the
merchant now has his turn. The latter, on sending the four casks to
the consumer--again pays seventy-five francs to the ferme. The wine
is dispatched and the ferme prescribes the roads by which it must go;
should others be taken it is confiscated, and at every step on the way
some payment must be made. "A boat laden with wine from Languedoc,[5237]
Dauphiny or Roussillon, ascending the Rhone and descending the Loire
to reach Paris, through the Briare canal, pays on the way, leaving
out charges on the Rhone, from thirty-five to forty kinds of duty, not
comprising the charges on entering Paris." It pays these "at fifteen or
sixteen places, the multiplied payments obliging the carriers to devote
twelve or fifteen days more to the passage than they otherwise would if
their duties could be paid at one bureau."--The charges on the routes
by water are particularly heavy. "From Pontarlier to Lyons there are
twenty-five or thirty tolls; from Lyons to Aigues-Mortes there are
others, so that whatever costs ten sous in Burgundy, amounts to
fifteen and eighteen sous at Lyons, and to over twenty-five sous at
Aigues-Mortes."--The wine at last reaches the barriers of the city where
it is to be drunk. Here it pays an octroi[5238] of forty-seven francs
per hogshead.--Entering Paris it goes into the tapster's or innkeeper's
cellar where it again pays from thirty to forty francs for the duty on
selling it at retail; at Rethel the duty is from fifty to sixty francs
per puncheon, Rheims gauge.--The total is exorbitant. "At Rennes,[5239]
the dues and duties on a hogshead (or barrel) of Bordeaux wine, together
with a fifth over and above the tax, local charges, eight sous per pound
and the octroi, amount to more than seventy-two livres exclusive of the
purchase money; to which must be added the expenses and duties advanced
by the Rennes merchant and which he recovers from the purchaser,
Bordeaux drayage, freight, insurance, tolls of the flood-gate, entrance
duty into the town, hospital dues, fees of gaugers, brokers and
inspectors. The total outlay for the tapster who sells a barrel of wine
amounts to two hundred livres." We may imagine whether, at this
price, the people of Rennes drink it, while these charges fall on the
wine-grower, since, if consumers do not purchase, he is unable to sell.

Accordingly, among the small growers, he is the most to be pitied;
according to the testimony of Arthur Young, wine-grower and misery are
two synonym