Napoleon is not the man to deprive himself without reason of either a soldier or a franc; above all things, he wants his army complete and his treasury full; to supply their deficits he seizes whatever he can lay his hands on, both taxable material as well as recruitable material.

But all material is limited; if he took too little on the one hand he would be obliged to take too much on the other; it is impossible to relieve these without oppressing those, and oppression, especially in the matter of taxation, is what, in 1789, excited the universal jacquerie, perverted the Revolution, and broke France to pieces .-- At present, in the matter of taxation, distributive justice lays down a universal and fixed law; whatever the property may be, large or small, and of whatever kind or form, whether lands, buildings, indebtedness, ready money, profits, incomes or salaries, it is the State which, through its laws, tribunals, police, gendarmes and army, preserves it from ever ready aggression within and without; the State guarantees, procures and ensures the enjoyment of it.
Consequently, property of every species owes the State its premium of assurance, so many centimes on the franc.

The quality, the fortune, the age or the sex of the owner is of little importance; each franc assured, no matter in whose hands, must pay the same number of centimes, not one too much, not one too little .-- Such is the new principle.

To announce it is easy enough; all that is necessary is to combine speculative ideas, and any Academy can do that.

The National Assembly of 1789 had proclaimed it with the rattling of drums, but merely as a right and with no practical effect.