United States or Mongolia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The payment constituted a burden, and the habitants doubtless would have welcomed its abolition; but it was not a heavy tax upon their energies; it was less than the Church demanded from them; and they made no serious complaints regarding its imposition. The cens et rentes were paid each year on St Martin's Day, early in November.
There are only about a thousand savings banks and branches established in France, and yet two millions of persons belonging to the lower ranks last year had invested in them about twenty-eight millions sterling. But the Frenchman of the city prefers investing in Government Rentes; and the Frenchman of the country prefers investing in land.
But I have made money, and when I die I am going home to be buried. 'Why not go home before you are buried, O Face? 'Because I have lived here so long. Home is only good to be buried in. 'And what do you do, nowadays? 'Nothing now. I live on my rentes my income. Think of it!
I want you to give me twenty thousand pounds the day that you marry Jeanne. It is about one year's income for her rentes, a mere trifle to you, of course." "Twenty thousand pounds," De Brensault repeated reflectively. The Princess nodded. She was sorry that she had not asked thirty thousand. "I am not a mercenary woman," she said. "If I were not almost a pauper I would accept nothing.
Therefore, since I was at hand, and would be a wealthy man some day, and indeed even now did very well on my French rentes, he had set his heart on this. It was not wholly evil; yet the cold-bloodedness of it affected me like a stink....
The cens et rentes which he was expected to pay annually, on St. Martin's day, as a rule, varied from one to two sols for each superficial arpent, with the addition of a small quantity of corn, poultry, and some other article produced on the farm, which might be commuted for cash, at current prices.
The amount was small, a few sous together with a stated donation in grain or poultry to be delivered each autumn. Reckoned in terms of present-day rentals, the cens et rentes amounted to half a dozen chickens or a bushel of grain for each fifty or sixty acres of land. Yet this was the only payment which the habitants of New France regularly made in return for their lands.
The cens et rentes were unduly raised, the droit de banalité was pressed to the extent that if a habitant went to a better or more convenient mill than the seignior's, he had to pay tolls to both, the transfer of property was hampered by the lods el ventes and the droit de retraite, and the claim always made by the seigniors to the exclusive use of the streams running by or through the seigniories was a bar to the establishment of industrial enterprise.
This loan is issued in Rentes and in denominations of 100 francs and multiples. Rentes is the form in which all French Government issues are brought out at home. The word means interest or income. The French always refer to their Government Bonds in terms of interest without any mention of principal. This is because rentes are supposed to be perpetual.
Their annual payment of cens et rentes rarely amounted to more than a very few dollars. When it fell due in the autumn they were given abundant notice.
Word Of The Day