This direct taxation continued on this plan until the time of the kings of the second dynasty. The Franks, who had not the privilege of exemption, paid a poll tax and a house tax; about a tenth was charged on the produce of highly cultivated lands, a little more on that of lands of an inferior description, and a certain measure, a _cruche_, of wine on the produce of every half acre of vineyard. There were assessors and royal agents charged with levying such taxes and regulating the farming of them. In spite of this precaution, however, an edict of Clovis II., in the year 615, censures the mode of imposing rates and taxes; it orders that they shall only be levied in the places where they have been authorised, and forbade their being used under any pretext whatever for any other object than that for which they were imposed. [Illustration: Fig. 255.--Signature of St. Eloy (Eligius), Financier and Minister to Dagobert I.; from the Charter of Foundation of the Abbey of Solignac (Mabillon, "Da Re Diplomatica").] Under the Merovingians specie was not in common use, although the precious metals were abundant among the Gauls, as their mines of gold and silver were not yet exhausted. Money was rarely coined, except on great occasions, such as a coronation, the birth of an heir to the throne, the marriage of a prince, or the commemoration of a decisive victory. It is even probable that each time that money was used in large sums the pound or the _sou_ of gold was represented more by ingots of metal than by stamped coin. The third of the _sou_ of gold, which was coined on state occasions, seems to have been used only as a commemorative medal, to be distributed amongst the great officers of state, and this circumstance explains their extreme rarity. The general character of the coinage, whether of gold, silver, or of the baser metals, of the Burgundian, Austrasian, and Frank kings, differs little from what it had been at the time of the last of the Roman emperors, though the _Angel bearing the cross_ gradually replaced the _Renommée victorieuse_ formerly stamped on the coins. Christian monograms and symbols of the Trinity were often intermingled with the initials of the sovereign. It also became common to combine in a monogram letters thought to be sacred or lucky, such as C, M, S, T, &c.; also to introduce the names of places, which, perhaps, have since disappeared, as well as some particular mark or sign special to each mint. Some of these are very difficult to understand, and present a number of problems which have yet to be solved (Figs. 256 to 259). Unfortunately, the names of places on Merovingian coins to the number of about nine hundred, have rarely been studied by coin collectors, expert both as geographers and linguists. We find, for example, one hundred distinct mints, and, up to the present time, have not been able to determine where the greater number of them were situated.