The French Revolution | Page 9

as follows: taxes that were farmed; direct taxes; the gabelle; feudal
and ecclesiastical taxes.
In 1697 had begun the practice of leasing indirect taxes for the space of six years to
contractors, the fermiers généraux. They paid in advance, and recouped themselves by
grinding the taxpayer to the uttermost. They defrauded the public in such monopolies as
that of tobacco, which was grossly adulterated; and they enforced payments not only with
harshness and violence, but with complete disregard for the ruin which 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 dixiéme, 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