sors, auditors, directors, inspectors and collectors, being
good accountants, are watched by good accountants, kept to their
duties by fear, and made aware that embezzlements, lucrative under the
Directory,[3217] are punished under the Consulate.[3218] They are soon
led to consider necessity a virtue, to pride themselves inwardly on
compulsory rectitude, to imagine that they have a conscience and hence
to acquiring one, in short, to voluntarily imposing on themselves
probity and exactitude through amour-propre and honorable scruples.--For
the first time in ten years lists of taxes are prepared and their
collection begun at the beginning of the year.[3219] Previous to 1789,
the taxpayer was always in arrears, while the treasury received only
three-fifths of that which was due in the current year.[3220] After
1800, direct taxes are nearly always fully returned before the end of
the current year, and half a century later, the taxpayers, instead of
being in arrears, are often in advance.[3221] To do this work required,
before 1789, about 200,000 collectors, besides the administrative
corps,[3222] occupied one half of their time for two successive years
in running from door to door, miserable and detested, ruined by their
ruinous office, fleecers and the fleeced, and always escorted by
bailiffs and constables. Since 1800, from five thousand to six thousand
collectors, and other fiscal agents, honorable and respected, have only
to do their office-work at home and make regular rounds on given days,
in order to collect more than double the amount without any vexation and
using very little constraint. Before 1780, direct taxation brought
in about 170 millions;[3223] after the year XI, it brought in 360
millions.[3224] By the same measure, an extraordinary counter-measure,
the taxable party, especially the peasant-proprietor, the small farmer
with nobody to protect him, diametrically opposite to the privileged
class, the drudge of the monarchy, is relieved of three-fourths of his
immemorial burden.[3225] At first, through the abolition of tithes and
of feudal privileges, he gets back one-quarter of his net income, that
quarter which he paid to the seignior and to the clergy; next, through
the application of direct taxation to all lands and to all persons,
his quota is reduced one-half. Before 1789, he paid, on 100 francs net
income, 14 to the seignior, 14 to the clergy, 53 to the State, and kept
only 18 or 19 for himself. After 180