I. Extortion.
Direct taxes.--State of different domains at the end of the
reign of Louis XV.--Levies of the tithe and the owner.--What
remains to the proprietor.
Let us closely examine the extortions he has to endure, which are very
great, much beyond any that we can imagine. Economists had long prepared
the budget of a farm and shown by statistics the excess of charges with
which the cultivator is overwhelmed. If he continues to cultivate, they
say, he must have his share in the crops, an inviolable portion, equal
to one-half of the entire production, and from which nothing can
be deducted without ruining him. This portion, in short, accurately
represents, and not a sou too much, in the first place, the interest
of the capital first expended on the farm in cattle, furniture, and
implements of husbandry; in the second place, the maintenance of this
capital, every year depreciated by wear and tear; in the third place,
the advances made during the current year for seed, wages, and food for
men and animals; and, in the last place, the compensation due him for
the risks he takes and his losses. Here is a first lien which must be
satisfied beforehand, taking precedence of all others, superior to that
of the seignior, to that of the tithe-owner (décimateur), to even that
of the king, for it is an indebtedness due to the soil.[5201] After this
is paid back, then, and only then, that which remains, the net product,
can be touched. Now, in the then state of agriculture, the tithe-owner
and the king appropriate one-half of this net product, when the estate
is large, and the whole, if the estate is a small one[5202]. A certain
large farm in Picardy, worth to its owner 3,600 livres, pays 1,800
livres to the king, and 1,311 livres to the tithe owner; another, in the
Soissonnais, rented for 4,500 livres, pays 2,200 livres taxes and more
than 1,000 livres to the tithes. An ordinary métayer-farm near Nevers
pays into the treasury 138 livres, 121 livres to the church, and
114 livres to the proprietor. On another, in Poitou, the fisc (tax
authorities) absorbs 348 livres, and the proprietor receives only 238.
In general, in the regions of large farms, the proprietor obtains ten
livres the arpent if the cultivation is very good, and three livres when
ordinary. In the regions of small farms, and of the métayer system, he
gets fifteen sous the arpent, eight sous and even six sous. The entire
net profit may be said to go to the church and into the State treasury.
Hired labor, meantime, is no less costly. On this métayer-farm in
Poitou, which brings in eight sous the arpent, thirty-six laborers
consume each twenty-six francs per annum in rye, two francs respectively
in vegetables, oil and milk preparations, and two francs ten sous in
pork, amounting to a sum total, each year, for each person, of sixteen
pounds of meat at an expense of thirty-six francs. In fact they drink
water only, use rape-seed oil for soup and for light, never taste
butter, and dress themselves in materials made of the wool and hair of
the sheep and goats they raise. They purchase nothing save the tools
necessary to make the fabrics of which these provide the material. On
another metayer-farm, on the confines of la Marche and Berry, forty-six
laborers cost a smaller sum, each one consuming only the value of
twenty-five francs per annum. We can judge by this of the exorbitant
share appropriated to themselves by the Church and State, since, at so
small a cost of cultivation, the proprietor finds in his pocket, at the
end of the year, six or eight sous per arpent out of which, if plebeian,
he must still pay the dues to his seignior, contribute to the common
purse for the militia, buy his taxed salt and work out his corvée and
the rest. Towards the end of the reign of Louis XV in Limousin, says
Turgot,[5203] the king derives for himself alone "about as much from the
soil as the proprietor." In a certain election-district, that of Tulle,
where he abstracts fifty-six and one-half per cent. of the product,
there remains to the latter forty-three and one-half per cent. thus
accounting for "a multitude of domains being abandoned."
It must not be supposed that time renders the tax less onerous or that,
in other provinces, the cultivator is better treated. In this respect
the documents are authentic and almost up to the latest hour. We have
only to take up the official statements of the provincial assemblies
held in 1787, to learn by official figures to what extent the fisc may
abuse the men who labor, and take bread out of the mouths of those who
have earned it by the sweat of their brows.
II. Local Conditions.
State of certain provinces on the outbreak of the
Revolution.--The taille, and other taxes.--The proportion of
these taxes in relation to income.--The sum total immense.
Direct taxation alone is here concerned, the tailles, collateral
taxes, poll-tax, vingtièmes, and the pecuniary tax substituted for
the corvée[5204] In Champagne, the tax-payer pays on 100 livres
income fifty-four livres fifteen sous, on the average, and in many
parishes,[5205] seventy-one livres thirteen sous. In the Ile-de-France,
"if a taxable inhabitant of a village, the proprietor of twenty arpents
of land which he himself works, and the income of which is estimated at
ten livres per arpent it is supposed that he is likewise the owner of
the house he occupies, the site being valued at forty livres."[5206]
This tax-payer pays for his real taille, personal and industrial,
thirty-five livres fourteen sous, for collateral taxes seventeen livres
seventeen sous, for the poll-tax twenty-one livres eight sous, for the
vingtièmes twenty-four livres four sous, in all ninety-nine livres three
sous, to which must be added about five livres as the substitution for
the corvée, in all 104 livres on a piece of property which he rents for
240 livres, a tax amounting to five-twelfths of his income.
It is much worse on making the same calculation for the poorer
generalities. In Haute-Guyenne,[5207] "all property in land is taxed
for the taille, the collateral taxes, and the vingtièmes, more than
one-quarter of its revenue, the only deduction being the expenses of
cultivation; also dwellings, one-third of their revenue, deducting
only the cost of repairs and of maintenance; to which must be added the
poll-tax, which takes about one-tenth of the revenue; the tithe, which
absorbs one-seventh; the seigniorial rents which take another seventh;
the tax substituted for the corvée; the costs of compulsory collections,
seizures, sequestration and constraints, and all ordinary and
extraordinary local charges. This being subtracted, it is evident that,
in communities moderately taxed, the proprietor does not enjoy a third
of his income, and that, in the communities wronged by the assessments,
the proprietors are reduced to the status of simple farmers scarcely
able to get enough to restore the expenses of cultivation." In
Auvergne,[5208] the taille amounts to four sous on the livre net profit;
the collateral taxes and the poll-tax take off four sous three deniers
more; the vingtièmes, two sous and three deniers; the contribution to
the royal roads, to the free gift, to local charges and the cost of
levying, take again one sou one denier, the total being eleven sous and
seven deniers on the livre income, without counting seigniorial dues and
the tithe. "The bureau, moreover, recognizes with regret, that several
of the collections pay at the rate of seventeen sous, sixteen sous, and
the most moderate at the rate of fourteen sous the livre. The evidence
of this is in the bureau; it is on file in the registry of the court
of excise, and of the election-districts. It is still more apparent
in parishes where an infinite number of assessments are found, laid on
property that has been abandoned, which the collectors lease, and the
product of which is often inadequate to pay the tax." Statistics of this
kind are terribly eloquent. They may be summed up in one word. Putting
together Normandy, the Orleans region, that of Soissons, Champagne,
Ile-de-France, Berry, Poitou, Auvergne, the Lyons region, Gascony, and
Haute-Guyenne, in brief the principal election sections, we find that
out of every hundred francs of revenue the direct tax on the tax-payer
is fifty-three francs, or more than one-half[5209]. This is about five
times as much as at the present day.
