 Section XXI of Manors, Customs, and Dress. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jim Clevinger. Manors, Customs, and Dress during the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance period by Paul Lacroix. Section XXI. Taxes, Money, and Finance. Taxes under the Roman rule. Money exactions of the Merovingian kings. Varieties of money. Financial laws under Charlemagne. Missy Domenici. Increase of taxes owing to the Crusades. Organization of finances by Louis IX. Extortions of Philippe Lebel. Pecuniary embarrassments of his successors. Charles V. reestablishes order in finances. Disasters of France under Charles VI. Charles VII and Jacques Kerr. Changes in taxation from Louis XI to Francois I. The great financiers. Horamon Rubera. If we believe Caesar's commentaries on the Gaelic War, the Gauls were groaning in his time under the pressure of taxation and struggle hard to remove it. Rome lightened their burden, but the fiscal system of the metropolis imperceptibly took root in all the Roman provinces. There was an arbitrary personal tax, called the poll tax, and a land tax, which was named Sin, calculated according to the area of the holding. Besides these, there were taxes on articles of consumption, on salt, on the import and export of all articles of merchandise, on sales by auction, also on marriages, on burials, and on houses. There were also legacy and succession duties and taxes on slaves, according to their number. Doles on highways were also created, and the treasury went so far as to tax the hearth. Hence the origin of the name, few, which was afterwards applied to each household or family group assembled in the same house or sitting before the same fire. A number of other taxes sprung up, called sordids, from which the nobility and the government functionaries were exempt. This ruinous system of taxation rendered still more unsupportable by the exaction of the proconsuls and the violence of their subordinates went on increasing down to the time of the fall of the Roman Empire. The Middle Ages gave birth to a new order of things. The municipal administration, composed in great part of Gallo-Roman citizens, did not perceptibly deviate from the customs established for five centuries. But each invading nation, by degrees, introduced new habits and ideas into the countries they subdued. The Germans and Franks, having become masters of part of Gallo, established themselves on the lands which they had divided between them. The great domains with their revenues which had belonged to the emperors naturally became the property of the barbarian chiefs and served to defray the expenses of their houses or their courts. These chiefs at each general assembly of the lewd, or great vassals, received presence of money, of arms, of horses, and of various objects of home or of foreign manufacture. For a long time these gifts were voluntary. The territorial thief, which was given to those soldiers who had deserved it by their military service, involved from the holders a personal service to the king. They had to attend him on his journeys, to follow him to war, and to defend him under all circumstances. The thief was entirely exempt from taxes. Many misdeeds, even robberies and other crimes which were ordinarily punishable by death, were pardonable on payment of a proportionate fine and oaths, in many cases, might be absolved in the same way. Thus a large revenue was received, which was generally divided equally between the state, the procurator, the fiscal, and the king. War, which was almost constant in those turbulent times, furnished the barbarian kings with occasional resources, which were usually much more important than the ordinary supplies from taxation. The first chiefs of the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, and the Franks, sought means of replenishing their treasuries by their victorious arms. Alaric, Totale, and Krovi thus amassed enormous wealth without troubling themselves to place the government finances on a satisfactory basis. We see however a semblance of financial organization in the institutions of Alaric and his successors. Subsequently the great Theodoric who had studied the administrative theories of the Byzantine court exercised his genius in endeavoring to work out an accurate system of finance which was adopted in Italy. Gregory of Ture, a writer of the sixteenth century, relates in several passages of his History of the Franks that they exhibited the same repugnance to compulsory taxation as the Germans of the time of Tacitus. The lewd considered that they owed nothing to the treasury, and to force them to submit to taxation was not an easy matter. About the year 465, Shilderic I, father of Krovi, lost his crown for wishing all classes to submit to taxation equally. In 673, Shilderic II, king of Austrasia, had one of these lewd named Baudelain flogged with rods for daring to reproach him with the injustice of certain taxes. He however was afterwards assassinated by the same Baudelain, and the lewd maintained their right of immunity. A century before, the lewd were already quarreling with royalty on account of the taxes which they refused to pay, and they sacrificed Queen Brunhau because she attempted to enrich the treasury with the compensated property of a few nobles who had rebelled against her authority. The wealth of the Frank kings, which was always very great, was a continual object of envy, and on one occasion, Shilderic I, king of Swassu, having the lewd in league with him, laid his hands on the wealth amassed by his father, Fautere I, which was kept in the palace of Brunhau, he was nevertheless obliged to share his spoils with his brothers and their followers who came in arms to force him to refund what he had taken. Shilderic I was so much in awe of these lewd that he did not ask them for money. His wife, the much feared Preetagon, did not, however, exempt them more than Brunhau had done, and her judges or ministers, Audon and Mimous, having met with an insurmountable resistance in endeavoring to force taxation on the nobles, nearly lost their lives in consequences. The custom of numbering the population, such as was carried on in Rome through the censors, appears to have been observed under the Merovingian kings at the request of the bishop Fautier. Shilderbert gave orders to amend the censors, taken, under Ziziobert, king of Austrasia. It is a most curious document, mentioned by Gregory of Turb. The ancient division, he says, had been one so unequal, owing to the subdivision of properties and other changes which time had made in the condition of the taxpayers that the poor, the orphans, and the helpless classes, generally alone, bore the real burden of taxation. Florentius, comptroller of the king's household, and Rommelfus, count of the palace, remedied this abuse. After a closer examination of the changes which had taken place, they relieved the taxpayers who were too heavily raided and placed a burden on those who could better afford it. This direct taxation continued on this plan until the time of the kings of the Second Dynasty. The Franks, who had not the privilege of exemption, paid a pole tax and a house tax, about a tenth was charged on the produce of highly cultivated lands, a little more on that of lands of an inferior description, and a certain measure, a crooch of wine on the produce of every half-acre of vineyard. There were assessors and royal agents, charged with levying such taxes and regulating the farming of them. In spite of this precaution, however, an idiot to clove either second in the year 615, censors the mode of imposing rates and taxes. It orders that they shall only be levied in the places where they have been authorized and forbade their being used under any pretext, whatever, for any other object than that for which they were imposed. Under the Merovingians, species was not in common use. Although the precious metals were abundant among the Gauls as their minds of gold and silver were not yet exhausted, money was rarely coined except on great occasions such as a coronation, the birth of an heir to the throne, the marriage of a prince, or the commemoration of a decisive victory. It is even probable that each time that money was used in large sums, the pound, or the sue of gold, was represented more by ingots of metal than by stamped coins. The third of the sue of gold, which was coined on state occasions, seemed to have been used only as