ten men; a prefecture by a dozen at the most; which reduced the
entire civil service force throughout France to five thousand men,
exclusive of the departments of war and justice. Under this plan the
clerks of the court were charged with the system of loans, and the
ministry of the interior with that of registration and the management
of domains. Thus Rabourdin united in one centre all divisions that were
allied in nature. The mortgage system, inheritance, and registration did
not pass outside of their own sphere of action and only required three
additional clerks in the justice courts and three in the royal courts.
The steady application of this principle brought Rabourdin to reforms
in the finance system. He merged the collection of revenue into
one channel, taxing consumption in bulk instead of taxing property.
According to his ideas, consumption was the sole thing properly taxable
in times of peace. Land-taxes should always be held in reserve in case
of war; for then only could the State justly demand sacrifices from
the soil, which was in danger; but in times of peace it was a serious
political fault to burden it beyond a certain limit; otherwise it could
never be depended on in great emergencies. Thus a loan should be put on
the market when the country was tranquil, for at such times it could be
placed at par, instead of at fifty per cent loss as in bad times; in war
times resort should be had to a land-tax.

"The invasion of 1814 and 1815," Rabourdin would say to his friends,
"founded in France and practically explained an institution which
neither Law nor Napoleon had been able to establish,--I mean Credit."

Unfortunately, Xavier considered the true principles of this admirable
machine of civil service very little understood at the period when
he began his labor of reform in 1820. His scheme levied a toll on
the consumption by means of direct taxation and suppressed the whole
machinery of indirect taxation. The levying of the taxes was simplified
by a single classification of a great number of articles. This did away
with the more harassing customs at the gates of the cities, and obtained
the largest revenues from the remainder, by lessening the enormous
expense of collecting them. To lighten the burden of taxation is not, in
matters of finance, to diminish the taxes, but to assess them better; if
lightened, you increase the volume of business by giving it freer play;
the individual pays less and the State rece