nt of a tax from which the sovereign
would derive a very trifling revenue. Such indeed might be the theory of
the Roman capitation; but in the practice, this unjust equality was no
longer felt, as the tribute was collected on the principle of a real,
not of a personal imposition. * Several indigent citizens contributed
to compose a single head, or share of taxation; while the wealthy
provincial, in proportion to his fortune, alone represented several of
those imaginary beings. In a poetical request, addressed to one of
the last and most deserving of the Roman princes who reigned in Gaul,
Sidonius Apollinaris personifies his tribute under the figure of a
triple monster, the Geryon of the Grecian fables, and entreats the new
Hercules that he would most graciously be pleased to save his life by
cutting off three of his heads. The fortune of Sidonius far exceeded the
customary wealth of a poet; but if he had pursued the allusion, he might
have painted many of the Gallic nobles with the hundred heads of the
deadly Hydra, spreading over the face of the country, and devouring
the substance of a hundred families. II. The difficulty of allowing an
annual sum of about nine pounds sterling, even for the average of the
capitation of Gaul, may be rendered more evident by the comparison of
the present state of the same country, as it is now governed by the
absolute monarch of an industrious, wealthy, and affectionate people.
The taxes of France cannot be magnified, either by fear or by flattery,
beyond the annual amount of eighteen millions sterling, which ought
perhaps to be shared among four and twenty millions of inhabitants.
Seven millions of these, in the capacity of fathers, or brothers, or
husbands, may discharge the obligations of the remaining multitude of
women and children; yet the equal proportion of each tributary subject
will scarcely rise above fifty shillings of our money, instead of
a proportion almost four times as considerable, which was regularly
imposed on their Gallic ancestors. The reason of this difference may
be found, not so much in the relative scarcity or plenty of gold and
silver, as in the different state of society, in ancient Gaul and in
modern France. In a country where personal freedom is the privilege
of every subject, the whole mass of taxes, whether they are levied on
property or on consumption, may be fairly divided among the whole body
of the nation. But the far greater part of the lands of ancien