The Ancient Regime. Taine Hippolyte

Such is the total or partial exemption from taxation. The tax-collectors halt in their presence because the king well knows that feudal property has the same origin as his own; if royalty is one privilege seigniory is another; the king himself is simply the most privileged among the privileged. The most absolute, the most infatuated with his rights, Louis XIV, entertained scruples when extreme necessity compelled him to enforce on everybody the tax of the tenth.1212 Treaties, precedents, immemorial custom, reminiscences of ancient rights again restrain the fiscal hand. The clearer the resemblance of the proprietor to the ancient independent sovereign the greater his immunity.—In some places a recent treaty guarantees him by his position as a stranger, by his almost royal extraction. "In Alsace foreign princes in possession, with the Teutonic order and the order of Malta, enjoy exemption from all real and personal contributions." "In Lorraine the chapter of Remiremont has the privilege of assessing itself in all state impositions."1213 Elsewhere he is protected by the maintenance of the provincial Assemblies, and through the incorporation of the nobility with the soil: in Languedoc and in Brittany the commoners alone paid the taille1214—Everywhere else his quality preserved him from it, him, his chateau and the chateau's dependencies; the taille reaches him only through his farmers. And better still, it is sufficient that he himself should work, or his steward, to communicate to the land his original independence. As soon as he touches the soil, either personally or through his agent, he exempts four plowing-areas (quatre charrues), three hundred arpents,1215 which in other hands would pay 2,000 francs tax. Besides this he is exempt on "the woods, the meadows, the vines, the ponds and the enclosed land belonging to the chateau, of whatever extent it may be." Consequently, in Limousin and elsewhere, in regions principally devoted to pasturage or to vineyards, he takes care to manage himself, or to have managed, a certain portion of his domain; in this way he exempts it from the tax collector.1216 There is yet more. In Alsace, through an express covenant he does not pay a cent of tax. Thus, after the assaults of four hundred and fifty years, taxation, the first of fiscal instrumentalities, the most burdensome of all, leaves feudal property almost intact.1217—For the last century, two new tools, the capitation-tax and the vingtièmes, appear more effective, and yet are but little more so.—First of all, through a masterstroke of ecclesiastical diplomacy, the clergy diverts or weakens the blow. As it is an organization, holding assemblies, it is able to negotiate with the king and buy itself off. To avoid being taxed by others it taxes itself. It makes it appear that its payments are not compulsory contributions, but a "free gift." It obtains then in exchange a mass of concessions, is able to diminish this gift, sometimes not to make it, in any event to reduce it to sixteen millions every five years, that is to say to a little more than three millions per annum. In 1788 it is only 1,800,000 livres, and in 1789 it is refused altogether.1218 And still better: as it borrows to provide for this tax, and as the décimes which it raises on its property do not suffice to reduce the capital and meet the interest on its debt, it has the adroitness to secure, besides, a grant from the king. Out of the royal treasury, each year, it receives 2,500,000 livres, so that, instead of paying, it receives. In 1787 it receives in this way 1,500,000 livres. As for the nobles, they, being unable to combine together, to have representatives, and to act in a public way, operate instead in a private way. They contact ministers, intendants, sub-delegates, farmer-generals, and all others clothed with authority, their quality securing attentions, consideration and favors. In the first place, this quality exempts themselves, their dependents, and the dependents of their dependents, from drafting in the militia, from lodging soldiers, from (la corvée) laboring on the highways. Next, the capitation being fixed according to the tax system, they pay little, because their taxation is of little account. Moreover, each one brings all his credit to bear against assessments. "Your sympathetic heart," writes one of them to the intendant, "will never allow a father of my condition to be taxed for the vingtiémes rigidly like a father of low birth."1219 On the other hand, as the taxpayer pays the capitation-tax at his actual residence, often far away from his estates, and no one having any knowledge of his personal income, he may pay whatever seems to him proper. There are no proceedings against him, if he is a noble; the greatest circumspection is used towards persons of high rank. "In the provinces," says Turgot, "the capitation-tax of the privileged classes has been successively reduced to an exceedingly small matter, whilst the capitation-tax of those who are liable to the taille is almost equal to the aggregate of that tax." And finally, "the collectors think that they are obliged to act towards them with marked consideration" even when they owe; "the result of which," says Necker, "is that very ancient, and much too large amounts, of their capitation-tax remain unpaid." Accordingly, not having been able to repel the assault of the revenue services in front they evaded it or diminished it until it became almost unobjectionable. In Champagne, on nearly 1,500,000 livres provided by the capitation-tax, they paid in only 14,000 livres," that is to say, "2 sous and 2 deniers for the same purpose which costs 12 sous per livre to those chargeable with the taille." According to Calonne, "if concessions and privileges had been suppressed the vingtièmes would have furnished double the amount." In this respect the most opulent were the most skillful in protecting themselves. "With the intendants," said the Duc d'Orleans, "I settle matters, and pay about what I please," and he calculated that the provincial administration, rigorously taxing him, would cause him to lose 300,000 livres rental. It has been proved that the princes of the blood paid, for their two-twentieths, 188,000 instead of 2,400,000 livres. In the main, in this régime, exception from taxation is the last remnant of sovereignty or, at least, of independence. The privileged person avoids or repels taxation, not merely because it despoils him, but because it belittles him; it is a mark of the commoner, that is to say, of former servitude, and he resists the fisc (the revenue services) as much through pride as through interest.

IV. Their Feudal Rights.

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These advantages are the remains of primitive sovereignty.

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Let us follow him home to his own domain. A bishop, an abbé, a chapter of the clergy, an abbess, each has one like a lay seignior; for, in former times, the monastery and the church were small governments like the county and the duchy.—Intact on the other bank of the Rhine, almost ruined in France, the feudal structure everywhere discloses the same plan. In certain places, better protected or less attacked, it has preserved all its ancient externals. At Cahors, the bishop-count of the town had the right, on solemnly officiating, "to place his helmet, cuirass, gauntlets and sword on the altar."1220 At Besançon, the archbishop-prince has six high officers, who owe him homage for their fiefs, and who attend at his coronation and at his obsequies. At Mende,1221 the bishop, seignior-suzerain for Gévaudan since the eleventh century, appoints "the courts, ordinary judges and judges of appeal, the commissaries and syndics of the country." He disposes of all the places, "municipal and judiciary." Entreated to appear in the assembly of the three orders of the province, he "replies that his place, his possessions and his rank exalting him above every individual in his diocese. He cannot sit under the presidency of any person; that, being seignior-suzerain of all estates and particularly of the baronies, he cannot give way to his vassals." In brief that he is king, or but little short of it, in his own province. At Remiremont, the noble chapter of canonesses has, "inferior, superior, and ordinary judicature in fifty-two bans of