32 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



eluded in the fiscal policy of France at the. period under consid- 

 eration — namely, a so-called capitation tax, whicli was a kind of 

 graduated tax on capital, and from the incidence of which there 

 was theoretically no exemption ; and the vingtieme (one twen- 

 tieth), instituted by Colbert, which was an income tax, and sup- 

 posed to be levied on every class. Owing, however, to inefficient 

 administration, and to the circumstance that the clergy occasion- 

 ally bought exemption for themselves for a term of years by the 

 payment of a lump sum, the revenue derived from these sources 

 was always much less than it ought to have been, the privileged 

 class to a large extent evading assessments. 



The almost complete exemption of the clergy of France dur- 

 ing the ante-revolutionary period from taxation, whereby those 

 who were supposed to preach and practice charity were so intent 

 upon securing worldly vantage as to have thrown nearly all their 

 duties and responsibilities to the state upon the poor, constitutes 

 one of those striking contradictions which so often confront us in 

 history. 



The indirect taxes were very numerous ; comprising the cus- 

 toms, the octroi, the excise, and special taxes on wines, cards, 

 tobacco, salt, and on a great variety of manufactured products ; 

 and in their collection the arbitrary, inquisitorial, infinitesimal, 

 and penalty system was carried out to perfection. It was this 

 class of taxes which undoubtedly pressed most heavily on the 

 French poor, and from the direct incidence of which the Church 

 and nobility managed in a great degree to escape. Very curi- 

 ously, also, they constituted an inducement to the peasantry to 

 seem poorer than perhaps they actually were, and to live in low, 

 thatched cottages, without floors or glass in the windows, inas- 

 much as any improvement of their dwellings meant an increase 

 of their taxes. Custom duties were levied, not only at frontiers of 

 the kingdom, but between every province of France. The taille 

 was exacted with military severity. " Carriages and carts were 

 stopped on the highway and searched by the tax collectors ; no 

 private house was safe from them by day or by night ; and on 

 the slightest suspicion they used the power of arrest that was 

 vested in them. Prosecutions for unpaid taxes were carried on 

 with the utmost rigor. The clothes of the poor were seized, and 

 even their last measure of flour, and the latches on their doors. 

 Collectors, accompanied by locksmiths, forced open doors and 

 carried away and sold furniture for one quarter of its value, the 

 expenses exceeding the amount of the tax." — Taine. 



The most vexatious, arbitrary, and extraordinary tax of this 

 period was that imposed on salt, and known as the " gahelle " ; and 

 to one who now acquaints himself with its history and details it 

 must seem almost inconceivable that any country claiming to 