a commemorative metal to be distributed amongst the great officers of state, and this circumstance explains their extreme rarity. The general character of the coinage, whether of gold, silver, or of the baser metals of the Burgundian, Austrasian, and Frank kings, differs little from what it had been at the time of the last of the Roman emperors, though the angel bearing the cross gradually replaced the renami vic to yours, formerly stamped on the coins. Christian monograms and symbols of the Trinity were often intermingled with the initials of the sovereign. It also became common to combine in a monogram letters thought to be sacred or lucky such as C, M, S, T, etc., also to introduce the names of places which, perhaps, have since disappeared, as well as some particular mark or sign special to each mint. Some of these are very difficult to understand and present a number of problems which have yet to be solved. Unfortunately, the names of places on Merovingian coins to the number of about 900 have rarely been studied by coin collectors, experts both as geographers and linguists. We find, for example, 100 distinct mints and, up to the present time, have not been able to determine where the greater number of them were situated. From the time that Clovie became a Christian, he loaded the church with favors and it soon possessed considerable revenues and enjoyed many valuable communities. The sons of Clovie contested these privileges, but the church resisted for a time, though she was eventually obliged to give way to the iron hand of Charles Martel. In 732, this great military chieftain, after his struggle with rainfroy, and after his brilliant victories over the Saxons, the Bavarians, the Swiss, and the Saracens, stripped the clergy of their landed possessions in order to distribute them amongst his lewd, who, by this means, he secured as his creatures and who were, therefore, ever-willing and eager to serve him in arms. On ascending the throne, King Pepe, who wanted to pacify the church, endeavored, as far as possible, to obliterate the recollection of the wrongs of which his father had been guilty towards her. He ordered to deem and then on, 10th and 9th Donnier levied on the value of lands, to be placed to the account of the possessors of each ecclesiastical domain, on their undertaking to repair the buildings, churches, chateaus, abbeys, and presbyteries, and to restore to the owners the properties on which they held mortgages. The nobles long resented this, and it required the authority and the example of Charlemagne to sue the contending parties and to make church and state act in harmony. Charlemagne renounced the arbitrary rights established by the mayors of the palace, and retained only those which long usage had legitimized. He registered them, clearly, in a code called the Capitolaire, in which he introduced the ancient laws of the Ripueer, the Burgundians, and the Franks, arranging them so as to suit the organization and requirements of his vast empire. From that time each Freeman subscribed to the military service according to the amount of his possessions. The great vassal or fiscal judge was no longer allowed to practice extortion on those citizens appointed to defend the state. Freeman could legally refuse all servile or obligatory work imposed on them by the nobles, and the amount of labor to be performed by the serfs was lessened. Without absolutely abolishing the authority of local customs in matters of finance or penalties which had been illegally exacted, they were suspended by laws decided at the Charlemagne by the Counts and by the Lude in presence of the emperor. Arbitrary taxes were abolished, as they were no longer required. Food and any articles of consumption and military munitions were exempted from taxation, and the revenues derived from tolls on road gates, on bridges, and on city gates, etc., were applied to the purpose for which they were imposed. Namely, to the repair of the roads, the bridges, and the fortified enclosures, the Harrybaugh, a fine of sixty soul which in those days would amount to more than six thousand Franks, was imposed on any holder of a thief who refused military service, and each noble was obliged to pay this for every one of his vassals who was absent when summoned to the king's banner. These fines must have produced considerable sums. A special law exempted ecclesiastics from bearing arms, and Charlemagne decreed that their possession should be sacred and untouched, and everything was done to ensure the payment of the indemnity, deem and non, which was due to them. Charlemagne also superintended the coining and circulation of money. He directed that the silver suit should exactly contain the twenty-second part by weight of the pound. He also directed that money should only be coined in the imperial palaces. He forbade the circulation of spurious coin. He ordered base coiners to be severely punished, and imposed heavy fines upon those who refused to accept the coin in legal circulation. The tithe due to the church, which was imposed at the National Assembly in 779, and dispersed by the Diocesan bishops, gave rise to many complaints and much opposition. This tithe was in addition to that paid to the king, which was of itself sufficiently heavy. The right of claiming the two tithes, however, had a common origin, so that the sovereign defended his own right in protecting those of the church. This is set forth in the text of the Capitolaire from the year 794 to 829. What had originally been only a voluntary and pious offering of a few of the faithful, says the author of the Histoire Fiancière de la France, became thus a perpetual tax upon agriculture, custom rather than law enforcing its payment, and a tithe, which was, at first, limited to the produce of the soil, soon extended itself to cattle and other livestock. Royal delegates, Miss A. Domenici, who were invested with complex functions and with very extensive power, travelled through the Empire, exercising legal jurisdiction over all matters of importance. They assembled all of the placides, or provincial authorities, and enquired particularly into the collection of the public revenue. During their tours, which took place four times a year, they either personally annulled unjust sentences, or submitted them to the emperor. They denounced any irregularities on the part of the counts, punished the negligences of their assessors, and often in order to replace unworthy judges, they had to resort to a system of election of assessors, chosen from among the people. They verified the returns for the census, superintended the keeping up of the royal domains, corrected frauds and matter of taxation, and punished usurers as much as base-pointers, for at that time money was not considered a commercial article, nor was it thought right that a money lender should be allowed to carry on a trade, which required a remuneration proportionate to the risk which he incurred. These Missi Domenici were too much hated by the great vassals to outlive the introduction of the feudal system. Their royal masters, as they themselves gradually lost a part of their own privileges and power, could not sustain the authority of these officers. Dupes, counts, and barons, having become magistrates, arbitrarily levied new taxes, imposed new fines, and appropriated the king's tribute to such an extent that, towards the end of the tenth century, the laws of Charlemagne had no longer any weight. Within find a number of new taxes levied for the benefit of the nobles, the very names of which have fallen into disuse with the feudal claims which they represented. Among these new taxes were those of escort, and entree, of mortem, of l'auge de vance, of relief, the champards, the tail, the fouage, and the various fees for wine-pressing, grinding, baking, etc., all of which were payable without prejudice to the tithes due to the king and the church. However, as the royal tithe was hardly ever paid, the kings were obliged to look to other means for replenishing their treasuries, and coining false money was a common practice. Unfortunately, each great vassal vied with the kings in this, and to such an extent that the enormous quantity of bad money coined during the ninth century completed the public ruin, and made this a sad period of social chaos. The freemen was no longer distinguishable from the villain nor the villain from the serf. Serfdom was general, men found themselves