Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/561

 The Eve of the French Revolution 421 Some of the districts which the kings of France brought under their sway were previously considerable states in themselves, each with fts own laws, customs, and system of government. When these provinces had come, at different times, into the pos- session of the king of France, he had not changed their laws so as to make them correspond with those of his other domains. He was satisfied if a new province paid its due share of the taxes and treated his officials with respect. While in a considerable portion of southern France the Roman law still prevailed, in the central parts and in the west and north there were no less than two hundred and eighty-five different local codes of law in force ; so that one who moved from his own to a neighboring town might find a wholly unfamiliar legal system. One of the heaviest taxes was that on salt. This varied greatly, so greatly in different parts of France that the govern- ment had to go to great expense to guard the boundary lines between the various districts, for there was every inducement to smugglers to carry salt from those parts of the country where it was cheap into the regions where it sold for a high price on account of the tax. 733. The Privileged Classes. Besides these unfortunate local differences, there were class differences which caused great dis- content. AH Frenchmen did not enjoy the same rights as citizens. Two small but very important classes, the nobility and the clergy, were treated differently by the State from the rest of the people. They did not have to pay one of the heaviest of the taxes, the notorious t aille ; and on one ground or another they escaped other burdens which the rest of the citizens bore. 734. The Church. We have seen how great and powerful the medieval Church still was (see above, 706 ff.). In France, as in other Catholic countries of Europe, it took charge of education and of the relief of the sick and the poor. It was very wealthy and is supposed to have owned one fifth of all the land in France. The clergy claimed that their property, being dedicated to God, was not subject as other land was to taxation. They consented, however, to help the king from time to time by a " free gift," as