, war tax resisters in New England have been gathering at the Woolman Hill Conference Center in Deerfield, Massachusetts.
The Greenfield Recorder is covering the conference.
’s article mentions Ruthy Woodring, Randy Kehler & Betsy Corner, Aaron Falbel, Frances Crowe, Daniel Staub, Juanita Nelson, Erik Schickendanz, and Daniel Sicken.
As Hippolyte Taine tells is, the French Revolution was a time of widespread tax resistance against every government that popped up.
Though this reads less like tax resistance against or in protest of the government and more like total contempt and disregard for the government and its supposed power to tax.
After , among the populace which attacks the Hôtel-de-Ville and besieges the bakers’ shops of Nantes, “shouts of Vive la Liberté! mingled with those of Vive le Roi! are heard.”
A few months later, around Ploërmel, the
peasants refuse to pay tithes, alleging that the memorial of their
seneschal’s court
demands their abolition. In
Alsace, after
, there is the same refusal “in many
places;” many of the communities even maintain that they will pay no more
taxes until their deputies to the
States-General shall have fixed the precise amount of the public contributions. In
Isère it is decided,
by proceedings, printed and published, that “personal dues” shall no longer
be paid, while the landowners “who are affected by this dare not prosecute in
the tribunals.” At Lyons, the
people have come to the conclusion “that all levies of taxes are to cease,”
and, on , on hearing of the meeting of the three orders, “astonished by
the illuminations and signs of public rejoicing,” they believe that the good
time has come; “they think of forcing the delivery of meat to them at four
sous the pound, and wine at the same rate. The publicans insinuate to them
the prospective abolition of
octrois,
and that, meanwhile, the King, in favour of the re-assembling of the three
orders, has granted three days’ freedom from all duties at Paris, and that
Lyons ought to enjoy the same privilege.” Upon this the crowd, rushing off to
the barriers, to the gates of Sainte-Claire and
Perrache, and to the
Guillotière bridge, burn or demolish the bureaux, destroy the registers, sack
the lodgings of the clerks, carry off the money and pillage the wine on hand
in the depôt. In the mean time a rumour has circulated all round through the
country that there is free entrance into the town for all provisions, and
during the following days the peasantry stream in with enormous files of
waggons loaded with wine and drawn by several oxen, so that, in spite of the
re-established guard, it is necessary to let them enter all day without
paying the dues; it is only on
that these can again be collected. — The same thing occurs in the southern
provinces, where the principal imposts are levied on provisions. There also
the collections are suspended in the name of public authority. At
Agde, “the people,
considering the so-called will of the King as to equality of classes, are
foolish enough to think that they are everything and can do everything;” thus
do they interpret in their own way and in their own terms the double
representation which is accorded to the
Third-Estate. They threaten the town, consequently,
with general pillage if the prices of all provisions are not reduced, and if
the duties of the province on wine, fish, and meat are not suppressed; again,
“they wish to nominate consuls who have sprung up out of their body,” and the
bishop, the lord of the manor, the mayor and the notables, against whom they
forcibly stir up the peasantry in the country, are obliged to proclaim by
sound of trumpet that their demands shall be granted. Three days afterwards
they exact a diminution of one-half of the tax on grinding, and go in quest
of the bishop who owns the mills. The prelate, who is ill, sinks down in the
street, and seats himself on a stone; they compel him forthwith to sign an
act of renunciation, and hence “his mill, valued at 15,000 livres, is reduced
to 7,500 livres.” — At
Limoux, under the pretext
of searching for grain, they enter the houses of the comptroller and tax
contractors, carry off their registers, and throw them into the water along
with the furniture of their clerks. — In
Provence it is worse; for
most unjustly, and through inconceivable imprudence, the taxes of the towns
are all levied on flour; it is therefore to this impost that the dearness of
bread is directly attributed; hence the fiscal agent becomes a manifest
enemy, and revolts on account of hunger are transformed into insurrections
against the State.
