to arrive at the
establishment everywhere of real talliages, on landed property, &c.,
instead of personal talliages, variable imposts, depending upon the
supposed means or social position of the inhabitants. He was only very
partially successful, without, however, allowing himself to be repelled
by the difficulties presented by differences of legislation and customs
in the provinces. "Perhaps," he wrote to the superintendent of Aix, in
1681, "on getting to the bottom of the matter and considering it in
detail, you will not discover in it all the impossibilities you have
pictured to yourself." Colbert died without having completed his work;
the talliages, however, had been reduced by eight millions of livres
within the first two years of his administration. "All the imposts of
the kingdom," he writes, in 1662, to the superintendent of Tours, who is
complaining of the destitution of the people, "are, as regards the
talliages, but about thirty-seven millions, and, for forty or fifty years
past, they have always been between forty and fifty millions, except
after the peace, when his Majesty reduced them to thirty-two,
thirty-three, and thirty-four millions."

Peace was of short duration in the reign of Louis XIV., and often so
precarious that it did not permit of disarmament. At the very period
when the able minister was trying to make the people feel the importance
of the diminution in the talliages, he wrote to the king, "I entreat your
Majesty to read these few lines attentively. I confess to your Majesty
that the last time you were graciously pleased to speak to me about the
state of the finances, my respect, the boundless desire I have always had
to please you and serve you to your satisfaction, without making any
difficulty or causing any hitch, and still more your natural eloquence
which succeeds in bringing conviction of whatever you please, deprived me
of courage to insist and dwell somewhat upon the condition of your
finances, for the which I see no other remedy but increase of receipts
and decrease of expenses; wherefore, though this is no concern at all of
mine, I merely entreat your Majesty to permit me to say that in war as
well as in peace you have never consulted your finances for the purpose
of determining your expenditure, which is a thing so extraordinary that
assuredly there is no example thereof. For the past twenty years during
which I have had the honor of serving your Majesty, though the recei