“Sire,” writes a village in Champagne,[75] “the only message to us on your part is a demand for money.  We were led to believe that this might cease, but every year the demand comes for more.  We do not hold you responsible for this because we love you, but those whom you employ, who better know how to manage their own affairs than yours.  We believed that you were deceived by them and we, in our chagrin, said to ourselves, If our good king only knew of this! . . .  We are crushed down with every species of taxation; thus far we have given you a part of our bread, and, should this continue, we shall be in want. . . .  Could you see the miserable tenements in which we live, the poor food we eat, you would feel for us; this would prove to you better than words that we can support this no longer and that it must be lessened. . . .  That which grieves us is that those who possess the most, pay the least.  We pay the tailles and for our implements, while the ecclesiastics and nobles who own the best land pay nothing.  Why do the rich pay the least and the poor the most?  Should not each pay according to his ability?  Sire, we entreat that things may be so arranged, for that is just. . . .  Did we dare, we should undertake to plant the slopes with vines; but we are so persecuted by the clerks of the excise we would rather pull up those already planted; the wine that we could make would all go to them, scarcely any of it remaining for ourselves.  These exactions are a great scourge and, to escape them, we would rather let the ground lie waste. . . .  Relieve us of all these extortions and of the excisemen; we are great sufferers through all these devices; now is the time to change them; never shall we be happy as long as these last.  We entreat all this of you, Sire, along with others of your subjects as wearied as ourselves. . . .  We would entreat yet more but you cannot do all at one time.”

Imposts and privileges, in the really popular registers, are the two enemies against which complaints everywhere arise[76].

“We are overwhelmed by demands for subsidies, . . . we are burdened with taxes beyond our strength, . . . we do not feel able to support any more, we perish, overpowered by the sacrifices demanded of us.  Labor is taxed while indolence is exempt. . . .  Feudalism is the most disastrous of abuses, the evils it causes surpassing those of hail and lightning. . . .  Subsistence is impossible if three-quarters of the crops are to be taken for field-rents, terrage, etc. . . .  The proprietor has a fourth part, the décimateur a twelfth, the harvester a twelfth, taxation a tenth, not counting the depredations of vast quantities of game which devour the growing crops:  nothing is left for the poor cultivator but pain and sorrow.”