Here, again, political novelties are the spark that ignites the mass of
gunpowder; everywhere, the uprising of the people takes place on the very day
on which the electoral assembly meets; from forty to fifty riots occur in the
provinces in less than a fortnight. Popular imagination, like that of a
child, goes straight to its mark; the reforms having been announced, people
think them accomplished, and, to make sure of them, steps are at once taken
to carry them out; now that we are to have relief, let us relieve ourselves.
“This is not an isolated riot as usual,” writes the commander of the troops;
“here the faction is united and governed by uniform principles; the same
errors are diffused through all minds. The principles impressed on the people
are that the King desires equality; no more bishops or lords, no more
distinctions of rank, no tithes, and no
seignorial privileges.
Thus, these misguided people fancy that they are exercising their rights, and
obeying the will of the King.” The effect of sonorous phrases is apparent;
the people have been told that the States-General were to bring about the
“regeneration of the kingdom;” the inference is “that the date of their
assembly was to be one of an entire and absolute change of conditions and
fortunes.” Hence, “the insurrection against the nobles and the clergy is as
active as it is widespread.” “In many places it was distinctly announced that
there was a sort of war declared against landowners and property”
and “in the towns as well as in the rural districts the people persist in
declaring that they will pay nothing, neither taxes, duties, nor
debts.” — Naturally, the first assault is against the
piquet, or meal-tax. At
Aix,
Marseilles,
Toulon, and in more than
forty towns and market-villages, this is summarily abolished; at Aupt and at
Luc nothing remains of the weighing-house but the four walls; at Marseilles
the house of the slaughter-house contractor, at Brignolles that of the
director of the leather excise, are sacked: the determination is “to purge
the land of excise-men.” — This is only a beginning; bread and other
provisions must become cheap, and that without delay. At Aries, the
corporation of sailors, presided over by M. de Barras, consul, had just
elected its representatives: by way of conclusion to the meeting, they pass a
resolution insisting that M. de Barras should reduce the price of all
comestibles, and, on his refusal, they “open the window, exclaiming, ‘We hold
him, and we have only to throw him into the street for the rest to pick him
up.’ ” Compliance is inevitable. The resolution is proclaimed by the
town-criers, and at each article which is reduced in price the crowd shout,
“Vive le Roi, vive M. Barras!” — One must yield to brute force. But the
inconvenience is great; for, through the suppression of the meal-tax, the
towns have no longer a revenue; and, on the other hand, as they are obliged
to indemnify the butchers and bakers, Toulon, for instance, incurs a debt of
2,500 livres a day.
In this state of disorder, woe to those who are under suspicion of having
contributed, directly or indirectly, to the evils which the people endure! At
Toulon a demand is made for the head of the mayor, who signs the tax-list,
and of the keeper of the records; they are trodden under foot, and their
houses are ransacked.…
And then things really went to hell.
, I find a
list of thirty-six committees or municipal bodies which, within a radius of
fifty leagues around Paris, refuse to ensure the collection of taxes. One of
them tolerates the sale of contraband salt, in order not to excite a riot.
Another takes the precaution to disarm the employés in the excise department.
In a third the municipal officers were the first to provide themselves with
contraband salt and contraband tobacco. At Peronne and at Ham, the order
having come to restore the toll-houses, the people destroy the soldiers’
quarters, conduct all the employés to their homes, and order them to leave
within twenty-four hours, under penalty of death. After twenty months’
resistance Paris will end the matter by forcing the National Assembly to give
in and by obtaining the final suppression of its octroi — Of
all the creditors whose hand each one felt on his shoulders, that of the
exchequer was the heaviest, and now it is the weakest; hence this is the
first whose grasp is to be shaken off; there is none which is more heartily
detested or which receives harsher treatment. Especially against collectors
of the salt-tax, custom-house officers, and excisemen the fury is universal.
