30 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



upon them, or to ascertain accurately at any one time (as was 



especially the case during the latter third of the eighteenth 



century) the true state of the national exchequer; all of which 



fostered indefensible waste and extravagance. At the death of 



Loiiis XV in 1774, the annual expenditure of the king and his 



: household probably amounted to one eighth of the entire revenue 



I of the state,* and the total indebtedness of the state in 1789, the 



I year of the commencement of the revolution, was estimated as 



\ being in excess of $1,000,000,000, carrying an annual interest of 



i $206,000,000 ; and it is to be remembered that these figures must 



I be at least doubled to represent the corresponding sums of the 



i present day. All this indebtedness, and all that was subsequently 



I incurred through the issue of irredeemable "assignats" (paper 



I or fiat money), was ultimately, through one means or another, 



entirely repudiated. 



In the collection of levies the inquisitorial, infinitesimal as- 

 sessment and dooming penalty system, the like of which still 

 finds favor in Massachusetts, was carried out to perfection ; and 

 the only rule of practice which in different districts could prefer 

 any claim to uniformity, was the rule of inequality of assessment, 

 and harshness and cruelty in collection. Arthur Young, an Eng- 

 lish gentleman of culture and keen powers of observation, who 

 traveled in France in 1787-'89, states, in recording the above 

 experiences, that " he shuddered at the oppression of which he 

 became cognizant." 



One of the chief sources of revenue to the state was from 

 an exaction known as the taille,\ which was mainly in the nature 

 of a direct tax on land, though in some provinces it was a levy 

 on both polls and land. The history of this exaction has been 

 carefully investigated and is not a little interesting. It origi- 

 nated in the early feudal period, and was imposed on persons 

 originally bondsmen, or on persons who held in " farTn," or lease, 

 or resided on the lands of a noble or suzerain, and from which 

 the proprietors or suzerains of the land were exempt. And as no 

 vassal could at will divest himself of servitude or allegiance to his 

 lord or suzerain, so the obligation to x)ay tribute (taxes ?) always 

 remained upon him as a personal servitude, wherever he might be 

 In other words, the condition of the masses in France during the 

 middle ages was not unlike the condition of the slaves in the 

 United States previous to emancipation. These had property in 



* There were seventy-five officers connected with the king's chapel alone ; forty-eight 

 physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries attached to his person ; and three hundred and 

 eighty-three men and one hundred and thirty-three boys employed for his table. 



f The ta'dle was the equivalent of the English " tallage." But the discretionary power 

 of levying the impost was taken away from the English crown and nobility by the pro- 

 visions of Magna Charta. 