as it were slaves, in possession of land which they labored at with the sweat of their brow, only to cultivate for the benefit of others. The towns even, with the exception of a few privileged cities, such as Florence, Paris, Lyon, Ram, Metz, Strasbourg, Marseille, Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Milan, were under the dominion of some ecclesiastical overlay lowered, and only enjoyed liberty of a more or less limited character. Towards the end of the eleventh century, under Philippe I, the enthusiasm for crusades became general, and, as all the nobles joined in the holy mission of freeing the tomb of Jesus Christ from the hands of the infidels, large sums of money were required to defray the costs. New taxes were, accordingly, imposed, but, as these did not produce enough at once, large sums were raised by the sale of some of the feudal rights. Certain franchises were in this way sold by the nobles to the boroughs, towns, and abbeys, though, in not a few instances, these very privileges had been formerly plundered from the places to which they were now sold. Fines were exacted from any person declining to go to Palestine, and foreign merchants, especially the Jews, were required to subscribe large sums. A number of the nobles holding thiefs were reduced to the lowest expedience with a view to raising money and even sold their estates at a low price or mortgaged them to the very Jews whom they taxed so heavily. Every town in which the spirit of Gallo-Roman municipality was preserved took advantage of these circumstances to extend its liberties. Each monarch, too, found this a favorable opportunity to add new thieves to the crown and to recall as many great vassals as possible under his dominion. It was at this period that communities arose and that the first charters of freedom, which were obligatory and binding contracts between the king and the people, date their origin. Besides the annual fines due to the king and the feudal lords, and in addition to the general subsidies, such as the quit rent and the ties, these communities had to provide for the repair of the walls or ramparts, for the paving of the streets, the cleaning of the pits, the watch on the city gates, and the various expenses of local administration. Louis Legreau endeavored to make a rearrangement of the taxes and to establish them on a definite basis. By his orders a new register of the lands throughout the kingdom was commenced, but various calamities caused this useful measure to be suspended. In 1149, Louis Lejeune, in consequence of a disaster which had befalling the crusaders, did what none of his predecessors had dared to attempt. He exacted, from all his subjects, a soul per pound on their income. This tax which amounted to a twentieth part of income was paid even by the church, which, for example's sake, did not take advantage of its immunities. Forty years later, at a council or great parliament, called by Philippe Augustus, a new crusade was decided upon, and under the name of Saladin's Tithe, an annual tax was imposed on all property, whether landed or personal, of all who did not take up the cross to go to the Holy Land. The nobility, however, so violently resisted this, that the king was obliged to substitute for it a general tax, which, although it was still more productive, was less offensive in its mode of collection. On returning to France in 1191, Philippe Augustus rated and taxed everyone nobility, bourgeois, and clergy, in order to prosecute the great wars in which he was engaged, and to provide for the first paid troops ever known in France. He began by confirming the enormous compensations of the properties of the Jews who had been banished from the kingdom, and afterwards sold a temporary permission to some of the richest of them to return. The Jews at that time were the only possessors of available funds, as they were the only people who trafficked and who lent money on interest. On this account the government were glad to recall them, so as to have at hand a valuable resource which it could always make use of. As the king could not, on his own authority, levy taxes upon the vassals of feudal lords. On emergencies he convoked the barons who discussed financial matters with the king, and when the sum required was settled an order of assessment was issued, and the barons undertook the collection of the taxes. The assessment was always fixed higher than was required for the king's wants, and the barons, having paid the king what was due to him, retained the surplus which they divided amongst themselves. The creation of a public revenue raised by the contributions of all classes of society, with a definite sum to be kept in reserve, thus dates from the reign of Philip Augustus, the annual income of the state at that time amounted to 36,000 marks, or 72,000 pounds, weight of silver, about 16 or 17 million francs of present currency. The treasury which was kept in the great tower of the temple was under the custody of seven bourgeois of Paris, and a king's clerk kept a register of receipts and disbursements. The treasury must have been well filled at the death of Philip Augustus, for that monarch's legacies were very considerable. One of his last wishes deserves to be mentioned, and this was a formal order which he gave to Louis VIII to employ a certain sum, left him for that purpose, solely and entirely for the defense of the kingdom. When Louis IX in 1242, at Taillebore, and at Satt, had defeated the great vassals who had rebelled against him, he hastened to regulate the taxes by means of a special code which bore the name of the établissement. The taxes thus imposed fell upon the whole population, and even lands belonging to the church, houses which the nobles did not themselves occupy, rural properties and leased holdings were all subjected to them. There were, however, two different kinds of rates. One called the occupation rate, and the other the rate of exploitation, and they were both collected according to a register kept in the most regular and systematic manner possible. Ancient custom had maintained a tax exceptionally in the following cases, when a noble dubbed his son a knight, or gave his daughter a marriage, when he had to pay a ransom, and when he set out on a campaign against the enemies of the church, or for the defense of the country. These taxes were called leitocatricar. At this period despotism too often overruled custom, and the good King Louis IX, by granting legal power to custom, tried to bring it back to the true principles of justice and humanity. He was, however, nonetheless jealous of his own personal privileges, especially as regarded coining. He insisted that coining should be exclusively carried on in his palace, as in the times of the Carlovingian kings, and he required every coin to be made of a definite standard of weight which he himself fixed. In this way he secured the exclusive control over the men. For the various localities, towns or counties directly under the crown, Louis IX settled the mode of levying taxes. Men of integrity were elected by the vote of the General Assembly, consisting of the three orders, namely of the nobility, the clergy, and the tears of thought, to assess the taxation of each individual, and these assessors themselves were taxed by four of their own number. The custom of levying proprietary subsidies in each small feudal jurisdiction could not be abolished, and it was standing the king's desire to do so, owing to the power still held by the nobles. Nobles were forbidden to levy a rate under any consideration without previously holding a meeting of the vassals and their tenants. The tolls on roads, bridges, fares, and markets, and the harbour dues were kept up notwithstanding their obstruction to commerce, with the exception that free passage was given to corn passing from one province to another. The exemption from taxes which had been dearly brought were removed and the nobles were bound not to divert the revenue received from tolls for any purpose other than those for which they were legitimately intended. The nobles were also required to guard the roads from sunrise to sunset, and they were made responsible for robberies committed upon travelers within their domains. Louis the Knight, by refunding the value of goods which had been stolen through the carelessness of his officers, himself showed an example of the respect due to the law. Those charged with collecting