hose who might have been better
off."[5230]--"If I earned any more," says a peasant, "it would be for
the collector." Annual and illimitable spoliation "takes away even
the desire for comforts." The majority, pusillanimous, distrustful,
stupefied, "debased," "differing little from the old serfs,[5231]"
resemble Egyptian fellahs and Hindoo pariahs. The fisc, indeed, through
the absolutism and enormity of its claims, renders property of all kinds
precarious, every acquisition vain, every accumulation delusive; in
fact, proprietors are owners only of that which they can hide.

V. Indirect Taxes.

The salt-tax and the excise.

The tax-man, in every country, has two hands, one which visibly and
directly searches the coffers of tax-payers, and the other which
covertly employs the hand of an intermediary so as not to incur the
odium of fresh extortions. Here, no precaution of this kind is taken,
the claws of the latter being as visible as those of the former;
according to its structure and the complaints made of it, I am tempted
to believe it more offensive than the other.--In the first place, the
salt-tax, the excises and the customs are annually estimated and sold
to adjudicators who, purely as a business matter, make as much profit
as they can by their bargain. In relation to the tax-payer they are not
administrators but speculators; they have bought him up. He belongs to
them by the terms of their contract; they will squeeze out of him, not
merely their advances and the interest on their advances, but, again,
every possible benefit. This suffices to indicate the mode of levying
indirect taxes.--In the second place, by means of the salt-tax and the
excises, the inquisition enters each household. In the provinces where
these are levied, in Ile-de-France, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, Orleanais,
Berry, Bourbonnais, Bourgogne, Champagne, Perche, Normandy and Picardy,
salt costs thirteen sous a pound, four times as much as at the present
day, and, considering the standard of money, eight times as much[5232].
And, furthermore, by virtue of the ordinance of 1680, each person over
seven years of age is expected to purchase seven pounds per annum,
which, with four persons to a family, makes eighteen francs a year, and
equal to nineteen days' work: a new direct tax, which, like the taille,
is a fiscal hand in the pockets of the tax-payers, and compelling them,
like the taille, to torment each other. Many of them, in fact, are
off