The liability to the taille was joint. A gross sum was laid on the parish, and if one person escaped, or was unable to pay, his share had to be borne by the rest. On the other hand, if one man were overcharged, the burden of his neighbors was lightened. Thus it was every one's interest to seem poor. And the taxes were so important a matter, taking so large a part of the yearly income, that they modified the whole conduct of life. People dared not appear at their ease, lest their shares should be increased. They hid their wealth and took their luxuries in secret. One day, Jean Jacques Rousseau, traveling on foot, as was his wont, entered a solitary farm-house, and asked for a meal. A pot of skimmed milk and some coarse barley bread were set before him, the peasant who lived in the house saying that this was all he had. After a while, however, the man took courage on observing the manners and the appetite of his guest. Telling Rousseau that he was sure he was a good, honest fellow, and no spy, he disappeared through a trap-door, and presently came back with good wheaten bread, a little dark with bran, a ham, and a bottle of wine. An omelet was soon sizzling in the dish. When the time came for Rousseau to pay and depart, the peasant's fears returned. He refused money, he was evidently distressed. Rousseau made out that the bread and the wine were hidden for fear of the tax-gatherer; that the man believed he would be ruined, if he were known to have anything. [Footnote: Rousseau, xvii. 281 (Confessions, Part i. liv. iv.). Vauban, 51, and passim. Bois-Guillebert, 191.]
As it was for the advantage of individuals to be thought poor, so it was best for villages to appear squalid. The Marquis of Argenson writes in his journal: "An officer of the élection has come into the village where my country-house is, and has said that the taille of the parish would be much raised this year; he had noticed that the peasants looked fatter than elsewhere, had seen hens' feathers lying about the doors, that people were living well and were comfortable, that I spent a great deal of money in the village for my household expenses, etc. This is what discourages the peasants. This is what causes the misfortunes of the kingdom. This is what Henry IV. would weep over were he living now." [Footnote: D'Argenson, vi. 256 (Sept. 12, 1750). See also vi. 425, vii. 55, viii. 8, 35, 53.]
The country people had grown to be very distrustful and suspicious wherever officials of the government were concerned. "I remember a singular feature of this subject," says Necker. "I think it was twenty years ago that an intendant, with the laudable intention of encouraging the manufacture of honey and the cultivation of bees, began by asking for statistics as to the number of hives kept in the province. The people did not understand his intentions, they were, perhaps, suspicious of them, and in a few days almost all the hives were destroyed." [Footnote: De l'Administration, iii. 232.]
No one could be induced to pay promptly, lest he should be thought to have money. The tax was due in four payments, from the first of October to the last of April, but the collection of one instalment was seldom completed before the following one was due; that of one year seldom made before the next had come. The peasants obliged the collectors to wring out the hard-earned copper pieces one or two at a time. The tardy were vexed with fines and distraints. Furniture, doors, the very rafters and floors were sold for unpaid taxes. In the time of Louis XV., if a whole village fell too much behindhand, its four principal inhabitants might be seized and carried off to jail. This corporal joint-liability was ended by a law passed under the ministry of Turgot, and apparently not repealed on his fall.[Footnote: Horn, 238; Vauban; Bailly, ii. 203; Stourm, i. 52; Turgot, vii. 119.]
The assessment and collection of the taille presented many anomalies. In some places commissioners had been appointed by the intendant, for the purpose of assessing estates and of reckoning the value of day's labor of artisans. This method worked well and gave satisfaction, but it extended only to a few provinces.[Footnote: Babeau, Le Village, 214.]