the king's dues as well as the mayors whose duty it was to take custody of the money contributed, and to receive the taxes on various articles of consumption worked under the eye of officials appointed by the king, who exercised a financial jurisdiction which developed later in the department or office called the Chamber of Accounts. A tax somewhat similar to the tide on funds was imposed for the benefit of the nobles on property held by corporations or under charter in order to compensate the treasury for the loss of the succession duties. This tax represented about the fifth part of the value of the estate. To cover the enormous expenses of the two crusades, Louis the Ninth, however, was obliged to levy two new taxes called Decime from his already overburdened people. It does not, however, appear that this excessive taxation alienated the affection of his subjects. Their minds were entirely taken up with the pilgrimage to the east, and the pious monarch, notwithstanding his fruitless sacrifices and his disastrous expeditions, earned for himself the title of Prince of Peace of Justice. From the time of Louis the Ninth down to that of Philippe Lebel, who was the most extravagant of kings, and at the same time the most ingenious in raising funds for the state treasury, the financial movement of Europe took root and eventually became centralized in Italy. Florence was presented an example of the concentration of the most complete municipal privileges which a great flourishing city could desire. Pisa, Genoa, and Venice attracted a part of the European commerce towards the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. Everywhere the Jews and Lombards, already well initiated into the mysterious system of credit and accustomed to lend money, started banks in pawn establishments where jewels, diamonds, glittering arms, and paraphernalia of all kinds were deposited by princes and nobles as security for loans. The tax collectors, Mal Tothier, a name derived from the Italian Mala Tota, unjust tax, receivers or farmers of taxes, paid dearly for exercising their calling, which was always a dishonorable one, and was at times exercised with a great amount of harshness and even of cruelty. The treasury required a certain number of deniers, oboe, or peat, a small coin varying in value in each province, to be paid by these men for each bank operation they affected and for every pound in value of merchandise they sold, for they and the Jews were permitted to carry on trades of all kinds without being subject to any kind of rates, taxes, work, military service, or municipal dues. Philippe LaBelle, owing to his interminable wars against the King of Castile and against England, Germany, and Flanders, was frequently so embarrassed as to be obliged to resort to extraordinary subsidies in order to carry them on. In 1295 he called upon his subjects for a forced loan, and soon after he shamelessly required them to pay the one-hundredth part of their income, and after but a short interval he demanded another fiftieth part. The King assumed the exclusive right to debase the value of the coinage which caused him to be commonly called the base coiner and no sovereign ever coined a greater quantity of base money. He changed the standard or name of current coins with a view to counterbalance the mischief arising from the illicit coinage of the nobles, and especially to baffle the base traffic of the Jews and the Lombards who occasionally would obtain possession of a great part of the coin and mutilate each piece before restoring it to circulation. In this way they upset the whole monetary economy of the realm and security immense profits to themselves. In 1303 the ad allure, which was afterwards called the ad de lost, or the army tax, was invented by Philippe Lebel for raising an army without opening his purse. It was levy without distinction upon dukes, counts, barons, ladies, damsels, archbishops, bishops, abbots, chapters, colleges, and in fact upon all classes whether noble or not. Nobles were bound to furnish one night, mounted, equipped, and in full armor, for every five-hundred marks of land which they possessed. Those who were not nobles had to furnish six-foot soldiers for every hundred households. By another enactment of this king the privilege was granted of paying money instead of complying with these demands for men, and a sum of one-hundred lever, about ten thousand francs of present currency, was exacted for each armed night and two soul, about ten francs per dim, for each soldier which any one failed to furnish. An outcry was raised throughout France at this proceeding, and rebellions broke out in several provinces. In Paris the mob destroyed the house of Stephen Barbette, master of the Mint, and insulted the king in his palace. It was necessary to enforce the royal authority with vigor, and after considerable difficulty peace was at last restored, and Philippe learned, though too late, that in matters of taxation the people should first be consulted. In 1313, for the first time, the bourgeoisie, syndics, or deputies of communities, under the name of Thiers d'État, third order of the state, were called to exercise the right of freely voting the assistance or subsidy which it pleased the king to ask of them. After this memorable occasion, an edict was issued ordering a levy of six deniers in the pound on every sort of merchandise sold in the kingdom. Paris paid this without hesitation, whereas in the provinces there was much discontented murmuring, but the following year the king, having tried to raise the six deniers voted by the assembly of 1313-12, the clergy, nobility, and Thiers d'État, combined to resist the extortions of the government, Philippe Lebel died, after having yielded to the opposition of his indignant subjects, and in his last moments he recommended his son to exercise moderation in taxing and honesty in coining. On the cessation of Louis X in 1315, war against the Flemish was imminent, although the royal treasury was absolutely empty. The king, unfortunately, in spite of his father's advice, attempted systematically to tamper with the coinage, and he also commenced the exaction of fresh taxes to the great exasperation of his subjects. He was obliged, who fear of a general rebellion, to do away with the tithes established for the support of the army, and to sacrifice the superintendent of finances, Angarong d'Marie, to the public indignation which was felt against him. This man, without being allowed to defend himself, was tried by an extraordinary commission of parliament for embezzling the public money, was condemned to death, and was hung on the gibbet of Montfacon, not daring to risk a convocation of the state's general of the kingdom. Louis X ordered the Cinechal to convoke the provincial assemblies, and thus obtained a few subsidies which he promised to refund out of the revenues of his domain. The clergy even allowed themselves to be taxed, enclosed their eyes to the misappropriation of the funds which were supposed to be held in reserve for a new crusade. Taxes giving commercial franchise and of exchange were levied which were paid by the Jews, Lombards, Tuscans, and other Italians. Judiciary offices were sold by auction. The trading class purchased letters of nobility, as they had already done under Philippe Lebel, and more than this the enfranchisement of serfs which had commenced in 1298 was continued on the payment of a tax which varied according to the means of each individual. In consequence of this system, personal servitude was almost entirely abolished under Philippe de Long, brother of Louis X. Each province, under the reign of this rapacious and necessitous monarch, demanded some concessions from the crown and almost always obtained it at a money value. Normandy and Burgundy, which were dreaded more than any other province on account of their turbulence, received remarkable concessions. The base coin was withdrawn from circulation, and Louis X attempted to forbid the ride of coinage to those who broke the wise laws of St. Louis. The idea of bills of exchange arose at this period. Thanks to the peace concluded with Flanders on which occasion that country paid into the hands of the sovereign 30,000 florins in gold for arrears of taxes and above all owing to the rules of economy in order from which Philip V, surnamed along, never deviated, the attitude of France became completely altered. We find the king