all ordinary and
extraordinary local charges. This being subtracted, it is evident that,
in communities moderately taxed, the proprietor does not enjoy a third
of his income, and that, in the communities wronged by the assessments,
the proprietors are reduced to the status of simple farmers scarcely
able to get enough to restore the expenses of cultivation." In
Auvergne,[5208] the taille amounts to four sous on the livre net profit;
the collateral taxes and the poll-tax take off four sous three deniers
more; the vingtiemes, two sous and three deniers; the contribution to
the royal roads, to the free gift, to local charges and the cost of
levying, take again one sou one denier, the total being eleven sous and
seven deniers on the livre income, without counting seigniorial dues and
the tithe. "The bureau, moreover, recognizes with regret, that several
of the collections pay at the rate of seventeen sous, sixteen sous, and
the most moderate at the rate of fourteen sous the livre. The evidence
of this is in the bureau; it is on file in the registry of the court
of excise, and of the election-districts. It is still more apparent
in parishes where an infinite number of assessments are found, laid on
property that has been abandoned, which the collectors lease, and the
product of which is often inadequate to pay the tax." Statistics of this
kind are terribly eloquent. They may be summed up in one word. Putting
together Normandy, the Orleans region, that of Soissons, Champagne,
Ile-de-France, Berry, Poitou, Auvergne, the Lyons region, Gascony, and
Haute-Guyenne, in brief the principal election sections, we find that
out of every hundred francs of revenue the direct tax on the tax-payer
is fifty-three francs, or more than one-half[5209]. This is about five
times as much as at the present day.

III. The Common Laborer.

Four direct taxes on the common laborer.

The taxation authorities, however, in thus bearing down on taxable
property has not released the taxable person without property. In the
absence of land it seizes on men. In default of an income it taxes a
man's wages. With the exception of the vingtiemes, the preceding taxes
not only bore on those who possessed something but, again, on those who
possessed nothing. In the Toulousain[5210] at St. Pierre de Barjouville,
the poorest day-laborer, with nothing but his hands by which to earn
his support, and getting ten sous a day, pays eight, nine and ten
livres poll-