in French a don gratuit. Its appropriate meaning is either the feudal aide due from the vassal according to custom, that is, by his tenure, and so due to the sovereign also in his capacity of lord; or it is an aide which had its origin in that relation of lord and vassal, but which afterwards was taken independent of custom. But it is also usual to distinguish aides and taxes, describing the former as due by custom in ordinary times, and the latter as granted, or it may be levied without any grant, upon an extraordinary emergency. Then it is not uncommon to distinguish aides and taxes by referring the former to the feudal tenures, the latter to the mere relation between the sovereign and the subject, wholly independent of any feudal consideration. Sometimes they are opposed to taille, the term being used to designate all taxes except the taille.

But then that aide is the term frequently used where custom and service are out of the question is also certain. Thus, we find aides loyaux used to designate the general tax imposed by Louis VII. to defray the expenses of his Crusade; and yet the definition of aides loyaux is (as the word implies) any tax imposed by law. These aides were originally voluntary, and termed droits de complaisance. Again we find aides raisonnables, which were those obtained on unusual occasions, as aide de l'oste et chevauchée, for charges of war. It is sometimes stated that aide and tax differ in this, that aide is the duty imposed on sales (the alcavala introduced from Spain), and tax denotes other duties, either granted, or imposed without grant. Probably it is only meant by this statement to distinguish duties in the nature of excise and customs generally, that is, indirect taxation, or taxes on consumption, from direct taxes; for certainly the alcavala tax, though frequently imposed during the fourteenth and the very early part of the fifteenth century, never became a regular head of French finance; and accordingly we find another use of the term (aides) as merely signifying duties on all goods sold within the realm, and levied on their passage either from abroad or to the market, as a transit duty, in contradistinction to the taille. (Encyclo. i. 192; ii. 245.)

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The taille stands in peculiar circumstances, and was on every account the most important of the duties, forming, indeed, a much greater proportion of the revenue than any other. It was the remains of, or substitute for, the escuage or scutage, which again was the substitute for personal service. It was also probably taken in consideration of such services as escuage did not Hence the nobles, who served in person, and by the men whom they furnished, were not liable to the taille; nor were the ecclesiastics originally, they serving by their sacred functions. Afterwards they came to provide substitutes, and were liable to taille if they were married, being one-half of the amount which they would have paid if laymen. The clergy unmarried and not in any trade were wholly exempt. Exemptions were also enjoyed in right of office, as by the royal household, baillis, and others. The taille received its name from the notched sticks or tallies used in keeping the accounts of it, as they were till of late years in the English Exchequer, and as they still are by some trades, as that of baker in France and in Scotland. It was called also tolte (or taking), and, from its abuse, frequently called both in English and French legislative history male-tolte. It was either real or personal-more properly mixed-for it was either levied on real property or on persons in respect of their real property; and it was intended to be taken in proportion to the profits made by the cultivation or farming of the property. The fiefs nobles did not pay it in any hands; the fiefs roturiers in some provinces paid it even when in the hands of nobles. Those provinces were Dauphiné, Languedoc, Provence, and Guienne. Fiefs roturiers were, properly speaking, fiefs of subinfeudation, four steps from the grantor, the Prince, or fiefs held by some base tenure unconnected with military service, but to which, as to those from subinfeudation, the taille had come to be extended by abuse. In some places both nobles and clergy paid taille for houses, where other real property was exempted in their hands. As the taille was a property-tax on the peasant or farmer's profits, in assessing him recourse was had to the value of his farm-stock, including implements as well as live stock, and hence he was in

duced to have as small a stock as he possibly could, and to conceal by every contrivance what he was forced to have. The collection was much more oppressive in the provinces which had no States, but were under officers originally elective, and hence called élus, afterwards appointed by the crown. In provinces having States, these collected the taille; in those having none, and also in Bretagne, which was a Pays d'Etats, the officers assessed, and it was done so harshly, that a village whose income did not exceed 4000 livres has been called upon to pay as much as 7000 livres for taille. "If," says a writer on Finance, "an élu can but spy out a rag on a farm, he will make it the ground of a surcharge." There were 80,000 tax-gatherers of all kinds in France about the year 1760, and the taille had then increased to 66,500,000, including 10,000,000 paid by the Pays d'Etats as their don gratuit to cover taille. The salaries of these officers were supposed to average 1000 fr. Before the revolution of 1789 the taille had increased to more than double-between 7,000,000 and 8,000,000 sterling. The Ordinance of Orleans, in which it originated so far as it became yearly and perpetual, fixed it at 1,200,000, and Charles VII. never raised it permanently. He only three times levied crues, or surcharges, on the ground of the estimate (prisée) having been too low, and that there was a pressing necessity for supplies. Louis XI. raised it to above four millions, and although the States of Tours in 1484, held upon his decease, reduced it, succeeding princes gradually increased it.