initiating reform by reducing the expenses of his household. He convened around his person a great council which met monthly to examine and discuss matters of public interest. He allowed only one national treasury for the reception of the state revenues. He required the treasurers to make a half-yearly statement of their account and a daily journal of receipts and disbursements. He forbade clerks of the treasury to make entries either of receipts or expenditures, however trifling without the authority and supervision of accountants. He also compelled to assist at the checking of sums received or paid by the money changers. The farming of the crown lands, the king's taxes, the stamp registration, and the jail duties were sold by auction, subject to certain regulations with regard to guarantee. The bailiffs in Seneshaw sent in their accounts to Paris annually. They were not allowed to absent themselves without the king's permission, and they were formerly forbidden under pain of confiscation, or even a severe penalty, to speculate with the public money. The operations of the treasury were at this period always involved in the greatest mystery. End of Section 21, Recording by Jim Clevinger, Little Rock, Arkansas. Jim at joccldv.com Section 22 of Manors, Customs, and Dress This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jim Clevinger, Manors, Customs, and Dress during the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance period by Paul Lacroix. Section 22. The establishment of a central mint for the whole kingdom, the expulsion of the money dealers, who were mostly of Italian origin, and the confiscation of their goods, if it was discovered that they had acted falsely, signalized the cessation of Charles Lebel in 1332. This beginning was welcomed as most auspicious, but before long the export duties, especially on grain, wine, hay, cattle, leather, and salt, became a source of legitimate complaint. Philippe VI, surnamed D. Valois, a more astute politician than his predecessor, felt the necessity of gaining the affection of the people by sparing their private fortunes. In order to establish the public revenue on a firm basis, he assembled in 1330 the state's general, composed of barons, prelates, and deputies from the principal towns, and then hoping to all the financial agents, he authorized the arrest of the overseer, Pierre Montague, whose property was confiscated and sold, producing to the treasury the enormous sum of one million two hundred thousand leavers, or upwards of one hundred million francs of present currency. The long and terrible war which the king was forced to carry on against the English, and which ended in the Treaty of Bretagie in 1361, gave rise to the introduction of taxation of extreme severity. The dues on ecclesiastical properties were renewed and maintained for several years. All beverages sold in towns were taxed, and from four to six deniers in the pound were levied upon the value of all merchandise sold in any part of the kingdom. The salt tax which Philippe Lebel had established, and which his successor, Louis the Tent, immediately abolished at the unanimous wish of the people, was again levied by Philippe the Sixth, and this king, having caused the salt produced in his domains to be sold, gave great offence to all classes of the community. It was on account of this that Edward III, King of England, facitiously called him the author of the Salique Law. Philippe de Valois, when he first ascended the throne, coined his money according to the standard weight of Saint Louis, but in a short time he more or less alloyed it. This he did secretly in order to be able to withdraw the pieces of full weight from circulation, and to replace them with others having less pure metal in them, and whose weight was made up by an extra amount of alloy. In this dishonest way a considerable sum was added to the coffers of the state. King John, on succeeding his father in 1350, found the treasury empty and the resources of the kingdom exhausted. He was, nevertheless, obliged to provide means to continue the war against the English, who continually harassed the French on their own territory. The tax on merchandise not being sufficient for this war, the payment of public debts contracted by the government was suspended, and the state was thus obliged to admit its insolvency. The mint taxes called sceneries were pushed to the utmost limits, and the king levied them on the new coin which he increased at will by largely alloying the gold with base metals. The duties on exported and imported goods were increased, notwithstanding the complaints that commerce was declining. These financial expediences would not have been tolerated by the people had not the king taken the precaution to have them approved by the state's general of the provincial states, which he annually assembled. In 1355 the state's general were convoked, and the king, who had to maintain 30,000 soldiers, asked them to provide for this annual expenditure, estimated at 5 million Leverperies, about 300 million francs of present currency. The state's general, animated by a generous feeling of patriotism, ordered a tax of 8 digniers and the pound on the sale and transfer of all goods and articles of merchandise, with the exception of inheritances, which was to be payable by the vendors of whatever rank they might be, whether ecclesiastics, nobles, or others, and also a salt tax to be levied throughout the whole kingdom of France. The king promised, as long as this assistance lasted, to levy no other subsidies, and to coin good and sterling money, i.e. dignier, a fine gold, white or silver coin, coins of bia or mixed metals, and dignier and maya of copper. The assembly appointed traveling agents and three inspectors or superintendents, who had under them two receivers and a considerable number of subcollectors, whose duties were defined with scrupulous minuteness. The king at this time renounced the right of seizing, his dues over property inherited or conveyed by sale, exchange, gift, or will, his right of demanding war levies by proclamation, and of issuing force loans, the despotic character of which offended everybody. The following year, the tax of eight dignier having been found insufficient and expensive in its collection, the assembly substituted for it a property and income tax, varying according to the property and income of each individual. The finances were, notwithstanding these additions, in a low and unsatisfactory condition, which became worse and worse from the fatal day of Poitiers when King John fell into the hands of the English. The state's general was summoned by the Dauphois, and seeing the desperate condition in which the country was placed, all classes freely opened their purses. The nobility who had already given their blood gave the produce of all their feudal dues besides. The church paid a tent and a half, and the bourgeois showed the most noble unselfishness and rose as one man to find means to resist the common enemy. The ransom of the king had been fixed at three millions of a coup d'or, nearly a thousand million francs, payable in six years, and the peace of Britigie was concluded by the session of a third of the territory of France. There was, however, cause for congratulation in this result, for, France was reduced to its utmost extremity, says a chronicler, and had not something led to a reaction, she must have perished irretrievably. King John, grateful for the love and devotion shown to him by his subjects under these trying circumstances, returned from captivity with the solemn intention of lightning the burdens which pressed upon them, and in consequence he began by spontaneously reducing the enormous wages which the tax-gatherers had hitherto received, and by abolishing the tolls on the highways. He also sold to the Jews at a very high price the right of remaining in the kingdom and of exercising any trade in it, and by this means he obtained a large sum of money. He solemnly promised never again to debase the coin, and he endeavored to make an equitable division of the taxes. Unfortunately it was impossible to do without a public revenue, and it was necessary that the royal ransom should be paid off within six years. The people from whom taxes might be always extorted at pleasure, paid a good share of this, for the fifth of the three millions of excused oar, was realized from the tax on salt, the thirteenth part from the