The Insurrection of October, 1789 3 



unequal and unjust system of taxation oppressed the needy far- 

 mers and exempted the wealthy and privileged classes. The 

 manner of collecting taxes was most arbitrary. "The collectors 

 with sheriffs' officers and locksmiths opened the doors, carried 

 away the furniture and sold it for one-fourth of its value, so 

 that the expense exceeded the faille." 1 Every evidence of in- 

 creasing comfort, every acquisition which might indicate or even 

 suggest prosperity was an excuse for the exaction of higher 

 taxes. Even an appearance of physical improvement was a pre- 

 text for increasing assessment. D'Argenson is quoted by Taine 

 to this effect : "An officer elect came into the village where my 

 country home is situated and said that the taille . for this year 

 ought to be much increased in this parish, that he had noticed 

 the peasants were much fatter than formerly, that he had seen 

 chicken feathers on the door steps, indicating high living," etc. 2 



The only escape from intolerable extortions was the lowest 

 possible degree of poverty. Frequently men were found living 

 in wretched hovels totally unfit for human habitation. They 

 were miserably clothed, sometimes in mere rags. Their only 

 food was often black bread and water, when, indeed, they were 

 not reduced to absolute starvation "eating grass like sheep and 

 dying like flies." 3 After generations of this sort of life what 

 wonder that French peasants were ignorant, suspicious, and 

 stupid ? 4 



Certainly many reforms had been instituted since the begin- 

 ning of the reign of Louis XVI. 5 Attempts had been made to 

 remedy the evils of unequal taxation. The corvee, a road tax 

 worked out by the tenants and poorer farmers, had been sup- 

 pressed in many parts of France, and a money tax on all pro- 

 prietors alike substituted. The taille was modified to lessen the 

 burdens of the poor. Nevertheless many of them still lived in 

 misery too abject for human endurance. Arthur Young, who 



1 Taine, L'ancien regime, 433, quotation from D'Argenson. 



2 Ibid., 434. 



3 Ibid., 431. 



4 Young, Travels in France, 157. 



8 Anciennes lois, XXVIII, 358, 368. 



269 



