this gift, sometimes not to make it, in any event
to reduce it to sixteen millions every five years,
that is to say to a little more than three millions
per annum. In 1788 it is only 1,800,000 livres,
and in 1789 it is refused altogether.[18] And still
better: as it borrows to provide for this tax,
and as the décimes which it raises on its property
do not suffice to reduce the capital and meet the interest
on its debt, it has the adroitness to secure, besides,
a grant from the king. Out of the royal treasury,
each year, it receives 2,500,000 livres, so that,
instead of paying, it receives. In 1787 it receives
in this way 1,500,000 livres.-As for the nobles, they,
being unable to combine together, to have representatives,
and to act in a public way, operate instead in a private
way. They contact ministers, intendants, sub-delegates,
farmer-generals, and all others clothed with authority,
their quality securing attentions, consideration and
favors. In the first place, this quality exempts
themselves, their dependents, and the dependents of
their dependents, from drafting in the militia, from
lodging soldiers, from (la corvée) laboring on the
highways. Next, the capitation being fixed according
to the tax system, they pay little, because their
taxation is of little account. Moreover, each
one brings all his credit to bear against assessments.
“Your sympathetic heart,” writes one
of them to the intendant, “will never allow a
father of my condition to be taxed for the vingtiémes
rigidly like a father of low birth."[19] On the other
hand, as the taxpayer pays the capitation-tax at his
actual residence, often far away from his estates,
and no one having any knowledge of his personal income,
he may pay whatever seems to him proper. There
are no proceedings against him, if he is a noble;
the greatest circumspection is used towards persons
of high rank. “In the provinces,”
says Turgot, " the capitation-tax of the privileged
classes has been successively reduced to an exceedingly
small matter, whilst the capitation-tax of those who
are liable to the taille is almost equal to the aggregate
of that tax.” And finally, “the collectors
think that they are obliged to act towards them with
marked consideration” even when they owe; “the
result of which,” says Necker, “is that
very ancient, and much too large amounts, of their
capitation-tax remain unpaid.” Accordingly,
not having been able to repel the assault of the revenue
services in front they evaded it or diminished it
until it became almost unobjectionable. In Champagne,
on nearly 1,500,000 livres provided by the capitation-tax,
they paid in only 14,000 livres,” that is to
say, “2 sous and 2 deniers for the same purpose
which costs 12 sous per livre to those chargeable with
the taille.” According to Calonne, “if
concessions and privileges had been suppressed the
vingtièmes would have furnished double the amount.”
In this respect the most opulent were the most skillful
in protecting themselves. “With the intendants,”