Louis, when the constitution was presented to him, undertook to govern in accordance with it, and the deputies then dispersed to give place to their successors (September 30). Called upon to effect in the course of a few months changes which could only be accomplished without convulsions in the course of years, whatever their errors, they had rendered France many and great services. By their legal reforms alone they did away with an untold amount of mental and physical suffering. By their economical and financial reforms they paved the way for a new era in agriculture and industrialism. If, under passion and prejudice, they had on occasions wantonly increased the number and fury of opponents, yet much that they had been called on to do remained still undone, and when they closed the sittings there was small prospect that the tide of revolution would stop at the limit which they had drawn. They had found neither time nor opportunity to establish any general system of poor relief or any national system of education. By their decrees dealing with proprietary rights they had struck at the root of the old law, but the work of promulgating a new code they left to those who came after them. With the fiefs had fallen the law of primogeniture, but liberty of devise had been left in the main unrestricted, though in default of a will all relations equal in blood inherited equally. This principle of equal division was not a speculative invention of the revolution, but as regards land held by certain tenures, it had already existed in some parts of France. The finances of the state had been restored only on paper. All the expenses of government were regulated and the civil list fixed. Four main branches of the revenue, tobacco and salt monopolies, excise duties, and duties on wine had been abolished. The yearly expenditure, including the expenses of the Established Church, was estimated at 27,900,000_l._, of which 21,350,000_l._ had to be raised by taxation. In place of the _taille_ a tax of 13,125,000_l._, rated by local boards, was imposed on lands and buildings. Taxes of 2,625,000_l._ were imposed on personal property. The remaining 6,000,000_l._ were to be raised by various forms of indirect taxation, custom duties, stamp taxes, and trade patents. The debt, however, during these two and a half years of revolution had been greatly augmented, and the deficit increased. The holders of the abolished offices had been liberally indemnified, and the reforms effected in all departments cost the nation no less than 61,200,000_l._, swelling the state debt to more than 87,500,000_l._ Meanwhile the people had refused to pay the old taxes long before their abolition by the Assembly, and it was now only with difficulty that some portion of the new was collected. Not only to pay state creditors, but also to cover the expenses of government, resort had been had to new issues of assignats, and in the spring of 1791 the paper money fell in value about ten per cent.