The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1

H >> Hippolyte A. Taine >> The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1

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The small cultivator, however, in becoming a possessor of the soil
assumed its charges. Simply as day-laborer, and with his arms alone,
he was only partially affected by the taxes; "where there is nothing
the king loses his dues." But now, vainly is he poor and declaring
himself still poorer; the fisc has a hold on him and on every portion
of his new possessions. The collectors, peasants like himself, and
jealous, by virtue of being his neighbors, know how much his property,
exposed to view, brings in; hence they take all they can lay their
hands on. Vainly has he labored with renewed energy; his hands remain
as empty, and, at the end of the year, he discovers that his field has
produced him nothing. The more he acquires and produces the more
burdensome do the taxes become. In 1715, the taille and the poll-tax,
which he alone pays, or nearly alone, amounts to sixty-six millions of
livres; the amount is ninety-three millions in 1759 and one hundred
and ten millions in 1789.[50] In 1757, the charges amount to
283,156,000 livres; in 1789 to 476,294,000 livres.

Theoretically, through humanity and through good sense, there is,
doubtless, a desire to relieve the peasant, and pity is felt for him.
But, in practice, through necessity and routine, he is treated
according to Cardinal Richelieu's precept, as a beast of burden to
which oats is sparingly rationed out for fear that he may become too
strong and kick, "a mule which, accustomed to his load, is spoiled
more by long repose than by work."....

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Notes:

[1] Labruyère, edition of Destailleurs, II, 97. Addition to the
fourth ed. (1689)

[2] Oppression and misery begin about 1672. - At the end of the
seventeenth century (l698), the reports made up by the intendants for
the Duc de Bourgogne, state that many of the districts and provinces
have lost one-sixth, one-fifth, one-quarter, the third and even the
half of their population. (See details in the "correspondance des
contrôleurs-généraux from 1683 to 1698," published by M. de
Boislisle). According to the reports of intendants, (Vauban, "Dime
Royale," ch. VII. § 2.), the population of France in 1698 amounted to
19,994,146 inhabitants. From 1698 to 1715 it decreases. According to
Forbonnais, there were but 16 or 17 millions under the Regency. After
this epoch the population no longer diminishes but, for forty years,
it hardly increases. In 1753 (Voltaire, "Dict Phil.," article
Population), there are 3,550,499 hearths, besides 700,000 souls in
Paris, which makes from 16 to 17 millions of inhabitants if we count
four and one-half persons to each fireside, and from 18 to 19 millions
if we count five persons.

[3] Floquet, "Histoire du Parlement de Normandie," VII. 402.

[4] Rousseau, "Confessions," 1st part, ch. IV. (1732).

[5]D'Argenson, 19th and 24th May, July 4, and Aug. 1, 1739

[6] "Résumé d'histoire d'Auvergne par un Auvergnat" (M.
Tallandier), p. 313.

[7] D'Argenson, 1740, Aug. 7 and 21, September 19 and 24, May 28
and November 7.

[8] D'Argenson, October 4, 1749; May 20, Sept. 12, Oct. 28, Dec.
28, 1750.

[9] D'Argenson, June 21, 1749; May 22, 1750; March 19, 1751;
February 14, April 15, 1752, etc.

[10] Floquet, ibid.. VII. 410 (April, 1752, an address to the
Parliament of Normandy)

[11] D'Argenson, November 26, 1751: March 15, 1753.

[12] D'Argenson, IV. 124; VI. 165: VII. 194, etc.

[13] Floquet, ibid. VI. 400-430

[14] "Correspondance," by Métra, I. 338, 341. - Hippeau, "Le
Gouvernement de Normandie," IV. 62, 199, 358.

[15] "Procès-verbaux de l'assemblée provinciale de Basse Normandie"
(1787), p.151.

[16] Archives nationales, G, 319. Condition of the directory of
Issoudun, and H, 1149, 612, 1418.

[17] Ibid.. The letters of M. de Crosne, intendant of Rouen
(February 17, 1784); of M. de Blossac, intendant of Poitiers (May 9,
1784); of M. de Villeneuve, intendant of Bourges (March 28, 1784); of
M. de Cypierre, intendant of Orleans (May 28, 1784); of M. de Maziron,
intendant of Moulins (June 28, 1786); of M. Dupont, intendant of
Moulins (Nov. 16, 1779), etc.

[18] Archives nationales, H, 200 (A memorandum by M. Amelot,
intendant at Dijon, 1786).

