A miniature from the "Livre des Comptes" of the Society (Fifteenth Century).

Thus, for the year, 131,000 francs in écus d'or representing in present money about 12,000,000 francs, were appropriated to the expenses of the State, out of which the sum of 5,000 francs, equal to 275,000 francs of present money, was devoted to what we may call the Civil List.

On the death of Charles V., in 1380, his eldest son Charles, who was a minor, was put under the guardianship of his uncles, and one of these, the Duke d'Anjou, assumed the regency by force. He seized upon the royal treasury, which was concealed in the Castle of Melun, and also upon all the savings of the deceased king; and, instead of applying them to alleviate the general burden of taxation, he levied a duty for the first time on the common food of the people. Immediately there arose a general outcry of indignation, and a formidable expression of resistance was made in Paris and in the large towns. Mob orators loudly proclaimed the public rights thus trampled upon by the regent and the King's uncles; the expression of the feelings of the masses began to take the shape of open revolt, when the council of the regency made an appearance of giving way, and the new taxes were suppressed, or, at all events, partially abandoned. The success of the insurrectionary movement, however, caused increased concessions to be demanded by the people. The Jews and tax-collectors were attacked. Some of the latter were hung or assassinated, and their registers torn up; and many of the former were ill-treated and banished, notwithstanding the price they had paid for living in the kingdom.

The assembly of the States, which was summoned by the King's uncles to meet in Paris, sided with the people, and, in consequence, the regent and his brother pretended to acknowledge the justice of the claims which were made upon them in the name of the people, and, on their withdrawing the taxes, order was for a time restored. No sooner, however, was this the case than, in spite of the solemn promises made by the council of regency, the taxes were suddenly reimposed, and the right of farming them was sold to persons who exacted them in the most brutal manner. A sanguinary revolt, called that of the Maillotins, burst forth in Paris; and the capital remained for some time in the power of the people, or rather of the bourgeois, who led the mob on to act for them (1381-1382). The towns of Rouen, Rheims, Troyes, Orleans, and Blois, many places in Beauvoise, in Champagne, and in Normandy, followed the example of the Parisians, and it is impossible to say to what a length the revolt would have reached had it not been for the victory over the Flemish at Rosebecque. This victory enabled the King's uncles to re-enter Paris in 1383, and to re-establish the royal authority, at the same time making the Maillotins and their accomplices pay dearly for their conduct. The excise duties, the hearth tax, the salt tax, and various other imposts which had been abolished or suspended, were re-established; the taxes on wine, beer, and other fermented liquors was lowered; bread was taxed twelve deniers per pound, and the duty on salt was fixed at the excessive rate of twenty francs in gold--about 1,200 francs of present money--per hogshead of sixty hundredweight. Certain concessions and compromises were made exceptionally in favour of Artois, Dauphiné, Poitou, and Saintonge, in consideration of the voluntary contributions which those provinces had made.

[Fig. 283.]--Assassination of the Duke of Burgundy, John the Fearless, on the Bridge of Montereau, in 1419.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the "Chronicles" of Monstrelet, Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the Library of the Arsenal of Paris.

Emboldened by the success of their exacting and arbitrary rule, the Dukes of Anjou, Burgundy, and Berry, under pretext of requiring money for war expenses, again increased the taxes from the year 1385 to 1388; and the salt tax was raised to forty golden francs, about 24,000 francs of present money, per hogshead. The ecclesiastics paid a half décime to the King, and several décimes to the Pope, but these did not prevent a forced loan being ordered. Happily, Charles VI. about this period attained his majority, and assumed his position as king; and his uncle, the Duke of Bourbon, who was called to the direction of affairs, re-established comparative order in financial matters; but soon after the King's brother, the Duke of Orleans, seized the reins of government, and, jointly with his sister-in-law, Isabel of Bavaria, increased the taxation far beyond that imposed by the Duke d'Anjou. The Duke of Burgundy, called John the Fearless, in order to gratify his personal hatred to his cousin, Louis of Orleans, made himself the instrument of the strong popular feeling by assassinating that prince as he was returning from an entertainment. The tragical death of the Duke of Orleans no more alleviated the ills of France than did that of the Duke of Burgundy sixteen years later--for he in his turn was the victim of a conspiracy, and was assassinated on the bridge of Montereau in the presence of the Dauphin ([Fig. 283]). The marriage of Isabel of France with the young king Richard of England, the ransom of the Christian prisoners in the East, the money required by the Emperor of Constantinople to stop the invasions of the Turks into Europe, the pay of the French army, which was now permanent, each necessarily required fresh subsidies, and money had to be raised in some way or other from the French people. Distress was at its height, and though the people were groaning under oppression, they continued to pay not only the increased taxes on provisions and merchandise, and an additional general tax, but to submit to the most outrageous confiscations and robbery of the public money from the public treasuries. The State Assemblies held at Auxerre and Paris in 1412 and 1413, denounced the extravagance and maladministration of the treasurers, the generals, the excisemen, the receivers of royal dues, and of all those who took part in the direction of the finances; though they nevertheless voted the taxes, and promulgated most severe regulations with respect to their collection. To meet emergencies, which were now becoming chronic, extraordinary taxes were established, the non-payment of which involved the immediate imprisonment of the defaulter; and the debasement of the coinage, and the alienation of certain parts of the kingdom, were authorised in the name of the King, who had been insane for more than fifteen years. The incessant revolts of the bourgeois, the reappearance of the English on the soil of France, the ambitious rivalry of Queen Isabel of Bavaria leagued with the Duke of Burgundy against the Dauphin, who had been made regent, at last, in 1420, brought about the humiliating treaty of Troyes, by which Henry V., king of England, was to become king of France on the death of Charles VI.

