otion shown to him by his subjects
under these trying circumstances, returned from captivity with the solemn
intention of lightening the burdens which pressed upon them, and in
consequence be began by spontaneously reducing the enormous wages which
the tax-gatherers had hitherto received, and by abolishing the tolls on
highways. He also sold to the Jews, at a very high price, the right of
remaining in the kingdom and of exercising any trade in it, and by this
means he obtained a large sum of money. He solemnly promised never again
to debase the coin, and he endeavoured to make an equitable division of
the taxes. Unfortunately it was impossible to do without a public revenue,
and it was necessary that the royal ransom should be paid off within six
years. The people, from whom taxes might be always extorted at pleasure,
paid a good share of this, for the fifth of the three millions of _ecus
d'or_ was realised from the tax on salt, the thirteenth part from the
duty on the sale of fermented liquors, and twelve deniers per pound from
the tax on the value of all provisions sold and resold within the kingdom.
Commerce was subjected to a new tax called _imposition foraine_, a measure
most detrimental to the trade and manufactures of the country, which were
continually struggling under the pitiless oppression of the treasury.
Royal despotism was not always able to shelter itself under the sanction
of the general and provincial councils, and a few provinces, which
forcibly protested against this excise duty, were treated on the same
footing as foreign states with relation to the transit of merchandise from
them. Other provinces compounded for this tax, and in this way, owing to
the different arrangements in different places, a complicated system of
exemptions and prohibitions existed which although most prejudicial to all
industry, remained in force to a great extent until 1789.

When Charles V.--surnamed the Wise--ascended the throne in 1364, France,
ruined by the disasters of the war, by the weight of taxation, by the
reduction in her commerce, and by the want of internal security, exhibited
everywhere a picture of misery and desolation; in addition to which,
famine and various epidemics were constantly breaking out in various parts
of the kingdom. Besides this, the country was incessantly overrun by gangs
of plunderers, who called themselves _ecorcheurs, routiers, tardvenus_,
&c., and who were more dreaded by the country people