It is said that Turgot was the Minister who put this language into the King’s mouth, but most of Turgot’s successors made him hold no other. When, in 1780, the King announced to his subjects that the increase of the _taille_ would, for the future, be subject to public registration, he took care to add, by way of commentary, ‘Those persons who are subject to the _taille_, besides being harassed by the vexations incident to its collection, have likewise hitherto been exposed to unexpected augmentations of the tax, insomuch that the contributions paid by the poorest part of our subjects have increased in a much greater proportion than those paid by all the rest.’ When the King, not yet venturing to place all the public burdens on an equal footing, attempted at least to establish equality of taxation in those which were already imposed on the middle class, he said, ‘His Majesty hopes that rich persons will not consider themselves aggrieved by being placed on the common level, and made to bear their part of a burden which they ought long since to have shared more equally.’ But it was, above all, at periods of scarcity that nothing was left untried to inflame the passions of the people far more than to provide for their wants. In order to stimulate the charity of the rich, one Intendant talked of ‘the injustice and insensibility of those landowners who owe all they possess to the labours of the poor, and who let them die of hunger at the very moment they are toiling to augment the returns of landed property.’ The King, too, thus expressed himself on a similar occasion: ‘His Majesty is determined to defend the people against manœuvres which expose them to the want of the most needful food, by forcing them to give their labour at any price that the rich choose to bestow. The King will not suffer one part of his subjects to be sacrificed to the avidity of the other.’ Until the very end of the monarchy the strife which subsisted among the different administrative powers gave occasion for all sorts of demonstrations of this kind; the contending parties readily imputed to each other the miseries of the people. A strong instance of this appeared in the quarrel which arose, in 1772, between the Parliament of Toulouse and the King, with reference to the transport of grain. ‘The Government, by its bad measures, places the poor in danger of dying of hunger,’ said the Parliament. ‘The ambition of the Parliament and the avidity of the rich are the cause of the general distress,’ retorted the King. Thus both the parties were endeavouring to impress the minds of the common people with the belief that their superiors are always to blame for their sufferings.