The indirect taxes of France were mostly farmed. Once in six years the Controller General of the Finances for the time being entered into a contract, nominally with a man of straw, but actually with a body of rich financiers, who appeared as the man's sureties, and who were known as the Farmers General. The first operation of the Farmers, after entering into the contract, was to raise a capital sum for the purpose of buying out their predecessors, of taking over the material on hand, and of paying an advance to the government; for although many individual Farmers General held over from one contract to the next, the association was a new one for each lease. In 1774, just before the death of King Louis XV., a new contract was made, and the capital advanced amounted to 93,600,000 livres. The Farmers were allowed interest on this sum at the rate of ten per cent. for the first sixty millions, and of seven per cent. for the remaining 33,600,000 livres. This interest was, however, taxed by the government for the two twentieths. The rent paid by the Farmers under this contract was 152,000,000 livres a year, for which consideration they were allowed to collect the indirect taxes and keep the product. This system, which is at least as old as the New Testament, is now generally condemned, but in the eighteenth century it found defenders even among liberal writers. The Farmers General in the contract of 1774 were sixty in number, but they did not divide among themselves all the profits of the enterprise. It was the habit to accord to many people a share in the operations of the farm, without any voice in its management. The people thus favored were called croupiers; king Louis XV. himself was one of them. His Controller General, the Abbé Terray, received a fee of three hundred thousand livres on concluding the contract, and the promise of one thousand livres for every million of profits. When the bargain had been struck and the advance paid, he announced to the Farmers that further croupes would be granted, and that sundry payments must be made to the treasury. The profits of the undertaking were thus materially reduced. The Farmers at first threatened to throw up their bargain, but the Controller told them that if they did so he would not return their advances, but only pay interest on them. In spite of this swindle, the lease turned out on the whole much to the benefit of the Farmers.