duty on the sale of fermented liquors, and twelve deniers per pound from the tax on the value of all provisions sold and resold within the kingdom. Commerce was subjected to a new tax called imposition foreign, a measure most detrimental to the trade and manufacturers of the country, which were continually struggling under the pitiless oppression of the treasury. Royal despotism was not always able to shelter itself under the sanction of the general and provincial councils, and a few provinces which forcibly protested against this excise duty were treated on the same footing as foreign states with relation to the transit of merchandise from them. Other provinces compounded for this tax, and in this way owing to the different arrangements in different places a complicated system of exemption and prohibitions existed which although most prejudicial to all industry remained in force to a great extent until 1789. When Charles V, surnamed the wise, ascended the throne in 1364, France, ruined by the disasters of the war, by the weight of taxation, by the reduction in her commerce, and by the want of internal security, exhibited everywhere a picture of misery and desolation, in addition to which famine and various epidemics were constantly breaking out in various parts of the kingdom. Besides this, the country was incessantly overrun by gangs of plunderers, who called themselves equal-sure, rotia, and tardvenue, etc., and who were more dreaded by the country people even than the English had been. Charles V, who was celebrated for his justice and for his economical and provident habits, was alone capable of establishing order in the midst of such general confusion. Supported by the vote of the assembly held at Compierre, in 1367 he remitted a moiety of the salt tax and diminished the number of treasury agents, reduce their wages, and curtail their privileges. He inquired into all cases of embezzlement, so as to put a stop to fraud, and he insisted that the accounts of the public expenditure in its several departments should be annually audited. He protected commerce, facilitated exchanges, and reduced, as far as possible, the rates and taxes on woven articles and manufactured goods. He permitted Jews to hold funded property, and invited foreign merchants to trade with the country. For the first time he required all gold and silver articles to be stamped, and called in all the old gold and silver coins in order that by a new and uniform issue the value of money might no longer be fictitious or variable. For more than a century coins had so often changed in name, value, and standard weight, that in an edict of King John we read, it was difficult for a man when paying money in the ordinary course to know what he was about from one day to another. The recommencement of hostilities between England and France in 1370, unfortunately, interrupted the progressive and regular courses of these financial improvements. The state's general, to whom the king was obliged to appeal for assistance in order to carry on the war, decided that salt should be taxed one soul per pound, whined by wholesale a thirteenth of its value, and by retail a fourth, that a gouache or hearth tax of six francs should be established in towns, and of two francs in the country, and that a duty should be levied in walled towns on the entrance of all wine. The produce of the salt tax was devoted to the special use of the king. Each district farmed its excise and its salt tax under the superintendence of clerics appointed by the king who regulated the assessment and the fines, and who adjudicated in the first instance in all cases of dispute. Tax gatherers were chosen by the inhabitants of each locality, but the chief officers of finance, foreign number, were appointed by the king. This administrative organization created on a sound basis marked the establishment of a complete financial system. The assembly, which thus transferred the administration of all matters of taxation from the people at large to the king, did not consist of a combination of the three estates, but simply of persons of position, namely prelates, nobles, and bourgeois of Paris. In addition to the leading magistrates of the kingdom, the following extract from the accounts of 15 November 1372 is interesting in as much as it represents the actual budget of France under Charles V. Article 18, assigned for the payment of men at arms, 50,000 francs. Article 19, for payment of men at arms and crossbow men, newly formed, 42,000 francs. Article 19, for sea purposes, 8,000 francs. Article 20, for the king's palace, 6,000 francs. Article 20, to place in the king's coffers, 5,000 francs. Article 21, it pleases the king that the receiver general should have monthly for matters that daily arise in the chamber, 10,000 francs. Article 21, for the payment of debts, 10,000 francs. Total, 131,000 francs. Thus for the year, 131,000 francs in Escousador, representing in present money about 12 million francs, were appropriated to the expenses of the state, out of which the sum of 5,000 francs equal to 275,000 francs of present money, was devoted to what we may call the civil war. On the death of Charles V, in 1380, his eldest son Charles, who was a minor, was put under the guardianship of his uncles, and one of these, the Duke de Auge, assumed a regency by force. He seized upon the royal treasury, which was concealed in the castle of Moulin, and also upon all the savings of the deceased king, and instead of applying them to alleviate the general burden of taxation, he levied a duty for the first time on the common food of the people. Immediately there arose a general outcry of indignation, and a formidable expression of resistance was made in Paris and in the large towns. Mob orators, loudly proclaimed the public right, thus trampled upon by the regent and the king's uncles, the expression of the feeling of the masses began to take the shape of open revolt. When the council of the regency made an appearance of giving way, and new taxes were suppressed or at all events partially abandoned, the success of the insurrectionary movement, however, caused increased concessions to be demanded by the people. The Jews and the tax collectors were attacked. Some of the latter were hung or assassinated, and their registries torn up, and many of the former were ill-treated and banished notwithstanding the price they had paid for living in the kingdom. The assembly of the states, which was summoned by the king's uncle to meet in Paris, sided with the people and in consequence the regent and his brother pretended to acknowledge the justice of the claims, which were made upon them in the name of the people, and, on their own, was drawing the taxes, order was for a time restored. No sooner, however, was this the case, that in spite of the solemn promises made by the council of regency, the taxes were suddenly reimposed, and the right of farming them was sold to persons who exacted them in the most brutal manner. A sanguinary revolt called that of the Mayata, burst forth in Paris, and the capital remained for some time in the power of the people, or rather, of the bourgeois, who led the mob on to act for them. The towns of Rua, Rem, Trua, Orleans, Blois, and many places in Beauvoir, in Chopin, and in Normandy, followed the example of the Parisians, and it was impossible to say to what a length the revolt would have reached had it not been for the victory over the Flemish at Rosybia. This victory enabled the king's uncle to re-enter Paris in 1383, and to re-establish the royal authority at the same time making the Moate and their accomplices pay dearly for their conduct. The excise duties, the hearth tax, the salt tax, and various other imposts, which had been abolished or suspended, were re-established. The taxes on wine, beer, and other fermented liquors was lowered. Bread was taxed twelve deniers per pound, and the duty on salt was fixed at the excessive rate of twenty francs in gold, about one thousand two hundred francs of present money, per hog's head of sixty hundred weight. Certain concessions and compromises were made exceptionally in favor of Ottawa, Dauphine, Poitou, and Saint-Tois, in consideration of the voluntary contributions which these provinces had made. Emboldened by the success of their exacting and arbitrary rule, the dukes of Anjou, Burgundy, and Berry, under pretext of requiring money for war expenses, again increased the taxes from