III. The Common Laborer.
Four direct taxes on the common laborer.
The taxation authorities, however, in thus bearing down on taxable
property has not released the taxable person without property. In the
absence of land it seizes on men. In default of an income it taxes a
man's wages. With the exception of the vingtièmes, the preceding taxes
not only bore on those who possessed something but, again, on those who
possessed nothing. In the Toulousain[5210] at St. Pierre de Barjouville,
the poorest day-laborer, with nothing but his hands by which to earn
his support, and getting ten sous a day, pays eight, nine and ten
livres poll-tax. "In Burgundy[5211] it is common to see a poor mechanic,
without any property, taxed eighteen and twenty livres for his poll-tax
and the taille." In Limousin,[5212] all the money brought back by the
masons in winter serves "to pay the taxes charged to their families." As
to the rural day-laborers and the settlers (colons) the proprietor, even
when privileged, who employs them, is obliged to take upon himself a
part of their quota, otherwise, being without anything to eat, they
cannot work,[5213] even in the interest of the master; man must have his
ration of bread the same as an ox his ration of hay. "In Brittany,[5214]
it is notorious that nine-tenths of the artisans, though poorly fed and
poorly clothed, have not a crown free of debt at the end of the year,"
the poll-tax and others carrying off this only and last crown. At
Paris[5215] "the dealer in ashes, the buyer of old bottles, the gleaner
of the gutters, the peddlers of old iron and old hats," the moment they
obtain a shelter pay the poll-tax of three livres and ten sous each. To
ensure its payment the occupant of a house who sub-lets to them is
made responsible. Moreover, in case of delay, a "blue man," a bailiff's
subordinate, is sent who installs himself on the spot and whose time
they have to pay for. Mercier cites a mechanic, named Quatremain,
who, with four small children, lodged in the sixth story, where he had
arranged a chimney as a sort of alcove in which he and his family
slept. "One day I opened his door, fastened with a latch only, the room
presenting to view nothing but the walls and a vice; the man, coming
out from under his chimney, half sick, says to me, 'I thought it was the
blue man for the poll-tax."' Thus, whatever the condition of the person
subject to taxation, however stripped and destitute, the dexterous hands
of the fisc take hold of him. Mistakes cannot possibly occur: it puts on
no disguise, it comes on the appointed day and rudely lays its hand
on his shoulder. The garret and the hut, as well as the farm and the
farmhouse know the collector, the constable and the bailiff; no hovel
escapes the detestable brood. The people sow, harvest their crops, work
and undergo privation for their benefit; and, should the pennies so
painfully saved each week amount, at the end of the year to a piece of
silver, the mouth of their pouch closes over it.
IV. Collections And Seizures.--Observe the system actually at work. It
is a sort of shearing machine, clumsy and badly put together, of which
the action is about as mischievous as it is serviceable. The worst
feature is that, with its creaking gear, the taxable, those employed
as its final instruments, are equally shorn and flayed. Each parish
contains two, three, five, or seven individuals who, under the title of
collectors, and under the authority of the election tribunal, apportion
and assess the taxes. "No duty is more onerous;"[5216] everybody,
through patronage or favor, tries to get rid of it. The communities are
constantly pleading against the refractory, and, that nobody may escape
under the pretext of ignorance, the table of future collectors is made
up for ten and fifteen years in advance. In parishes of the second class
these consist of "small proprietors, each of whom becomes a collector
about every six years." In many of the villages the artisans,
day-laborers, and métayer-farmers perform the service, although
requiring all their time to earn their own living. In Auvergne, where
the able-bodied men expatriate themselves in winter to find work,
the women are taken;[5217] in the election-district of Saint-Flour, a
certain village has four collectors in petticoats.--They are responsible
for all claims entrusted to them, their property, their furniture and
their persons; and, up to the time of Turgot, each is bound for the
others. We can judge of their risks and sufferings. In 1785,[5218] in
one single district in Champagne, eighty-five are imprisoned and two
hundred of them are on the road every year. "The collector, says the
provincial assembly of Berry,[5219] usually passes one-half of the day
for two years running from door to door to see delinquent tax-payers."
"This service," writes Turgot,[5220] "is the despair and almost
always the ruin of those obliged to perform it; all families in easy
circumstances in a village are thus successively reduced to want." In
short, there is no collector who is not forced to act and who has not
each year "eight or ten writs" served on him[5221]. Sometimes he is
imprisoned at the expense of the parish. Sometimes proceedings are
instituted against him and the tax-contributors by the installation of
"'blue men' and seizures, seizures under arrest, seizures in execution
and sales of furniture." "In the single district of Villefranche," says
the provincial Assembly of Haute-Guyenne, "a hundred and six warrant
officers and other agents of the bailiff are counted always on the
road."
The thing becomes customary and the parish suffers in vain, for it
would suffer yet more were it to do otherwise. "Near Aurillac," says the
Marquis de Mirabeau,[5222] "there is industry, application and economy
without which there would be only misery and want. This produces a
people equally divided into being, on the one hand, insolvent and poor
and on the other hand shameful and rich, the latter who, for fear
of being fined, create the impoverished. The taille once assessed,
everybody groans and complains and nobody pays it. The term having
expired, at the hour and minute, constraint begins, the collectors,
although able, taking no trouble to arrest this by making a settlement,
notwithstanding the installation of the bailiff's men is costly. But
this kind of expense is habitual and people expect it instead of fearing
it, for, if it were less rigorous, they would be sure to be additionally
burdened the following year." The receiver, indeed, who pays the
bailiff's officers a franc a day, makes them pay two francs and
appropriates the difference. Hence "if certain parishes venture to pay
promptly, without awaiting constraint, the receiver, who sees himself
deprived of the best portion of his gains, becomes ill-humored, and, at
the next department (meeting), an arrangement is made between himself,
messieurs the elected, the sub-delegate and other shavers of this
species, for the parish to bear a double load, to teach it how to behave
itself."
A population of administrative blood-suckers thus lives on the peasant.
