everal years; all beverages sold in towns were taxed,
and from four to six deniers in the pound were levied upon the value of
all merchandise sold in any part of the kingdom. The salt tax, which
Philippe le Bel had established, and which his successor, Louis X.,
immediately abolished at the unanimous wish of the people, was again
levied by Philip VI., and this king, having caused the salt produced in
his domains to be sold, "gave great offence to all classes of the
community." It was on account of this that Edward III., King of England,
facetiously called him the author of the _Salic_ law. Philippe de Valois,
when he first ascended the throne, coined his money according to the
standard weight of St. Louis, but in a short time he more or less alloyed
it. This he did secretly, in order to be able to withdraw the pieces of
full weight from circulation and to replace them with others having less
pure metal in them, and whose weight was made up by an extra amount of
alloy. In this dishonest way a considerable sum was added to the coffers
of the state.

King John, on succeeding his father in 1350, found the treasury empty and
the resources of the kingdom exhausted. He was nevertheless obliged to
provide means to continue the war against the English, who continually
harassed the French on their own territory. The tax on merchandise not
being sufficient for this war, the payment of public debts contracted by
the government was suspended, and the State was thus obliged to admit its
insolvency. The mint taxes, called _seigneuriage_, were pushed to the
utmost limits, and the King levied them on the new coin, which he
increased at will by largely alloying the gold with base metals. The
duties on exported and imported goods were increased, notwithstanding the
complaints that commerce was declining. These financial expedients would
not have been tolerated by the people had not the King taken the
precaution to have them approved by the States-General of the provincial
states, which he annually assembled. In 1355 the States-General were
convoked, and the King, who had to maintain thirty thousand soldiers,
asked them to provide for this annual expenditure, estimated at 5,000,000
_livres parisis_, about 300,000,000 francs of present currency. The
States-General, animated by a generous feeling of patriotism, "ordered a
tax of eight deniers in the pound on the sale and transfer of all goods
and articles of merchandise, with the exception of