The Eve of the French Revolution by Edward J. Lowell

Author:Edward J. Lowell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, the french revolution, 18th century, france, europe, european, historical
ISBN: 9781781668351
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2012
Published: 2012-06-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XIV.

TAXATION.[Footnote: "I must again remark that clear accounts are not to be looked for in the complex mountain of French finances." A. Young, i. 578. Young reckons the revenue at the entire command of Louis XVI. at 680,664,943 livres, i. 575. See also Stourm, ii. 182.]

The gross amount paid in taxes by the French nation before the Revolution will never be accurately known; the subject is too vast and complicated, and the accounts were too loosely kept. Necker in his work on the "Administration of the Finances" reckons the sum annually paid by the people at five hundred and eighty-five million livres. Bailly (whose book appeared in 1830 and has not been superseded) makes the gross amount eight hundred and eighty millions. But from this should be deducted feudal dues and fees for membership of trade guilds, which Bailly includes in his estimate, and which were certainly private property, however objectionable in their character. There will remain less than eight hundred and thirty-seven million livres as the amount paid by about twenty-six million Frenchmen, in general and local taxation, including tithes; an average of about thirty-two livres a head. Was this amount excessive? Probably not, if the load had been rightly distributed. If we allow the franc of to-day one half of the purchasing power of the livre of 1789, the modern Frenchman yet pays more than his great-grandfather did. But there can be little doubt that he pays it more easily to himself. In the eighteenth century the Englishman was probably better off than his French neighbor, but his advantage was not undoubted. Grenville, in 1769, speaks of the comparative lightness of taxes and cheapness of living which, he says, must make France an asylum for British manufacturers and artificers. Young, twenty years later, asserts that the taxes in England are much more than double those in France, but more easily borne. Necker says that England bears as large a burden of taxation as France, in spite of a smaller number of inhabitants and a less amount of money in circulation; but bears it more readily because it is better distributed. And Chastellux, while arriving at a similar conclusion, remarks that after all the French is, of all nations, the one that suffers most from taxation.[Footnote: Necker, De l'Administration, i. 35, 51. Bailly, ii. 275. Grenville, The Present State of the Nation, 35; but this statement is made in a political pamphlet, answered and apparently refuted by Burke, Observations on a Late State of the Nation. A. Young, i. 596. Chastellux, ii. 169. For 1891 the average taxation per head amounts to 86 francs, for 1789 to 34 livres, Statesman's Year Book, 1891, p. 472, and Bailly.]

Under the old monarchy the taxes were unequally assessed in two ways. There were differences of places and differences of persons. This is pretty sure to be true of all countries, but in France the differences were very large and were not sanctioned by the popular conscience. In a country which had

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