"Lately," says an intendant, "in the district of Romorantin,[5223] the
collectors received nothing from a sale of furniture amounting to six
hundred livres, because the proceeds were absorbed by the expenses. In
the district of Chateaudun the same thing occurred at a sale amounting
to nine hundred livres and there are other transactions of the same kind
of which we have no information, however flagrant." Besides this, the
fisc itself is pitiless. The same intendant writes, in 1784, a year
of famine:[5224] "People have seen, with horror, the collector, in the
country, disputing with heads of families over the costs of a sale of
furniture which had been appropriated to stopping their children's cry
of want." Were the collectors not to make seizures they would themselves
be seized. Urged on by the receiver we see them, in the documents,
soliciting, prosecuting and persecuting the tax-payers. Every Sunday and
every fête-day they are posted at the church door to warn delinquents;
and then, during the week they go from door to door to obtain their
dues. "Commonly they cannot write, and take a scribe with them." Out of
six hundred and six traversing the district of Saint-Flour not ten of
them are able to read the official summons and sign a receipt; hence
innumerable mistakes and frauds. Besides a scribe they take along the
bailiff's subordinates, persons of the lowest class, laborers without
work, conscious of being hated and who act accordingly. "Whatever orders
may be given them not to take anything, not to make the inhabitants feed
them, or to enter taverns with collectors," habit is too strong "and
the abuse continues."[5225] But, burdensome as the bailiff's men may be,
care is taken not to evade them. In this respect, writes an intendant,
"their obduracy is strange." "No person," a receiver reports,[5226]
"pays the collector until he sees the bailiff's man in his house." The
peasant resembles his ass, refusing to go without being beaten, and,
although in this he may appear stupid, he is clever. For the collector,
being responsible, "naturally inclines to an increase of the assessment
on prompt payers to the advantage of the negligent. Hence the prompt
payer becomes, in his turn, negligent and, although with money in
his chest, he allows the process to go on."[5227] Summing all up, he
calculates that the process, even if expensive, costs less than extra
taxation, and of the two evils he chooses the least. He has but one
resource against the collector and receiver, his simulated or actual
poverty, voluntary or involuntary. "Every one subject to the taille,"
says, again, the provincial assembly of Berry, "dreads to expose his
resources; he avoids any display of these in his furniture, in
his dress, in his food, and in everything open to another's
observation."--"M. de Choiseul-Gouffier,[5228] willing to roof his
peasants' houses, liable to take fire, with tiles, they thanked him for
his kindness but begged him to leave them as they were, telling him
that if these were covered with tiles, instead of with thatch, the
subdelegates would increase their taxation."--"People work, but merely
to satisfy their prime necessities. . . . The fear of paying an
extra crown makes an average man neglect a profit of four times the
amount."[5229]--". . . Accordingly, lean cattle, poor implements,
and bad manure-heaps even among those who might have been better
off."[5230]--"If I earned any more," says a peasant, "it would be for
the collector." Annual and illimitable spoliation "takes away even
the desire for comforts." The majority, pusillanimous, distrustful,
stupefied, "debased," "differing little from the old serfs,[5231]"
resemble Egyptian fellahs and Hindoo pariahs. The fisc, indeed, through
the absolutism and enormity of its claims, renders property of all kinds
precarious, every acquisition vain, every accumulation delusive; in
fact, proprietors are owners only of that which they can hide.
V. Indirect Taxes.
The salt-tax and the excise.
The tax-man, in every country, has two hands, one which visibly and
directly searches the coffers of tax-payers, and the other which
covertly employs the hand of an intermediary so as not to incur the
odium of fresh extortions. Here, no precaution of this kind is taken,
the claws of the latter being as visible as those of the former;
according to its structure and the complaints made of it, I am tempted
to believe it more offensive than the other.--In the first place, the
salt-tax, the excises and the customs are annually estimated and sold
to adjudicators who, purely as a business matter, make as much profit
as they can by their bargain. In relation to the tax-payer they are not
administrators but speculators; they have bought him up. He belongs to
them by the terms of their contract; they will squeeze out of him, not
merely their advances and the interest on their advances, but, again,
every possible benefit. This suffices to indicate the mode of levying
indirect taxes.--In the second place, by means of the salt-tax and the
excises, the inquisition enters each household. In the provinces where
these are levied, in Ile-de-France, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, Orleanais,
Berry, Bourbonnais, Bourgogne, Champagne, Perche, Normandy and Picardy,
salt costs thirteen sous a pound, four times as much as at the present
day, and, considering the standard of money, eight times as much[5232].
And, furthermore, by virtue of the ordinance of 1680, each person over
seven years of age is expected to purchase seven pounds per annum,
which, with four persons to a family, makes eighteen francs a year, and
equal to nineteen days' work: a new direct tax, which, like the taille,
is a fiscal hand in the pockets of the tax-payers, and compelling them,
like the taille, to torment each other. Many of them, in fact, are
officially appointed to assess this obligatory use of salt and, like the
collectors of the taille, these are "jointly responsible for the price
of the salt." Others below them, ever following the same course as in
collecting the taille, are likewise responsible. "After the former have
been seized in their persons and property, the speculator fermier
is authorized to commence action, under the principle of mutual
responsibility, against the principal inhabitants of the parish."
The effects of this system have just been described. Accordingly, "in
Normandy," says the Rouen parliament,[5233] "unfortunates without bread
are daily objects of seizure, sale and execution."
But if the rigor is as great as in the matter of the taille, the
vexations are ten times greater, for these are domestic, minute and
of daily occurrence.--It is forbidden to divert an ounce of the seven
obligatory pounds to any use but that of the "pot and the salt-cellar."
If a villager should economize the salt of his soup to make brine for a
piece of pork, with a view to winter consumption, let him look out for
the collecting-clerks! His pork is confiscated and the fine is three
hundred livres. The man must come to the warehouse and purchase other
salt, make a declaration, carry off a certificate and show this at
every visit of inspection. So much the worse for him if he has not the
wherewithal to pay for this supplementary salt; he has only to sell his
pig and abstain from meat at Christmas. This is the more frequent case,
and I dare say that, for the métayers who pay twenty-five francs per
annum, it is the usual case.--It is forbidden to make use of any other
salt for the pot and salt-cellar than that of the seven pounds. "I am
able to cite," says Letrosne, "two sisters residing one league from a
town in which the warehouse is open only on Saturday. Their supply was
exhausted. To pass three or four days until Saturday comes they boil a
remnant of brine from which they extract a few ounces of salt. A visit
from the clerk ensues and a procès-verbal. Having friends and protectors
this costs them only forty-eight livres."--It is forbidden to take water
from the ocean and from other saline sources, under a penalty of from
twenty to forty livres fine. It is forbidden to water cattle in marshes
and other places containing salt, under penalty of confiscation and
a fine of three hundred livres. It is forbidden to put salt into
the bellies of mackerel on returning from fishing, or between their
superposed layers. An order prescribes one pound and a half to a barrel.
Another order prescribes the destruction annually of the natural salt
formed in certain cantons in Provence. Judges are prohibited from
moderating or reducing the penalties imposed in salt cases, under
penalty of accountability and of deposition.--I pass over quantities
of orders and prohibitions, existing by hundreds. This legislation
encompasses tax-payers like a net with a thousand meshes, while the
official who casts it is interested in finding them at fault. We see the
fisherman, accordingly, unpacking his barrel, the housewife seeking a
certificate for her hams, the exciseman inspecting the buffet, testing
the brine, peering into the salt-box and, if it is of good quality,
declaring it contraband because that of the ferme, the only legitimate
salt, is usually adulterated and mixed with plaster.
