Issoudun in 1790.--Rebellion against taxation.--Indirect taxes in 1789 and 1790.--Abolition of the salt tax, excise, and octrois.--Direct taxation in 1789 and 1790.--Delay and insufficiency of the returns.--New levies in 1791 and 1792. --Delays, partiality, and concealment in preparing the rolls.--Insufficiency of, and the delay in, the returns. --Payment in assignats.--The tax-payer relieves himself of one-half.--Devastation of the forests.--Division of the communal property. The fear of starvation is only the sharper form of a more general passion, which is the desire of possession and the determination not to give anything up. No popular instinct, had been longer, more rudely, more universally offended under the ancient régime; and there is none which gushes out more readily under constraint, none which requires a higher or broader public barrier, or one more entirely constructed of solid blocks, to keep it in check. Hence it is that this passion from the commencement breaks down or engulfs the slight and low boundaries, the tottering embankments of crumbling earth between which the Constitution pretends to confine it.--The first flood sweeps away the pecuniary claims of the State, of the clergy, and of the noblesse. The people regard them as abolished, or, at least, they consider their debts discharged. Their idea, in relation to this, is formed and fixed; for them it is that which constitutes the Revolution. The people have no longer a creditor; they are determined to have none, they will pay nobody, and first of all, they will make no further payment to the State.