Brittany had her own revenues, which served to meet her expenditure: the "great due" and the "petty due," which were laid on liquor and the liquor traffic, produced two millions a year; and then there were the sums raised by hearth-money. One little suspects the important part played by hearth-money in our history; yet it was to the French Revolution what the stamp-duties were to the Revolution in America.
Hearth-money or fouage (census pro singulis focis exactus) was a quit-rent, or a sort of villain tax, charged upon the goods of the commonalty for each hearth. This hearth-money, which was gradually increased, went to pay the debts of the province. In time of war, the expenditure amounted to more than seven millions from one session to the next, a sum which exceeded the receipts. A plan had been proposed to create a capital out of the funds provided by hearth-money and to turn it into stock for the benefit of the payers of hearth-money: in this way the tax became only a loan. The injustice (although it was an injustice made legal by the wording of the customary law) lay in making it bear upon the property of the commonalty alone. The commons never ceased protesting; the nobles, who set less store by their money than by their privileges, would not hear of a duty which would have made them liable to a villain-tax. This was the question when the States of Brittany, that were to prove so bloody, came together in December 1788.
Men's minds were at that time excited by various causes: the assembly of the Notables, the territorial impost, the traffic in corn, the approaching sittings of the States-General and the affair of the Necklace, the Plenary Court and the Mariage de Figaro, the grand bailiwicks and Cagliostro[286] and Mesmer[287], a thousand other serious and trivial matters formed subjects of controversy in every family.
The Breton nobles.
The Breton nobility had, at its own instance, assembled at Rennes to protest against the establishment of the Plenary Court. I went to this diet: it was the first political meeting I ever attended. I was bewildered and amused by the cries I heard. The members climbed on the tables and chairs; they gesticulated, and all spoke at one time. The Marquis de Trémargat[288], who had a wooden leg, shouted in stentorian tones:
"Let us all go to the Commandant, M. de Thiard[289]; we will say to him, 'The nobles of Brittany are at your door; they ask to speak to you; the King himself would not deny them!'"
At this outburst of eloquence, the cheers shook the rafters. He commenced again:
"The King himself would not deny them!"
The shouts and stamping redoubled. We went to M. le Comte de Thiard, a man of the Court, an erotic poet, a gentle and frivolous spirit, mortally bored by our uproar; he looked upon us as so many hou-hous, wild-boars, wild beasts; he was burning to be gone from our Armorica, and had not the slightest desire to deny us the entrance to his house. Our spokesman told him what he wanted, after which we went back and drew up the following declaration: