Before the Revolution the poor man lost fifty-nine days out of every year in service to the State by way of tax. Three-fifths of the French were in this condition. After the Revolution the artisan, mechanic, and day laborer lost from nine to sixteen days per year. Before the Revolution Champfort could say, “In France seven millions of men beg and twelve millions are unable to give anything.” To the same purport is the testimony of Voltaire that one-third of the French people had nothing. Under Napoleon an American traveller, Colonel Pinkney could write, “There are no tithes, no church taxes, no taxation of the poor. All the taxes together do not go beyond one-sixth of a man’s rent-roll.” Before the Revolution the peasant proprietor and small farmer, out of 100 francs net income, paid 14 francs to the seigneur, 14 to the Church, and 53 to the State. After Napoleon’s rise to power, the same farmer out of the same amount of income paid nothing to the seigneur, nothing to the Church, very little to the State, and only 21 francs to the commune and department. Under the Bourbons such a farmer kept for his own use less than 20 francs out of 100; under Napoleon he kept 79. Under the Bourbons the citizen was compelled to buy from the government seven pounds of salt every year at the price of thirteen sous per pound, for himself and each member of his family. Under Napoleon he bought no more than he needed, and the price was two sous per pound. Under the Bourbons the constant dread of the peasant, for centuries, had been Famine--national, universal, horribly destructive Famine. With Napoleon’s rise to power, the spectre passed away; and, excepting local and accidental dearths in 1812 and 1817, France heard of Famine no more. Napoleon believed that each generation should pay its own way. He had no grudge against posterity, and did not wish to live at its expense. Hence he “floated” no loans, issued no bonds, and piled up no national debt. The best of the Bourbon line, Henry IV., lives in kindly remembrance because he wished the time to come when the French peasant might, once a week, have a fowl for the pot. Compare this with what Lafayette writes (in 1800): “You know how many beggars there were, people dying of hunger in our country. We see no more of them. The peasants are richer, the land better tilled, and the women better clad.” Morris Birkbeck, an English traveller, writes, “Everybody assures me that the riches and comfort of the farmers have been doubled in twenty-five years. “From Dieppe to this place, Montpellier, we have not seen among the laboring people one such famished, worn-out, wretched object as may be met in every parish in England, I had almost said on almost every farm.... A really rich country, and yet there are few rich individuals.”