These, everywhere, [footnote: “…Discourse of a deputation from
Anjou: ‘Sixty thousand men
are armed; the harriers have been destroyed, the clerks’ horses have been
sold by auction; the employés have been told to withdraw from the province
within eight days. The inhabitants have declared that they will not pay taxes
so long as the salt-tax exists.’ ”] are in danger of their lives and are
obliged to fly. At
Falaise, in Normandy, the
people threaten to “cut to pieces the director of the excise.” At Baignes, in
Saintonge, his house is
devastated and his papers and effects are burned; they put a knife to the
throat of his son, a child six years of age, saying, “Thou must perish that
there may be no more of thy race.” For four hours the clerks are on the point
of being torn to pieces; through the entreaties of the lord of the manor, who
sees scythes and sabres aimed at his own head, they are released only on the
condition that they “abjure their employment.” — Again, for
, insurrections break out by hundreds, like a
volley of musketry, against indirect taxation. From
the
Intendant of
Champagne
reports that “the uprising is general in almost all the towns under his
generalship.” On the
Intendant of Alençon
writes that, in his province, “the royal dues will no longer be paid
anywhere.” On , M.
Necker states to the National Assembly that in the two intendants’
districts of Caen and Alençon
it has been necessary to reduce the price of salt one-half; that “in an
infinity of places” the collection of the excise is stopped or suspended;
that the smuggling of salt and tobacco is done by “convoys and by open force”
in Picardy, in
Lorraine,
and in the
Trois-Evêchés;
that the indirect tax does not come in, that the receivers-general and the
receivers of the
taille
are “at bay” and can no longer keep their engagements. The public income
diminishes from month to month; in the social body, the heart, already so
feeble, faints; deprived of the blood which no longer reaches it, it ceases
to propel to the muscles the vivifying current which restores their waste and
adds to their energy.
“All controlling power is slackened,” says Necker, “everything is a prey to
the passions of individuals.” Where is the power to constrain them and to
secure to the State its dues? The clergy, the nobles, wealthy townsmen, and
certain brave artisans and farmers, undoubtedly pay, and even sometimes give
spontaneously. But in society those who possess intelligence, who are in easy
circumstances and conscientious, form a small select class — the great mass is
egotistic, ignorant, and needy, and lets its money go only under constraint;
there is but one way to collect the taxes, and that is to extort them. From
time immemorial, direct taxes in France have been collected only by bailiffs
and seizures; which is not surprising, as they take away a full half of the
net income. Now that the peasants of each village are armed and form a band,
let the collector come and make seizures if he dare! — “Immediately after the
decree on the equality of the taxes,” writes the provincial commission of
Alsace, “the people generally refused to make any payments, until those who
were exempt and privileged should have been inscribed on the local lists.” In
many places the peasants threaten to obtain the reimbursement of their
instalments, while in others they insist that the decree should be
retrospective and that the new rate-payers should pay for the past year. “No
collector dare send an official to
distrain; none that are
sent dare fulfill their mission.” — “It is not the good bourgeois” of whom
there is any fear, “but the rabble who make the tatter and every one else
afraid of them;” resistance and disorder everywhere come from “people that
have nothing to lose.”
In Touraine, “as the
publication of the tax-rolls takes place, riots break out against the
municipal authorities; they are forced to surrender the rolls they have
drawn up, and their papers are torn up.”
As the revolutionary government consolidated power, displacing the King and
the Church, things settled down… not. Here’s how things looked
:
The fear of starvation is only the sharper form of a more general passion,
which is the desire of possession, and the determination not to give up the
possessions attained. No popular instinct had been longer, more rudely, more
universally tried under the ancient regime; and there is none which gushes
out more readily under constraint, none which requires a higher or broader
public barrier, or one more entirely constructed of solid blocks, to keep it
in check. Hence it is that this passion from the commencement breaks down or
engulfs the slight and low boundaries, the tottering embankments of crumbling
earth between which the Constitution pretends to confine it. — The first
flood sweeps away the pecuniary claims of the State, of the clergy, and of
the noblesse. The people regard them as abolished, or, at least, they
consider their debts discharged. Their idea, in relation to this, is formed
and fixed; for them it is that which constitutes the Revolution. The people
have no longer a creditor; they are determined to have none, they will pay
nobody, and first of all, they will make no further payment to the State.