[19] Gautier de Bianzat, "Doléances sur les surcharges que portent
les gens du Tiers-Etat," etc. (1789), p. 188. - "Procès-verbaux de
I'assemblée provinciale d'Auvergne" (1787), p. 175.

[20] Théron de Montaugé, "L'Agriculture et les chores rurales dans
le Toulousain," 112.

[21] "Procès-verbaux de assemblée provinciale de la Haute-Guyenne,"
I. 47, 79.

[22] "Procès-verbaux de l'assemblée provinciale du Soissonais"
(1787), p. 457; "de l'assemblée provinciale d'Auch," p. 24.

[23] "Résumé des cahiers," by Prudhomme, III. 271.

[24] Hippeau, ibid. VI. 74, 243 (grievances drawn up by the
Chevalier de Bertin).

[25] See the article "Fermiers et Grains," in the Encyclopedia, by
Quesnay, 1756.

[26] Théron de Montaugé, p.25. - "Ephémérides du citoyen," III. 190
(1766); IX. 15 (an article by M. de Butré, 1767).

[27] "Procés-verbaux de l'assemblée provinciale de l'Orléanais"
(1787), in a memoir by M. d'Autroche.

[28] One is surprised to see such a numerous people fed even though
one-half, or one-quarter of the arable land is sterile wastes. (Arthur
Young, II, 137.)

[29] Archives nationales, H, 1149. A letter of the Comtesse de
Saint-Georges (1772) on the effects of frost. "The ground this year
will remain uncultivated, there being already much land in this
condition, and especially in our parish." Théron de Montaugé, ibid..
45, 80.

[30] Arthur Young, II. 112, 115. - Théron de Montaugé, 52, 61.

[31] The Marquis de Mirabeau, "Traité de la population," p.29.

[32] Cf Galiani, "Dialogues sur le commerce des blés." (1770), p.
193. Wheat bread at this time cost four sous per pound.

[33] Arthur Young, II. 200, 201, 260-265. - Théron de Montaugé,
59, 68, 75, 79, 81, 84.

[34] "The poor people who cultivate the soil here are métayers,
that is men who hire the land without ability to stock it; the
proprietor is forced to provide cattle and seed and he and his tenants
divide the produce." - ARTHUR YOUNG.(TR.)

[35] "Ephémérides du citoyen," VI. 81-94 (1767), and IX. 99 (1767).

[36] Turgot, "Collections des économistes," I. 544, 549.

[37] Marquis de Mirabeau, "Traité de la population," 83..

[38] Hippeau, VI, 91.

[39] Dulaure, "Description de l'Auvergne," 1789.

[40] Arthur Young, I. 235.

[41] "Ephémérides du citoyen," XX. 146, a letter of the Marquis de
- August 17, 1767.

[42] Lucas de Montigny, "Memoires de Mirabeau," I, 394.

[43] Arthur Young, I. 280, 289, 294.

[44] Lafayette "Mémoires," V. 533.

[45] Lucas de Montigny, ibid. (a letter of August 18, 1777).

[46] De Tocqueville, 117.

[47] "Procès-verbaux de l'assemblée provinciale de Basse Normandie"
(1787), p.205.

[48] Léonce de Lavergne, p. 26 (according to the tables of
indemnity granted to the émigrés in 1825). In the estate of Blet (see
note 2 at the end of the volume), twenty-two parcels are alienated in
1760. - Arthur Young, I. 308 (the domain of Tour-d'Aigues, in
Provence), and II. 198, 214. - Doniol, "Histoire des classes rurales,"
p.450. - De Tocqueville, p.36.

[49] Archives nationales, H, 1463 (a letter by M. de Fontette,
November 16, 1772). - Cf. Cochut, "Revue des Deux Mondes,"
September, 1848. The sale of the national property seems not to have
sensibly increased small properties nor sensibly diminished the number
of the large ones. The Revolution developed moderate sized properties.
In 1848, the large estates numbered 183,000 (23,000 families paying
300 francs taxes, and more, and possessing on the average 260 hectares
of land, and 160,000 families paying from 230 to 500 francs taxes and
possessing on the average 75 hectares.) These 183,000 families
possessed 18,000,000 hectares. - There are besides 700,000 medium
sized estates (paying from 50 to 250 francs tax), and comprising
15,000,000 hectares. - And finally 3,900,000 small properties
comprising 15,000,000 hectares (900,000 paying from 25 to 50 francs
tax, averaging five and one-half hectares each, and 3,000,000 paying
less than 25 francs, averaging three and one ninth hectares each). -
According to the partial statement of de Tocqueville the number of
holders of real property had increased, on the average, to five-
twelfths; the population, at the same time, having increased five-
thirteenths (from 26 to 36 millions).

