented many anomalies. In
some places commissioners had been appointed by the intendant, for the
purpose of assessing estates and of reckoning the value of day's labor
of artisans. This method worked well and gave satisfaction, but it
extended only to a few provinces.[Footnote: Babeau, _Le Village_,
214.]
From the land tax we pass to the Twentieths (_vingtièmes_
[Footnote: Not to be confounded with the _Droit de vingtième_, an
indirect tax on wine. Kaufmann, 33. Notice that the two
_vingtièmes_ are constantly spoken of as the _dixième_.]),
which, as their name implies, were in theory taxes of five per cent. on
incomes. From these the clergy only were freed (having bought of the
crown a perpetual exemption). Two twentieths and four sous in the livre
of the first twentieth, or eleven per cent., was the regular rate in the
reign of Louis XVI., and was expected to bring in from fifty-five to
sixty million livres a year. A third twentieth was laid in 1782, to last
for three years after the end of the war of the American Revolution,
then in progress. This twentieth brought in twenty-one and a half
millions only, on account of various exemptions that were allowed. The
liability to the twentieths was not joint but individual; so that when a
deduction was made from the amount charged to one tax-payer, the sum
demanded of the others was not increased.
An attempt was made to levy the twentieths on the various sorts of
income. The product of agriculture paid the largest part, but a
percentage was retained on salaries and pensions paid by the government,
and the incomes of public officers receiving fees was estimated. In
spite of the desire to include every income in the operation of this
tax, it was generally believed that valuations were habitually made too
low, and that unfair discrimination took place. The inhabitants of some
provinces, on the other hand, were thought to be overcharged. Attempts
at rectification were resisted by the courts of law, the doctrine being
asserted that the valuation of a man's income for the purposes of this
tax could not legally be increased. It is instructive to compare the
interest thus shown in the rights of the upper classes, who shared in
the payment of the twentieths, with the indifference manifested to the
arbitrary manner in which the common people were treated in levying the
Land Tax.[Footnote: Necker reckons the two _vingtièmes_ and four
sous at 55,000,000 livres. _De l'Administration_, i. 5, 6.
_Compte rendu_, 61. Ibid., _Mémoire au roi sur l'establissement
des administrations provinciales_, 25. Necker abolished the
_vingtième d'industrie_ applied to manufactures and commerce.
_Compte rendu_, 64. In his later book he speaks of it as subsisting
in a few provinces only. _De l'Administration_, i. 159. Turgot, iv.
289. Stourm, i. 54.]
The poll tax (_capitation_) was one only in name. It was in fact a
roughly reckoned income tax, and the inhabitants of France were for its
purposes divided into twenty-two classes, according to their supposed
ability to pay. In the country, the amount demanded for this tax was
usually proportioned to that of the personal taille. People who paid no
taille were assessed according to their public office, military rank,
business, or profession. The rules were complicated, giving rise to
endless disputes. In theory the very poor were exempt, but the exemption
was not very generous, for maid-servants were charged at the rate of
three livres and twelve sous a year, and there were yet poorer people
who paid less than half that amount. If the poor man failed to pay, a
garrison (_garnison_) was lodged upon him. A man in blue, with a
gun, came and sat by his fire, slept in his bed, and laid hands on any
money that might come into the house, thus collecting the tax and his
own wages. The amount levied by the poll-tax and accessories was from
thirty-six to forty-two million livres a year.[Footnote: Bailly, ii.
307. Necker, _De l'Administration_, i. 8. Mercier, iii. 98, xi. 96.
Mercier thinks that the _capitation_ was more feared than the
_dixième_, and than the _entrées_, because it attached more
directly to the individual and to his person. Does this mean greater
severity in collection? Notice that he writes of Paris, where there is
no taille.]
The indirect taxes of France were mostly farmed. Once in six years the
Controller General of the Finances for the time being entered into a
contract, nominally with a man of straw, but actually with a body of
rich financiers, who appeared as the man's sureties, and who were known
as the Farmers General. The first operation of the Farmers, after
entering into the contract, was to raise a capital sum for the purpose
of buying out their predecessors, of taking over the material on hand,
and of paying an advance to the government; for although many individual
Farmers General held over from one contract to the next, the association
was a new one for each lease. In 1774, just before the death of King
Louis XV., a new contract was made, and the capital advanced amounted to
93,600,000 livres. The Farmers were allowed interest on this sum at the
rate of ten per cent. for the first sixty millions, and of seven per
cent. for the remaining 33,600,000 livres. This interest was, however,
taxed by the government for the two twentieths.
The rent paid by the Farmers under this contract was 152,000,000 livres
a year, for which consideration they were allowed to collect the
indirect taxes and keep the product. This system, which is at least as
old as the New Testament, is now generally condemned, but in the
eighteenth century it found defenders even among liberal writers.
