ould become the right to live comfortably and well
at the expense of an ever more productive society.]

[Footnote 4239: De Foville, pp.412, 416, 425, 455; Paul Leroy-Beaulieu,
"Traite de la science des finances," I., p.717.]

[Footnote 4240: "Statistiques financieres des communes en 1889":--3539
communes pay less than 15 common centimes; 2597 pay from 0 fr. 15 to 0
fr. 30; 9652 pay from 0 fr. 31 to 0 fr. 50; 11,095 from 0 fr. 51 to
1 franc, and 4248 over 1 franc.--Here this relates only to the common
centimes; to have the sum total of the additional local centimes of each
commune would require the addition of the department centimes, which the
statistics do not furnish.]

[Footnote 4241: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, ibid., I., pp.690, 717.]

[Footnote 4242: Ibid.: "If the personal tax were deducted from the
amount of personal and house tax combined we would find that the
assessment of the state in the product of the house tax, that is to say
the product of the tax on rentals, amounts to 41 or 42 millions, and
that the share of localities in the product of this tax surpasses that
of the state by 8 or 9 millions (Year 1877.)"]

[Footnote 4243: Between 1805 and 1900 the French franc was tied to the
gold standard. A 20 francs coin thus weighed 7,21 grams. Its price is
today in 1998 1933.--francs. Taine's figures have to be multiplied by
app. ten in order to compare with today's prices. No real comparison
can, however, be made since production per capita has multiplied by a
large factor and so have taxes.]

[Footnote 4244: "Situation financiere des department et des communes,"
published in 1889 by the Minister of the Interior. Loans and
indebtedness of the departments at the end of the fiscal year in 1886,
630,066,102 francs. Loans and indebtedness of the communes Dec. 30,
1886, 3,020,450,528 francs.]

[Footnote 4245: De Foville, p.148; Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "L'Etat moderne
et ses fonctions," p. 21.]

[Footnote 4246: During the 110 years since Taine wrote his somber
previsions the French have had to pay the same penalty as other ill
managed Democracies; Bankruptcies direct or indirect with galloping
inflation and enormous devaluations with as a consequence impoverishment
of naive depositors and credulous pension fund participants, wars for
which France was badly prepared with millions of dead and prisoners
and with occupation of France as a result. The culprits, the elected
politicians, have either died or anyhow lived out t