On the , the day of the Federation, the population of
Issoudun, in Touraine,
solemnly convoked for the purpose, had just taken the solemn oath which was
to ensure public peace, social harmony, and respect for the law for evermore.
[footnote: “ ‘Archives Nationales,’ H, 1453. Correspondence of M. de Bercheny,
,
and
. — The same disposition lasted.
An insurrection occurred in Issoudun after
, against
the combined imposts. Seven or eight thousand vine-dressers burnt the
archives and tax-offices and dragged an employé through the streets, shouting
out at each street-lamp, ‘Let him be hung!’ The general sent to repress the
outbreak entered the town only through a capitulation; the moment he reached
the Hôtel-de-Ville a man of the Faubourg de Rome put his pruning-hook around
his neck, exclaiming, ‘No more clerks where there is nothing to do!’ ”] Here,
probably, as elsewhere, arrangements had been made for an affecting
ceremonial; there were young girls dressed in white, and learned and
impressionable magistrates were to pronounce philosophical harangues. All at
once they discover that the people gathered on the public square are provided
with clubs, scythes, and axes, and that the National Guard will not prevent
their use; on the contrary, the Guard itself is composed almost wholly of
vine-dressers and others interested in the suppression of the duties on wine,
of coopers, innkeepers, workmen, carters of casks, and others of the same
stamp, all rough fellows who have their own way of interpreting the Social
Contract. The whole mass of decrees, acts, and rhetorical flourishes which
are dispatched to them from Paris, or which emanate from the new authorities,
are not worth a half-penny tax maintained on each bottle of wine. There are
to be no more excise duties; they will only take the civic oath on this
express condition, and that very evening they hang, in effigy, their two
deputies, who “had not supported their interests” in the National Assembly. A
few months later, of all the National Guard called upon to protect the
clerks, only the commandant and two officers respond to the summons. If a
docile taxpayer happens to be found, he is not allowed to pay the dues; this
seems a defection and almost treachery. An entry of three puncheons of wine
having been made, they are stove in with stones, a portion is drunk, and the
rest taken to the barracks to debauch the soldiers; M. de Sauzay, commandant
of the “Royal Roussillon,” who was bold enough to save the clerks, is
menaced, and for this misdeed he barely escapes being hung himself. When the
municipal body is called upon to interpose and employ force, it replies that
“for so small a matter, it is not worth while to compromise the lives of the
citizens,” and the regular troops sent to the Hôtel-de-Ville are ordered by
the people not to go except with the but-ends of their muskets in the air.
Five days after this the windows of the excise office are smashed, and the
public notices are torn down; the fermentation does not subside, and M. de
Sauzay writes that a regiment would be necessary to restrain the town. At
Saint-Amand the
insurrection breaks out violently, and is only put down by violence. At
Saint-Etienne-en-Forez, Berthéas, a clerk in the excise office, falsely
accused of monopolizing grain, is fruitlessly defended by the National Guard;
he is put in prison, according to the usual custom, to save his life, and,
for greater security, the crowd insist on his being fastened by an iron
collar. But, suddenly changing its mind, it breaks upon the door and drags
him to death. Stretched on the ground, his head still moves and he raises his
hand to it, when a woman, picking up a large stone, smashes his skull. — These are not isolated occurrences. During
, the
tax offices are burnt in almost every town in the kingdom. In vain does the
National Assembly order their reconstruction, insist on the maintenance of
duties and octrois, and explain to the people the public
needs, pathetically reminding them, moreover, that the Assembly has already
given them relief; — the people prefer to relieve themselves instantly and
entirely. Whatever is consumed must no longer be taxed, either for the
benefit of the State or for that of the towns. “Entrance dues on wine and
cattle,” writes the municipality of Saint-Etienne, “scarcely amount to
anything, and our powers are inadequate for their enforcement.” At Cambrai,
two successive outbreaks compel the excise office and the magistracy of the
town to reduce the duties on beer one-half. But “the evil, at first confined
to one corner of the province, soon spreads;” the
grands
baillis of Lille, Douai, and Orchies write that “we have hardly a
bureau which has not been molested, and in which the taxes are not wholly
subject to popular discretion.” Those only pay who are disposed to do so,
and, consequently, “greater fraud could not exist.” The taxpayers, indeed,
cunningly defend themselves, and find plenty of arguments or quibbles to
avoid paying their dues. At Cambrai they allege that, as the privileged now
pay as well as the rest, the Treasury must be rich enough. At Noyon, Ham, and
Chauny, and in the surrounding parishes, the butchers, innkeepers, and
publicans combined, who have refused to pay excise duties, pick flaws in the
special decree by which the Assembly subjects them to the law, and a second
special decree is necessary to circumvent these new legists. The process at
Lyons is simpler. Here the thirty-two sections appoint commissioners; these
decide against the octroi, and request the municipal
authorities to abolish it. They must necessarily comply, for the people are
at hand and are furious. Without waiting, however, for any legal measures,
they take the authority on themselves, rush to the toll-houses and drive out
the clerks, while large quantities of provisions, which “through a singular
predestination” were waiting at the gates, come in free of duty.