The Farmers General in the contract of 1774 were sixty in number, but
they did not divide among themselves all the profits of the enterprise.
It was the habit to accord to many people a share in the operations of
the farm, without any voice in its management. The people thus favored
were called croupiers; king Louis XV. himself was one of them. His
Controller General, the Abbé Terray, received a fee of three hundred
thousand livres on concluding the contract, and the promise of one
thousand livres for every million of profits. When the bargain had been
struck and the advance paid, he announced to the Farmers that further
croupes would be granted, and that sundry payments must be made to the
treasury. The profits of the undertaking were thus materially reduced.
The Farmers at first threatened to throw up their bargain, but the
Controller told them that if they did so he would not return their
advances, but only pay interest on them. In spite of this swindle, the
lease turned out on the whole much to the benefit of the Farmers.
In 1780, when the lease above mentioned expired, Necker was Director of
the Finances. He introduced reforms into the General Farm, cutting down
the number of Farmers from sixty to forty, and reducing their gains. The
collection of certain taxes was taken from them, and entrusted to new
companies. His contract was for a rent of 122,900,000 livres and the
advance was forty-eight millions, for which the Farmers received seven
per cent. Moreover, the latter were not to take the whole profit above
the rent of the Farm. The first three millions of that profit went to
the treasury, which also received one half of the remaining gains, but
croupes and pensions on the Farm were totally abolished. Necker reckons
the total sum drawn yearly by the Farmers from the people under his
administration at 184,000,000 livres, and the sums collected by the two
new companies of his own devising, for the collection of the excise on
drinkables and for the administration of the royal domains at 92,000,000
more.
The Farmers General were the most conspicuous representatives in
France of the moneyed class, which was just rising into importance
beside the old aristocracy, by whose members it was despised but
courted. Many of the Farmers were of low origin and had risen to
fortune by their own abilities. Others belonged to families which had
long made a mark in the financial world. Their luxurious style of life
was admired by the vulgar and derided by the envious. The offices of
the Farm occupied several historic houses in Paris. In the chief of
these the French Academy had once held its sittings under the
presidency of Séguier, and the walls and ceilings shone with pictures
from the brushes of Lebrun and Mignard. The warehouses and offices for
the monopoly of tobacco occupied a fine building between the Louvre
and the Tuileries, where once the duchesses of Chevreuse and of
Longueville had prosecuted their political and amorous intrigues. The
discontented tax-payers grumbled the louder at seeing the hated
publicans so handsomely lodged.[Footnote: The total receipts of the
Farm, according to Necker, were 186,000,000 livres. Against this sum
must be set 2,000,000 for salt and tobacco sold to foreigners;
16,000,000 for the cost of salt and tobacco, and 8,000,000 for the
cost of other articles to the Farm. The amount of actual taxation
collected by the Farm would therefore seem to have been about
160,000,000. Necker, _De l'Administration,_, i. 9, 14, iii. 122.
Lemoine, _Les derniers fermiers généraux, passim._ Bailly, ii. 185,
_n_. and _passim_. _Encyclopédie_, vi. 515 (_Fermes, Cinq grosses_)
vi. 513, etc. (_Fermes du roi_). Bertin, 480. Mercier, xii. 89.]
The first and most dreaded of the indirect taxes was the Salt Tax
(_gabelle_). As salt is necessary for all, it has from early days
been considered by some governments a good article for a tax, no one
being able to escape payment by going entirely without it. To make the
revenue more secure, every householder in certain parts of France was
obliged to buy seven pounds of salt a year at the warehouses of the
Farm, for every member of his family more than seven years old. In spite
of this, a certain economy in the use of the article became the habit of
the French nation, and the traveler of the nineteenth century may bless
the government of the Bourbons when for once in his life he finds
himself in a country where the cooks do not habitually oversalt the
soup.
The unfortunate Frenchmen of the eighteenth century had to pay dear for
this culinary lesson. But in this matter as in others they did not all
pay alike. The whole product of the salt tax to the treasury was about
sixty million livres, of which two thirds, or forty millions, was taken
from provinces containing a little more than one third of the population
of the kingdom. Necker, who much desired to equalize the impost,
mentions six principal categories of provinces in regard to the salt
tax; varying from those in which the sale was free, and the article
worth from two to nine livres the hundred weight, to those where it was
a monopoly of the Farm, and the salt cost the consumer about sixty-two
livres. Salt being thus worth thirty times as much in one province as in
another, it was possible for a successful smuggler to make a living by a
very few trips. The opportunity was largely used; children were trained
by their parents for the illicit traffic, but the penalties were very
severe. In the galleys were many salt-smugglers; people were shut up on
mere suspicion, and in the crowded prisons of that day were carried off
by jail-fevers.[Footnote: Necker, _De l'Administration_, ii. 1.
