which elsewhere are invested with individuals and in the public funds, are wholly destined in France to the purchase of land.”  “Accordingly the number of small rural holdings is always on the increase.  Necker says that there is an immensity of them.”  Arthur Young, in 1789, is astonished at their great number and “inclines to think that they form a third of the kingdom.”  This already would be our actual estimate, and we still find, approximately, the actual figures, on estimating the number of proprietors in comparison with the number of inhabitants.

The small cultivator, however, in becoming a possessor of the soil assumed its charges.  Simply as day-laborer, and with his arms alone, he was only partially affected by the taxes; “where there is nothing the king loses his dues.”  But now, vainly is he poor and declaring himself still poorer; the fisc has a hold on him and on every portion of his new possessions.  The collectors, peasants like himself, and jealous, by virtue of being his neighbors, know how much his property, exposed to view, brings in; hence they take all they can lay their hands on.  Vainly has he labored with renewed energy; his hands remain as empty, and, at the end of the year, he discovers that his field has produced him nothing.  The more he acquires and produces the more burdensome do the taxes become.  In 1715, the taille and the poll-tax, which he alone pays, or nearly alone, amounts to sixty-six millions of livres; the amount is ninety-three millions in 1759 and one hundred and ten millions in 1789.[50] In 1757, the charges amount to 283,156,000 livres; in 1789 to 476,294,000 livres.

Theoretically, through humanity and through good sense, there is, doubtless, a desire to relieve the peasant, and pity is felt for him.  But, in practice, through necessity and routine, he is treated according to Cardinal Richelieu’s precept, as a beast of burden to which oats is sparingly rationed out for fear that he may become too strong and kick, “a mule which, accustomed to his load, is spoiled more by long repose than by work."....

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Notes: 

[1] Labruyère, edition of Destailleurs, II, 97.  Addition to the fourth ed. (1689)

[2] Oppression and misery begin about 1672. — At the end of the seventeenth century (l698), the reports made up by the intendants for the Duc de Bourgogne, state that many of the districts and provinces have lost one-sixth, one-fifth, one-quarter, the third and even the half of their population. (See details in the “correspondance des contrôleurs-généraux from 1683 to 1698,” published by M. de Boislisle).  According to the reports of intendants, (Vauban, “Dime Royale,” ch.  VII. § 2.), the population of France in 1698 amounted to 19,994,146 inhabitants.  From 1698 to 1715 it decreases.  According to Forbonnais, there were but 16 or 17 millions under the Regency.  After this epoch the population no longer diminishes but, for forty years, it hardly increases.  In 1753 (Voltaire, “Dict Phil.,” article Population), there are 3,550,499 hearths, besides 700,000 souls in Paris, which makes from 16 to 17 millions of inhabitants if we count four and one-half persons to each fireside, and from 18 to 19 millions if we count five persons.