the privileged, 190,000; in the Ile-de-France, the former pay 2,689,000 livres and the latter 232,000; in the generalship of Alençon, the former pay 1,067,000 livres and the latter 122,000; in Champagne, the former pay 1,377,000 livres, and the latter 199,000; in Haute-Guyenne, the former pay 1,268,000 livres, and the latter 61,000; in the generalship of Auch, the former pay 797,000 livres, the privileged 21,000; in Auvergne the former pay 1,753,000 livres and the latter 86,000; in short, summing up the total of ten provinces, 11,636,000 livres paid by the poor group and 1,450,000 livres by the rich group, the latter paying eight times less than it ought to pay.

With respect to the vingtièmes, the disproportion is less, the precise amounts not being attainable; we may nevertheless assume that the assessment of the privileged class is about one-half of what it should be.  “In 1772,” says[49] M. de Calonne, “it was admitted that the vingtièmes were not carried to their full value.  False declarations, counterfeit leases, too favorable conditions granted to almost all the wealthy proprietors gave rise to inequalities and countless errors.  A verification of 4,902 parishes shows that the product of the two vingtièmes amounting to 54,000,000 should have amounted to 81,000,000.”  A seigniorial domain which, according to its own return of income, should pay 2,400 livres, pays only 1,216.  The case is much worse with the princes of the blood; we have seen that their domains are exempt and pay only 188,000 livres instead of 2,400,000.  Under this system, which crushes the weak to relieve the strong, the more capable one is of contributing, the less one contributes. — The same story characterizes the fourth and last direct taxation, namely, the tax substituted for the corvée.  This tax, attached, at first, to the vingtièmes and consequently extending to all proprietors, through an act of the Council is attached to the taille and, consequently, bears on those the most burdened[50].  Now this tax amounts to an extra of one-quarter added to the principal of the taille, of which one example may be cited, that of Champagne, where, on every 100 livres income the sum of six livres five sous devolves on the taille-payer.  “Thus,” says the provincial assembly, “every road used by active commerce, by the multiplied coursing of the rich, is repaired wholly by the contributions of the poor.” — As these figures spread out before the eye we involuntarily recur to the two animals in the fable, the horse and the mule traveling together on the same road; the horse, by right, may prance along as he pleases; hence his load is gradually transferred to the mule, the beast of burden, which finally sinks beneath the extra load.