I have said I would explain what was the condition of this collector. Let us take this explanation in the language of the Assembly of the Province of Berri in 1779, a body not liable to suspicion, for it was entirely composed of privileged persons, who paid no _taille_, and were chosen by the King. ‘As every one seeks to evade this office of collector,’ said this Assembly, ‘each person must fill it in turn. The levy of the _taille_ is therefore entrusted every year to a fresh collector, without regard to his ability or his integrity; the preparation of each roll of assessment bears marks, therefore, of the personal character of the officer who makes it. The collector stamps on it his own fears, or foibles, or vices. How, indeed, could he do better? He is acting in darkness, for who can tell with precision the wealth of his neighbour or the proportion of his wealth to that of another? Nevertheless the opinion of the collector alone is to decide these points, and he is responsible with all his property and even his person for the receipts. He is commonly obliged for two whole years to lose half his days in running after the taxpayers. Those who cannot read are obliged to find a neighbour to perform the office for them.’ Turgot had already said of another province, a short time before, ‘This office of collector drives to despair, and generally to ruin, those on whom it is imposed; by this means all the wealthier families of a village are successively reduced to poverty.’ This unhappy officer was, however, armed with the most arbitrary powers;[61] he was almost as much a tyrant as a martyr. Whilst he was discharging functions by which he ruined himself, he had it in his power to ruin everybody else. ‘Preference for his relations,’ to recur to the language of the Provincial Assembly, ‘or for his friends and neighbours, hatred and revenge against his enemies, the want of a patron, the fear of affronting a man of property who had work to give, were at issue with every feeling of justice.’ Personal fear often hardened the heart of the collector; there were parishes in which he never went out but escorted by constables and bailiffs. ‘When he comes without the constable,’ said an Intendant to a Minister, in 1764, ‘the persons liable to the tax will not pay.’ ‘In the district of Villefranche alone,’ says the Provincial Assembly of Guienne, ‘there were one hundred and six officers constantly out to serve writs and levy distraints.’