[50] "Compte-général des revenus et dépenses fixes au 1er Mai, 1789
(Imprimerie Royale, 1789). - De Luynes, XVI. 49. - Roux and Buchez, I.
206, 374. (This relates only to the countries of election; in the
provinces, with assemblies, the increase is no less great). Archives
nationales, H2, 1610 (the parish of Bourget, in Anjou). Extracts from
the taille rolls of three métayer- farms belonging to M. de Ruillé.
The taxes in 1762 are 334 livres, 3 sous; in 1783, 372 livres, 15
sous.

CHAPTER II. TAXATION THE PRINCIPAL CAUSE OF MISERY.

I. EXTORTION.

Direct taxes. - State of different domains at the end of the reign
of Louis XV. - Levies of the tithe and the owner. - What remains to
the proprietor.

Let us closely examine the extortions he has to endure, which are
very great, much beyond any that we can imagine. Economists had long
prepared the budget of a farm and shown by statistics the excess of
charges with which the cultivator is overwhelmed. If he continues to
cultivate, they say, he must have his share in the crops, an
inviolable portion, equal to one-half of the entire production, and
from which nothing can be deducted without ruining him. This portion,
in short, accurately represents, and not a sou too much, in the first
place, the interest of the capital first expended on the farm in
cattle, furniture, and implements of husbandry; in the second place,
the maintenance of this capital, every year depreciated by wear and
tear; in the third place, the advances made during the current year
for seed, wages, and food for men and animals; and, in the last place,
the compensation due him for the risks he takes and his losses. Here
is a first lien which must be satisfied beforehand, taking precedence
of all others, superior to that of the seignior, to that of the tithe-
owner (décimateur), to even that of the king, for it is an
indebtedness due to the soil.[1] After this is paid back, then, and
only then, that which remains, the net product, can be touched. Now,
in the then state of agriculture, the tithe-owner and the king
appropriate one-half of this net product, when the estate is large,
and the whole, if the estate is a small one[2]. A certain large farm
in Picardy, worth to its owner 3,600 livres, pays 1,800 livres to the
king, and 1,311 livres to the tithe owner; another, in the
Soissonnais, rented for 4,500 livres, pays 2,200 livres taxes and more
than 1,000 livres to the tithes. An ordinary métayer-farm near Nevers
pays into the treasury 138 livres, 121 livres to the church, and 114
livres to the proprietor. On another, in Poitou, the fisc (tax
authorities) absorbs 348 livres, and the proprietor receives only 238.
In general, in the regions of large farms, the proprietor obtains ten
livres the arpent if the cultivation is very good, and three livres
when ordinary. In the regions of small farms, and of the métayer
system, he gets fifteen sous the arpent, eight sous and even six sous.
The entire net profit may be said to go to the church and into the
State treasury.

Hired labor, meantime, is no less costly. On this métayer-farm in
Poitou, which brings in eight sous the arpent, thirty-six laborers
consume each twenty-six francs per annum in rye, two francs
respectively in vegetables, oil and milk preparations, and two francs
ten sous in pork, amounting to a sum total, each year, for each
person, of sixteen pounds of meat at an expense of thirty-six francs.
In fact they drink water only, use rape-seed oil for soup and for
light, never taste butter, and dress themselves in materials made of
the wool and hair of the sheep and goats they raise. They purchase
nothing save the tools necessary to make the fabrics of which these
provide the material. On another metayer-farm, on the confines of la
Marche and Berry, forty-six laborers cost a smaller sum, each one
consuming only the value of twenty-five francs per annum. We can judge
by this of the exorbitant share appropriated to themselves by the
Church and State, since, at so small a cost of cultivation, the
proprietor finds in his pocket, at the end of the year, six or eight
sous per arpent out of which, if plebeian, he must still pay the dues
to his seignior, contribute to the common purse for the militia, buy
his taxed salt and work out his corvée and the rest. Towards the end
of the reign of Louis XV in Limousin, says Turgot,[3] the king derives
for himself alone "about as much from the soil as the proprietor." In
a certain election-district, that of Tulle, where he abstracts fifty-
six and one-half per cent. of the product, there remains to the latter
forty-three and one-half per cent. thus accounting for "a multitude of
domains being abandoned."

