the exchequer was the heaviest, and now it is the weakest; hence
this is the first whose grasp is to be shaken off; there is none
which is more heartily detested or which receives harsher treatment.
Especially against collectors of the salt-tax, custom-house
officers, and excisemen the fury is universal. These,
everywhere,[27] are in danger of their lives and are obliged to fly.
At Falaise, in Normandy, the people threaten to "cut to pieces the
director of the excise." At Baignes, in Saintonge, his house is
devastated and his papers and effects are burned; they put a knife
to the throat of his son, a child six years of age, saying, "Thou
must perish that there may be no more of thy race."
For four hours the clerks are on the point of being torn to pieces;
through the entreaties of the lord of the manor, who sees scythes
and sabers aimed at his own head, they are released only on the
condition that they "abjure their employment." -- Again, for two
months following the taking of the Bastille, insurrections break out
by hundreds, like a volley of musketry, against indirect taxation.
>From the 23rd of July the Intendant of Champagne reports that "the
uprising is general in almost all the towns under his command." On
the following day the Intendant of Alençon writes that, in his
province, "the royal dues will no longer be paid anywhere." On the
7th of August, M. Necker states to the National Assembly that in the
two intendants' districts of Caen and Alençon it has been necessary
to reduce the price of salt one-half; that "in an infinity of places
" the collection of the excise is stopped or suspended; that the
smuggling of salt and tobacco is done by "convoys and by open force
" in Picardy, in Lorraine, and in the Trois-Évêchés; that the
indirect tax does not come in, that the receivers-general and the
receivers of the taille are "at bay" and can no longer keep their
engagements. The public income diminishes from month to month; in