[Fig. 250.]--Carpenters.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the "Chroniques de Hainaut," Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the Burgundy Library, Brussels.

We have frequently mentioned in the course of this volume the political part played by the corporations during the Middle Ages. We know the active and important part taken by trades of all descriptions, in France in the great movement of the formation of communities. The spirit of fraternal association which constituted the strength of the corporations ([Fig. 251]), and which exhibited itself so conspicuously in every act of their public and private life, resisted during several centuries the individual and collective attacks made on it by craftsmen themselves. These rich and powerful corporations began to decline from the moment they ceased to be united, and they were dissolved by law at the beginning of the revolution of 1789, an act which necessarily dealt a heavy blow to industry and commerce.

[Fig. 251.]--Painting commemorative of the Union of the Merchants of Rouen at the End of the Seventeenth Century.

[Fig. 252.]--Banner of the Drapers of Caen.

Taxes, Money, and Finance.

Taxes under the Roman Rule.--Money Exactions of the Merovingian Kings.--Varieties of Money.--Financial Laws under Charlemagne.--Missi Dominici.--Increase of Taxes owing to the Crusades.--Organization of Finances by Louis IX.--Extortions of Philip le Bel.--Pecuniary Embarrassaient of his Successors.--Charles V. re-establishes Order in Finances.--Disasters of France under Charles VI., Charles VII., and Jacques Coeur.--Changes in Taxation from Louis XI. to Francis I.--The great Financiers.--Florimond Robertet.

f we believe Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War, the Gauls were groaning in his time under the pressure of taxation, and struggled hard to remove it. Rome lightened their burden; but the fiscal system of the metropolis imperceptibly took root in all the Roman provinces. There was an arbitrary personal tax, called the poll tax, and a land tax which was named cens, calculated according to the area of the holding. Besides these, there were taxes on articles of consumption, on salt, on the import and export of all articles of merchandise, on sales by auction; also on marriages, on burials, and on houses. There were also legacy and succession duties, and taxes on slaves, according to their number. Tolls on highways were also created; and the treasury went so far as to tax the hearth. Hence the origin of the name, feu, which was afterwards applied to each household or family group assembled in the same house or sitting before the same fire. A number of other taxes sprung up, called sordides, from which the nobility and the government functionaries were exempt.

[Fig. 253.]--The Extraction of Metals.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the "Cosmographie Universelle" of Munster, folio: Basle, 1552.

This ruinous system of taxation, rendered still more insupportable by the exactions of the proconsuls, and the violence of their subordinates, went on increasing down to the time of the fall of the Roman Empire. The Middle Ages gave birth to a new order of things. The municipal administration, composed in great part of Gallo-Roman citizens, did not perceptibly deviate from the customs established for five centuries, but each invading nation by degrees introduced new habits and ideas into the countries they subdued. The Germans and Franks, having become masters of part of Gaul, established themselves on the lands which they had divided between them. The great domains, with their revenues which had belonged to the emperors, naturally became the property of the barbarian chiefs, and served to defray the expenses of their houses or their courts. These chiefs, at each general assembly of the Leudes, or great vassals, received presents of money, of arms, of horses, and of various objects of home or of foreign manufacture. For a long time these gifts were voluntary. The territorial fief, which was given to those soldlers who had deserved it by their military services, involved from the holders a personal service to the King. They had to attend him on his journeys, to follow him to war, and to defend him under all circumstances. The fief was entirely exempt from taxes. Many misdeeds--even robberies and other crimes, which were ordinarily punishable by death--were pardonable on payment of a proportionate fine, and oaths, in many cases, might be absolved in the same way. Thus a large revenue was received, which was generally divided equally between the State, the procurator fiscal, and the King.