Or to avoid having his poll-tax and vingtiemes reduced.

Or to obtain exemption from the militia for his domestics, to keep his own person, dwelling, dependents, and hunting and fishing rights from the universal usurpation which places all possessions and all privileges in the hands of "Monseigneur l'intendant" and Messieurs the sub-delegates.

And the more so because he is often poor.

Bouille estimates that all the old families, save two or three hundred, are ruined.[1317] I Rouergue several of them live on an income of fifty and even twenty-five louis, (1000 and 500 francs).

In Limousin, says an intendant at the beginning of the century, out of several thousands there are not fifteen who have twenty thousand livres income.