p becomes additional pay
for the father; thus, the two millions which the state seems, under this
head, to assign to the _lycees,_ are actually gratifications which it
distributes among its functionaries and officials. It takes back with
one hand what it bestows with the other.

This being granted, it organises the university and maintains it, not at
its own expense, however, but at the expense of others, at the expense
of private persons and parents, of the communes, and, above all, at the
expense of rival schools and private boarding-schools, of the free
institutions, and all this in favour of the university monopoly which
subjects these to special taxation as ingenious as it is multifarious.
Whoever is privileged to carry on a private school, must pay from two to
three hundred francs to the university; likewise, every person obtaining
permission to lecture on literature or on science.

_III.--The New Taxation, Fiscal and Bodily_

Now, as to taxes. The collection of a direct tax is a surgical operation
performed on the taxpayer, one which removes a piece of his substance;
he suffers on account of this, and submits to it only because he is
obliged to. If the operation is performed on him by other hands, he
submits to it voluntarily or not; but if he has to do it himself,
spontaneously and with his own hands, it is not to be thought of. On the
other hand, the collection of a direct tax according to the
prescriptions of distributive justice is a subjection of each taxpayer
to an amputation proportionate to his bulk, or at least to his surface;
this requires delicate calculation and is not to be entrusted to the
patients themselves; for not only are they surgical novices and poor
calculators, but, again, they are interested in calculating falsely.

To this end, Napoleon establishes two divisions of direct taxation: one,
the real-estate tax, which has no bearing on the taxpayer without any
property; and the other the personal tax, which does affect him, but
lightly. Such a system favours the poor; in other words, it is an
infraction of the principle of distributive justice; through the almost
complete exemption of those who have no property, the burden of direct
taxation falls almost entirely on those who own property. If they are
manufacturers, or in commerce, they support still another burden, that
of the license tax, which is a supplementary impost proportioned to
their probable gains. Finally, to all these annua