The French Revolution | Page 9

their exactions entailed. The government increased the yield of the ferme in a little less than a century from 37 to 180 millions of livres or francs,[1] and yet the sixty farmers continued to increase in wealth. They formed the most conspicuous group of plutocrats when the Revolution broke out and were among the first victims of popular indignation. Of the direct taxes the most important in every way was the taille. It brought in under Louis XVI about 90 millions of francs. It represented historically the fundamental right of the French monarch to tax his {31} subjects delegated to him by the Estates of the kingdom in the 15th century. By virtue of that delegated power it was the Royal Council that settled each year what amount of taille should be levied. It was enforced harshly and in such a manner as to discourage land improvement. It was also the badge of social inferiority, for in the course of centuries a large part of the wealthier middle classes had bought or bargained themselves out of the tax, so that to pay it was a certain mark of the lower class or roture. Taillable, roturier, were terms of social ostracism impatiently borne by thousands.
Other direct taxes were the capitation, bringing in over 50 millions, the dixi��me, the don gratuit. But more important than any of these was the great Government indirect tax, the monopoly on salt, or gabelle. Exemptions of all sorts made the price vary in different parts of France, but in some cases as much as 60 francs was charged for the annual quantity which the individual was assessed at, that same individual as often as not earning less than 5 francs a week. So much smuggling, fraud and resistance to the law did the gabelle produce that it took 50,000 officials, police and soldiers, to work it. In the year 1783 no less {32} than 11,000 persons, many of them women and children, were arrested for infraction of the gabelle laws.
Last of all, the tithe and feudal dues were added to the burden. The priest was maintained by the land. The seigneur's rights were numerous, and varied in different parts of the country. They bore most heavily in the central and northeastern parts of France, most lightly in the south, where Roman law had prevailed over feudal, and along most of the Atlantic coast line, as in Normandy. These feudal dues will be noticed later in connection with the famous session of the States-General on the 4th of August, 1789.
In all this system of taxation there was only one rule that was of universal application, and that was that the burden should be thrown on the poor man's shoulders. The clergy had compounded with the Crown. The nobles or officials were the assessors, and whether they officiated for the King, for the Provincial Estates or for themselves, they took good care that their own contributions to the royal chest should be even less proportionately than might legally be demanded of them. And after all the money had been driven into the treasury it was but too painfully evident what became {33} of it. The fermiers and the favourites scrambled for the millions and flaunted their splendour in the face of those who paid for it. The extravagance of the Court was equalled only by its ineptitude. No proper accounts were kept, because all but the taxpayers found their interest in squandering. Under Madame de Pompadour the practice arose that orders for money payments signed by the King alone should be paid in cash and not passed through the audit chamber, such as it was. Pensions became a serious drain on the revenue and rapidly grew to over 50 millions a year at the end of the reign of Louis XVI. They were not infrequently granted for ridiculous or scandalous reasons, as in the case of Ducrest, hairdresser to the eldest daughter of the Comtesse d'Artois, who was granted an annual pension of 1,700 francs on her death; the child was then twelve months old; or that of a servant of the actress Clairon, who was brought into the Oeuil de Boeuf one morning to tell Louis XV a doubtful story about his mistress; the King laughed so much that he ordered the fellow to be put down for a pension of 600 francs!
With its finances in such condition the Bourbon monarchy plunged into war with England {34} in 1778, and, for the satisfaction of Yorktown and the independence of the United States, spent 1,500 millions of francs, nearly four years' revenue. At that moment it was estimated that the people of France paid in taxation about 800 millions annually, about one-half of which reached the King's chest. But the burden of debt was so great that by