The Modern Regime Volume I Part 25

[Footnote 3235: The mutation tax is that levied in France on all property transmitted by inheritance. or which changes hands through formal sale (other than in ordinary business transactions), as in the case of transfers of real-estate, effected through purchase or sale.

Timbre designates stamp duties imposed on the various kinds of legal doc.u.ments.-Tr.]

[Footnote 3236: Ibid. Returns of the mutation tax (registration and timbre). Registration in 1820, 127 millions; in 1860, 306 millions; in 1886, 518 millions.--Timbre, in 1820, 26 millions; in 1860, 56 millions; in 1886, 156 millions. Sum-total in 1886, 674 millions.--The rate of corresponding taxes under the ancient regime (controle, insinuation centieme denier, formule) was very much lower; the princ.i.p.al one, or tax of centieme denier, took only 1 per 100, and on the mutations of real-estate. This mutation tax is the only one rendered worse; it was immediately aggravated by the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, and it is rendered all the more exorbitant on successions in which liabilities are not deducted from a.s.sets. (That is to say, the inheritor of an indebted estate in France must pay a mutation tax on its full value. He has the privilege, however, of renouncing the estate if he does not choose to accept it along with its indebtedness.)--The taxpayer's resignation to this tax is explained by the exchequer collecting it at a unique moment, when proprietorship just comes into being or is just at the point of birth. In effect, if property changes hands under inheritance or through free donation it is probable that the new owner, suddenly enriched, will be only too glad to enter into possession of it, and not object to an impost which, although taking about a tenth, still leaves him only a little less wealthy. When property is transferred by contract or sale, neither of the contracting parties, probably, sees clearly which pays the fiscal tax; the seller may think that it is the buyer, and the buyer that it is the seller. Owing to this illusion both are less sensible of the shearing, each offering his own back in the belief that it is the back of the other.]

[Footnote 3237: See "The Ancient Regime," pp.358-362. (Ed. Laff. I.

266-268.)]

[Footnote 3238: See "The Revolution," vol. I., pp. 16, 38. (ED. Laff. I.

pp. 326, 342.)]

[Footnote 3239: Decree of Oct. 31--Nov. 5, 1789, abolishing the boundary taxes between the provinces and suppressing all the collection offices in the kingdom.--Decree of 21-30 March 1790, abolishing the salt-tax.

Decree of 1-17 March 1791, abolishing all taxes on liquors, and decree of 19-25 Feb. 1791, abolishing all octroi taxes.--Decree of 20-27 March 1791, in relation to freedom of growing, manufacturing and selling tobacco; customs-duties on the importation of leaf-tobacco alone are maintained, and give but an insignificant revenue, from 1,500,000 to 1,800,000 francs in the year V.]

[Footnote 3240: Gaudin, Duc de Gaete, "Memoires," I., 215-217.--The advantages of indirect taxation are well explained by Gaudin. "The taxpayer pays only when he is willing and has the means. On the other hand, when the duties imposed by the exchequer are confounded with the price of the article, the taxpayer, in paying his due, thinks only of satisfying a want or of procuring an enjoyment."--Decrees of March 16 and 27, and May 4, 1806 (on salt), of February 25, 1804, April 24, 1806, Nov. 25, 1808 (on liquors), May 19, 1802, March 6, 1804, April 24, 1806, Dec.. 29, 1810 (on tobacco).]

[Footnote 3241: Letrosne, "De l'administration des finances et de la reforme de l'impot" (1779) pp.148, 162.--Laboulaye, "De l'administration francaise sous Louis XVI." (Revue des cours litteraires, 1864-1865, p.677). "I believe that, under Louis XIII., they took at least five and, under Louis XIV, four to get two."]

[Footnote 3242: Paul Leroy-Bealieu, "Traite de la science des finances,"

I., 261. (In 1875, these costs amount to 5.20 %.)--De Foville, ibid.

(Cost of customs and salt-tax, in 1828, 16.2 %; in 1876, 10.2 %.--Cost of indirect taxation, in 1828, 14.90 %; in 1876, 3.7 %.)--De Calonne, "Collection des memoires presentes a l'a.s.semblee des notables," 1787, p.63.]

[Footnote 3243: See "The Ancient Regime," P.23, 370.--"The Revolution,"

I., 10, 16, 17. (Ed. Laff. I. pp. 23-24, 274, 322, 326-327.)]

