In the first place, the taxpayer, in his own interest, must be free to buy or not to buy the merchandise taxed.

Next, in the interest of the taxpayer and of the exchequer, the merchandise must not be so taxed as to be rendered too dear.

After that, in the interest of the exchequer, its interference must not be perceptible.

Owing to these precautions, indirect taxes can be levied, even on the smaller taxpayers, without either fleecing or irritating them.

It is for lack of these precautions before 1789, when people were fleeced in such a clumsy way,[3237] that, in 1789, they first rebelled against indirect taxation,[3238] against the meal-tax, the salt-tax, the tax on liquors, the internal tariffs, and the town octrois, against fiscal officers, bureaux and registries, by murdering, pillaging, and burning, beginning in the month of March in Provence and after the 13th of July in Paris, and then throughout France, with such a universal, determined and persistent hostility that the National Assembly, after having vainly attempted to restore the suspended tax-levies and enforce the law on the populace, ended in subjecting the law to the populace and in decreeing the suppression of indirect taxation entirely.[3239] Such, in the matter of taxation, is the work of the Revolution.