But let us suppose that the deficiency had remained at the fifty-six millions, (or 2,200,000 l. sterling,) as at first stated by M. Necker.  Let us allow that all the resources he opposed to that deficiency were impudent and groundless fictions, and that the Assembly (or their lords of articles[104] at the Jacobins) were from thence justified in laying the whole burden of that deficiency on the clergy,—­yet allowing all this, a necessity of 2,200,000 l. sterling will not support a confiscation to the amount of five millions.  The imposition of 2,200,000 l. on the clergy, as partial, would have been oppressive and unjust, but it would not have been altogether ruinous to those on whom it was imposed; and therefore it would not have answered the real purpose of the managers.

Perhaps persons unacquainted with the state of France, on hearing the clergy and the noblesse were privileged in point of taxation, may be led to imagine, that, previous to the Revolution, these bodies had contributed nothing to the state.  This is a great mistake.  They certainly did not contribute equally with each other, nor either of them equally with the commons.  They both, however, contributed largely.  Neither nobility nor clergy enjoyed any exemption from the excise on consumable commodities, from duties of custom, or from any of the other numerous indirect impositions, which in France, as well as here, make so very large a proportion of all payments to the public.  The noblesse paid the capitation.  They paid also a land-tax, called the twentieth penny, to the height sometimes of three, sometimes of four shillings in the pound:  both of them direct impositions, of no light nature, and no trivial produce.  The clergy of the provinces annexed by conquest to France (which in extent make about an eighth part of the whole, but in wealth a much larger proportion) paid likewise to the capitation and the twentieth penny, at the rate paid by the nobility.  The clergy in the old provinces did not pay the capitation; but they had redeemed themselves at the expense of about twenty-four millions, or a little more than a million sterling.  They were exempted from the twentieths:  but then they made free gifts; they contracted debts for the state; and they were subject to some other charges, the whole computed at about a thirteenth part of their clear income.  They ought to have paid annually about forty thousand pounds more, to put them on a par with the contribution of the nobility.

When the terrors of this tremendous proscription hung over the clergy, they made an offer of a contribution, through the Archbishop of Aix, which, for its extravagance, ought not to have been accepted.  But it was evidently and obviously more advantageous to the public creditor than anything which could rationally be promised by the confiscation.  Why was it not accepted?  The reason is plain:—­There was no desire that the Church should be brought to serve the State.