There is no greater menace to
private fortunes than the bad administration of the public fortune.
Now, under the pressure of Jacobin principles and of the Jacobin
faction, the trustees of France have administered the country as if
they purposely meant to ruin their ward; every known means for wasting
a fortune have been brought into play by them. - In the first place,
they have deprived him of three-fourths of his income. To please the
people and enforce the theory, the taxes on articles consumed, on
salt, with the excise subsidies and the octroi duties on liquors,
meat, tobacco, leather and gunpowder, have been abolished, while the
new imposts substituted for the old ones, slowly fixed, badly
apportioned and raised with difficulty have brought in no returns. On
the 1st of February, 1793,[8] the Treasury had received on the real
and personal taxation of 1791, but one hundred and fifty millions
instead of three hundred millions. On the same taxes for 1792,
instead of three hundred millions it had obtained nothing at all. At
this date, and during the four years of the Revolution, the total
arrears of taxation amounted to six hundred and thirty-two millions -
a bad debt that can hardly be recovered, and, in fact, it is already
reduced one-half, since, even if the debtor could and was disposed to
pay, he would pay in assignats, which, at this time, were at a discount
of fifty per cent.
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