Philip _le bel_, King of France, was the first who, in 1301, admitted, with great policy, the inhabitants of cities to have a seat in the states of the kingdom. He formed them into a distinct body, and called them _tiers etat_, or the third estate, after the clergy and the nobility. His view was to facilitate thereby the jurisdiction he wanted to establish over those cities, and to engage them to consent to the imposition of taxes for carrying on his wars in Flanders, and for opposing the ambitious views of Boniface VIII. Accordingly, the people began to pay willingly, when once they found that they had a vote in what concerned them. I take it for granted, that every tax, about that time, was imposed for a particular purpose, and assigned either to creditors, or to people who advanced money upon it: because we are told that the first imposition granted by the states to a King of France as a permanent branch of revenue, was an excise upon spirituous liquors granted to Philip de Valois, in the year 1345; at which time, however, according to Mr. d’Eon’s _Memoires pour servir à l’Histoire generale des Finances_, there were not less than twenty two different taxes known in France, which he enumerates as follows: _Tailles_, _complaintes_, _charges_, _redevances_, _coutumes_, _peages_, _travers_, _passages_, _centiemes_, _cinquantiemes_, _ôtes_, _chevaucheês_, _subventions_, _exactions_, _chevaleries_, _aides_, _mariages_, _toultes_, _impositions_, _prisons_, _servitudes_, and _nouvellettes_. That all these impositions must have been mere trifles, I gather from a circumstance in the Political History of France, mentioned by the author just cited, which being itself exceedingly curious and tending greatly to confirm many things which I have advanced concerning the small circulation in former times, I shall here briefly mention it. In 1356, John, King of France, applied to the States for 50,000 livres, about 9165_l._ sterling, to pay his army. The States, besides several other taxes imposed to pay this sum, granted him 8 deniers on the livre, or 3⅓ _per cent._ upon all meat, drink, and merchandize, sold in France within the year; that is to say, upon the whole alienations of France. The tax was levied, but fell so far short of the sum required, that it was made up by a poll-tax. Can any example be better calculated for forming a notion of the circulation of France at that time? It may be here alleged that the prices of every thing were then so very low, that no judgment can be formed concerning the _quantity_ of alienation from the smallness of the sum. This objection is of no force, as I shall presently shew.