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Letter to a Deputy of the National Assembly

This Letter is a plea for action on the part of the National Assembly to solve the country’s financial problems. The names of the author and publisher of this letter are not given in the document, nor is the name of the deputy to whom it is addressed. The author criticizes the newly formed National Assembly for taking so much time to address the difficulties facing the nation and for not enforcing the decrees they have enacted. He implores the deputy to place priority on putting the nation’s finances in order, if necessary to the point of continuing the current tax regime in order to stabilize the treasury. He writes in support of the Minister of Finance, Jacques Necker, proposes ways to reduce costs and increase revenues by adjusting the salt tax regime, and includes his own calculations of the amounts to be saved. He concludes with a plea to save the nation.

NOTE: The publication date of this document is given by the Newberry Library as 1790; however, on page 8 of the original document there is reference to a tax to become effective October 1, 1789, and to actions needed “this month…” in advance of the enactment of the tax, presumably September 1789, “or at the latest during October.” Similarly, the first page refers to it now being “four months after your first session”; the Estates General convened in May 1789 and the National Assembly was formed in June 1789, which also favors a September 1789 date. The British Library has a catalog entry for a document with the same title, for which the publication year is listed as 1789.

LETTER

TO A DEPUTY

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

On the deterioration of the revenues of the State

Translated by Ann Marie Klingenhagen
Can you afford to put off your search for remedies to the increasing disorder that threatens the revenues of the State with complete ruin, disorder which can decimate the forces of order at the very moment their services have been solemnly placed in the hands of the Representatives of the Nation?

Having come from all our provinces to strengthen the Empire, shaken by the disorder of its finances, you should admit that today, four months after your first

session, not only have you done nothing to address this important matter, but you have revealed yourself to be indifferent to the fatal weaknesses of the Body Politic that you propose to regenerate, to the decline of revenues which continues while your interminable discussions drag on, & even to the misunderstandings that the people have of your decrees.

One of your Orators in the Session of July 13 – a memorable day – asked you to go back in time with him to August of last year.

The public Treasury, he said, was then without funds, without credit, without means to prevent complete bankruptcy.

Those in power lacked respect for individual liberty & lacked the means to maintain public order.

If since that time

the Minister’s¹ effective, diligent, perpetual concern for the wishes of the Nation has warded off all the evils that threatened us, do not lose sight, Sir, of the fact that at the opening of the Estates General² you have engaged, so to speak, in a sort of dictatorship.

After the Minister of Finance had overcome so many obstacles, he then expected everything from you; & at the center of our hopes & our needs we have all raised our eyes towards you, we have placed our trust in you, you were showered with our good wishes, prior to any good that you might have accomplished for us.

Must we today (“we are harsh judges, because we are worried: perhaps unjust judges, because in the midst of our fears we do not consider as we should the dangers of anarchy, all the benefits, all the advantages, even those of liberty”),

1. The Minister of Finance under Louis XVI, Jacques Necker (1732-1804), a Swiss-born banker and statesman. – TRANS.
2. Created under the Ancien Régime (“Old Regime”), the États Généraux (“Estates General”) was convened in times of crisis by the king. King Louis XVI convened the Estates General in 1789 to address the financial crisis and discontent among the different classes about the function of government. – TRANS.

by acting as did the Orator of July 13, should we tell you to go back to this past May 5? It was then that the Minister of Finance exclaimed: “Here they are, after such a long time, here they are, called around the throne, these Deputies of an illustrious Nation, who will return this Empire to tranquility & create a steadfast, durable & eternally purposeful order.” Will we now be forced, after seeing four whole months pass by since that moment without any positive results, to avert our eyes in sorrow from the touching words with which this Minister conveyed so powerfully our hopes & our feelings [?]

You seem to fear you will be subject to the Minister’s influence.