It must not be supposed that time renders the tax less onerous or
that, in other provinces, the cultivator is better treated. In this
respect the documents are authentic and almost up to the latest hour.
We have only to take up the official statements of the provincial
assemblies held in 1787, to learn by official figures to what extent
the fisc may abuse the men who labor, and take bread out of the mouths
of those who have earned it by the sweat of their brows.

II. LOCAL CONDITIONS.

State of certain provinces on the outbreak of the Revolution. - The
taille, and other taxes.- The proportion of these taxes in relation to
income.- The sum total immense.

Direct taxation alone is here concerned, the tailles, collateral
taxes, poll-tax, vingtièmes, and the pecuniary tax substituted for the
corvée[4] In Champagne, the tax-payer pays on 100 livres income fifty-
four livres fifteen sous, on the average, and in many parishes,[5]
seventy-one livres thirteen sous. In the Ile-de-France, "if a taxable
inhabitant of a village, the proprietor of twenty arpents of land
which he himself works, and the income of which is estimated at ten
livres per arpent it is supposed that he is likewise the owner of the
house he occupies, the site being valued at forty livres."[6] This
tax-payer pays for his real taille, personal and industrial, thirty-
five livres fourteen sous, for collateral taxes seventeen livres
seventeen sous, for the poll-tax twenty-one livres eight sous, for the
vingtièmes twenty-four livres four sous, in all ninety-nine livres
three sous, to which must be added about five livres as the
substitution for the corvée, in all 104 livres on a piece of property
which he rents for 240 livres, a tax amounting to five-twelfths of his
income.

It is much worse on making the same calculation for the poorer
generalities. In Haute-Guyenne,[7] "all property in land is taxed for
the taille, the collateral taxes, and the vingtièmes, more than one-
quarter of its revenue, the only deduction being the expenses of
cultivation; also dwellings, one-third of their revenue, deducting
only the cost of repairs and of maintenance; to which must be added
the poll-tax, which takes about one-tenth of the revenue; the tithe,
which absorbs one-seventh; the seigniorial rents which take another
seventh; the tax substituted for the corvée; the costs of compulsory
collections, seizures, sequestration and constraints, and all ordinary
and extraordinary local charges. This being subtracted, it is evident
that, in communities moderately taxed, the proprietor does not enjoy a
third of his income, and that, in the communities wronged by the
assessments, the proprietors are reduced to the status of simple
farmers scarcely able to get enough to restore the expenses of
cultivation." In Auvergne,[8] the taille amounts to four sous on the
livre net profit; the collateral taxes and the poll-tax take off four
sous three deniers more; the vingtièmes, two sous and three deniers;
the contribution to the royal roads, to the free gift, to local
charges and the cost of levying, take again one sou one denier, the
total being eleven sous and seven deniers on the livre income, without
counting seigniorial dues and the tithe. "The bureau, moreover,
recognizes with regret, that several of the collections pay at the
rate of seventeen sous, sixteen sous, and the most moderate at the
rate of fourteen sous the livre. The evidence of this is in the
bureau; it is on file in the registry of the court of excise, and of
the election-districts. It is still more apparent in parishes where an
infinite number of assessments are found, laid on property that has
been abandoned, which the collectors lease, and the product of which
is often inadequate to pay the tax." Statistics of this kind are
terribly eloquent. They may be summed up in one word. Putting together
Normandy, the Orleans region, that of Soissons, Champagne, Ile-de-
France, Berry, Poitou, Auvergne, the Lyons region, Gascony, and Haute-
Guyenne, in brief the principal election sections, we find that out of
every hundred francs of revenue the direct tax on the tax-payer is
fifty-three francs, or more than one-half[9]. This is about five times
as much as at the present day.

III. THE COMMON LABORER.

Four direct taxes on the common laborer.

