“What happens at Bordeaux happens at Turin, at Spa, at Marseilles, etc. The police commissioners derive immense profits from the gaming-tables. My intention is that the towns shall reap the benefit of the tables. I shall employ the two hundred thousand francs paid by the tables of Bordeaux in building a bridge or a canal....” A great improvement was that the taxes became fixed and regular. Napoleon wished that each man should know what he had to pay out each year. “True civil liberty depends on the safety of property,” he told his Council of State. “There is none in a country where the rate of taxation is changed every year. A man who has three thousand francs income does not know how much he will have to live on the next year. His whole substance may be swallowed up by the taxes.” Nearly the whole revenue came from indirect taxes applied to a great number of articles. In case of a war which did not pay its way, Napoleon proposed to raise each of these a few centimes. The nation would surely prefer this, to paying it to the Russians or Austrians. When possible the taxes were reduced. “Better leave the money in the hands of the citizens than lock it up in a cellar, as they do in Prussia.” He was cautious that extra taxes should not come on the very poor, if it could be avoided. A suggestion to charge the vegetable and fish sellers for their stalls came before him. “The public square, like water, ought to be free. It is quite enough that we tax salt and wine.... It would become the city of Paris much more to think of restoring the corn market.” An important part of his financial policy was the rigid economy which was insisted on in all departments. If a thing was bought, it must be worth what was paid for it. If a man held a position, he must do its duties. Neither purchases nor positions could be made unless reasonable and useful. This was in direct opposition to the old _régime_, of which waste, idleness, and parasites were the chief characteristics. The saving in expenditure was almost incredible. A trip to Fontainebleau, which cost Louis XVI. four hundred thousand dollars, Napoleon would make, in no less state, for thirty thousand dollars. The expenses of the civil household, which amounted to five million dollars under the old _régime_, were now cut down to six hundred thousand dollars, though the elegance was no less.