The Treasury defends itself as it best can against this universally bad
disposition of the tax-payer, against these irruptions and infiltrations of
fraud; it repairs the dyke where it has been carried away, stops up the
fissures and again resumes collections. But how can these be regular and
complete in a State where the courts dare not condemn delinquents, where
public force dares not support the courts, [footnote: “ ‘Archives Nationales,’
F. 7, 3255. Letter of the Minister, , to the Directory of Rhone-et-Loirc. ‘The King is informed that,
throughout your department, and especially in the districts of Saint-Etienne
and Monthrison, license is carried to the extreme; that the judges dare not
prosecute; that in many places the municipal officers are at the head of the
disturbances; and that, in others, the National Guard do not obey
requisitions.’…] where popular favour protects the most notorious bandits and
the worst vagabonds against the tribunals and against the public powers? At
Paris, where, after eight months of impunity, proceedings are begun against
the pillagers who, on , set fire to the tax
offices, the officers of the election, “considering that their audiences have
become too tumultuous, that the thronging of the people excites uneasiness,
that threats have been uttered of a kind calculated to create reasonable
alarm,” are constrained to suspend their sittings and refer matters to the
National Assembly, while the latter, considering that “if prosecutions are
authorised in Paris it will be necessary to authorise them throughout the
kingdom,” decides that it is best “to veil the statue of the Law.” — Not only
does the Assembly veil the statue of the Law, but it takes to pieces,
remakes, and mutilates it, according to the requirements of the popular will;
and, in the matter of indirect imposts, all its decrees are forced upon it.
The outbreak against the salt impost was terrible from the beginning; sixty
thousand men in Anjou alone combined to destroy it, and the price of salt
had to be reduced from sixteen to six sous. The people, however, are not
satisfied with this. This monopoly has been the cause of so much suffering
that they are not disposed to put up with any remains of it, and are always
on the side of the smugglers against the excise officers. In
, at Béziers,
thirty-two employés, who had seized a quantity of contraband salt on the
persons of armed smugglers, are pursued by the crowd to the Hôtel-de-Ville;
the consuls decline to defend them and run away; the troops defend them, but
in vain. Five are tortured, horribly mutilated, and then hung. In
, Necker states that,
according to the returns of , the deficit in the salt-tax amounts to more than four millions
a month, “which is four-fifths of the ordinary revenue, while the tobacco
monopoly is no more respected than that of salt. At Tours, the bourgeois
militia refuse to give assistance to the employés, and “openly protect
smuggling,” “and contraband tobacco is publicly sold at the fair, under the
eyes of the municipal authorities, who dare make no opposition to it.” All
receipts, consequently, diminish at the same time. [footnote:
“Mercure de France, (sitting of ). M.
Lambert, Comptroller-General of the Finances, informs the Assembly of ‘the
obstacles which continual outbreaks, brigandage, and the maxims of anarchical
freedom impose, from one end of France to the other, on the collection of the
taxes. On one side, the people are led to believe that, if they stubbornly
refuse a tax contrary to their rights, its abolition will be secured.