Meanwhile, other officials, those of the excise, descend into the
cellar. None are more formidable, nor who more eagerly seize on pretexts
for delinquency[5234]. "Let a citizen charitably bestow a bottle of
wine on a poor feeble creature and he is liable to prosecution and to
excessive penalties. . . . The poor invalid that may interest his curate
in the begging of a bottle of wine for him will undergo a trial, ruining
not alone the unfortunate man that obtains it, but again the benefactor
who gave it to him. This is not a fancied story." By virtue of the right
of deficient revenue the clerks may, at any hour, take an inventory of
wine on hand, even the stores of a vineyard proprietor, indicate what he
may consume, tax him for the rest and for the surplus quantity already
drunk, the ferme thus associating itself with the wine-producer and
claiming its portion of his production.--In a vine-yard at Epernay[5235]
on four casks of wine, the average product of one arpent, and worth six
hundred francs, it levies, at first, thirty francs, and then, after the
sale of the four casks, seventy five francs additionally. Naturally,
"the inhabitants resort to the shrewdest and best planned artifices
to escape" such potent rights. But the clerks are alert, watchful, and
well-informed, and they pounce down unexpectedly on every suspected
domicile; their instructions prescribe frequent inspections and exact
registries "enabling them to see at a glance the condition of the
cellar of each inhabitant."[5236]--The manufacturer having paid up, the
merchant now has his turn. The latter, on sending the four casks to
the consumer--again pays seventy-five francs to the ferme. The wine
is dispatched and the ferme prescribes the roads by which it must go;
should others be taken it is confiscated, and at every step on the way
some payment must be made. "A boat laden with wine from Languedoc,[5237]
Dauphiny or Roussillon, ascending the Rhone and descending the Loire
to reach Paris, through the Briare canal, pays on the way, leaving
out charges on the Rhone, from thirty-five to forty kinds of duty, not
comprising the charges on entering Paris." It pays these "at fifteen or
sixteen places, the multiplied payments obliging the carriers to devote
twelve or fifteen days more to the passage than they otherwise would if
their duties could be paid at one bureau."--The charges on the routes
by water are particularly heavy. "From Pontarlier to Lyons there are
twenty-five or thirty tolls; from Lyons to Aigues-Mortes there are
others, so that whatever costs ten sous in Burgundy, amounts to
fifteen and eighteen sous at Lyons, and to over twenty-five sous at
Aigues-Mortes."--The wine at last reaches the barriers of the city where
it is to be drunk. Here it pays an octroi[5238] of forty-seven francs
per hogshead.--Entering Paris it goes into the tapster's or innkeeper's
cellar where it again pays from thirty to forty francs for the duty on
selling it at retail; at Rethel the duty is from fifty to sixty francs
per puncheon, Rheims gauge.--The total is exorbitant. "At Rennes,[5239]
the dues and duties on a hogshead (or barrel) of Bordeaux wine, together
with a fifth over and above the tax, local charges, eight sous per pound
and the octroi, amount to more than seventy-two livres exclusive of the
purchase money; to which must be added the expenses and duties advanced
by the Rennes merchant and which he recovers from the purchaser,
Bordeaux drayage, freight, insurance, tolls of the flood-gate, entrance
duty into the town, hospital dues, fees of gaugers, brokers and
inspectors. The total outlay for the tapster who sells a barrel of wine
amounts to two hundred livres." We may imagine whether, at this
price, the people of Rennes drink it, while these charges fall on the
wine-grower, since, if consumers do not purchase, he is unable to sell.
Accordingly, among the small growers, he is the most to be pitied;
according to the testimony of Arthur Young, wine-grower and misery are
two synonymous terms. The crop often fails, "every doubtful crop ruining
the man without capital." In Burgundy, in Berry, in Soisonnais, in the
Trois-Evêche's, in Champagne,[5240] I find in every report that he
lacks bread and lives on alms. In Champagne, the syndics of Bar-sur-Aube
write[5241] that the inhabitants, to escape duties, have more than once
emptied their wine into the river, the provincial assembly declaring
that "in the greater portion of the province the slightest augmentation
of duties would cause the cultivators to desert the soil."--Such is the
history of wine under the ancient regime. From the producer who grows
to the tapster who sells, what extortions and what vexations! As to
the salt-tax, according to the comptroller-general,[5242] this annually
produces 4,000 domiciliary seizures, 3,400 imprisonments, 500 sentences
to flogging, exile and the galleys.--
If ever two taxes were well combined, not only to despoil, but also to
irritate the peasantry, the poor and the people, here they were.
VI. Burdens And Exemptions.
Why taxation is so burdensome.--Exemptions and privileges.
Evidently the burden of taxation forms the chief cause of misery; hence
an accumulated, deep-seated hatred against the fisc and its agents,
receivers, store-house keepers, excise officials, customs officers and
clerks.--But why is taxation so burdensome? As far as the communes which
annually plead in detail against certain gentlemen to subject them to
the taille are concerned, there is no doubt. What renders the charge
oppressive is the fact that the strongest and those best able to bear
taxation succeed in evading it, the prime cause of misery being the
vastness of the exemptions[5243].
Let us look at each of these exemptions, one tax after another.--In
the first place, not only are nobles and ecclesiastics exempt from the
personal taille but again, as we have already seen, they are exempt from
the cultivator's taille, through cultivating their domains themselves
or by a steward. In Auvergne,[5244] in the single election-district
of Clermont, fifty parishes are enumerated in which, owing to this
arrangement, every estate of a privileged person is exempt, the taille
falling wholly on those subject to it. Furthermore, it suffices for a
privileged person to maintain that his farmer is only a steward, which
is the case in Poitou in several parishes, the subdelegate and the
élu not daring to look into the matter too closely. In this way the
privileged classes escape the taille, they and their property, including
their farms.--Now, the taille, ever augmenting, is that which provides,
through its special delegations, such a vast number of new offices. A
man of the Third-Estate has merely to run through the history of its
periodical increase to see how it alone, or almost alone, paid and is
paying[5245] for the construction of bridges, roads, canals and courts
of justice, for the purchase of offices, for the establishment and
support of houses of refuge, insane asylums, nurseries, post-houses for
horses, fencing and riding schools, for paving and sweeping Paris, for
salaries of lieutenants-general, governors, and provincial commanders,
for the fees of bailiffs, seneschals and vice-bailiffs, for the salaries
of financial and election officials and of commissioners dispatched to
the provinces, for those of the police of the watch and I know not how
many other purposes.--In the provinces which hold assemblies, where the
taille would seem to be more justly apportioned, the like inequality
is found. In Burgundy[5246] the expenses of the police, of public
festivities, of keeping horses, all sums appropriated to the courses
of lectures on chemistry, botany, anatomy and parturition, to the
encouragement of the arts, to subscriptions to the chancellorship, to
franking letters, to presents given to the chiefs and subalterns of
commands, to salaries of officials of the provincial assemblies, to the
ministerial secretaryship, to expenses of levying taxes and even alms,
in short, 1,800,000 livres are spent in the public service at the charge
of the Third-Estate, the two higher orders not paying a cent.