The opinion that taille was first laid on by St. Louis in 1218 is wholly erroneous. The Ordinance of Philip-Augustus, called his Testament, in 1190, mentions it by name; but the charter given to Beauvais in 1060 exempts that town from taille in express terms.

The very learned articles in the Encyclopédie on aids and taxes (vols. i. ii. and xv.) by Chev. de Jaucour, and especially those by M. Boucher d'Argis, well deserve to be studied. There is one statement of importance as to the taille which seems to be inaccurate. M. d'Argis says it was first made yearly and perpetual in 1445, and was fixed at 1,800,000. It is possible this may only mean that Charles VII.'s carrying into effect, 1445, the Ordinance

of Orleans, 1439, when the States had granted the taille for the payment of the troops, had the effect of making the taille annual; but it was certainly granted for that service in 1439. It was also only 1,200,000. This we learn from an unquestionable authority. There is no statement of the whole sum in the Ordinance of Orleans, nor are there any particulars preserved of it in the accounts of the States of 1439. But in the important procedings of the States of Tours, held in 1484 by Anne of Beaujeu acting as regent through the Princes on Louis XI.'s death, we find 1,200,000 to be the sum stated as having been granted at Orleans-and the States insist on reducing it to that amount from 4,404,000, which it had been increased to. They are called on to make it 1,500,000, but refuse-granting the additional 300,000 only for two years. This appears in a MS. Latin account of that meeting of the States of Tours by Masselin, of which only an extract is published by Garnier and has been inserted in Col. des Et. Gén. x.

The articles on States-General and Parliaments in the Encyclopédie are by far the fullest and contain the most minute information anywhere to be found, especially respecting Parliaments. M. d'Argis was an eminent lawyer, and held offices in the courts. He was also a legal antiquary of reputation. But he took the precaution, necessary when we consider the complexity of the subject from the various bodies and their different practices as well as history, of consulting fully with all the most experienced of his brethren, judges as well as lawyers and office-bearers, upon the statements which he was preparing.

The student of this subject may be permitted to lament that to its unavoidable difficulties there should be added one wholly unnecessary. It is well known that by an inconceivable absurdity the French year used to begin not with any fixed day, but with the moveable feast of Easter. Therefore when writers give a year without the month, it becomes most difficult to ascertain in which of two years an event happened. Thus M. d'Argis says the taille was made perpetual in 1445. If he had said in February, we should have known it was 1446; if he had said May, we should

have known he meant 1445. If he had said March or April, to ascertain the year, we must have calculated on what day Easter fell at that time. M. Sismondi, in his truly excellent Histoire des Français, makes it a rule always to reduce the dates to the year beginning the 1st of January; and accordingly in his whole thirty volumes the reader is never at a loss on this head.

NOTE LXIX.-p. 341.

The prevailing notion of Henry's gentleness and courtesy is by no means common to English and to French authorities.

Reiffenberg has published (tom. i.) a curious MS. in the Bibliothèque de Bourgogne at Dijon, of which Sauvages in 1562 had given an incorrect publication at Lyons. It is entitled "Cronickes de Flanders Abbroghies." We find in ch. x. some curious particulars :-" Le Roy d'Engleterre (Henry V.) estoit orguellex en toutes riens, et ne daigner estre obeissant au Roy de France; car il estoit assez plus ricces que luy ; et le Roy de France ne povit sceuffir l'orguel de luy. Il estoit si riches qu'il avoit tous avalers et les bouciers avoce luy par son grand aver, et par ce cy endomagoit moult le royaume de France." Sauvages says in a note that these two words (avalers and bouciers) cannot be found anywhere else, and he conceives they apply to the costereaux mentioned in other chronicles. They were sometimes called retondeurs and écorcheurs. Reiffenberg agrees in this, and holds avalers, from avaler, to mean une engeance dévorante ou plûtot destructive" (p. 60). The bouciers went round from country to country, before regular armies were introduced, offering their services.

NOTE LXX. p. 346.

There were sixty general customs or sets of unwritten law extending over whole provinces and great districts, and not less than three hundred customs peculiar to smaller districts, as lord