poursoin ou de sauvement (care or safety within the walls of a town),
paid to him for providing general protection. The dues of de guet et
de garde (watch and guard), claimed by him for military protection; of
afforage, are exacted of those who sell beer, wine and other
beverages, whole-sale or retail. The dues of fouage, dues on fires, in
money or grain, which, according to many common-law systems, he levies
on each fireside, house or family. The dues of pulvérage, quite common
in Dauphiny-and Provence, are levied on passing flocks of sheep. Those
of the lods et ventes (lord's due), an almost universal tax, consist
of the deduction of a sixth, often of a fifth or even a fourth, of the
price of every piece of ground sold, and of every lease exceeding nine
years. The dues for redemption or relief are equivalent to one year's
income, aid that he receives from collateral heirs, and often from
direct heirs. Finally, a rarer due, but the most burdensome of all, is
that of acapte ou de plaid-a-merci, which is a double rent, or a
year's yield of fruits, payable as well on the death of the seignior
as on that of the copyholder. These are veritable taxes, on land, on
movables, personal, for licenses, for traffic, for mutations, for
successions, established formerly on the condition of performing a
public service which he is no longer obliged to perform.

Other dues are also ancient taxes, but he still performs the
service for which they are a quittance. The king, in fact, suppresses
many of the tolls, twelve hundred in 1724, and the suppression is kept
up. A good many still remain to the profit of the seignior, - on
bridges, on highways, on fords, on boats ascending or descending,
several being very lucrative, one of them producing 90,000 livres[25].
He pays for the expense of keeping up bridge, road, ford and towpath.
In like manner, on condition of maintaining the market-place and of
providing scales and weights gratis, he levies a tax on provisions and