Chateaubriand's memoirs, V, 3

The royal revenues, in Brittany, were derived from discretionary gifts, varied according to need; the income from the crown estate, which one might put at three to four hundred thousand francs; and the stamp duty etc.

Brittany had revenues peculiar to itself, which required it to accept the charges imposed as follows: the grand and the petit devoir, which affected liquid assets and their transfers, furnished two millions a year; then there were the sums derived from the fouage. There should be scarcely any doubt of the importance of the fouage in our history; it was to the French Revolution what stamp duty was to the revolution in the United States.

Fouage (census pro singulis FOCIS exactus: a tax imposed on every home) was a feudal rent, a kind of tallage, imposed on the common people for every hearth. By gradual increases in the fouage, the province’s debt was paid. In time of war, expenditure amounted to more than seven millions from one session to another, the major source of income. The idea of creating financial capital derived from fouage was conceived and instituted as a rent benefiting the levier of fouage: whereas fouage had actually never been more than a loan. The injustice (though a lawful injustice, in terms of royal custom) was in allowing it to fall only on commoners’ property. The townships never ceased complaining; the nobility, clinging less to their money than to their privileges would not allow discussion of any charge which might make them taxable. Such were the issues, when the fiery Breton States met in the month of December 1788.

Their minds were agitated then for various reasons: the Assembly of Notables, regional taxation, the corn trade, the impending session of the States-General and the affair of the necklace, the plenary Court and The Marriage of Figaro, the Grand Bailiwicks and Cagliostro and Mesmer, and a thousand other things, serious or futile, were objects of controversy in every family.

The Breton nobility, in its own right, was summoned to Rennes to protest against the establishment of the plenary Court. I went to this gathering: it was the first political meeting I attended. I was amazed and amused by the shouts I heard. They climbed on tables and chairs; they gesticulated, all spoke at once. The Marquis de Trémargat, ‘Peg-Leg’, spoke with the voice of Stentor: ‘Let us all go to the Commandant, Monsieur de Thiard’; and say to him: ‘The Breton nobility is at your door, demanding to speak with you: even the King would not refuse!’ At this stroke of eloquence cheers shook the rafters. He cried again: ‘Even the King would not refuse!’ The shouts and stamping redoubled. We went to see Monsieur the Comte de Thiard, a gentleman of the Court, erotic poet, a gentle and frivolous soul, mortally wearied by our noise; he looked at us as if we were hooting owls, wild boars, savage beasts; he burned with desire to quit our Armorica, and had no wish to refuse us entry into his hotel. Our orator told him what we desired, after which we drew up this declaration: ‘Let us declare those to be vile who would accept a place either in the new administration of justice, or the administration of the States, neither of which have been endorsed by the constitutional law of Brittany.’ Twelve gentlemen were chosen to carry this document to the King: on arrival in Paris they were imprisoned in the Bastille, from which they later emerged as heroes; they were received with laurel branches on their return. We wore coats with large mother-of-pearl buttons bordered with ermine, round which were inscribed in Latin this device: ‘Death before dishonour.’ We triumphed over the Court which all the world triumphed over and we fell with it into the same abyss.