The tax-man, in every country, has two hands, one which visibly and directly searches the coffers of tax-payers, and the other which covertly employs the hand of an intermediary so as not to incur the odium of fresh extortions.  Here, no precaution of this kind is taken, the claws of the latter being as visible as those of the former; according to its structure and the complaints made of it, I am tempted to believe it more offensive than the other. — In the first place, the salt-tax, the excises and the customs are annually estimated and sold to adjudicators who, purely as a business matter, make as much profit as they can by their bargain.  In relation to the tax-payer they are not administrators but speculators; they have bought him up.  He belongs to them by the terms of their contract; they will squeeze out of him, not merely their advances and the interest on their advances, but, again, every possible benefit.  This suffices to indicate the mode of levying indirect taxes. — In the second place, by means of the salt-tax and the excises, the inquisition enters each household.  In the provinces where these are levied, in Ile-de-France, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, Orleanais, Berry, Bourbonnais, Bourgogne, Champagne, Perche, Normandy and Picardy, salt costs thirteen sous a pound, four times as much as at the present day, and, considering the standard of money, eight times as much[32].  And, furthermore, by virtue of the ordinance of 1680, each person over seven years of age is expected to purchase seven pounds per annum, which, with four persons to a family, makes eighteen francs a year, and equal to nineteen days’ work:  a new direct tax, which, like the taille, is a fiscal hand in the pockets of the tax-payers, and compelling them, like the taille, to torment each other.  Many of them, in fact, are officially appointed to assess this obligatory use of salt and, like the collectors of the taille, these are “jointly responsible for the price of the salt.”  Others below them, ever following the same course as in collecting the taille, are likewise responsible.  “After the former have been seized in their persons and property, the speculator fermier is authorized to commence action, under the principle of mutual responsibility, against the principal inhabitants of the parish.”  The effects of this system have just been described.  Accordingly, “in Normandy,” says the Rouen parliament,[33] “unfortunates without bread are daily objects of seizure, sale and execution.”

But if the rigor is as great as in the matter of the taille, the vexations are ten times greater, for these are domestic, minute and of daily occurrence. — It is forbidden to divert an ounce of the seven obligatory pounds to any use but that of the “pot and the salt-cellar.”  If a villager should economize the salt of his soup to make brine for a piece of pork, with a view to winter consumption, let him look out for the collecting-clerks!  His pork is confiscated