In the second place, with respect to the poll-tax, originally
distributed among twenty-two classes and intended to bear equally on
all according to fortunes, we know that, from the first, the clergy buy
themselves off; and, as to the nobles, they manage so well as to have
their tax reduced proportionately with its increase at the expense of
the Third-Estate. A count or a marquis, an intendant or a master of
requests, with 40,000 livres income, who, according to the tariff of
1695,[5247] should pay from 1,700 to 2,500 livres, pays only 400 livres,
while a bourgeois with 6,000 livres income, and who, according to
the same tariff; should pay 70 livres, pays 720. The poll-tax of the
privileged individual is thus diminished three-quarters or five-sixths,
while that of the taille-payer has increased tenfold. In the
Ile-de-France,[5248] on an income of 240 livres, the taille-payer pays
twenty-one livres eight sous, and the nobles three livres, and the
intendant himself states that he taxes the nobles only an eightieth of
their revenue; that of Orléanais taxes them only a hundredth, while,
on the other hand, those subject to the taille are assessed
one-eleventh.--If other privileged parties are added to the nobles, such
as officers of justice, employee's of the fermes, and exempted townsmen,
a group is formed embracing nearly everybody rich or well-off and whose
revenue certainly greatly surpasses that of those who are subject to the
taille. Now, the budgets of the provincial assemblies inform us how much
each province levies on each of the two groups: in the Lyonnais district
those subject to the taille pay 898,000 livres, the privileged, 190,000;
in the Ile-de-France, the former pay 2,689,000 livres and the latter
232,000; in the generalship of Alençon, the former pay 1,067,000 livres
and the latter 122,000; in Champagne, the former pay 1,377,000 livres,
and the latter 199,000; in Haute-Guyenne, the former pay 1,268,000
livres, and the latter 61,000; in the generalship of Auch, the former
pay 797,000 livres, the privileged 21,000; in Auvergne the former pay
1,753,000 livres and the latter 86,000; in short, summing up the total
of ten provinces, 11,636,000 livres paid by the poor group and 1,450,000
livres by the rich group, the latter paying eight times less than it
ought to pay.
With respect to the vingtièmes, the disproportion is less, the precise
amounts not being attainable; we may nevertheless assume that the
assessment of the privileged class is about one-half of what it should
be. "In 1772," says[5249] M. de Calonne, "it was admitted that the
vingtièmes were not carried to their full value. False declarations,
counterfeit leases, too favorable conditions granted to almost all the
wealthy proprietors gave rise to inequalities and countless errors.
A verification of 4,902 parishes shows that the product of the two
vingtièmes amounting to 54,000,000 should have amounted to 81,000,000."
A seigniorial domain which, according to its own return of income,
should pay 2,400 livres, pays only 1,216. The case is much worse with
the princes of the blood; we have seen that their domains are exempt and
pay only 188,000 livres instead of 2,400,000. Under this system, which
crushes the weak to relieve the strong, the more capable one is of
contributing, the less one contributes.--The same story characterizes
the fourth and last direct taxation, namely, the tax substituted for the
corvée. This tax, attached, at first, to the vingtièmes and consequently
extending to all proprietors, through an act of the Council is attached
to the taille and, consequently, bears on those the most burdened[5250].
Now this tax amounts to an extra of one-quarter added to the principal
of the taille, of which one example may be cited, that of Champagne,
where, on every 100 livres income the sum of six livres five sous
devolves on the taille-payer. "Thus," says the provincial assembly,
"every road used by active commerce, by the multiplied coursing of the
rich, is repaired wholly by the contributions of the poor."--As these
figures spread out before the eye we involuntarily recur to the two
animals in the fable, the horse and the mule traveling together on the
same road; the horse, by right, may prance along as he pleases; hence
his load is gradually transferred to the mule, the beast of burden,
which finally sinks beneath the extra load.
Not only, in the corps of tax-payers, are the privileged disburdened to
the detriment of the taxable, but again, in the corps of the taxable,
the rich are relieved to the injury of the poor, to such an extent that
the heaviest portion of the load finally falls on the most indigent and
most laborious class, on the small proprietor cultivating his own field,
on the simple artisan with nothing but his tools and his hands, and,
in general, on the inhabitants of villages. In the first place, in
the matter of taxes, a number of the towns are "abonnées," or free.
Compiègne, for the taille and its accessories, with 1,671 firesides,
pays only 8,000 francs, whilst one of the villages in its neighborhood,
Canly, with 148 firesides, pays 4,475 francs[5251]. In the poll-tax,
Versailles, Saint-Germain, Beauvais, Etampes, Pontoise, Saint-Denis,
Compiegne, Fontainebleau, taxed in the aggregate at 169,000 livres, are
two-thirds exempt, contributing but little more than one franc, instead
of three francs ten sous, per head of the population; at Versailles it
is still less, since for 70,000 inhabitants the poll-tax amounts to only
51,600 francs[5252]. Besides, in any event, on the apportionment of a
tax, the bourgeois of the town is favored above his rural neighbors.
Accordingly, "the inhabitants of the country, who depend on the town and
are comprehended in its functions, are treated with a rigor of which it
would be difficult to form an idea. . . . Town influence is constantly
throwing the burden on those who are trying to be relieved of it, the
richest of citizens paying less taille than the most miserable of the
peasant farmers[5253]." Hence, "the horror of the taille depopulates the
rural districts, concentrating in the towns all the talents and all the
capital[5254]." Outside of the towns there is the same differences. Each
year, the élus and their collectors, exercising arbitrary power, fix
the taille of the parish and of each inhabitant. In these ignorant and
partial hands the scales are not held by equity but by self-interest,
local hatreds, the desire for revenge, the necessity of favoring some
friend, relative, neighbor, protector, or patron, some powerful or some
dangerous person. The intendant of Moulins, on visiting his generalship,
finds "people of influence paying nothing, while the poor are
over-charged." That of Dijon writes that "the basis of apportionment is
arbitrary, to such an extent that the people of the province must not be
allowed to suffer any longer."[5255] In the generalship of Rouen
"some parishes pay over four sous the livre and others scarcely one
sou."[5256] "For three years past that I have lived in the country,"
writes a lady of the same district, "I have remarked that most of the
wealthy proprietors are the least pressed; they are selected to make the
apportionment, and the people are always abused."[5257]--"I live on an
estate ten leagues from Paris," wrote d'Argenson, "where it was desired
to assess the taille proportionately, but only injustice has been the
outcome since the seigniors made use of their influence to relieve their
own tenants." [5258] Besides, in addition to those who, through favor,
diminish their taille, there are others who buy themselves off entirely.
An intendant, visiting the subdelegation of Bar-sur-Seine, observes"
that the rich cultivators succeed in obtaining petty commissions in
connection with the king's household and enjoy the privileges attached
to these, which throws the burden of taxation on the others."[5259] "One
of the leading causes of our prodigious taxation," says the provincial
assembly of Auvergne, "is the inconceivable number of the privileged,
which daily increases through traffic in and the assignment of offices;
cases occur in which these have ennobled six families in less than
twenty years." Should this abuse continue, "in a hundred years
every tax-payer the most capable of supporting taxation will be
ennobled."[5260] Observe, moreover, that an infinity of offices and
functions, without conferring nobility, exempt their titularies from
the personal taille and reduce their poll-tax to the fortieth of their
income; at first, all public functionaries, administrative or judicial,
and next all employments in the salt-department, in the customs, in the
post-office, in the royal domains, and in the excise.[5261] "There are
few parishes," writes an intendant, "in which these employees are
not found, while several contain as many as two or three."[5262]
A postmaster is exempt from the taille, in all his possessions and
offices, and even on his farms to the extent of a hundred arpents. The
notaries of Angoulême are exempt from the corvée, from collections, and
the lodging of soldiers, while neither their sons or chief clerks can
be drafted in the militia. On closely examining the great fiscal net
in administrative correspondence, we detect at every step some meshes
through which, with a bit of effort and cunning, all the big and
average-sized fish escape; the small fry alone remain at the bottom of
the scoop. A surgeon not an apothecary, a man of good family forty-five
years old, in commerce, but living with his parent and in a province
with a written code, escapes the collector. The same immunity is
extended to the begging agents of the monks of "la Merci" and "L'Etroite
Observance." Throughout the South and the East individuals in easy
circumstances purchase this commission of beggar for a "louis," or for
ten crowns, and, putting three livres in a cup, go about presenting it
in this or that parish:[5263] ten of the inhabitants of a small mountain
village and five inhabitants in the little village of Treignac obtain
their discharge in this fashion. Consequently, "the collections fall
on the poor, always powerless and often insolvent," the privileged
who effect the ruin of the tax-payer causing the deficiencies of the
treasury.