[Footnote 3244: See "The Ancient Regime," p.361. (Ed. Laff. I. p.268.)]

[Footnote 3245: Leroy-Beaulieu, ibid., I., 643.]

[Footnote 3246: Decrees of November 25, 1808, and December 8, 1824.]

[Footnote 3247: Certain persons under the ancient regime enjoyed an exemption from the tax on salt.]

[Footnote 3248: Stourm, I., 360, 389.--De Foville, 382, 385, 398.]

[Footnote 3249: These figures are given by Gaudin.]

[Footnote 3250: Thiers, XIII., pp.20 to 25.]

[Footnote 3251: Lafayette, "Memoires." (Letter of October 17, 1779, and notes made in Auvergne, August 1800.) "You know how many beggars there were, people dying of hunger in our country. We see no more of them.

The peasants are richer, the land better tilled and the women better clad."--"The Ancient Regime," 340, 34, 342.--"The Revolution," III., p.366, 402.]

[Footnote 3252: "The Ancient Regime," P.340. (ED. Laff. I. pp. 254, 256.)-" The Revolution," III., 212. (Ed. Laff. II. p. 271, 297.)]

[Footnote 3253: These two famines were due to inclement seasons and were aggravated, the last one by the consequences of invasion and the necessity of supporting 150,000 foreign troops, and the former by the course taken by Napoleon who applies the maximum afresh, with the same intermeddling, the same despotism and the same failure as under the Convention.( "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.) "I do not exaggerate in stating that our operations in the purchase and transport (of grain) required a full quarter of the time, and often one-third, more than would have been required in commerce."--Prolongation of the famine in Normandy. "Bands of famished beggars overran the country....

Riots and pillaging around Caen; several mills burnt.... Suppression of these by the imperial guard. In the executions which resulted from these even women were not spared."--The two princ.i.p.al guarantees at the present day against this public danger are, first, easier circ.u.mstances, and next the multiplication of good roads and of railroads, the dispatch and cheapness of transportation, and the superabundant crops of Russia and the United States.]

[Footnote 3254: J. Gebelin, "Histoire des milices provinciales" (1882), p.87, 143, 157, 288.--Most of the texts and details may be found in this excellent work.--Many towns, Paris, Lyons, Reims, Rouen, Bordeaux, Tours, Agen, Sedan and the two generalities of Flanders and Hainault are examples of drawing by lot; they furnished their contingent by volunteers enlisted at their own expense; the merchants and artisans, or the community itself, paying the bounty for enlistment. Besides this there were many exemptions in the lower cla.s.s.--Cf. "The Ancient Regime," p.390. (Ed. Laff. p. 289.)]

[Footnote 3255: J. Gebelin, ibid., 239, 279, 288. (Except the eight regiments of royal grenadiers in the militia who turned out for one month in the year.)]

[Footnote 3256: Example afforded by one department. ("Statistics of Ain," by Rossi, prefect, 1808.) Number of soldiers on duty in the department, in 1789, 323; in 1801, 6,729; in 1806, 6,764.--"The department of Ain furnished nearly 30,000 men to the armies, conscripts and those under requisition."--It is noticeable, consequently, that in the population of 1801, there is a sensible diminution of persons between twenty and thirty and, in the population of 1806, of those between twenty-five and thirty-five years of age. The number between twenty and thirty is as follows: in 1789, 39,828; in 1801, 35,648; in 1806, 34,083.]

[Footnote 3257: De Dampmartin. "Evenemens qui se sont pa.s.ses sous mes yeux pendant la revolution francaise," V. II. (State of the French army, Jan. 1, 1789.) Total on a peace footing, 177,890 men.--This is the nominal force; the real force under arms was 154,000; in March 1791, it had fallen to 115,000, through the mult.i.tude of desertions and the scarcity of enlistments, (Yung, "Dubois-Crance et la Revolution," I., 158. Speech by Dubois-Crance.)]