the year 1385 to 1388, and the salt tax was raised to forty golden francs, about twenty four thousand francs of present money, per hog's head. The ecclesiastics paid a half-duceme to the king, and several ducemes to the pope, but these did not prevent a forced loan being ordered. Happily Charles VI, about this period, attained his majority, and assumed his position as king, and his uncle, the duke of Bourbault, who was called to the direction of affairs, re-established comparative order in financial matters. But soon after, the king's brother, the duke of Orleans, seized the reins of government, and jointly, with his sister-in-law, Isabella of Bavaria, increased the taxation far beyond that imposed by the duke de Anjou. The duke of Burgundy, called John the Fearless, in order to gratify his personal hatred to his cousin, Louis of Orleans, made himself the instrument of the strong popular feeling by assassinating that prince, as he was returning from an entertainment. The tragic death of the duke of Orleans no more alleviated the ills of France than did that of the duke of Burgundy sixteen years later, for he, in his turn, was the victim of a conspiracy, and was assassinated on the bridge of Montaou, in the presence of the duke. The marriage of Isabella France with the young King Richard of England, the ransom of the Christian prisoners in the east, the money required by the emperor of Constantinople to stop the invasion of the Turks into Europe, the pay of the French army, which was now permanent, each necessarily required for a subsidies, and money had to be raised in some way or other from the French people. Distress was at its height, and though the people were groaning under oppression, they continued to pay not only the increased taxes on provisions and merchandise, and an additional general tax, but to submit to the most outrageous compensations and robbery of the public money from the public treasuries. The state assemblies, held at Auxaire in Paris in 1412 and 1413, denounced the extravagance and maladministration of the treasurers, the generals, the excise men, the receivers of royal dues, and of all those who took part in the direction of the finances, though they nevertheless voted the taxes, and promulgated most severe regulations with respect to their collection. To meet emergencies which were now becoming chronic, extraordinary taxes were established, the non-payment of which involved the immediate imprisonment of the defaulter, and the debasement of the coinage, and the alienation of certain parts of the kingdom were authorized in the name of the king who had been insane for more than fifteen years. The incessant revolts of the bourgeoisie, the reappearance of the English on the soil of France, the ambitious rivalry of Queen Isabella of Bavaria, lead with the Duke of Burgundy against the Duford, who had been made regent at last in 1420, brought about the humiliating treaty of Touare, by which Henry V. King of England was to become King of France on the death of Charles VI. The Treaty of Touare became the cause of, and the pretext for, a vast amount of extortion being practiced upon the unfortunate inhabitants of the conquered country. Henry V., who had already made several exactions from Normandy, before he had obtained by force the throne of France, did not spare the other provinces, and whilst proclaiming his good intentions towards his future subjects, he added a new general in post, in the shape of a forced loan, to the taxes which already weighed so heavily on the people. He also issued a new coinage, maintained many of the taxes, especially those on salt and on liquors, even after he had announced his intention of abolishing them. At the same time, the Duford, Charles, surname Wattibouge, because he had retired with his court and retinue, into the center of the kingdom, was sadly in what of money? He alienated the state revenues, he levied excise duties and subsidies in the provinces which remained faithful to his cause, and he borrowed largely from those members of the church, in the nobility, who manifested a generous pity for the sad destiny of the king and the monarchy. Many persons, however, instead of sacrificing themselves for the king and country, made conditions with him, taking advantage of his position. The heir to the throne was obliged in many points to give way either to a noble whose services he bargained for, or to a town or an abbey whose aid he sought. At times he bought over influential bodies, such as universities and other corporations, by granting exemptions from or privileges in matters of taxation, etc. So much was this the case that it may be said that Charles VII treated by private contract for the recovery of the inheritance of his fathers. The towns of Peri and Ruwa, as well as the provinces of Brittany, Longadot, Normandy, and Gaines, only returned to their allegiance to the king on conditions more or less advantageous to themselves. Burgundi, Picardie, and Flande, which were removed from the kingdom of Charles VII at the Treaty of Peace of All-Raw in 1435, cordially adopted the financial system inaugurated by the Duke of Burgundi, Philippe the Good. Charles VII reconquered his kingdom by a good and wise policy as much as by arms. He doubtless had cause to be thankful for the valor and devotion of his officers, but he principally owed the success of his cause to one man, namely his treasurer, the famous Jacques Coure, who possessed the faculty of always supplying money to his master and at the same time of enriching himself. Thus it was that Charles VII, whose finances had been restored by the genius of Jacques Coure, was at last able to reenter his capital triumphantly, to emancipate Gaines, Normandy, and the banks of the Loire from the English yoke, to reattach to the crown a portion of its former possessions or to open the way for their early return, to remove bold usurpers from high places in the state and to bring about a real alleviation of those evils which his subjects had so courageously borne. He suppressed the fraud and extortion carried on under the name of justice, but it stopped to the sale of offices, abolished a number of rates illegally levied, required that the receiver's account should be sent in biannually, and whilst regulating the taxation, he devoted his proceeds entirely to the maintenance and pay of the army. From that time taxation, once feudal and arbitrary, became a fixed royal due, which was the surest means of preventing the pillage and the excesses of the soldiery to which the country people had been subjected for many years. Important triumphs of freedom were thus obtained over the tyrannical supremacy of the great vassals, but in the midst of all this improvement we cannot but regret that the assessors who, from the time of their creation by St. Louis, had been elected by the towns or the corporations, now became the nominees of the crown. Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, taxed his subjects but little. Therefore, says Philip de Comaine, they became very wealthy and lived in much comfort, but Louis XI did not imitate him. His first care was to reinstate that great merchant, that clever financier Jacques Cour, to whom, as much as to Joan of Arc, the kingdom owed its freedom, and whom Charles VII, for the most contemptible reasons, had had the weakness to allow to be judicially condemned. Louis XI would have been very glad to entrust the care of his finances to another Jacques Cour for being, sadly, in what money he ran through his father's earnings, and to refill his coffers he increased taxation, imposed a duty on the importation of wines, and levied attacks on those holding offices, etc. A revolution broke out in consequence which was only quenched in the blood of the insurgents. In this manner he continued by force of arms to increase and strengthen his own regal power at the expense of feudalism. He soon found himself opposed by the Ligue du Bia public. Formed by the great vassals, ostensibly to get rid of the pecuniary burden which oppressed the people, but really with the secret intention of restoring feudalism and lessening the king's power, he was not powerful enough openly to resist this, and appeared to give way by allowing the Ligue du Noble immense privileges, and himself consenting to the control of a sort of council of thirty-six notables appointed to superintend matters of finance. Far from acknowledging himself