Elsewhere, smuggling is openly carried on by force; the people favour it,
while the National Guards refuse to act against the nation. In other places
hatred is excited, and divisions between the troops and the overseers at the
toll-houses: the latter are massacred, the bureaus are pillaged, and the
prisons are forced open.’ — Memorial to the National Assembly by M. Necker,
.”]
, the general collections
amount to one hundred and twenty-seven millions instead of one hundred and
fifty millions; the dues and excise combined return only thirty-one, instead
of fifty millions. The streams which filled the public exchequer are more and
more obstructed by popular resistance, and under the popular pressure, the
Assembly ends by closing them entirely. In , it abolishes salt duties, internal customs-duties,
taxes on leather, on oil, on starch, and the stamp of iron. In
, it abolishes
octrois and entrance-dues in all the cities and boroughs of
the kingdom, all the excise duties and those connected with the excise,
especially all taxes which affect the manufacture, sale, or circulation of
beverages. The people have at last carried everything, and on
, the day of the application of the decree, the National Guard of
Paris parades around the walls playing patriotic airs. The cannon of the
Invalides and those on
the Pont-Neuf thunder
out as if for an important victory. There is an illumination in the evening,
there is drinking all night, a universal revel. Beer, indeed, is to be had at
three sous the pot, and wine at six sous a pint, which is a reduction of
one-half; no conquest could be more popular, since it brings intoxication
within easy reach of all topers.
The object, now, is to provide for the expenses which have been defrayed by
the suppressed octrois. In , the
octroi of Paris had produced 35,910,859 francs, of which
25,059,446 went to the State, and 10,851,413 went to the city. How is the
city going to pay for its watch, the lighting and cleaning of its streets,
and the support of its hospitals? What are the twelve hundred other cities
and boroughs going to do which are brought by the same stroke to the same
situation? What will the State do, which, in abolishing the general revenue
from all entrance-dues and excise, is suddenly deprived of two-fifths of its
revenue? — In , when
the Assembly suppressed the salt and other duties, it established in the
place of these a tax of fifty millions, to be divided between the direct
imposts and dues on entrance to the towns. Now, consequently, that the
entrance-dues are abolished, the new charge falls entirely upon the
direct imposts. Do returns come in, and will they come in? — In the face
of so many outbreaks, any indirect taxation is, certainly, difficult to
collect. Nevertheless it is not so repulsive as the other because the levies
of the State disappear in the price of the article, the hand of the Exchequer
being hidden by the hand of the dealer. The Government clerk formerly
presented himself with his stamped paper and the seller handed him the money
without much grumbling, knowing that he would soon be more than reimbursed by
his customer: the indirect tax is thus collected. Should any difficulty
arise, it is between the dealer and the taxpayer who comes to his shop to lay
in his little store; the latter grumbles, but it is at the high price which
he feels, and possibly at the seller who pockets his silver; he does not find
fault with the clerk of the Exchequer, whom he does not see and who is not
then present. In the collection of the direct tax, on the contrary, it is the
clerk himself whom he sees before him, who abstracts the precious piece of
silver. This authorised robber, moreover, gives him nothing in exchange; it
is an entire loss. On leaving the dealer’s shop he goes away with a jug of
wine, a pot of salt, or similar commodities; on leaving the tax office he has
nothing in hand but an acquittance, a miserable bit of scribbled paper. — But
now he is master in his own commune, an elector, a National Guard, mayor, the
sole authority in the use of armed force, and charged with his own taxation.
Come and ask him to unearth the buried mite on which he has set all his heart
and all his soul, the earthen pot wherein he has deposited his cherished
pieces of silver one by one, and which he has laid by for so many years at
the cost of so much misery and fasting, in the very face of the bailiff, in
spite of the prosecutions of the sub-delegate, commissioner, collector, and
clerk!
