[ Tallentyre's commentary: de Farges was a Councillor of State.

Voltaire gives here an admirable description of the condition of the country poor before the Revolution, and emphasises the fact that it was not the iniquitous extorsion of the taxes which so much oppressed them but the cruel and rapacious character of the tax-gatherers. Gabelle, or the tax on salt, to which Voltaire alludes here, compelled each person to buy seven pounds of salt per year at a price which varied in the different provinces and was everywhere iniquitously high. The nobles, clergy, and government officials were exempt from the tax altogether. No wonder in a very few years' time the Gabelle was as a fuse to the fire of the Great Revolution. ]

FERNEY, February 25, 1776.

Sir, since thou wouldest enter into judgment with thy servant, permit me to tell you that, if I could leave my bed (being now in my eighty-third year and the victim of many maladies), I should hasten to throw myself at the feet of the Controller General: and this is how I should prose on the subject of our states:

Our little country is worse than Sologne and the miserable land of Champagne, and worse than the worst parts of Bordeaux.

Notwithstanding our wretchedness, eight and twenty parishes sang eight and twenty Te Deums and shouted eight and twenty "Long live the Kings and Long live M. Turgots!" We shall cheerfully pay thirty thousand francs to the sixty sub-kings--being delighted to die of hunger, on condition of being delivered from seventy-eight rogues who made us die of rage.

We agree with you that near Paris, Milan, and Naples the land can support all the taxes, because the land is productive: but it is not the same with us: in good years the yield is three to one, often two, sometimes nothing, and needs six oxen to plough it. Seeds are fruitful once only in ten years.

You will ask what we live on: I answer, On black bread and potatoes, and principally on the sale of the wood which our peasants cut in the forests and take to Geneva. Even this means of subsistance constantly fails, for the forests are devastated here much more than in the rest of the kingdom.

I may remark, in passing, that timber will soon be scarce in France, and that lately wood for firing is being bought in Prussia.

As I want to be perfectly frank, I own that we make certain cheeses on some of the Jura mountains in June, July, and August.

Our chief means of livelihood is at the end of our fingers. Our peasants, having nothing to live on, have been diligently working at watchmaking for the Genevese--the Genevese making thereat ten millions of francs per annum, and paying the workmen of the province of Gex exceedingly badly.

An old man, who took it into his head to settle between Switzerland and Geneva, has established a watch manufactory in the province of Gex which pays the workmen of the country exceedingly well, which increases the population, and which, if protected by the Government, will supersede the business of wealthy Geneva: but this old man is not much longer for this world.

We exist, then, solely through our industry. But I ask if this watchmaking, which will bring in ten thousand francs a year, which profits by salt much more than do the agriculturists, cannot help these agriculturists with the thirty thousand francs indemnity they must pay for their salt?

I ask if these fat inn-keepers, who make even more than the watchmakers, and consume more salt, ought not also to assist the unfortunate proprietors of a wretched soil?

The big manufacturers, the hotel-keepers, the butchers, the bakers, the tradesmen, know so well the miserable condition of the country and the favours of the ministry that they have all offered to help us with a small contribution.

Either permit this contribution, or slightly reduce the exorbitant sum of thirty thousand livres which the sixty deputy-kings demand from us.

One of these sub-kings named Basemont has just died, worth, it is said, eighteen millions [of francs]. Was there any need for that scamp to flay us alive in order that our skin might bring him five hundred livres?

Here, sir, are a few of the grievances which I should lay at the feet of the Controller General: but I say nothing, I leave all to you. If you are moved by my reasonings you will deign to be so good as to present them: if they strike you as bad, you will whistle them clown the wind.

If I do wrong to plead thus feebly for my country, I am undoubtedly right in saying that I have the greatest esteem for your enlightenment, the greatest gratitude for your kindnesses, and that I am, with the sincerest respects, yours, sir, etc., etc.