Part 22 (1/2)
Fig. 278.--Salut d'Or. Charles VI.]
On the accession 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, through fear of a general rebellion, to do away with the t.i.the established for the support of the army, and to sacrifice the superintendent of finances, Enguerrand de Marigny, 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 Montfaucon. Not daring to risk a convocation of the States-General of the kingdom, Louis X. ordered the seneschals to convoke the provincial a.s.semblies, and thus obtained a few subsidies, which he promised to refund out of the revenues of his domains. The clergy even allowed themselves to be taxed, and closed 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 cla.s.s purchased letters of n.o.bility, as they had already done under Philippe le Bel; and, more than this, the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 concession 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 The base coin was withdrawn from circulation, and Louis X.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 right 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 thirty thousand florins in gold for arrears of taxes, and, above all, owing to the rules of economy and order, from which Philip V., surnamed the Long, never deviated, the att.i.tude of France became completely altered. We find the King initiating reform by reducing the expenses of his household. He convened round 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 accounts, and a daily journal of receipts and disburs.e.m.e.nts; he forbad clerks of the treasury to make entries either of receipts or expenditure, however trifling, without the authority and supervision of accountants, whom he also compelled to a.s.sist at the checking of sums received or paid by the money-changers (Fig. 279). The farming of the crown lands, the King's taxes, the stamp registration, and the gaol duties were sold by auction, subject to certain regulations with regard to guarantee. The bailiffs and seneschals sent in their accounts to Paris annually, they were not allowed to absent themselves without the King's permission, and they were formally forbidden, under pain of confiscation, or even a severer penalty, to speculate with the public money. The operations of the treasury were at this period always involved in the greatest mystery.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 279.--Hotel of the Chamber of Accounts in the Courtyard of the Palace in Paris. From a Woodcut of the ”Cosmographie Universelle” of Munster, in folio: Basle, 1552.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 280.--Measuring Salt.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut of the ”Ordonnances de la Prevoste des Marchands de Paris,” in folio: 1500.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 281.--Toll under the Bridges of Paris.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut of the ”Ordonnances de la Prevoste des Marchands de Paris,” in folio: 1500.]
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, signalised the accession of Charles le Bel 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 (Figs. 280 and 281).
Philip VI., surnamed _de Valois_, a more astute politician than his predecessor, felt the necessity of gaining the affections of the people by sparing their private fortunes. In order to establish the public revenue on a firm basis, he a.s.sembled, in 1330, the States-General, composed of barons, prelates, and deputies from the princ.i.p.al towns, and then, hoping to awe the financial agents, he authorised the arrest of the overseer, Pierre de Montigny, whose property was confiscated and sold, producing to the treasury the enormous sum of 1,200,000 livres, or upwards of 100,000,000 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 Bretigny 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 le Bel had established, and which his successor, Louis X., immediately abolished at the unanimous wish of the people, was again levied by Philip VI., and this king, having caused the salt produced in his domains to be sold, ”gave great offence to all cla.s.ses of the community.” It was on account of this that Edward III., King of England, facetiously called him the author of the _Salic_ law. Philippe de Valois, when he first ascended the throne, coined his money according to the standard weight of St. 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 hara.s.sed 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 _seigneuriage_, 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 expedients would not have been tolerated by the people had not the King taken the precaution to have them approved by the States-General of the provincial states, which he annually a.s.sembled. In 1355 the States-General were convoked, and the King, who had to maintain thirty thousand soldiers, asked them to provide for this annual expenditure, estimated at 5,000,000 _livres parisis_, about 300,000,000 francs of present currency. The States-General, animated by a generous feeling of patriotism, ”ordered a tax of eight deniers in 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, n.o.bles, or others, and also a salt tax to be levied throughout the whole kingdom of France.” The King promised as long as this a.s.sistance lasted to levy no other subsidy and to coin good and sterling money--i.e., _deniers_ of fine gold, _white_, or silver coin, coin of _billon_, or mixed metal, and _deniers_ and _mailles_ of copper. The a.s.sembly appointed travelling agents and three inspectors or superintendents, who had under them two receivers and a considerable number of sub-collectors, whose duties were defined with scrupulous minuteness. The King at this time renounced the right of seizin, his dues over property, inherited or conveyed by sale, exchange, gift, or will, his right of demanding war levies by proclamation, and of issuing forced loans, the despotic character of which offended everybody. The following year, the tax of eight deniers having been found insufficient and expensive in its collection, the a.s.sembly subst.i.tuted for it a property and income tax, varying according to the property and income of each individual.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 282.--The Courtiers ama.s.sing Riches at the Expense of the Poor.--From a Miniature in the 'Tresor of Brunetto Latini, Ma.n.u.script of the Fourteenth Century, in the Library of the a.r.s.enal, Paris.]
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 States-General were summoned by the Dauphin, and, seeing the desperate condition in which the country was placed, all cla.s.ses freely opened their purses. The n.o.bility, who had already given their blood, gave the produce of all their feudal dues besides. The church paid a tenth and a half, and the bourgeois showed the most n.o.ble 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 _ecus d'or,_ nearly a thousand million francs, payable in six years, and the peace of Bretigny was concluded by the cession 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 circ.u.mstances, returned from captivity with the solemn intention of lightening the burdens which pressed upon them, and in consequence be began by spontaneously reducing the enormous wages which the tax-gatherers had hitherto received, and by abolis.h.i.+ng the tolls on 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 endeavoured 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 _ecus d'or_ was realised 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 foraine_, a measure most detrimental to the trade and manufactures 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 exemptions 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 _ecorcheurs, routiers, tardvenus_, &c., 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 establis.h.i.+ng order in the midst of such general confusion. Supported by the vote of the a.s.sembly held at Compiegne in 1367, he remitted a moiety of the salt tax and diminished the number of the treasury agents, reduced their wages, and curtailed 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 fict.i.tious 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 course of these financial improvements. The States-General, to whom the King was obliged to appeal for a.s.sistance in order to carry on the war, decided that salt should be taxed one sol per pound, wine by wholesale a thirteenth of its value, and by retail a fourth; that a _fouage_, 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 clerks appointed by the King, who regulated the a.s.sessment 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, four in number, were appointed by the King. This administrative organization, created on a sound basis, marked the establishment of a complete financial system. The a.s.sembly, 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, n.o.bles, and bourgeois of Paris, in addition to the leading magistrates of the kingdom.
[Footnote *: This is the origin of the saying ”smoke farthing.”]
The following extract from the accounts of the 15th November, 1372, is interesting, inasmuch as it represents the actual budget of France under Charles V.:--
Article 18. a.s.signed for the payment of men at arms ...... 50,000 francs.
” 19. For payment of men at arms and crossbowmen newly formed .............................. 42,000 ”
” ” For sea purposes ............................. 8,000 ”
” 20. For the King's palace ........................ 6,000 ”
” ” To place in the King's coffers................ 5,000 ”
” 21. It pleases the King that the receiver-general should have monthly for matters that daily arise in the chamber ...................... 10,000 ”
” ” For the payment of debts ..................... 10,000 ”
Total ..................... 131,000 ”
[Ill.u.s.tration: Settlement of Accounts by the Brothers of Cherite-Dieu of the Recovery of Roles