, the general returns, the
taille and its accessories, the poll-tax and “twentieths,” instead of
yielding 161,000,000 francs, yield but 28,000,000 francs in the provinces
which impose their own taxes (pays d’Etats); instead of
28,000,000 francs, the Treasury obtains but 6,000,000. On the patriotic
contribution which was to deduct one quarter of all incomes over four hundred
livres, and to levy two and a half per cent, on plate, jewels, and whatever
gold and silver each person has in reserve, the State received 9,700,000
francs. As to patriotic gifts, their total, comprising the silver buckles of
the deputies, reaches only 361,587 francs; and the closer our examination
into the particulars of these figures, the more do we see the contributions
of the villager, artisan, and former subjects of the taille
diminish. — Since ,
the privileged classes, in fact, appear in the tax-rolls, and they certainly
form the class which is best off, the most alive to general ideas and the
most truly patriotic. It is therefore probable that, of the forty-three
millions of returns from the direct imposts and from the patriotic
contribution, they have furnished the larger portion, perhaps two-thirds of
it, or even three-quarters. If this be the case, the peasant, the former
tax-payer, gave nothing or almost nothing from his pocket during the first
year of the Revolution. For instance, in regard to the patriotic
contribution, the Assembly left it to the conscience of each person to fix
his own quota; at the end of six months, consciences are found too elastic,
and the Assembly is obliged to confer this right on the municipalities. The
result is that this or that individual who taxed himself at forty-eight
livres, is taxed at a hundred and fifty; another, a cultivator, who had
offered six livres, is judged to be able to pay over one hundred. Every
regiment contains a small number of select brave men, and it is always these
who are ready to advance under fire. Every State contains a select few of
honest men who advance to meet the tax-collector. Some effective constraint
is essential in the regiment to supply those with courage who have but
little, and in the State to supply those with probity who do not possess it.
Hence, during , the patriotic contribution
furnishes but 11,000,000 livres. , out of the
forty thousand communal tax-rolls which should provide for it, there are
seven thousand which are not yet drawn up; out of 180,000,000 livres which it
ought to produce, there are 70,000,000 livres which are still due. — The
resistance of the tax-payer produces a similar deficit, and similar delays in
all branches of the national income. In , a deputy declares in the tribune that “out of thirty-six
millions of imposts which ought to be returned each month only nine have been
received.” In , a
reporter on the budget states that the receipts, which should amount to forty
or forty-eight millions a month, do not reach eleven millions and a half. On
, there remains still due
on the direct taxes of one
hundred and seventy-six millions. — It is evident that the people struggle
with all their might against the old taxes, even authorised and prolonged by
the Constituent Assembly, and all that is obtained from them is wrested from
them.
Will the people be more docile under the new taxation? The Assembly exhorts
them to be so and shows them how, with the relief they have gained and with
the patriotism they ought to possess, they can and should discharge their
dues. The people are able to do it because, having got rid of tithes, feudal
dues, the salt-tax, octrois and excise duties, they are in
a comfortable position. They should do so, because the taxation adopted is
indispensable to the State, equitable, assessed on all in proportion to their
fortune, collected and expended under rigid scrutiny, without perversion or
waste, according to precise, clear, periodical and audited accounts. No doubt
exists that, after , the date when the new
financial scheme comes into operation, each tax-payer will gladly pay as a
good citizen, and the two hundred and forty millions of the new tax on real
property, and the sixty millions of that on personal property, leaving out
the rest — registries, license, and customs duties — will flow in regularly
and easily of their own accord.
Unfortunately, before the tax-gatherer can collect the first two levies these
have to be assessed, and as there are complicated writings and formalities,
claims to settle amidst great resistance and local ignorance, the operation
is indefinitely prolonged. The personal and land-tax schedule of
is not transmitted to the departments by
the Assembly until . The
departments do not distribute it among the districts until
. It is not distributed by the districts among the communes before
.
Thus in it is not yet
distributed to the tax-payers by the communes; from which it follows that on
the budget of , the
tax-payer has paid nothing. — At last, in ,
everybody begins to receive this assessment. It would require a volume to set
forth the partiality and dissimulation of these assessments. In the first
place the office of assessor is one of danger; the municipal authorities,
whose duty it is to assign the quotas, are not comfortable in their town
quarters. Already, in , [footnote:
“ ‘Archives Nationales,’ H, 1453. Correspondence of M. de Bercheny,
, &c. — F. 7, 3226.
