This twelfth article was at the same time the expression of a political theory and reactionary against past practices. It was the theory of the framers of the Declaration of the Rights of Man that the nation was supreme, the monarch only an hereditary administrative agent. To maintain this status, the power of military force must be employed only for the advantage of the nation. d’Argenson, in 1754, had complained that “Le roi n’emploie plus ses forces que contre ses sujets.”[27] In 1771, when the obstinate _parlement_ had been replaced by the _Grand Conseil_, troops were used to guard this substitute which was designated “Maupeou’s parlement,” and the people considered the whole procedure as contrary to the French Constitution.[28] Mirabeau had also denounced the royal army in these plain words: “Je dis que les troupes réglées sont l’instrument du despotisme, comme leur institution en fut le signal. L’exemple de nos voisins n’est pas une preuve contradictoire; et ne voit on pas en effet que toute constitution en Europe est dégénérée en arbitraire et s’accélère vers le despotisme; Les troupes réglées ont été et seront toujours le fléau de la liberté; mais ce fléau est intolérable quand il devient le rempart des déprédations.”[29] The people in several of the _cahiers_ manifested fear lest the monarch might endanger, by the use of an army, the national rights, and consequently asked for the dismissal of foreign troops, for a new constitution for the army, and for the destruction of internal forts.[30] “Art. 13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means.” The inequality of taxes was, in France, an abuse recognized and condemned for centuries. Bodin, in his _République_, written in the sixteenth century, criticised the exemption of the clergy and of the nobility.[31] Already under Louis XIII., throughout two-thirds of France, where the _taille_ was a personal tax, 2,000,000 of richer persons were exempt from the _taille_, while 8,000,000 were taxable. D’Avenel says that the workmen paid under Louis XIII. four and a half times as much as to-day, though they earned much less.[32] The grievous exemptions continued so that the Third Estate during the eighteenth century supported the chief burden of royal taxes and was subjected to onerous feudal dues besides.[33]