The taxation authorities, however, in thus bearing down on taxable
property has not released the taxable person without property. In the
absence of land it seizes on men. In default of an income it taxes a
man's wages. With the exception of the vingtièmes, the preceding taxes
not only bore on those who possessed something but, again, on those
who possessed nothing. In the Toulousain[10] at St. Pierre de
Barjouville, the poorest day-laborer, with nothing but his hands by
which to earn his support, and getting ten sous a day, pays eight,
nine and ten livres poll-tax. "In Burgundy[11] it is common to see a
poor mechanic, without any property, taxed eighteen and twenty livres
for his poll-tax and the taille." In Limousin,[12] all the money
brought back by the masons in winter serves "to pay the taxes charged
to their families." As to the rural day-laborers and the settlers
(colons) the proprietor, even when privileged, who employs them, is
obliged to take upon himself a part of their quota, otherwise, being
without anything to eat, they cannot work,[13] even in the interest of
the master; man must have his ration of bread the same as an ox his
ration of hay. "In Brittany,[14] it is notorious that nine-tenths of
the artisans, though poorly fed and poorly clothed, have not a crown
free of debt at the end of the year," the poll-tax and others carrying
off this only and last crown. At Paris[15] "the dealer in ashes, the
buyer of old bottles, the gleaner of the gutters, the peddlers of old
iron and old hats," the moment they obtain a shelter pay the poll-tax
of three livres and ten sous each. To ensure its payment the occupant
of a house who sub-lets to them is made responsible. Moreover, in case
of delay, a "blue man," a bailiff's subordinate, is sent who installs
himself on the spot and whose time they have to pay for. Mercier cites
a mechanic, named Quatremain, who, with four small children, lodged in
the sixth story, where he had arranged a chimney as a sort of alcove
in which he and his family slept. "One day I opened his door,
fastened with a latch only, the room presenting to view nothing but
the walls and a vice; the man, coming out from under his chimney, half
sick, says to me, 'I thought it was the blue man for the poll-tax."'
Thus, whatever the condition of the person subject to taxation,
however stripped and destitute, the dexterous hands of the fisc take
hold of him. Mistakes cannot possibly occur: it puts on no disguise,
it comes on the appointed day and rudely lays its hand on his
shoulder. The garret and the hut, as well as the farm and the
farmhouse know the collector, the constable and the bailiff; no hovel
escapes the detestable brood. The people sow, harvest their crops,
work and undergo privation for their benefit; and, should the pennies
so painfully saved each week amount, at the end of the year to a piece
of silver, the mouth of their pouch closes over it.

IV. COLLECTIONS AND SEIZURES.-

Observe the system actually at work. It is a sort of shearing
machine, clumsy and badly put together, of which the action is about
as mischievous as it is serviceable. The worst feature is that, with
its creaking gear, the taxable, those employed as its final
instruments, are equally shorn and flayed. Each parish contains two,
three, five, or seven individuals who, under the title of collectors,
and under the authority of the election tribunal, apportion and assess
the taxes. "No duty is more onerous;"[16] everybody, through patronage
or favor, tries to get rid of it. The communities are constantly
pleading against the refractory, and, that nobody may escape under the
pretext of ignorance, the table of future collectors is made up for
ten and fifteen years in advance. In parishes of the second class
these consist of "small proprietors, each of whom becomes a collector
about every six years." In many of the villages the artisans, day-
laborers, and métayer-farmers perform the service, although requiring
all their time to earn their own living. In Auvergne, where the able-
bodied men expatriate themselves in winter to find work, the women are
taken;[17] in the election-district of Saint-Flour, a certain village
has four collectors in petticoats. - They are responsible for all
claims entrusted to them, their property, their furniture and their
persons; and, up to the time of Turgot, each is bound for the others.
We can judge of their risks and sufferings. In 1785,[18] in one single
district in Champagne, eighty-five are imprisoned and two hundred of
them are on the road every year. "The collector, says the provincial
assembly of Berry,[19] usually passes one-half of the day for two
years running from door to door to see delinquent tax-payers." "This
service," writes Turgot,[20] "is the despair and almost always the
ruin of those obliged to perform it; all families in easy
circumstances in a village are thus successively reduced to want." In
short, there is no collector who is not forced to act and who has not
each year "eight or ten writs" served on him[21]. Sometimes he is
imprisoned at the expense of the parish. Sometimes proceedings are
instituted against him and the tax-contributors by the installation of
" 'blue men' and seizures, seizures under arrest, seizures in
execution and sales of furniture." "In the single district of
Villefranche," says the provincial Assembly of Haute-Guyenne, "a
hundred and six warrant officers and other agents of the bailiff are
counted always on the road."

