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"That I will, and readily," said Mr. Lorry, "if it is not dangerous." "Not at all. Though it is to a prisoner in the Abbaye." "What is his name?" said Mr. Lorry, with his open pocket-book in his hand. "Gabelle." "Gabelle. And what is the message to the unfortunate Gabelle in prison?" "Simply, 'that he has received the letter, and will come." "Any time mentioned?"
Whereupon, Monsieur Gabelle did heavily bar his door, and retire to hold counsel with himself.
Finally, there were indirect taxes, such as the salt gabelle. Thus, in certain provinces every person had to buy seven pounds of salt a year from the government salt-works at a price ten times its real value. Road-making, too, was the duty of the peasant, and the corvee, or labor on roads, often took several weeks in a year.
A middle-aged woman, scantily dressed, was busy on the hearth; but perhaps that which, next to the perpetual scolding that was going on above, most took my attention was a great lump of salt that stood on the table at the woman's elbow, and seemed to be evidence of greater luxury for the GABELLE had not at that time been reduced than I could easily associate with the place.
King John was keen to fight; the States General gave him the means for carrying on war, by establishing the odious "gabelle" on salt, and other imposts. John hoped with his new army to drive the English completely out of the country. Petty war began again on all the frontiers, an abortive attack on Calais, a guerilla warfare in Brittany, slight fighting also in Guienne.
There was spurring and splashing through the darkness, and bridle was drawn in the space by the village fountain, and the horse in a foam stood at Monsieur Gabelle's door. "Help, Gabelle! Help, every one!" The mender of roads, and two hundred and fifty particular friends, stood with folded arms at the fountain, looking at the pillar of fire in the sky.
The general scarcity of everything, occasioned candles to be borrowed in a rather peremptory manner of Monsieur Gabelle; and in a moment of reluctance and hesitation on that functionary's part, the mender of roads, once so submissive to authority, had remarked that carriages were good to make bonfires with, and that post-horses would roast. The chateau was left to itself to flame and burn.
I done rec'nize you, you black nigger. Let me get at him, Marse Gabelle." The old woman swept toward him with so threatening an air that Graeme interposed, and the preacher retreated behind him for protection. Even that place of security did not, however, save him from her vitriolic tongue.
The effects of the decrees were disastrous and intensified the bad conditions of the country. The woodlands were immediately invaded by armies of timber and fuel cutters. Game was killed off. The poor country priest found his salary gone. The gabelle itself was disregarded. Local justice came to an end.
They were levied largely on necessaries, such as salt and food, or on those simple luxuries, wine and tobacco, on which Frenchmen of all classes depend for their daily sense of well-being. The gabelle, with its obligatory seven pounds of salt, approached a poll-tax in its operation. We turn wearily from the wilderness of printed words which surrounds the simplest matters.
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