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 27S Readings in European History Premiums to those who advanced money to the government. superintendents appeared to be more honest than from 1616 to 1630. . . . But since the expiration of these twenty years the change in the character of the persons chosen to fill this post has not altered the fate of the state ; on the contrary, the most pernicious maxims took root in their minds and controlled their conduct and, in the course of time, assumed such strength that they have come to be considered fixed and unquestionable, and it seems to be assumed that they are not endangering the state. These maxims were : This realm can exist only in confusion and disorder ; The secret of finance consists solely in making and un- making, in bestowing emoluments and new honors on old officers, in creating new offices of every kind and character, in alienating rights and sources of income, withdrawing these and then reestablishing them once more ; Causing the payment of taxes on all kinds of pretexts ; Increasing the indirect taxes and tallies, alienating rights, then reducing or withdrawing them to alienate them anew; Consuming for current expenses the ordinary and extraor- dinary receipts of the two years following ; Giving prodigious discounts for advances in cash, not only in raising exceptional revenue, but even in the collec- tion of the ordinary revenue, more than half of which is consumed by discounts and interest on money advanced ; Giving the opportunity to the treasurers of the public funds, other financial agents, and farmers of the revenue ! of making immense profits; maintaining that the grandeur of the state consists in having a small number of persons who can furnish prodigious sums and astonish foreign princes ; Neglecting the farmed taxes x and general receipts which constitute the ordinary revenues, in order to apply themselves actively to extraordinary sources of income. All these pernicious maxims were so firmly established that the most able and enlightened persons connected with 1 Most of the indirect taxes were collected for the French govern- ment by a company of capitalists called the " farmers " of the revenue. See below, p. 361.