The thing becomes customary and the parish suffers in vain, for it
would suffer yet more were it to do otherwise. " Near Aurillac," says
the Marquis de Mirabeau,[22] "there is industry, application and
economy without which there would be only misery and want. This
produces a people equally divided into being , on the one hand,
insolvent and poor and on the other hand shameful and rich, the latter
who, for fear of being fined, create the impoverished. The taille once
assessed, everybody groans and complains and nobody pays it. The term
having expired, at the hour and minute, constraint begins, the
collectors, although able, taking no trouble to arrest this by making
a settlement, notwithstanding the installation of the bailiff's men is
costly. But this kind of expense is habitual and people expect it
instead of fearing it, for, if it were less rigorous, they would be
sure to be additionally burdened the following year." The receiver,
indeed, who pays the bailiff's officers a franc a day, makes them pay
two francs and appropriates the difference. Hence "if certain parishes
venture to pay promptly, without awaiting constraint, the receiver,
who sees himself deprived of the best portion of his gains, becomes
ill-humored, and, at the next department (meeting), an arrangement is
made between himself, messieurs the elected, the sub-delegate and
other shavers of this species, for the parish to bear a double load,
to teach it how to behave itself."

A population of administrative blood-suckers thus lives on the
peasant. "Lately," says an intendant, "in the district of
Romorantin,[23] the collectors received nothing from a sale of
furniture amounting to six hundred livres, because the proceeds were
absorbed by the expenses. In the district of Chateaudun the same thing
occurred at a sale amounting to nine hundred livres and there are
other transactions of the same kind of which we have no information,
however flagrant." Besides this, the fisc itself is pitiless. The same
intendant writes, in 1784, a year of famine:[24] "People have seen,
with horror, the collector, in the country, disputing with heads of
families over the costs of a sale of furniture which had been
appropriated to stopping their children's cry of want." Were the
collectors not to make seizures they would themselves be seized. Urged
on by the receiver we see them, in the documents, soliciting,
prosecuting and persecuting the tax-payers. Every Sunday and every
fête-day they are posted at the church door to warn delinquents; and
then, during the week they go from door to door to obtain their dues.
"Commonly they cannot write, and take a scribe with them." Out of six
hundred and six traversing the district of Saint-Flour not ten of them
are able to read the official summons and sign a receipt; hence
innumerable mistakes and frauds. Besides a scribe they take along the
bailiff's subordinates, persons of the lowest class, laborers without
work, conscious of being hated and who act accordingly. "Whatever
orders may be given them not to take anything, not to make the
inhabitants feed them, or to enter taverns with collectors," habit is
too strong "and the abuse continues."[25] But, burdensome as the
bailiff's men may be, care is taken not to evade them. In this
respect, writes an intendant, " their obduracy is strange." " No
person," a receiver reports,[26] "pays the collector until he sees the
bailiff's man in his house." The peasant resembles his ass, refusing
to go without being beaten, and, although in this he may appear
stupid, he is clever. For the collector, being responsible, "naturally
inclines to an increase of the assessment on prompt payers to the
advantage of the negligent. Hence the prompt payer becomes, in his
turn, negligent and, although with money in his chest, he allows the
process to go on."[27] Summing all up, he calculates that the process,
even if expensive, costs less than extra taxation, and of the two
evils he chooses the least. He has but one resource against the
collector and receiver, his simulated or actual poverty, voluntary or
involuntary. "Every one subject to the taille," says, again, the
provincial assembly of Berry, "dreads to expose his resources; he
avoids any display of these in his furniture, in his dress, in his
food, and in everything open to another's observation." - "M. de
Choiseul-Gouffier,[28] willing to roof his peasants' houses, liable to
take fire, with tiles, they thanked him for his kindness but begged
him to leave them as they were, telling him that if these were covered
with tiles, instead of with thatch, the subdelegates would increase
their taxation." - "People work, but merely to satisfy their prime
necessities. . . . The fear of paying an extra crown makes an average
man neglect a profit of four times the amount."[29] - ". . .
Accordingly, lean cattle, poor implements, and bad manure-heaps even
among those who might have been better off."[30] - " If I earned any
more," says a peasant, "it would be for the collector." Annual and
illimitable spoliation "takes away even the desire for comforts." The
majority, pusillanimous, distrustful, stupefied, "debased," "differing
little from the old serfs,[31]" resemble Egyptian fellahs and Hindoo
pariahs. The fisc, indeed, through the absolutism and enormity of its
claims, renders property of all kinds precarious, every acquisition
vain, every accumulation delusive; in fact, proprietors are owners
only of that which they can hide.