The Cambridge Modern History. R. Nisbet Bain
to some 280,000 l.t.
Finally there is the tattle, jbuage, hearth or land-tax. The gradual process by which the right of the seigneurs to levy tattle on their subjects had passed into the exclusive possession of the King is too long to admit of being followed here. Here as in other cases the Estates at first permitted what the King afterwards carried on without their leave. Under the agonising pressure of foreign and civil war Charles VII was allowed,—we can hardly say that he was authorised,—to transform the tattle into an annual tax levied at the King’s discretion. The normal total was fixed at 1,200,000 l.t.; but Charles VII established a precedent by imposing crues, or arbitrary additions to the tax, levied for some special emergency. The intervention of the Estates in Languedoil and Outreseine ceased; in Normandy it became a mere form; in Languedoc it was reduced to a one-sided negotiation between the province and the King, in which he might show indulgence, but the deputies could hardly show fight. Yet resistance was not infrequently tried, and was sometimes successful even with the inexorable Louis XI. On the other hand even in Languedoc a crue is sometimes ordered and paid without a vote, though never without protest. The tattle fell only on the roturiers, and spared the privileged orders of clergy and noblesse. In Languedoc the exemption followed the traditional distinction of tenements into noble and non-noble; in Languedoil the peasant paid if occupying a noble fief, the noble was exempt, although in actual possession of a villain holding.
Thus the clergy and the nobility escaped, except in a few cases, the direct burden of the principal tax. Speaking generally, they did not escape the burden of the aides and gabelle, though they had certain privileges. Royal officers for the most part escaped not only tattle but gabelle. Many of the principal towns also escaped the former. Such were Paris, Rouen, Laon, Reims, Tours, and many others. There were other inequalities and injustices. Normandy paid one-fourth of the whole toi&,—a monstrous burden upon a province which had suffered not less than any other from the War. The proportion of one-tenth fixed on Languedoc was probably also excessive. In the recherche of 1491 it wascalculated that Languedoil paid 19 l.t. per head, Outreseine 27, Normandy 60, and Languedoc 67,—an estimate which may be very far from the facts, but gives the result of contemporary impression. Guyenne, when added to the direct dominion of the Crown, escaped in large measure the aides, and was allowed to vote a small contribution by way of tattle. Burgundy compounded for her share of taille by an annual vote of about 50,000 l.t., contributing also to aides and gahelle. Provence was allowed to keep her own Estates and to vote a moderate subsidy. The independent and privileged position of Britanny was not altered until after the death of Louis XII. Dauphine was treated with a consideration even greater than was warranted by its poverty. Thus the main tax, unevenly distributed as it was, pressed the more heavily on the cultivators of the less fortunate regions. It is not uncommon to hear of the inhabitants of some district under Charles VII or Louis XI preferring to leave home and property rather than bear the enormous weight of the public burdens. The taxable capacity of the people was constantly increasing in the latter half of the fifteenth century; but under Louis XI the burdens increased with more than equal rapidity. The taille increased from 1,035,000 l.t. in 1461 to some 3,900,000 in 1483. From the pressing remonstrances of the Estates in 1484 a great alleviation resulted. The taille was reduced to 1,500,000 l.t. and although the expedition of Naples, the War of Britanny, and other causes, necessitated a subsequent rise, the figures remained far below the level of Louis XFs reign. Louis XII was enabled, in spite of his ambitious schemes, to effect further reductions; but the War of Cambray and its sequel swept away nearly all the advantage that had been gained. The revenue raised in 1514 was as high as the highest raised under Louis XI. But the aides and domaine were more productive; the taille was less, and weighed less heavily on a more prosperous nation.
Under Philip the Fair and his successors down to Charles VII a considerable though precarious revenue had often been realised by the disastrous method of tampering with the standard of value. In the latter years of Charles VII and under his three successors this device was rarely employed. A considerable depreciation may be indeed observed between the standard of Louis XII and that of Charles VII; but the changes were far less important and frequent than those of the earlier period. A certain revenue was obtained by legitimate seigniorage, and the illegitimate profits of debasement and the like may be almost neglected.
