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The burdens laid on all classes and the excessive taxation at last alienated the nation. "The division of the whole country into twelve revenue districts was a serious grievance, especially as the high official over each could make large profits from the excess of contributions demanded." A poll-tax, from which the nation in the olden times was freed, was levied on Israelite and Canaanite alike.
In addition to this, he is required to pay a poll-tax, generally about two dollars a year, which is equivalent to at least one fourth of a month's pay. During both these periods he must board himself.
It was like any other tyranny of the State: like the fiscal brutality which sold up a poor man's hayrick or clothing because he could not pay the poll-tax. If the poor man resisted, if he fired his old fowling-piece, or used his knife on the minions of the State, what use was such resistance? He went to rot in prison.
A poll-tax, though not necessarily limited in this manner, has usually accompanied the right of suffrage in the different States of the Union, but in the rebellious States it conferred no franchise. It might be supposed that ordinary generosity would have devoted it to the education of the ignorant class from which it was forcibly wrung, but no provision of the kind was even suggested.
Their discontent was simply political; they demanded the suppression of the poll-tax and better government; their aim was to slay the nobles and wealthier clergy, to take the king into their own hands, and pass laws which should seem good to the Commons of the realm. The whole population joined the Kentishmen as they marched along, while the nobles were paralyzed with fear.
Then Henry arose, and, making the sign of the cross on his forehead and breast, challenged the realm of England as his right; the archbishops of Canterbury and York seated him on the throne. The multitude shouted again, and the shouts re-echoed throughout all the streets. The Poll-tax died with Wat.
There is injustice in requiring the same poll-tax of ten francs from the laborer who earns one thousand francs and from the artist or physician who has an income of sixty thousand. J. Garnier: Principles of Political Economy. This sentence, as it stands, is unintelligible, and probably is not correctly quoted by Proudhon.
He goes without a beard and wears a coat of a western cut; he is an idler, a debauchee, a drunkard, a thief, and yet he assumes airs of consequence before the peasant, whom he disdains, and from whose labor he draws his own subsistence and his poll-tax.
Louis XVI, receives homage on the death of his grandfather; influenced by his aunts; gives the pavilion of the Little Trianon to the queen; compared to Louis XII. and Henry IV.; crowned at Rheims; concludes an alliance with the United States; exempts from the poll-tax all those unable to pay on the occasion of the birth of the dauphin; visits Cherbourg; orders the arrest of two members of Parliament, and also the closing-up of the House; conspicuous for his charity during the winter of 1788-89; concedes the chief demands of the Commons; opens the States in person, May 5th, 1789; loses his eldest son, the dauphin, June 4th, 1789; grants reforms to the States; removes Necker; withdraws the troops from Paris; visits Paris, and appeals to the populace, July 17th, 1789; invites Necker to return; called the "Restorer of French Liberty,"; sends his plate to be melted down for the benefit of the starving citizens; adheres to his conciliatory policy before the mob at Versailles; fixes his residence at Paris; accepts the Constitution so far as it has been settled; accepts the services of the Count de Mirabeau; offers La Fayette the sword of the Constable of France, which he declines; appears at the fête at the Champs de Mars; contemplates foreign intervention; decides to remove to Montmédy; report of attempted assassination of; reproves the nobles for coming to his aid; forbidden to remove more than twenty leagues from Paris; urged to escape; escapes, and is arrested and brought back; acceptance of the new Constitution by the king; dissolves the first constituent assembly; refuses his assent to the decrees against the priests and emigrants; issues a circular condemning emigration; apathy of; made to put on the red cap of liberty; a plot to assassinate; appears at the Feast of Federation; holds his last ball, August 5th, 1792; reviews the troops for the last time; appeals to the Assembly for protection; receives notice that his authority is a nullity; made prisoner with his wife and family; sent to the Temple; trial of; insults offered to; condemned to death; execution of.
Hence the hatred was so deep that in the very first outbreak the peasants fell upon the nobles and massacred them and their families. "Here there is no such feeling. It is against the government that taxes them so heavily that their anger is directed, and I fear that this new poll-tax that has been ordered will drive them to extremities.
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