[Sidenote: Royal Revenue]
The amount of money required by the king would have made taxes very heavy anyway, but bad methods of assessment and collection added to the burden. The royal revenue was derived chiefly from three sources: the royal domains, the direct taxes, and the indirect taxes. From the royal domains, the lands of which the king was landlord as well as sovereign, a considerable but ever-diminishing income was derived.
[Sidenote: Direct Taxes]
[Sidenote: The Income Tax]
[Sidenote: The Poll Tax]
The direct taxes were the prop of the treasury, for they could be increased to meet the demand, at least as long as the people would pay. There were three direct taxes—the taille, the capitation, and the vingtième. The vingtième, or "twentieth," was a tax on incomes5 per cent [Footnote: Five per cent in theory; in practice in the reign of Louis XVI it was 11 per cent] on the salary of the judge, on the rents of the noble, on the earning of the artisan, on the produce of the peasant. The clergy were entirely exempted from this tax; the more influential nobles and bourgeois contrived to have their incomes underestimated, and the burden fell heaviest on the poorer classes. Capitation was a general poll or head tax, varying in amount according to whichever of twenty-two classes claimed the individual taxpayer. Maid-servants, for example, paid annually three livres and twelve sous. [Footnote: A livre was worth about a franc (20 cents) and a sou was equivalent to one cent.]
[Sidenote: The Taille or Land Tax]
The most important and hated direct tax was the taille or land tax,—practically a tax on peasants alone. The total amount to be raised was apportioned among the intendants by the Royal Council, and by the intendants among the villages of their respective districts. At the village assembly collectors were elected, who were thereby authorized to demand from each villager a share of the tax, according to his ability to pay. As a result of this method, each villager tried to appear poor so as to be taxed lightly; whole villages looked run- down in order to be held for only a small share; and influential politicians often obtained alleviation for parts of the country.
[Sidenote: Indirect Taxes]
[Sidenote: "Tax Farming">[
The indirect taxes were not so heavy, but they were bitterly detested. There were taxes on alcohol, metal-ware, cards, paper, and starch, but most disliked of all was that on salt (the gabelle). Every person above seven years of age was supposed annually to buy from the government salt-works seven pounds of salt at about ten times its real value. [Footnote: It should be understood, of course, that the gabelle was higher and more burdensome in some provinces than in others.] Only government agents could legally sell salt, and smugglers were fined heavily or sent to the galleys. These indirect taxes were usually "farmed out," that is, in return for a lump sum the government would grant to a company of speculators the right to collect what they could. These speculators were called "farmers-general,"—France could be called their farm [Footnote: Etymologically, the French word for farm (ferme) was not necessarily connected with agriculture, but signified a fixed sum (firma) paid for a certain privilege, such as that of collecting a tax.] and money its produce. And they farmed well. After paying the government, the "farmers" still had millions of francs to distribute as bribes or as presents to great personages or to retain for themselves. Thus, millions were lost to the treasury.
[Sidenote: The Burden of Taxation]
Taxes could not always be raised to cover emergencies, nor collected so wastefully. The peasants of France were crushed by feudal dues, tithes, and royal taxes. The bourgeoisie were angered by the income tax, by the indirect taxes, by the tolls and internal customs, and by the monopolistic privileges which the king sold to his favorites. How long the unprivileged classes would bear the burden of taxation, while the nobles and clergy were almost free, no one could tell; but signs of discontent were too patent to be ignored.