The system of collection was still only partially centralised, and marked the imperfect union of the successive acquisitions of the monarchy. For the collection and administration both’ of domaine and extraordinary revenue the older provinces were distributed into four divisions. Western Languedoil was administered with Guyenne; but the parts of Languedoil beyond Seine and Yonne, when reunited to the Crown, about 1436, were organised as a separate financial group (Outre-seine). Normandy formed a third and separate administrative area. Administrative Languedoc, that is to say the three senechaussees of Carcassonne, Beaucaire, and Toulouse, forms the fourth. Picardy, Burgundy, Dauphine, Provence, Roussillon and of course Britanny, were not included in the general scheme. Milan had its separate financial establishment, and maintained 600 lances. .In these last-mentioned provinces the ordinary and extraordinary revenue were administered together; elsewhere domaine and extraordinary revenue were separated. For the administration of the domaine each of the four main divisions had a separate treasurer, who was practically supreme in his own district. Under them were as administrators on the first line the baillis or senechaux, on the second, the prevots, vicomtes, or viguiers. The separation of the receipt from the administration of funds is a principle that runs through the whole system of finance both ordinary and extraordinary. Accordingly, there is a receveur for each prevote or other subdivision, and a general receiver for the whole domain, known as the changeur du Tresor. But the actual collection of cash at the central office was in large measure avoided, partly by charging the local officer of receipt with all local expenses, and partly by a system of drafts on local offices adopted for the payment of obligations incurred by the central government. The beneficiary presented his draft to the local receveur or grenetier, or discounted it with a broker, who forwarded it to his agent for collection. The same plan was adopted in the extraordinary finance, and made an accurate knowledge of the financial position, and correct supervision of the accounts, a matter of extreme difficulty. Contentious business was either settled by the baillis or prevots, or by a central tribunal of domaine finance, the Chambre du Tresor, or in some cases by the Chambre des Comptes or the Parlement.
The same regions of France were similarly divided for extraordinary finance into four generalites. At the head of each were two generaux, one pour le fait des finances, the other pour le fait de la justice. The four generaux de la justice met together to form the Cour des Aides, an appeal Court for contentious questions arising out of the collection of the extraordinary revenue. There are other Cours des Aides, at Montpellier for Languedoc, and at Rouen for Normandy. Each general des finances was supreme in the administration of his own generalite. Associated with each general there was a receveur general, who guarded the cash and was accountable for it. In Languedoc the partition and collection of faille and the collection of aides was managed by the Estates of the province. The other three generalites (except Guyenne, which was administered by commissioners) were divided into elections, a term reminiscent of the earlier system when the Estates collected the sums they had voted and elected the supervising officers. The elus, who stood at the head of each Election, and whose duty it was to apportion the tattle over the several parishes, to let out the aides, and to act as judges of first instance in any litigation that might arise, were now, as they had long since been, the nominees of the King. Beside them stood the receveurs, who as a rule handled the product both of tattle and aides. As a general rule each receveur, whether of ordinary or extraordinary finance, was doubled with a comptroller, whose business it was to check his accounts, and fortify his honesty. The aides were let out at farm. The actual collection of the tattle was carried out by locally appointed collectors, who received five per cent, for their trouble. The assessment on individuals was the work of locally elected asseeurs. The collection of the gabelle was in the hands of special officers. Each grenier had a receiver called grenetier and the inevitable contreroleur.
All accounts of the area so circumscribed were inspected and passed by a superior body, the Chambre des Comptes. Separate Courts were also set up at Nantes, Dijon, Aix, and Grenoble for their respective provinces. The Chambre des Comptes of Paris was differently composed at different times but consisted in 1511 of two presidents and ten maitres des Comptes. It had power to impose disciplinary penalties on