[Footnote 3258: "The Ancient Regime," P 390, 391.--"The Revolution,"

p. 328-330. (Ed. Laff. I. 289 and 290, pp. 542-543)--Albert Babeau, "le Recrutement militaire sous l'ancien Regime." (In "la Reforme sociale"

of Sept. I, 1888, p. 229, 238.)--An officer says, "only the rabble are enlisted because it is cheaper."--Yung, ibid., I., 32. (Speech by M.

de Liancourt in the tribune.) "The soldier is cla.s.sed apart and is too little esteemed."--Ibid., p. 39. ("Vices et abus de la const.i.tution actuelle francaise," memorial signed by officers in most of the regiments, Sept. 6, 1789.) "The majority of soldiers are derived from the offscourings of the large towns and are men without occupation."]

[Footnote 3259: Gebelin, p. 270. Almost all the cahiers of the third-estate in 1789 demand the abolition of drafting by lot, and nearly all of those of the three orders are for volunteer service, as opposed to obligatory service; most of these demand, for the army, a volunteer militia enlisted through a bounty; this bounty or security in money to be furnished by communities of inhabitants which, in fact, was already the case in several towns.]

[Footnote 3260: Albert Babeau, ibid., 238. "Colonels were allowed only 100 francs per man; this sum, however, being insufficient, the balance was a.s.sessed on the pay of the officers."]

[Footnote 3261: This principle was at once adopted by the Jacobins.

(Yung, ibid., 19, 22, 145. Speech by Dubois-Crance at the session held Dec.12, 1789.) "Every citizen will become a soldier of the Const.i.tution." No more casting lots nor subst.i.tution. "Each citizen must be a soldier and each soldier a citizen."--The first application of the principle is a call for 300,000 men (Feb. 26, 1793), then through a levy on the ma.s.ses which brings 500,000 men under the flag, nominally volunteers, but conscripts in reality. (Baron Poisson, "l'Armee et la Garde Nationale,"III, 475.)]

[Footnote 3262: Taine wrote this in 1888, after the end of the second French Empire, after the transformation of Prussia into the Empire of Germany. Taine apparently had a premonition of the terrible wars of the 20th century, of n.a.z.ism, Communism and their death and concentration camps. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3263: Baron Poisson, "l'Armee et la Garde nationale," III., 475. (Summing up.) "Popular tradition has converted the volunteer of the Republic into a conventional personage which history cannot accept..

.. 1st. The first contingent of volunteers demanded of the country consisted of 97,000 men (1791). 60,000 enthusiasts responded to the call, enlisted for a year and fulfilled their engagement; but for no consideration would they remain longer. 2nd. Second call for volunteers in April 1792. Only mixed levies, partial, raised by money, most of them even without occupation, outcasts and unable to withstand the enemy.

3rd. 300,000 men recruited, which measure partly fails; the recruit can always get off by furnishing a subst.i.tute. 4th. Levy in ma.s.s of 500,000 men, called volunteers, but really conscripts."]

[Footnote 3264: "Memorial" (Speech by Napoleon before the Council of State). "I am inflexible on exemptions; they would be crimes; how relieve one's conscience of having caused one man to die in the place of another?"--"The conscription was an unprivileged militia: it was an eminently national inst.i.tution and already far advanced in our customs; only mothers were still afflicted by it, while the time was coming when a girl would not have a man who had not paid his debt to his country."]

[Footnote 3265: Law of Fructidor 8, year XIII, article 10.--Pelet de La Lozere, 229. (Speech by Napoleon, Council of State, May 29, 1804.)--Pelet adds: "The duration of the service was not fixed.... As a fact in itself, the man was exiled from his home for the rest of his life, regarding it as a desolating, permanent exile.... Entire sacrifice of existence.... An annual crop of young men torn from their families and sent to death."--Archives nationales, F7, 3014. (Reports of prefects, 1806.) After this date, and even from the beginning, there is extreme repugnance which is only overcome by severe means.. ..

