ttentions, 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 corvee) 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 vingtiemes 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 vingtiemes 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 regime, exception from taxation is the last