Alpha Book

[Sidenote: Peasant Obligation to Church]
The second obligation was to the church--the tithe or tenth, which
usually amounted every year to a twelfth or a fifteenth of the gross
produce of the peasant's land.
[Sidenote: Peasant Obligations to King and State]
Heaviest of all were the taxes levied by the king. The _taille_,
or land tax, was the most important. The amount was not fixed, but was
supposed to be proportional to the value of the peasant's land and
dwelling. In practice the tax-collectors often took as much as they
could get. and a shrewd peasant would let his house go to pieces and
pretend to be utterly destitute in order that the assessors might not
increase the valuation of his property.
The other direct taxes were the poll tax, _i.e._, a certain sum
which everybody alike must pay, and the income tax, usually a twentieth
part of the income. Finally, there were indirect taxes, such as the
salt _gabelle_. Thus, in certain provinces every person had to buy
seven pounds of salt a year from the government salt-works at a price
ten times its real value.


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