Ibid., _Compte rendu_, 82, and see the map of France divided
according to the _gabelle_ in the same volume. Bailly, ii. 163.
Clamageran, iii. 84 _n._, 296, 406. For the numerous officers and
complicated system of the _gabelle_, see _Encyclopédie_, vii.
942 (_Grenier a sel_); _Quintal_=100 French pounds; but which
of the numerous French pounds, I know not.] Of all known stimulants,
tobacco is perhaps the most agreeable and the least injurious to the
person who takes it; but no method of taking it has yet been devised
which is not liable to be offensive to the delicate nerves of some
bystander. It is probably on this account that a certain discredit has
always attached to this most soothing herb, and that it seldom gets fair
treatment in the matter of taxation. Over a large part of France,
containing some twenty-two millions of inhabitants, tobacco had been
subject to monopoly for a hundred years when Louis XVI. came to the
throne,[Footnote: With an interval of two years, during which it was
subject to a high duty. Stourm, i. 361.] yet the use of the article had
become so general that this population bought fifteen million pounds
yearly, or between five eighths and three quarters of a pound per head.
Of this amount about one twelfth was used for smoking in pipes, and the
remainder was consumed in the pleasant form of snuff. Three livres
fifteen sous a pound was the price set by the government and collected
by the Farmers, and the tobacco was often mouldy.[Footnote: Necker,
_De l'Administration_, ii. 100. Babeau, _La vie rurale_, 78.]
The excise on wine and cider (_aides_) was levied not only on the
producer, but also on the consumer, in a most vexatious manner, so that
the revenue officers were continually forcing their way into private
houses, and so that the poor peasant who quietly diluted his measure of
cider with two measures of water was lucky if he got off with a triple
tax, and did not undergo fine and forfeiture for having untaxed cider in
his house. It was moreover a principle with the officers of the excise
that wine was never given away; and as a tax was due on every sale the
poor vine-dresser could not give a part of the produce of his vineyard
to his married children, or even bestow a few bottles in alms on a poor,
sick woman without getting into trouble, and all this notwithstanding
the fact that in France in the eighteenth century, when tea and coffee
were unknown to the rural classes, and when drinking water was often
taken from polluted wells, wine or cider was generally considered
necessary to health and to life.
It is needless to consider in detail the duties on imports and exports
(_traites_). From the beginning of the eighteenth century until
three years after the end of the American War, commerce between France
and England was totally prohibited as to most articles, and subjected to
prohibitory duties in the case of the few that remained. This state of
things was tempered by a great system of smuggling, so successfully
conducted that insurance in many cases was as low as ten and even as
five per cent. Goods were sometimes taken directly from one coast to the
other on dark nights, and no reader of the literature of the last
century will need to be reminded that the "free traders" who brought
them were favorably received by the people among whom they might come to
land. Sometimes the articles were sent by circuitous routes through
Holland or Germany, on whose frontiers the same walls of prohibition did
not exist. But there were many things which could not conveniently be
smuggled, and in their case the want of competition, and still more the
lack of standards of comparison, tended to retard and injure production.
While improved machinery for spinning and weaving was common in England,
the old spindle, wheel, and house-loom still held their own in France.
In the year 1786, a commercial treaty was signed between the two
countries. By its provisions French wines were put on a better footing,
and many manufactured articles, as hardware, cutlery, linen, gauze, and
millinery were to pay but ten or twelve per cent. The confusion of
business which was the natural result of so great a change had not
ceased to be felt when the great Revolution began to disturb all
commercial relations.
It was not at the frontiers alone that commerce was subject to tolls and
duties. Trade was hampered on every road and river in the kingdom, and
so complicated were these local dues that it was said that not more than
two or three men in a generation understood them thoroughly.
Duties on food were then as now collected at the entrance of many
French cities (_octrois_). In the last century they were often partial
in their operation; such of the burghers as owned farms or gardens
outside the walls being allowed to bring in their produce without
charge, while their poorer neighbors were obliged to pay duties on all
they ate. In Paris some kinds of food, and notably fish, were both bad
and dear, because the charges at the city gate were many times as
great as the original value.[Footnote: See the pathetic _cahier_ of
the village of Pavaut, _Archives parlementaires_, v. 9. Vauban, _Dîme
royale_, 26, 51. Montesquieu, iv. 122 (_Esprit des Lois,_, liv. xiii.
c. 7). Necker, _De l'Administration_, ii. 113. _Encyclopédie
méthodique, Finance_, iii. 709 (_Traites_). Turgot, vii. 37. Mercier,
xi. 100. Stourm, i. 325.]