From the land tax we pass to the Twentieths (vingtièmes [Footnote: Not to be confounded with the Droit de vingtième, an indirect tax on wine. Kaufmann, 33. Notice that the two vingtièmes are constantly spoken of as the dixième.]), which, as their name implies, were in theory taxes of five per cent. on incomes. From these the clergy only were freed (having bought of the crown a perpetual exemption). Two twentieths and four sous in the livre of the first twentieth, or eleven per cent., was the regular rate in the reign of Louis XVI., and was expected to bring in from fifty-five to sixty million livres a year. A third twentieth was laid in 1782, to last for three years after the end of the war of the American Revolution, then in progress. This twentieth brought in twenty-one and a half millions only, on account of various exemptions that were allowed. The liability to the twentieths was not joint but individual; so that when a deduction was made from the amount charged to one tax-payer, the sum demanded of the others was not increased.
An attempt was made to levy the twentieths on the various sorts of income. The product of agriculture paid the largest part, but a percentage was retained on salaries and pensions paid by the government, and the incomes of public officers receiving fees was estimated. In spite of the desire to include every income in the operation of this tax, it was generally believed that valuations were habitually made too low, and that unfair discrimination took place. The inhabitants of some provinces, on the other hand, were thought to be overcharged. Attempts at rectification were resisted by the courts of law, the doctrine being asserted that the valuation of a man's income for the purposes of this tax could not legally be increased. It is instructive to compare the interest thus shown in the rights of the upper classes, who shared in the payment of the twentieths, with the indifference manifested to the arbitrary manner in which the common people were treated in levying the Land Tax.[Footnote: Necker reckons the two vingtièmes and four sous at 55,000,000 livres. De l'Administration, i. 5, 6. Compte rendu, 61. Ibid., Mémoire au roi sur l'establissement des administrations provinciales, 25. Necker abolished the vingtième d'industrie applied to manufactures and commerce. Compte rendu, 64. In his later book he speaks of it as subsisting in a few provinces only. De l'Administration, i. 159. Turgot, iv. 289. Stourm, i. 54.]
The poll tax (capitation) was one only in name. It was in fact a roughly reckoned income tax, and the inhabitants of France were for its purposes divided into twenty-two classes, according to their supposed ability to pay. In the country, the amount demanded for this tax was usually proportioned to that of the personal taille. People who paid no taille were assessed according to their public office, military rank, business, or profession. The rules were complicated, giving rise to endless disputes. In theory the very poor were exempt, but the exemption was not very generous, for maid-servants were charged at the rate of three livres and twelve sous a year, and there were yet poorer people who paid less than half that amount. If the poor man failed to pay, a garrison (garnison) was lodged upon him. A man in blue, with a gun, came and sat by his fire, slept in his bed, and laid hands on any money that might come into the house, thus collecting the tax and his own wages. The amount levied by the poll-tax and accessories was from thirty-six to forty-two million livres a year.[Footnote: Bailly, ii. 307. Necker, De l'Administration, i. 8. Mercier, iii. 98, xi. 96. Mercier thinks that the capitation was more feared than the dixième, and than the entrées, because it attached more directly to the individual and to his person. Does this mean greater severity in collection? Notice that he writes of Paris, where there is no taille.]
The indirect taxes of France were mostly farmed. Once in six years the Controller General of the Finances for the time being entered into a contract, nominally with a man of straw, but actually with a body of rich financiers, who appeared as the man's sureties, and who were known as the Farmers General. The first operation of the Farmers, after entering into the contract, was to raise a capital sum for the purpose of buying out their predecessors, of taking over the material on hand, and of paying an advance to the government; for although many individual Farmers General held over from one contract to the next, the association was a new one for each lease. In 1774, just before the death of King Louis XV., a new contract was made, and the capital advanced amounted to 93,600,000 livres. The Farmers were allowed interest on this sum at the rate of ten per cent. for the first sixty millions, and of seven per cent. for the remaining 33,600,000 livres. This interest was, however, taxed by the government for the two twentieths.
The rent paid by the Farmers under this contract was 152,000,000 livres a year, for which consideration they were allowed to collect the indirect taxes and keep the product. This system, which is at least as old as the New Testament, is now generally condemned, but in the eighteenth century it found defenders even among liberal writers.