vanquished, however, he immediately set to work to cause division among his enemies so as to be able to overcome them. He accordingly showed favor towards the bourgeois, whom he had already flattered by granting new privileges and abolishing or reducing certain vexatious taxes of which they complained. The thirty-six nobles appointed to control his financial management reformed nothing. They were timid and docile under the cunning eye of the king, and practically assisted him in his designs. For in a very few years the taxes were increased from one million eight hundred thousand acres, about forty-five million francs of present money, to three million six hundred thousand acres, about ninety-five million francs. Towards the end of the reign they exceeded four million seven hundred thousand acres, one hundred and thirty million francs of present money. Louis XI wasted nothing on luxury and pleasure. He lived parsimoniously, but he maintained one hundred and ten thousand men under arms and was ready to make the greatest sacrifices whenever there was a necessity for augmenting the territory of the kingdom or for establishing national unity. At his death on the twenty-fifth of August fourteen eighty-three he left the kingdom considerably increased in area, but financially almost ruined. When Andi Bajou, elder sister of the king, who was a minor, assumed the reigns of government as regent, an immediate demand was made for reparation of the evils to which the finance ministers had subjected the unfortunate people. The treasurer general, Ali Velodau, and the attorney general, Jean de Yaw, were almost immediately sacrificed to popular resentment. Six thousand Swiss were subsidized, the pensions granted during the previous reign were canceled, and a fourth part of the taxes was removed, public opinion being thus satisfied, the state's general assembled. The bourgeois here showed great practical good sense, especially in matters of finance. They proved clearly that the assessment was illegal and that the accounts were fictitious in as much as the latter only showed one million six hundred and fifty thousand lever of subsidies, whereas they amounted to three times as much. It was satisfactorily established that the excise, the salt tax, and the revenues of the public lands, amply suffice for the wants of the country and the crown. The young king Charles was only allowed one million two hundred thousand lever for his private purse for two years, and three hundred thousand lever for the expenses of the festivities of his coronation. On the assembly being dissolved, the queen regent found ample means of pleasing the bourgeois and the people generally by breaking through the engagements she had entered into in the king's name by remitting taxation and finally by force of arms destroying the power of the last remaining vassals of the crown. Charles VIII, during a reign of fourteen years, continued to waste the public money. His disastrous expedition for the conquest of the kingdom of Naples forced him to borrow at the rate of forty-two percent. A short time previous to his death he acknowledged his errors but continued to spend money without consideration or restraint in all kinds of extravagances, but especially in buildings. In his reign the annual expenditure almost invariably doubled the revenue. In fourteen ninety-two it reached seven million three hundred thousand francs, about two hundred and forty-four million francs of present money. The deficit was made up each year by a general tax which was paid neither by the nobles nor the church but was obtained entirely from the people. When the Duke of Orleans ascended the throne as Louis XII the people were again treated with some consideration. Having chosen George de Ambois as Premier, in Floremon Robert as First Secretary of the Treasury he resolutely pursued a course of strict economy. He refused to demand of his subjects the usual tax for celebrating the joyous cessation. The taxes fell by successive reductions to the sum of two million six hundred thousand lever, about seventy-six million francs of present money. The salt tax was entirely abolished and the question as to what should be the standard measure of this important article was legislated upon. The tax-gatherers were forced to reside in their respective districts and to submit their registries to the royal commissioners before beginning to collect the tax. By strict discipline pillaged by soldiers was put a stop to. Notwithstanding the resources obtained by the king through mortgaging a part of the royal domains, and in spite of the excellent administration of Robert, who almost always managed to pay the public deficit without any additional tax, it was necessary in 1513, after several disastrous expeditions to Italy, to borrow, on the security of the royal domains, four hundred and forty million francs of present money. And to raise from the excise and from other dues and taxes the sum of three million three hundred thousand lever, about eighty million francs of present money. This caused the nation some distress, but it was only temporary and was not much felt for commerce, both domestic and foreign, much extended at the same time. The partnerships of titles of nobility, of places in parliament, and of nominations to numerous judicial offices brought in considerable sums to the treasury. The higher class is surnamed the king Loantilier because he was sickly in a small stature, parsimonious and economical. The people called him their father and master and he has always been styled the father of the people ever since. In an administrative and financial point of view, the reign of Francis I was not at all a period of revival or of progress. The commencement of a sounder system of finance is rather to be dated from that of Charles V, and good financial organization is associated with the names of Jacques Cour, Philippe de Good, Charles XI, and Floriman Robert. As an example of this, it may be stated that financiers of that time established taxes on registration of all kinds, also on stamps and on sales which did not before exist in France and which were borrowed from the Roman emperors. We must also give them the credit of having first commenced a public debt under the name of Rante's Perpetuance, which at that time realized 8%. During this brilliant and yet disastrous reign, the additional taxes were enormous and the sale of offices produced such a large revenue that the post of Parliamentary Council realized the sum of 2,000 gold in a case whose or nearly a million francs of present currency. It was necessary to obtain money at any price and from anyone who would lend it. The ecclesiastics, the nobility, the bourgeois all gave up their plate and their jewels to furnish the mint which continued to coin money of ever description and in consequence of the discovery of America and the working of the gold and silver mines in that country, the precious petals poured into the hands of the money changers, the country however was none the more prosperous and the people often were in want of even the commonest necessities of life. The king and the court swallowed up everything and consumed all of the resources of the country on their own luxury and their wars. The towns, the monasteries and the corporations were bound to furnish a certain number of troops, either infantry or cavalry. By the establishment of a lottery and a bank of deposit, by the monopoly of the mines and by the taxes on imports, exports and manufactured articles, enormous sums were realized to the treasury which as it was being continually drained required to be as continually replenished. Francis I exhausted every source of credit by his luxury, his caprices and his wars. Chandibone, Baron Simblanquet, the old minister of finance, died a victim to false accusations of having misappropriated the public funds. Laubere, who was in office with him, and William Bochatelle, who succeeded him, were more fortunate. They so managed the treasury business that without meeting with any legal difficulties, they were unable to centralize the responsibility in themselves instead of having it distributed over sixteen branches in all parts of the kingdom, a system which has continued to our day. In those days the office of superintendent of finance was usually only a short and rapid road to the gibbet of Montfacol. End of section 22, recording by Jim Clevinger, Little Rock, Arkansas. Jim at jocclev.com