(Ardeche.) "If the state of the country were to be judged of by the results of the conscription one would have a poor idea of it."--(Ariege.) "At Brussac, district of Foix, four or five individuals arm themselves with stones and knives to help a conscript escape, arrested by the gendarmes.... A garrison was ordered to this commune."--At Ma.s.sat, district of Saint-Girons, on a few brigades of gendarmes entering this commune to establish a garrison, in order to hasten the departure of refractory conscripts, they were stoned; a shot even was fired at this troop.... A garrison was placed in these hamlets as in the rest of the commune.--During the night of Frimaire 16-17 last, six strange men presented themselves before the prison of Saint-Girons and loudly demanded Gouaze, a deserter and condemned. On the jailor coming down they seized him and struck him down."--(Haute-Loire.) "'The flying column is under constant orders simultaneously against the refractory and disobedient among the cla.s.ses of the years IX, X, XI, XII, and XIII, and against the laggards of that of year IV, of which 134 men yet remain to be supplied."--(Bouches-du-Rhone.) "50 deserter sailors and 84 deserters or conscripts of different cla.s.ses have been arrested."--(Dordogne.) "Out of 1353 conscripts, 134 have failed to reach their destination; 124 refractory or deserters from the country and 41 others have been arrested; 81 conscripts have surrendered as a result of placing a garrison amongst them; 186 have not surrendered.

Out of 892 conscripts of the year XIV on the march, 101 deserted on the road."--(Gard.) "76 refractory or deserters arrested."--(Landes.) "Out of 406 men who left, 51 deserted on the way," etc.--This repugnance becomes more and more aggravated. (Cf. a.n.a.logous reports of 1812 and 1813, F7, 3018 and 3019, in "Journal d'un bourgeois d'Evreux," p. 150 to 214, and "Histoire de 1814," by Henry Houssaye, p.8 to 24.)]

[Footnote 3266: Law of Fructidor, year VI.]

[Footnote 3267: Decree of July 29, 1811 (on the exemption of pupils in the ecole Normale).--Decree of March 30, 1810, t.i.tle II., articles 2, 4, 5, 6 (on the police and system of the ecole Normale).--Decree on the organization of the University, t.i.tles 6 and 13, March 7, 1808.]

[Footnote 3268: Law of Ventose 17, year VIII, t.i.tle III., articles I and 13.--Law of Fructidor 8, year XIII, articles 50, 54, and 55.]

[Footnote 3269: Law of Fructidor 8, year XIII, article 51]

[Footnote 3270: Law of Ventose 17, year VIII, t.i.tle 3, article I.]

[Footnote 3271: Thibaudeau, p. 108. (Speech of the First Consul before the Council of State.) "Art, science and the professions must be thought of. We are not Spartans.... As to subst.i.tution, it must be allowed. In a nation where fortunes are equal each individual should serve personally; but, with a people whose existence depends on the inequality of fortunes, the rich must be allowed the right of subst.i.tution; only we must take care that the subst.i.tutes be good, and that conscripts pay some of the money serving to defray the expense of a part of the equipment of the army of reserve."]

[Footnote 3272: Pelet de La Lozere, 228.]

[Footnote 3273: Archives nationales, F7, 3014. (Reports of prefects, 1806.) Average price of a subst.i.tute: Ba.s.ses Alpes, from 2,000 to 2,500 francs; Bouches-du-Rhone, from 1,800 to 3,000; Dordogne, 2,400; Gard, 3,000; Gers, 4,000; Haute-Garonne, from 2,000 to 3,000; Herault, 4,000; Vaucluse, 2,500; Landes, 4,000. Average rate of interest (Ardeche): "Money, which was from 11/4 to 11/2 %, has declined; it is now at 3 1/4 % a month or 10 % per annum."--(Ba.s.ses Alpes): "The rate of money has varied in commerce from 1 to 3/4 % per month."--(Gard): "Interest is at 1 % a month in commerce; proprietors can readily borrow at 9 or 10 % per annum."--(Herault): "The interest on money is 1 1/4 % per month."--(Vaucluse): "Money is from 3/4 to 11/4 % per month."]

[Footnote 3274: Thiers, VII., p.23 and 467. In November 1806, Napoleon orders the conscription of 1807; in March 1807, he orders the conscription of 1808, and so on, always from worse to worse.--Decrees of 1808 and 1813 against young men of family already bought off or exempted.--"Journal d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," 214. Desolate state of things in 1813, "general depression and discouragement."--Miot de Melito, III., 304. (Report of Miot to the Emperor after a tour in the departments in 1815.) "Everywhere, almost, the women are your declared enemies."]

[Footnote 3275: Law of Ventose 17, year VIII, t.i.tle 3, articles 6, 7, 8, 9.--Exemption is granted as a favor only to the ignorantin brothers and to seminarians a.s.signed to the priesthood.--Cf. the law of March 10, 1818, articles 15 and 18.]