VII. Municipal Taxation.
The octrois of towns.--The poor the greatest sufferers.
One word more to complete the picture. People seek shelter in the towns
and, indeed, compared with the country, the towns are a refuge. But
misery accompanies the poor, for, on the one hand, they are involved
in debt, and, on the other, the closed circles administering municipal
affairs impose taxation on the poor. The towns being oppressed by the
fisc, they in their turn oppress the people by passing to them the load
which the king had imposed. Seven times in twenty-eight years[5264] he
withdraws and re-sells the right of appointing their municipal officers,
and, to get rid of "this enormous financial burden," the towns double
their octrois. At present, although liberated, they still make payment;
the annual charge has become a perpetual charge; never does the fisc
release its hold; once beginning to suck it continues to suck. "Hence,
in Brittany," says an intendant, "not a town is there whose expenses
are not greater than its revenue."[5265] They are unable to mend their
pavements, and repair their streets, "the approaches to them being
almost impracticable." What could they do for self-support, obliged, as
they are, to pay over again after having already paid? Their augmented
octrois, in 1748, ought to furnish during a period of eleven years a
total of 606,000 livres; but, the eleven years having lapsed, the
tax authorities, in spite of having been paid, still maintains its
exigencies, and to such an extent that, in 1774, they have contributed
2,071,052 livres, the provisional octroi being still maintained.--Now,
this exorbitant octroi bears heavily everywhere on the most
indispensable necessities, the artisan being more heavily burdened than
the bourgeois. In Paris, as we have seen above, wine pays forty-seven
livres a hogshead entrance duty which, at the present standard of value,
must be doubled. "A turbot, taken on the coast at Harfleur and brought
by post, pays an entrance duty of eleven times its value, the people
of the capital therefore being condemned to dispense with fish from
the sea."[5266] At the gates of Paris, in the little parish of
Aubervilliers, I find "excessive duties on hay, straw, seeds, tallow,
candles, eggs, sugar, fish, faggots and firewood."[5267] Compiegne
pays the whole amount of its taille by means of a tax on beverages and
cattle[5268]. "In Toul and in Verdun the taxes are so onerous that but
few consent to remain in the town, except those kept there by their
offices and by old habits."[5269] At Coulommiers, "the merchants and
the people are so severely taxed they dread undertaking any enterprise."
Popular hatred everywhere is profound against octroi, barrier and clerk.
The bourgeois oligarchy everywhere first cares for itself before caring
for those it governs. At Nevers and at Moulins,[5270] "all rich persons
find means to escape their turn to collect taxes by belonging to
different commissions or through their influence with the élus, to such
an extent that the collectors of Nevers, of the present and preceding
year, might be mistaken for real beggars; there is hardly any small
village whose tax collectors are solvent, since the tenant farmers
(métayers) have had to be appointed." At Angers, "independent of
presents and candles, which annually consume 2,172 livres, the public
pence are employed and wasted in clandestine outlays according to the
fancy of the municipal officers." In Provence, where the communities
are free to tax themselves and where they might be expected to show
some consideration for the poor, "most of the towns, and notably Aix,
Marseilles and Toulon,[5271] pay their impositions," local and general,
"exclusively by the tax called the "piquet." This is a tax "on all
species of flour belonging to and consumed on the territory;" for
example, of 254,897 livres, which Toulon expends, the piquet furnishes
233,405. Thus the taxation falls wholly on the people, while the bishop,
the marquis, the president, the merchant of importance pay less on their
dinner of delicate fish and becaficos than the caulker or porter on his
two pounds of bread rubbed with a piece of garlic! Bread in this country
is already too dear! And the quality is so poor that Malouet, the
intendant of the marine, refuses to let his workmen eat it!
"Sire," said M. de la Fare, bishop of Nancy, from his pulpit, May 4th,
1789, "Sire, the people over which you reign has given unmistakable
proofs of its patience. . . . They are martyrs in whom life seems to
have been allowed to remain to enable them to suffer the longer."
VIII. Complaints In The Registers [5272].
"I am miserable because too much is taken from me. Too much is taken
from me because not enough is taken from the privileged. Not only do the
privileged force me to pay in their place, but, again, they previously
deduct from my earnings their ecclesiastic and feudal dues. When, out
of my income of 100 francs, I have parted with fifty-three francs, and
more, to the collector, I am obliged again to give fourteen francs to
the seignior, also more than fourteen for tithes,[5273] and, out of the
remaining eighteen or nineteen francs, I have additionally to satisfy
the excise men. I alone, a poor man, pay two governments, one the old
government, local and now absent, useless, inconvenient and humiliating,
and active only through annoyances, exemptions and taxes; and the other,
recent, centralized, everywhere present, which, taking upon itself all
functions, has vast needs, and makes my meager shoulders support its
enormous weight."
These, in precise terms, are the vague ideas beginning to ferment in
the popular brain and encountered on every page of the records of the
States-General.
"Would to God," says a Normandy village,[5274] "the monarch might take
into his own hands the defense of the miserable citizen pelted and
oppressed by clerks, seigniors, justiciary and clergy!"
"Sire," writes a village in Champagne,[5275] "the only message to us on
your part is a demand for money. We were led to believe that this might
cease, but every year the demand comes for more. We do not hold you
responsible for this because we love you, but those whom you employ, who
better know how to manage their own affairs than yours. We believed that
you were deceived by them and we, in our chagrin, said to ourselves,
If our good king only knew of this!. . . We are crushed down with every
species of taxation; thus far we have given you a part of our bread,
and, should this continue, we shall be in want. . . . Could you see the
miserable tenements in which we live, the poor food we eat, you would
feel for us; this would prove to you better than words that we can
support this no longer and that it must be lessened. . . . That which
grieves us is that those who possess the most, pay the least. We pay the
tailles and for our implements, while the ecclesiastics and nobles who
own the best land pay nothing. Why do the rich pay the least and the
poor the most? Should not each pay according to his ability? Sire, we
entreat that things may be so arranged, for that is just. . . . Did we
dare, we should undertake to plant the slopes with vines; but we are
so persecuted by the clerks of the excise we would rather pull up those
already planted; the wine that we could make would all go to them,
scarcely any of it remaining for ourselves. These exactions are a great
scourge and, to escape them, we would rather let the ground lie waste.