This treaty of Troyes became the cause of, and the pretext for, a vast amount of extortion being practised upon the unfortunate inhabitants of the conquered country. Henry V., who had already made several exactions from Normandy before he had obtained by force the throne of France, did not spare the other provinces, and, whilst proclaiming his good intentions towards his future subjects, he added a new general impost, in the shape of a forced loan, to the taxes which already weighed so heavily on the people. He also issued a new coinage, maintained many of the taxes, especially those on salt and on liquors, even after he had announced his intention of abolishing them.

At the same time the Dauphin Charles, surnamed Roi de Bourges, because he had retired with his court and retinue into the centre of the kingdom (1422), was sadly in want of money. He alienated the State revenues, he levied excise duties and subsidies in the provinces which remained faithful to his cause, and he borrowed largely from those members of the Church and the nobility who manifested a generous pity for the sad destiny of the King and the monarchy. Many persons, however, instead of sacrificing themselves for their king and country, made conditions with him, taking advantage of his position. The heir to the throne was obliged in many points to give way, either to a noble whose services he bargained for, or to a town or an abbey whose aid he sought. At times he bought over influential bodies, such as universities and other corporation, by granting exemptions from, or privileges in, matters of taxation, &c. So much was this the case that it may be said that Charles VII. treated by private contract for the recovery of the inheritances of his fathers. The towns of Paris and Rouen, as well as the provinces of Brittany, Languedoc, Normandy, and Guyenne, only returned to their allegiance to the King on conditions more or less advantageous to themselves. Burgundy, Picardy, and Flanders--which were removed from the kingdom of Charles VII. at the treaty of peace of Arras in 1435--cordially adopted the financial system inaugurated by the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good.

[Fig. 284.]--The House of Jacques Coeur at Bourges, now converted into the Hôtel de Ville.

Charles VII. reconquered his kingdom by a good and wise policy as much as by arms. He, doubtless, had cause to be thankful for the valeur and devotion of his officers, but he principally owed the success of his cause to one man, namely, his treasurer, the famous Jacques Coeur, who possessed the faculty of always supplying money to his master, and at the same time of enriching himself ([Fig. 284]). Thus it was that Charles VII., whose finances had been restored by the genius of Jacques Coeur, was at last able to re-enter his capital triumphantly, to emancipate Guyenne, Normandy, and the banks of the Loire from the English yoke, to reattach to the crown a portion of its former possessions, or to open the way for their early return, to remove bold usurpers from high places in the State, and to bring about a real alleviation of those evils which his subjects had so courageously borne. He suppressed the fraud and extortion carried on under the name of justice, put a stop to the sale of offices, abolished a number of rates illegally levied, required that the receivers' accounts should be sent in biennially, and whilst regulating the taxation, he devoted its proceeds entirely to the maintenance and pay of the army. From that time taxation, once feudal and arbitrary, became a fixed royal due, which was the surest means of preventing the pillage and the excesses of the soldiery to which the country people had been subjected for many years. Important triumphs of freedom were thus obtained over the tyrannical supremacy of the great vassals; but in the midst of all this improvement we cannot but regret that the assessors, who, from the time of their creation by St. Louis, had been elected by the towns or the corporations, now became the nominees of the crown.