36 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to find some method by wliicli the burden of the multitudinous 

 taxes imposed for defraying these expenditures might not be 

 enormously and unnecessarily augmented by their method of 

 taking. He accordingly proposed what was in effect a single tax 

 — namely, that the king should annually take by one act or pay- 

 ment a royal tithe or tenth — dixnie royale — of all the property of 

 each community, or of each person in the kingdom ; and that this 

 simple and sole tax, which would suffice for all, and which would 

 pass directly into the coffers of the king, should be the means by 

 which every other form of tax or exaction from the people, with 

 all its complicated, inquisitorial machinery for collection, should 

 be abolished. About the same time a lieutenant-general of France 

 — one Boisguilbert, of Rouen — took up the investigation of the 

 same subject, and published a really learned and profound book ; 

 in which he also proposed a new system of taxation, which he 

 claimed would at once relieve the people of many taxes, and the 

 state of the necessity of great expenditure, by providing that the 

 proceeds of every tax should go at once into the treasury of the 

 king, instead of enriching first the farmers-general, the finance 

 ministers, and their deputies. 



The system of Boisguilbert was analogous to that proposed by 

 Vauban, with the exception that the former advocated the con- 

 tinuance of some taxes on foreign commerce and upon foods, and 

 the latter desired especially to abolish all such forms of taxation. 



Admirable in many respects as were these proposed reforms ; 

 clearly based as they undoubtedly were upon what are now recog- 

 nized as sound economic principles, they had one great defect. 

 They prescribed a course which if followed would have taken 

 away the means of livelihood of a very large number of officials. 

 It would have compelled them to live at their own expense, in- 

 stead of at the expense of the public. This was enough to insure 

 their failure. All the people whose interests, fortunes, and emol- 

 uments were threatened arrayed themselves in opposition ; for 

 they reasoned truly that place, power, wealth, and social position 

 would fly from their grasp if the counsels of Vauban were to be 

 followed. It is not to be wondered, then, that the king listened to 

 the advice of the multitude who were privileged to talk with him, 

 rather than to his one clear-headed, unselfish, faithful servitor ; or 

 that when Marshal Vauban presented him with a book embodying 

 and explaining his fiscal views and system, he received it with a 

 very ill grace. His ministers also, even if they were contrary dis- 

 posed, which is not probable, could not do otherwise than follow 

 the views of the king, and from that moment the splendid ser- 

 vices of the marshal, his military genius, his virtues, the former 

 affection the king had had for him — all were forgotten. He stood 

 in the position of one courting the favor of the people, and con- 



