Alpha Book

The destructive wars, costly armies, luxurious palaces, and extravagant
court of Louis XIV had left to the successors of the Grand Monarch many
debts, an empty treasury, and an overtaxed people. If ever there was
need of care and thrift, it was in the French monarchy in the
eighteenth century.
Yet the king's ministers did not even trouble themselves to keep
orderly accounts. Bills and receipts were carelessly laid away; no one
knew how much was owed or how much was to be expected by the treasury;
and even the king himself could not have told how much he would run
into debt during the year. While it lasted, money was spent freely.
[Sidenote: Royal Revenue]
The amount of money required by the king would have made taxes very
heavy anyway, but bad methods of assessment and collection added to the
burden. The royal revenue was derived chiefly from three sources: the
royal domains, the direct taxes, and the indirect taxes. From the royal
domains, the lands of which the king was landlord as well as sovereign,
a considerable but ever-diminishing income was derived.


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