The excise duties, the hearth tax, the salt tax, and various other imposts which had been abolished or suspended, were re-established; the taxes on wine, beer, and other fermented liquors was lowered; bread was taxed twelve deniers per pound, and the duty on salt was fixed at the excessive rate of twenty francs in gold—­about 1,200 francs of present money—­per hogshead of sixty hundredweight.  Certain concessions and compromises were made exceptionally in favour of Artois, Dauphine, Poitou, and Saintonge, in consideration of the voluntary contributions which those provinces had made.

[Illustration:  Fig. 283.—­Assassination of the Duke of Burgundy, John the Fearless, on the Bridge of Montereau, in 1419.—­Fac-simile of a Miniature in the “Chronicles” of Monstrelet, Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the Library of the Arsenal of Paris.]

Emboldened by the success of their exacting and arbitrary rule, the Dukes of Anjou, Burgundy, and Berry, under pretext of requiring money for war expenses, again increased the taxes from the year 1385 to 1388; and the salt tax was raised to forty golden francs, about 24,000 francs of present money, per hogshead.  The ecclesiastics paid a half decime to the King, and several decimes to the Pope, but these did not prevent a forced loan being ordered.  Happily, Charles VI. about this period attained his majority, and assumed his position as king; and his uncle, the Duke of Bourbon, who was called to the direction of affairs, re-established comparative order in financial matters; but soon after the King’s brother, the Duke of Orleans, seized the reins of government, and, jointly with his sister-in-law, Isabel of Bavaria, increased the taxation far beyond that imposed by the Duke d’Anjou.  The Duke of Burgundy, called John the Fearless, in order to gratify his personal hatred to his cousin, Louis of Orleans, made himself the instrument of the strong popular feeling by assassinating that prince as he was returning from an entertainment.  The tragical death of the Duke of Orleans no more alleviated the ills of France than did that of the Duke of Burgundy sixteen years later—­for he in his turn was the victim of a conspiracy, and was assassinated on the bridge of Montereau in the presence of the Dauphin (Fig. 283).  The marriage of Isabel of France with the young king Richard of England, the ransom of the Christian prisoners in the East, the money required by the Emperor of Constantinople to stop the invasions of the Turks into Europe, the pay of the French army, which was now permanent, each necessarily required fresh subsidies, and money had to be raised in some way or other from the French people.  Distress was at its height, and though the people were groaning under oppression, they continued to pay not only the increased taxes on provisions and merchandise, and an additional general tax, but to submit to the most outrageous confiscations and robbery of the public money from the public treasuries.  The State Assemblies