. . . Relieve us of all these extortions and of the excisemen; we are
great sufferers through all these devices; now is the time to change
them; never shall we be happy as long as these last. We entreat all
this of you, Sire, along with others of your subjects as wearied as
ourselves. . . . We would entreat yet more but you cannot do all at one
time."
Imposts and privileges, in the really popular registers, are the two
enemies against which complaints everywhere arise[5276].
"We are overwhelmed by demands for subsidies,. . . we are burdened with
taxes beyond our strength,. . . we do not feel able to support any more,
we perish, overpowered by the sacrifices demanded of us. Labor is taxed
while indolence is exempt. . . . Feudalism is the most disastrous of
abuses, the evils it causes surpassing those of hail and lightning. . . .
Subsistence is impossible if three-quarters of the crops are to be
taken for field-rents, terrage, etc. . . . The proprietor has a fourth
part, the décimateur a twelfth, the harvester a twelfth, taxation a
tenth, not counting the depredations of vast quantities of game which
devour the growing crops: nothing is left for the poor cultivator but
pain and sorrow."
Why should the Third-Estate alone pay for roads on which the nobles and
the clergy drive in their carriages? Why are the poor alone subject to
militia draft? Why does "the subdelegate cause only the defenseless and
the unprotected to be drafted?" Why does it suffice to be the servant
of a privileged person to escape this service? Destroy those dove-cotes,
formerly only small pigeon-pens and which now contain as many as 5,000
pairs. Abolish the barbarous rights of "motte, quevaise and domaine
congéable[5277] under which more than 500,000 persons still suffer
in Lower Brittany." "You have in your armies, Sire, more than 30,000
Franche-Comté serfs;" should one of these become an officer and be
pensioned out of the service he would be obliged to return to and live
in the hut in which he was born, otherwise; at his death, the seignior
will take his pittance. Let there be no more absentee prelates, nor
abbés-commendatory. "The present deficit is not to be paid by us but
by the bishops and beneficiaries; deprive the princes of the church of
two-thirds of their revenues." "Let feudalism be abolished. Man, the
peasant especially, is tyrannically bowed down to the impoverished
ground on which he lies exhausted. . . . There is no freedom, no
prosperity, no happiness where the soil is enthralled. . . . Let the
lord's dues, and other odious taxes not feudal, be abolished, a thousand
times returned to the privileged. Let feudalism content itself with
its iron scepter without adding the poniard of the revenue
speculator."[5278]
Here, and for some time before this, it is not the Countryman who speaks
but the procureur, the lawyer, who places professional metaphors and
theories at his service. But the lawyer has simply translated the
countryman's sentiments into literary dialect.
*****
NOTES:
[Footnote 5201: "Collection des économistes," II. 832. See a tabular
statement by Beaudan.]
[Footnote 5202: "Ephémérides du citoyen," IX. 15; an article by M. de
Butré, 1767.]
[Footnote 5203: "Collection des économistes," I. 551, 562.]
[Footnote 5204: "Procès-verbaux de l'assemblée provinciale de Champagne"
(1787), p. 240.]
[Footnote 5205: Cf., "Notice historique sur la Révolution dans le
département de l'Eure," by Boivin-Champeaux, p. 37.--A register of
grievances of the parish of Epreville; on 100 francs income the Treasury
takes 22 for the taille, 16 for collaterals, 15 for the poll-tax, 11 for
the vingtièmes, total 67 livres.]
[Footnote 5206: "Procès-verbaux de l'assemblée provinciale de
Ile-de-France" (1787), p. 131.]
[Footnote 5207: "Procèx-verbaux de l'ass. prov de la Haute-Guyenne"
(1784), II. 17, 40, 47.]
[Footnote 5208: "Procès-verbaux de l'ass. prov. d'Auvergne" (1787), p.
253.--Doléances, by Gautier de Biauzat, member of the council elected by
the provincial assembly of Auvergne. (1788), p.3.]
[Footnote 5209: See note 5 at the end of the volume.]
[Footnote 5210: "Théron de Montaugé," p. 109 (1763). Wages at this time
are from 7 to 12 sous a day during the summer.]
[Footnote 5211: Archives nationales, procès-verbaux and registers of the
States-General, V. 59, p. 6. Memorandum to M. Necker from M. d'Orgeux,
honorary councilor to the Parliament of Bourgogne, 25 Oct. 1788..]
[Footnote 5212: Ibid. H, 1418. A letter of the intendant of Limoges,
Feb. 26, 1784.]
[Footnote 5213: Turgot, II. 259.]
[Footnote 5214: Archives nationales, H, 426 (remonstrances of the
Parliament of Brittany, Feb. 1783).]
[Footnote 5215: Mercier; XI. 59; X. 262.]
[Footnote 5216: Archives nationales, H, 1422, a letter by M d'Aine,
intendant of Limoges (February 17, 1782) one by the intendant of Moulins
(April, 1779); the trial of the community of Mollon (Bordelais), and the
tables of its collectors.]
[Footnote 5217: "Procès-verbaux de l'ass. prov. d'Auvergne," p. 266.]
[Footnote 5218: Albert Babeau, "Histoire de Troyes," I. 72]
[Footnote 5219: "Procés-verbaux de l'ass. prov. de Berry" (1778), I.
pp.72, 80.]
[Footnote 5220: De Tocqueville, 187.]
[Footnote 5221: Archives nationales, H, 1417. (A letter of M. de
Cypièrre, intendant at Orleans, April 17, 1765).]
[Footnote 5222: "Traité de Population," 2d part, p.26.]
[Footnote 5223: Archives nationales, H, 1417. (A letter of M. de
Cypièrre, intendant at Orleans, April 17, 1765).]
[Footnote 5224: Ibid. H, 1418. (Letter of May 28, 1784).]
[Footnote 5225: Ibid. (Letter of the intendant of Tours, June 15,
1765.)]
[Footnote 5226: Archives Nationales, H, 1417. A report by Raudon,
receiver of tailles in the election of Laon, January, 1764.]
[Footnote 5227: "Procèx-verbaux de l'ass. prov. de Berry" (1778), I.
p.72.]
[Footnote 5228: Champfort, 93.]
[Footnote 5229: "Procèx-verbaux de l'ass. prov. de Berry," I. 77.]
[Footnote 5230: Arthur Young, II. 205.]
[Footnote 5231: "Procès-verbaux of the ass. prov. of the generalship of
Rouen" (1787), p.271.]
[Footnote 5232: Letrosne (1779). "De l'administration provinciale et de
Ia reforme de l'impôt," pp. 39 to 262 and 138.--Archives nationales,
H. 138 (1782). Cahier de Bugey, "Salt costs a person living in the
countryside purchasing it from the retailers from 15 to 17 sous a pound,
according to the way of measuring it."]
[Footnote 5233: Floquet, VI. 367 (May 10, 1760).]
[Footnote 5234: Boivin-Champeaux, p.44. (Cahiers of Bray and of
Gamaches).]
[Footnote 5235: Arthur Young, II. 175-178.]
[Footnote 5236: Archives nationales, G, 300; G, 319. (Registers
and instructions of various local directors of the Excise to their
successors).]