There was another burden which shared with the taille and the gabelle
the especial hatred of the French peasantry. This was the villein
service (_corvée_) which was exacted of the farmers and agricultural
laborers. The service was of feudal origin, and, while still demanded
in many cases by the lords, in accordance with ancient charters or
customs, was now also required by the state for the building of roads
and the transportation of soldiers' baggage. The demand was based on
no general law, but was imposed arbitrarily by intendants and military
commanders. The amount due by every parish was settled without appeal
by the same authorities. The peasant and his draft-cattle were ordered
away from home, perhaps just at the time of harvest. On the roads
might be seen the overloaded carts, where the tired soldiers had piled
themselves on top of their baggage, while their comrades goaded the
slow teams with swords and bayonets, and jeered at the remonstrances
of the unhappy owner. The oxen were often injured by unusual labor and
harsh treatment, and one sick ox would throw a whole team out of work.
The burden, imposed on the parish collectively, was distributed among
the peasants by their syndics, political officers, often partial, who
were sometimes accompanied in their work of selection by files of
soldiers, equally rough and impatient with the refractory peasants and
the wretched official. Turgot, who was keenly alive to the hardships
of the _corvée_, abolished it during his short term of power,
substituting a tax, but it was restored by his successor immediately
on his fall, and was not discontinued until the end of the monarchy.
[Footnote: The _corvées_ owned by the lords were limited by legal
custom to twelve days a year. _Encyclopédie_, iv. 280 (_Corvée_). I
can find no such limitations of _corvées_ imposed by the government.
Some regard seems to have been paid to peasants' convenience in fixing
the season of _corvées_ of road building, but none in those of
military transportation. Compensation was given for the latter, but it
was inadequate, hardly amounting to one fourth of the market price of
such labor. Turgot, iv. 367. Bailly, ii. 215.]
It is entirely impossible to discover, even approximately, what
proportion of a Frenchman's income was taken in taxes by the government
of Louis XVI. We may guess that the burden was too large, we may be sure
that it was ill distributed, yet under it prosperity and population were
slowly increasing.
Let us take the figures of Necker, as the most moderate. It is the
fashion to make light of Necker, and he certainly was not a man of
sufficient strength and genius to overcome all the difficulties with
which he was surrounded, but he probably knew more about the condition
of France than any other man then living. Let us then take his figures
and suppose that the two twentieths, and the four sous per livre of the
first twentieth, produced the eleven per cent. which they should
theoretically have given. In that case eleven per cent. of the country's
income was equal to fifty-five million livres. But at that rate the
direct taxes and tithes would have taken more than half the income, and
the indirect taxes more than the other half, and French subjects would
have been left with less than nothing to live on. Clearly, then, the
twentieths did not produce anything like the theoretical eleven per
cent.
M. Taine has gone into the question with apparent care, and his figures
are adopted by recent writers, but they would seem to be open to the
same objection. He reckons that some of the peasants paid over eighty
per cent. of their income. But if a man could pay that proportion to the
government year after year and not die of want, how very prosperous a
man living on the same land must be to-day if his taxes amount only to
one quarter or one third of his income. The real difficulty is one of
assessment. We can tell approximately how much the country paid; we can
never know the amount of its wealth.
How far did the rich escape taxation? The clergy of France as a body did
so in a great measure. They paid none of the direct taxes levied on
their fellow subjects. They made gifts and loans to the state, however,
and borrowed money for the purpose. For this money they paid interest,
which must be looked on as their real contribution to the expenses of
the state. But in this again they were assisted by the treasury. The
amount which finally came out of the pockets of the clergy by direct
taxation would appear to have been less than ten per cent. of their
income from invested property.
The nobility bore a larger share. The only great tax from which the
members of that order were exempted was the taille, forming less than
one half of the direct taxation, less than one sixth of the whole. But
in the other direct taxes, their wealth and influence sometimes enabled
them to escape a fair assessment.
The indirect taxes also bore heavily on the poor. They were levied
largely on necessaries, such as salt and food, or on those simple
luxuries, wine and tobacco, on which Frenchmen of all classes depend for
their daily sense of well-being. The gabelle, with its obligatory seven
pounds of salt, approached a poll-tax in its operation.
The worst features of French taxation were the arbitrary spirit which
pervaded the financial administration, the regulations never submitted
to public criticism, and the tyranny and fraud of subordinates, for
which redress was seldom attainable.[Footnote: Horn, 254.] We groan
sometimes, and with reason, at the publicity with which all life is
carried on to-day. We turn wearily from the wilderness of printed words
which surrounds the simplest matters. But only publicity and free
discussion will prevent every unscrupulous assessor and every arbitrary
clerk in the custom-house from being a petty tyrant. They will not by
themselves procure good government, but they will prevent bad government
from growing intolerable. In France, as we have seen, to print anything
which might stir the public mind was a capital offense; and while the
writer of an abstract treatise subversive of religion and government
might hope to escape punishment, the citizen who earned the resentment
of a petty official was likely to be prosecuted with virulence.