Other dues are also ancient taxes, but he still performs the
service for which they are a quittance. The king, in fact, suppresses
many of the tolls, twelve hundred in 1724, and the suppression is kept
up. A good many still remain to the profit of the seignior, - on
bridges, on highways, on fords, on boats ascending or descending,
several being very lucrative, one of them producing 90,000 livres[25].
He pays for the expense of keeping up bridge, road, ford and towpath.
In like manner, on condition of maintaining the market-place and of
providing scales and weights gratis, he levies a tax on provisions and
on merchandise brought to his fair or to his market. - At Angoul?me a
forty-eighth of the grain sold, at Combourg near Saint-Malo, so much
per head of cattle, elsewhere so much on wine, eatables and fish[26]
Having formerly built the oven, the winepress, the mill and the
slaughterhouse, he obliges the inhabitants to use these or pay for
their support, and he demolishes all constructions, which might enter
into competition with him[27]. These, again, are evidently monopolies
and octrois going back to the time when he was in possession of public
authority.
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