Especially against collectors of the salt-tax, custom-house officers, and excisemen the fury is universal.
These, everywhere,[1327] 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 Alencon 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 Alencon 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-Eveches; 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 the social body, the heart, already so feeble, faints; deprived of the blood which no longer reaches it, it ceases to propel to the muscles the vivifying current which restores their waste and adds to their energy.
"All controlling power is slackened," says Necker, "everything is a prey to the passions of individuals." Where is the power to constrain them and to secure to the State its dues ?--The clergy, the nobles, wealthy townsmen, and certain brave artisans and farmers, undoubtedly pay, and even sometimes give spontaneously.

But in society those who possess intelligence, who are in easy circumstances and conscientious, form a small select class; the great mass is egotistic, ignorant, and needy, and lets its money go only under constraint; there is but one way to collect the taxes, and that is to extort them.