Unfortunately, before the tax-gatherer can collect the first two
levies these have to be assessed, and as there are complicated
writings and formalities, claims to settle amidst great resistance
and local ignorance, the operation is indefinitely prolonged. The
personal and land-tax schedule of 1791 is not transmitted to the
departments by the Assembly until June, 1791. The departments do
not distribute it among the districts until the months of July,
August, and September, 1791. It is not distributed by the districts
among the communes before October, November, and December, 1791.
Thus in the last month of 1791 it is not yet distributed to the tax-
payers by the communes; from which it follows that on the budget of
1791 and throughout that year, the tax-payer has paid nothing. - At
last, in 1792, everybody begins to receive this assessment. It
would require a volume to set forth the partiality and dissimulation
of these assessments. In the first place the office of assessor is
one of danger; the municipal authorities, whose duty it is to assign
the quotas, are not comfortable in their town quarters.
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