Moreover, these dues, the censives, the lods et ventes, tithes, and the like, are in the hands of a steward, and he is a good steward who returns a large amount of money.

He has no right to be generous at his master's expense, and he is tempted to turn the subjects of his master to his own profit.

In vain might the soft seignorial hand be disposed to be easy or paternal; the hard hand of the proxy bears down on the peasants with all its weight, and the caution of a chief gives place to the exactions of a clerk .-- How is it then when, instead of a clerk on the domain, a fermier is found, an adjudicator who, for an annual sum, purchases of seignior the management and product of his dues?
In election of Mayenne,[1344] and certainly also in many others, the principal domains are rented in this way.

Moreover there are a number of dues, like the tolls, the market-place tax, that on the flock apart, the monopoly of the oven and of the mill which can scarcely be managed otherwise; the seignior must necessarily employ an adjudicator who spares him the disputes and trouble of collecting.[1345] This happens often and the demands and the greed of the contractor, who is determined to gain or, at least, not to lose, falls on the peasantry: "He is a ravenous wolf," says Renauldon, "let loose on the estate.

He draws upon it to the last sou, he crushes the subjects, reduces them to beggary, forces the cultivators to desert.