Letters of Chenantin, cultivator, , also of the procureur-syndic,
. — F. 7, 3202. Letter of the
Minister of Justice, Duport, . ‘The utter absence of public force in the district of Montargis
renders every operation of the Government and all execution of the laws
impossible. The arrears of taxes to be collected is here very considerable,
white all proceedings of constraint are dangerous and impossible to execute,
owing to the fears of the bailiffs, who dare not perform their duties, and
the violence of the tax-payers, on whom there is no check.’ ”] the municipal
officers of Monbazon have been threatened with death if they dared to tax
industrial pursuits on the tax-roll, and they escaped to Tours in the middle
of the night. Even at Tours, three or four hundred insurgents of the vicinity,
dragging along with them the municipal officers of three market-towns, come
and declare to the town authorities “that for all taxes they will not pay
more than forty-five sous per household.” I have already narrated how, in
, in the same department, “they kill, they
assassinate the municipal officers” who presume to publish the tax-rolls of
personal property. In Creuse, at Clugnac, the moment the clerk begins to read
the document, the women spring upon him, seize the tax-roll, and “tear it up
with countless imprecations;” the municipal council is assailed, and two
hundred persons stone its members, one of whom is thrown down, has his head
shaved, and is promenaded through the village in derision. — When the small
tax-payer defends himself in this manner, it is a warning that he must be
humoured. The assessment, accordingly, in the village councils is made
amongst a knot of cronies. Each relieves himself of the burden by shoving it
off on somebody else. “They tax the large proprietors, whom they want to make
pay the whole tax.” The noble, the old seigneur, is the most taxed, and to
such an extent that in many places his income does not suffice to pay his
quota. — In the next place they make themselves out poor, and falsify or
elude the prescriptions of the law. “In most of the municipalities, houses,
tenements, and factories are estimated according to the value of the area
they cover, and considered as land of the first class, which reduces the
quota to almost nothing.” And this fraud is not practised in the villages
alone. “Communes of eight or ten thousand souls might be cited which have
arranged matters so well amongst themselves in this respect that not a house
is to be found worth more than fifty sous.” — Last expedient of all, the
commune defers as long as it can the preparation of its tax-rolls. On
, out of 40,211, there are only 2,560 which are complete; on
, the schedules are not made out in 4,800 municipalities, and
it must be noted that all this relates to a term of administration which has
been finished for . At , there are
more than six thousand communes which have not yet begun to collect the
land-tax of , and more than fifteen thousand
communes which have not yet begun to collect the personal tax; the Treasury
and the departments have not yet received 152,000,000 francs, there being
still 222,000,000 to collect. On , there still remains due
on the same period 161,000,000 francs, “while of the 50,000,000 assessed in
, to replace the salt-tax and other
suppressed duties, only 2,000,000 have been collected. Finally, at the same
date, out of the two direct taxes of , which
should produce 300,000,000, less than 4,000,000 have been received. — It is a
maxim of the debtor that he must put off payment as long as possible. Whoever
the creditor may be, the State or a private individual, a leg or a wing may
be saved by dint of procrastination. The maxim is true, and, on this
occasion, success once more demonstrates its soundness. During
, the peasant begins to discharge a
portion of his arrears, but it is with
assignats. In
, the
assignats diminish thirty-four, forty-four, and forty-five
per cent. in value; in , forty-seven and fifty per cent.; in
, fifty-four,
sixty, and sixty-seven per cent. Thus has the old credit of the State melted
away in its hands; those who have held on to their crowns gain fifty per
cent, and more. Again, the greater their delay the more their debts diminish,
and already, on the strength of this, the way to release themselves at
half-price is found.
If some tribunal is disposed to enforce the law, it is to no purpose; it
takes the risk, either of not being allowed to give judgment, or of being
constrained to reverse its decision. At Paris the judgment prepared against
the incendiaries of the tax-offices could not be given.…
