In a private and confidential letter, which the Director of Contributions wrote thereupon to the _Intendant_, he says: ‘If the augmentations which have been demanded appear to you, on account of the general distress, to be as aggravating and as revolting as you give me to understand, it would be better for the province, which can have no other defence or protection than in your generous good-feeling, that you should spare it, at least, the _rôles de supplément_, a retroactive tax, that is always odious.’ It may be seen by this correspondence what a complete absence there was of any solid basis, and what arbitrary measures were exercised, each with honest intentions. Both Minister and Intendant laid the weight of the increased taxation sometimes upon the agricultural rather than the manufacturing interests, sometimes upon one kind of agriculture more than another (as the growth of vines, for instance), according as they fancied that the manufacturing or any one branch of the agricultural interest ought to be more tenderly handled. Note (LXXI.)--Page 159, line 13. EXPRESSIONS USED BY TURGOT RESPECTING THE COUNTRY PEOPLE IN THE PREAMBLE OF A ROYAL DECLARATION. ‘The rural communities consist, throughout the greater part of the kingdom, of poor peasants, who are ignorant and brutal, and incapable of self-administration.’ Note (LXXII.)--Page 163, line 24. HOW IT WAS THAT REVOLUTIONARY IDEAS NATURALLY SPRANG UP IN MEN’S MINDS, EVEN UNDER THE OLD MONARCHY. In 1779 an _avocat_ addressed a petition to the Council for a decree to establish a maximum of the price of straw throughout the whole kingdom. Note (LXXIII.)--Page 163, line 32. The Head Engineer, in a letter written to the _Intendant_, in 1781, relative to a demand for an increase of indemnification, thus expresses himself: ‘The claimant does not pay heed to the fact that the indemnifications granted are an especial favour to the _Généralité_ of Tours, and that people ought to consider themselves very fortunate in recovering only a part of their loss. If such compensations as the claimant requires were to be given, four millions would not suffice.’ Note (LXXIV.)--Page 167, line 39. The Revolution did not break out on account of this prosperity, but that active, uneasy, intelligent, innovating, ambitious spirit, that was destined to produce the Revolution--the democratic spirit of new states of society--began to stir up everything, and, before it overthrew for a period the social state of France, was already strong enough to agitate and develop it. Note (LXXV.)--Page 169, line 13. COLLISION OF THE DIFFERENT ADMINISTRATIVE POWERS IN 1787.