Certainly, a Jurist³ yields to the influence of a Montesquieu; a man of Letters,

3. Publiciste: one who writes or lectures about public law. – TRANS.

to that of a Voltaire. Ha! In matters of finance, why would we not listen to the advice of the man most accomplished in these matters, who has manifested so many & such great proofs of his knowledge, & who deserves the greatest confidence based upon his virtues, who has himself in the end cooperated so effectively in our meeting? What could be the intentions of those who would deprive us altogether of this source of valuable knowledge, who are always ready to reject all the suggestions of such a wise Minister, one who is also universally loved by the Nation? Are those who would refuse him any influence the true Representatives of the Nation? Is it the wishes of the Nation that they place before us, or their own individual wishes? And if it is their own wishes, to what end?

Take yourself back, at least, to that memorable day when the King’s Ministers

entered your Halls, to the moment when you saw the legislature & the entire administration of this great Empire gather together in your chamber to search for ways to save the State, & it will behoove you to realize again the dangers in the conduct of public affairs, the weakening of its forces, in order to devote all your efforts to repair it, to give life again to the Body Politic, threatened with total annihilation. -- Your decrees have diverted the incendiary hands that have devastated the dwellings of Citizens; if only they could stop the cruel & shameful proscriptions⁴! But what we demand today is to pull together your efforts to re-establish order & the enforcement of the tax laws; & to use the same words as the Minister of Justice, I implore you to consider “That disdain for the existing laws will threaten those that?

4. Proscription: condemnation of an individual as unworthy and thus subject to exile, banishment or death, without legal recourse. – TRANS.

will replace them; that permissiveness loves to circumvent laws, not because they are bad, but because they are laws.”

Therefore, do not close your eyes, Sir, to the principle that the life of a State, whether in times of peace or in the scourges of war, in periods of tranquility or in times of unrest, resides in the public Treasury. When it is empty, when all the means which bring it the riches of the State & spread them throughout the kingdom are diverted or dried up, there is no force, no action, no result; & you will then have no way to accomplish all that you propose, because it is not in a lifeless corpse that one can hope for a rebirth.

The decline in revenues worsens daily, & the frightening progress of this public misfortune extends

today to the Taille, the Vingtièmes, & the Capitation⁵. You cannot but be diligent in issuing a special decree on the direct taxes of 1790.

The Provincial Assemblies, the Provisionary Commissions⁶, the Commissioners assigned thereto, the Tribunals established to oversee these revenue collections can do nothing to accomplish this goal if you do not enforce your decrees or correct the misinterpretations that are given to them. The Taille & the Capitation come into effect on the first of October 1789: the departments must be ready to function this month, or at the latest during October; nothing is more immediate nor more urgent. I know not if the Minister of Finance has apprised you of the details on the irregularities which are being perpetrated on everything that is subject to these levies, especially

5. The Taille was a land tax imposed on commoners by seigneurs in return for their protection; the Vingtième was a tax on income from trade, office holdings, real estate and furniture, from which few were exempt; the Capitation was a poll or head tax, primarily on the non-privileged classes. – TRANS.
6. Commissions Intermédiaires: permanent administrative bodies in the provinces, which met as needed. – TRANS.

those on Salt. You will no doubt be disheartened to learn that we see today among the smugglers a large number of Laborers who, seduced by the prospect of gain, have abandoned their harvests & their other work to traffic illegally in this commodity; & that Citizens of all the adjacent classes of the Exempt Provinces⁷ stock up shamelessly at the hands of these same individuals, who in their eyes have pillaged the granaries, destroyed the offices, killed or chased away the Clerks. You will admit, Sir, that such insurrections & the practices that they bring about, by corrupting the morals of the countryside, hardly incline the Nation toward the sensible laws that you contemplate.

It would not be prudent on the part of the National Assembly to completely suppress the Salt tax, for indeed it would not be practical, & it would perhaps not be

7. Provinces franches: provinces that were exempt from the gabelle, the tax on salt. – TRANS.

within your power to replace sixty million of income at this time, when there is concern about the collection of even the territorial revenues, such as they are today. Besides, you have not yet created or secured the establishment of the Provincial Assemblies; & those that do exist are not equipped with adequate laws, powers & functions that could assure the enforcement of your decrees in matters of tax.