[Footnote 5237: Letrosne, ibid. 523.]
[Footnote 5238: Octroi: a toll or tax levied at the gates of a city on
articles brought in. (SR.)]
[Footnote 5239: Archives Nationales, H, 426 (Papers of the Parliament of
Brittany, February, 1783).]
[Footnote 5240: "Procès-verbaux de l'ass. prov. de Soissonnais" (1787),
p.45.--Archives nationales, H, 1515 (Remonstrances of the Parliament of
Metz, 1768). "The class of indigents form more than twelve-thirteenths
of the whole number of villages of laborers and generally those of the
wine-growers." Ibid. G, 319 (Tableau des directions of Chateaudon and
Issoudun).]
[Footnote 5241: Albert Babeau, I. 89. p. 21.]
[Footnote 5242: "Mémoires," presented to the Assembly of Notables, by M.
de Calonne (1787), p.67.]
[Footnote 5243: Here we are at the root of the reason why democratically
elected politicians and their administrative staffs are today taxed even
though such taxation is only a paper-exercise adding costs to the cost
of government administration. (SR.)]
[Footnote 5244: Gautier de Bianzat, "Doléances," 193, 225.
"Procès-verbaux de l'ass. prov. de Poitou" (1787), p.99.]
[Footnote 5245: Gautier de Bianzat, ibid..]
[Footnote 5246: Archives nationales, the procès-verbaux and cahiers of
the States-General, V. 59. P. 6. (Letter of M. Orgeux to M. Necker), V.
27. p. 560-573. (Cahiers of the Third-Estate of Arnay-le-Duc)]
[Footnote 5247: In these figures the rise of the money standard has been
kept in mind, the silver "marc," worth 59 francs in 1965, being worth 49
francs during the last half of the eighteenth century.]
[Footnote 5248: "Procès-verbaux de l'ass. prov. de Ile-de-France," 132,
158; de l'Orléanais, 96, 387.]
[Footnote 5249: "Mémoire," presented to the Assembly of Notables (1787),
p. 1.--See note 2 at the end of the volume, on the estate of Blet.]
[Footnote 5250: "Procès-verbeaux de l'ass. prov. d'Alsace" (1787), p.
116;"--of Champagne," 192. (According to a declaration of June 2, 1787,
the tax substituted for the corvée may be extended to one-sixth of
the taille, with accessory taxes and the poll-tax combined). "De la
généralité d'Alençcon," 179; "--du Berry," I. 218.]
[Footnote 5251: Archives nationales, G, 322 (Memorandum on the excise
dues of Compiègne and its neighborhood, 1786)]
[Footnote 5252: "Procès-verbaux de l'ass. prov. de l'Ile-de-France," p.
104.]
[Footnote 5253: "Procès-verbaux de l'ass. prov. de Berry, I. 85, II. 91.
--de l'Orléanais, p. 225." "Arbitrariness, injustice, inequality, are
inseparable from the taille when any change of collector takes place."]
[Footnote 5254: "Archives Nationales," H. 615. Letter of M. de Lagourda,
a noble from Bretagne, to M. Necker, dated December 4, 1780: "You are
always taxing the useful and necessary people who decrease in numbers
all the time: these are the workers of the land. The countryside has
become deserted and no one will any longer plow the land. I testify to
God and to you, Sir, that we have lost more than a third of our
budding wheat of the last harvest because we did not have the necessary
man-power do to the work."]
[Footnote 5255: Ibid. 1149. (letter of M. de Reverseau, March 16, 1781);
H, 200 (letter of M. Amelot, Nov. 2, 1784).]
[Footnote 5256: "Procès-verbaux de l'ass. prov. de la généralite de
Rouen," p.91.]
[Footnote 5257: Hippeau, VI. 22 (1788).]
[Footnote 5258: D'Argenson. VI. 37.]
[Footnote 5259: Archives nationales, H. 200 (Memoir of M. Amelot,
1785).]
[Footnote 5260: "Procès-verbaux de l'ass. prov. d'Auvergne," 253.]
[Footnote 5261: Boivin-Champeaux, "Doléances de la parvisse de
Tilleul-Lambert" (Eure). "Numbers of privileged characters, Messieurs of
the elections, Messieurs the post-masters, Messieurs the presidents
and other attachés of the salt-warehouse, every individual possessing
extensive property pays but a third or a half of the taxes they ought to
pay."]
[Footnote 5262: De Tocqueville, 385.--"Procès-verbaux de l'ass. prov. de
Lyonnais," p. 56]
[Footnote 5263: Archives nationales, H, 1422. (Letters of M. d'Aine,
intendant, also of the receiver for the election of Tulle, February 23,
1783).]
[Footnote 5264: De Tocqueville, 64, 363.]
[Footnote 5265: Archives nationales, H, 612, 614. (Letters of M. de la
Bove, September 11, and Dec. 2, 1774; June 28, 1777).]
[Footnote 5266: Mercier, II. 62.]
[Footnote 5267: "Grievances" of the parish of Aubervilliers.]
[Footnote 5268: Archives nationales, G, 300; G, 322 ("Mémoires" on the
excise duties).]
[Footnote 5269: "Procès-verbaux de l'ass. prov. des Trois-Evêchés p.
442.]
[Footnote 5270: Archives nationales, H, 1422 (Letter of the intendant of
Moulins, April 1779).]
[Footnote 5271: Archives nationales, H. 1312 (Letters of M. D'Antheman
procureur-général of the excise court (May 19, 1783), and of the
Archbishop of Aix (June 15, 1783).)--Provence produced wheat only
sufficient for seven and a half months' consumption.]
[Footnote 5272: Abbreviation for the "cahier des doléances", in English
'register of grieviances', brought with them by the representatives of
the people to the great gathering in Paris of the "States-Généraux" in
1789. (SR.)]
[Footnote 5273: The feudal dues may be estimated at a seventh of the net
income and the dime also at a seventh. These are the figures given
by the ass. prov. of Haute-Guyenne (Procès-verbaux, p. 47).--Isolated
instances, in other provinces, indicate similar results. The dime ranges
from a tenth to the thirteenth of the gross product, and commonly the
tenth. I regard the average as about the fourteenth, and as one-half
of the gross product must be deducted for expenses of cultivation, it
amounts to one-seventh. Letrosne says a fifth and even a quarter.]
[Footnote 5274: Boivin-Champeaux, 72.]
[Footnote 5275: Grievances of the community of Culmon (Election de
Langres.)]
[Footnote 5276: Boivin-Champeaux, 34, 36, 41, 48.--Périn ("Doléances
des paroisses rurales de l'Artuis," 301, 308).--Archives nationales,
procès-verbaux and cahiers of the States-Géneraux, vol. XVII. P. 12
(Letter of the inhabitants of Dracy-le Viteux).]
[Footnote 5277: Motte: a mound indicative of Seigniorial dominion;
quevaise; the right of forcing a resident to remain on his property
under penalty of forfeiture; domaine congéable; property held subject to
capricious ejection. (TR)]
[Footnote 5278: Prud'homme, "Résumé des cahiers," III. passim, and
especially from 317 to 340.]