ntendant. This official's
duties varied to a certain extent with his district or _generalite_.
In administration France showed the transition that was proceeding from
feudalism to centralized monarchism. Provinces had been acquired one
by one, and many of them still retained local privileges. Of these the
chief was that of holding provincial Estates, and where this custom
prevailed, the chief duty of the Estates lay in the assessment of
taxes. Where the province was not _pays d'etat_, it was the intendant
who distributed the taxation. He enforced its collection; directed the
_marechaussee_, or local police; sat in judgment when disorder broke
out; levied the militia, and enforced roadmaking by the _corvee_.
Thirty intendants ruled France; and the modern system with its prefects
is merely a slight modification devised by Napoleon on the great
centralizing and administrative scheme of the Bourbon monarchy.

The taxes formed a somewhat complicated {30} system, but they may, for
the present purpose, be grouped as follows: taxes that were farmed;
direct taxes; the gabelle; feudal and ecclesiastical taxes.

In 1697 had begun the practice of leasing indirect taxes for the space
of six years to contractors, the _fermiers generaux_. They paid in
advance, and recouped themselves by grinding the taxpayer to the
uttermost. They defrauded the public in such monopolies as that of
tobacco, which was grossly adulterated; and they enforced payments not
only with harshness and violence, but with complete disregard for the
ruin which their exactions entailed. The government increased the
yield of the _ferme_ in a little less than a century from 37 to 180
millions of livres or francs,[1] and yet the sixty farmers continued to
increase in wealth. They formed the most conspicuous group of
plutocrats when the Revolution broke out and were among the first
victims of popular indignation. Of the direct taxes the most important
in every way was the _taille_. It brought in under Louis XVI about 90
millions of francs. It represented historically the fundamental right
of the French monarch to tax his {31} subjects delegated to him by the
Estates of the kingdom in the 15th century. By virtue of that
delegated power it was the Royal Council that settled each year what
amount of _taille_ should be levied. It was enforced harshly and in
such a manner as to discourage land improvement. It was also the badge
of social inferiority, for in t