"With the intendants," said the Duc d'Orleans, "I settle matters, and pay about what I please," and he calculated that the provincial administration, rigorously taxing him, would cause him to lose 300,000 livres rental.

It has been proved that the princes of the blood paid, for their two-twentieths, 188,000 instead of 2,400,000 livres.

In the main, in this regime, exception from taxation is the last remnant of sovereignty or, at least, of independence.

The privileged person avoids or repels taxation, not merely because it despoils him, but because it belittles him; it is a mark of the commoner, that is to say, of former servitude, and he resists the fisc (the revenue services) as much through pride as through interest.
IV.

Their Feudal Rights.
These advantages are the remains of primitive sovereignty.
Let us follow him home to his own domain.