I am quite convinced, Sir, that it is indeed not the right moment to be concerned with the taxes that could be suppressed, or with those to be created, or to be maintained. But in the very cautious approach that the National Assembly has adopted on this matter, it must not lose sight of the fact that on June 17, it decreed that the existing taxes & charges would continue to be levied in

the same manner as they have been before, & would be until such time as they are repealed, whatever may be the reason for it.

When it issued this decree, the National Assembly did not foresee that those who wished to drag the State into the horrors of anarchy would present it to [a] misguided people as permission to do violence. Perhaps no explanation is needed, but any violations of this decree require that it be shielded from the unjust attempts made against it, by gathering all the means & all the forces of the Assembly to ensure the collection of taxes. And it will perhaps be more worthwhile to deploy such means & forces to maintain even the Salt tax in its previous form, until you have provided for & assured its replacement, if the knowledge that the people agree with the future dispositions

of the Assembly do not lead you to share the same revulsion that the King has shown you, through his Minister, to use the most rigorous means to re-establish the natural order of things, which can only be but transitory.

But, without distracting you from your primary duty, which is to ensure the collection of taxes & to quickly raise a wall against the mountain that is tumbling down, you could do no better than to adopt the measure proposed by the Minister of Finance to set henceforth the sale of Salt at six sols⁸ the pound in all the Gabelle⁹ Salt depots where they are distributed at the highest price. Mr. Necker has advised you in his Report that this action would result in a revenue decline of thirty million; & some have even overestimated that the fraudulent payments that have been made in the small & large

8. Sols: old form of sou, a unit of money equal to one-twentieth of a livre. – TRANS.
9. Gabelle: the tax on salt, also used to refer to the names of the regions that were subject to or exempt from the tax. The tax was harshest for peasants because salt was a necessary commodity. – TRANS.

Gabelle districts¹⁰, & the supplies that have been laid in, would completely eliminate this tax. But without diminishing the extent of the disruption, I think that it would exaggerate their impact to ignore the possibility & the ways of saving at least half of this tax, while awaiting the replacement that you will have determined & enacted.

According to my calculations & based on the various information I have obtained, & on the fact that a measurable increase in the consumption of any essential commodity results when the price of it is reduced & when the Farmer can use it to feed & fatten his livestock, & based on the evidence of the benefits that accrue from a reduction in contraband, as well as on the significant savings on the cost of guards & supervision, I dare hope,

10. Petites Gabelles, Grandes Gabelles: the salt tax levies differed according to regions; in the petites or small regions salt consumption was taxed as consumed; in the grandes or large regions salt consumption was taxed and a family also had to consume a minimum amount per year. – TRANS.

Sir, that this thirty million may be appreciably reduced. I am at the least very convinced that it is possible to preserve the thirty million that this tax can still produce. I have just learned, in fact, that the Farmers-General¹¹, in the latest report they received from the Provinces & according to the new calculations they have made, have published a table of the receipts that can be expected from this tax (by entirely abolishing the large Gabelles & their regime, & reducing the price of Salt to 6 sols, without increasing consumption to an unacceptable level¹²): they themselves estimate the loss at only twenty-three million eight hundred livres¹³; in this table they suggest two million of savings on supervisory costs.

Given the current state of the Royal Treasury, in our current state of decline, the survival or dissolution of the Body Politic

11. Farmers General are the Fermiers Généraux, tax collectors who bid for the right to collect taxes (primarily the salt tax) and to pursue those who did not pay. – TRANS.
12. If consumption rises because of the lower price, the increased demand could cause the price to rise again. – TRANS.
13. Livre: a unit of money, originally equivalent to one pound of silver but only worth a fraction of that at the time this was written. – TRANS.

of France does not depend solely on receipts in the amount of twenty-three million; but all depends, Sir, on the zeal or the lack thereof that the National Assembly will show to assure the collection of the revenues of the State & to maintain the forces of order.

The sizeable deficit that destroys our Finances has been increased this year by extraordinary costs: it has risen every day since June 17 because of the misunderstandings that are continuously taken of your decrees. All is falling apart, Sir, & you do nothing: your statements revive confidence, your slowness & lack of concern destroy it. Given this state of affairs, it is no longer the State’s Creditors, but the entire Nation that says to you: SAVE US.
THE END

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