[A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times by Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot]@TWC D-Link book
A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times

CHAPTER XXI
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However, the people of Arras paid for it afterwards, for the king sent thither his cousin, my lord James of Bourbon, who gave orders to take all them by whom the sedition had been caused, and, on the spot, had their heads cut off." The states-general at their re-assembly on the 1st of March, 1356, admitted the feebleness of their authority and the insufficiency of their preceding votes for the purpose of aiding the king in the war.

They abolished the salt-tax and the sales-duty, which had met with such opposition; but, stanch in their patriotism and loyalty, they substituted therefor an income-tax, imposed on every sort of folk, nobles or burghers, ecclesiastical or lay, which was to be levied "not by the high justiciers of the king, but by the folks of the three estates themselves." The king's ordinance, dated the 12th of March, 1356, which regulates the execution of these different measures, is (article 10) to this import: "there shall be, in each city, three deputies, one for each estate.

These deputies shall appoint, in each parish, collectors, who shall go into the houses to receive the declaration which the persons who dwell there shall make touching their property, their estate, and their servants.

When a declaration shall appear in conformity with truth, they shall be content therewith; else they shall have him who has made it sent before the deputies of the city in the district whereof he dwells, and the deputies shall cause him to take, on this subject, such oaths as they shall think proper.

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