merged the collection of revenue into one channel, taxing consumption
in bulk instead of taxing property. According to his ideas,
consumption was the sole thing properly taxable in times of peace.
Land-taxes should always be held in reserve in case of war; for then
only could the State justly demand sacrifices from the soil, which was
in danger; but in times of peace it was a serious political fault to
burden it beyond a certain limit; otherwise it could never be depended
on in great emergencies. Thus a loan should be put on the market when
the country was tranquil, for at such times it could be placed at par,
instead of at fifty per cent loss as in bad times; in war times resort
should be had to a land-tax.

"The invasion of 1814 and 1815," Rabourdin would say to his friends,
"founded in France and practically explained an institution which
neither Law nor Napoleon had been able to establish,--I mean Credit."

Unfortunately, Xavier considered the true principles of this admirable
machine of civil service very little understood at the period when he
began his labor of reform in 1820. His scheme levied a toll on the
consumption by means of direct taxation and suppressed the whole
machinery of indirect taxation. The levying of the taxes was
simplified by a single classification of a great number of articles.
This did away with the more harassing customs at the gates of the
cities, and obtained the largest revenues from the remainder, by
lessening the enormous expense of collecting them. To lighten the
burden of taxation is not, in matters of finance, to diminish the
taxes, but to assess them better; if lightened, you increase the
volume of business by giving it freer play; the individual pays less
and the State receives more. This reform, which may seem immense,
rests on very simple machinery. Rabourdin regarded the tax on personal