1822 Receipt for Taxes Paid to the city of Bourges, France
10254On offer is an interesting receipt for taxes received by the city of Bourges, France, 155 miles south of Paris, in the early years following the Napoleonic Wars. It details a tax payment received by the city from the son of Monsieur Gibieuf. The payment is for “de cinquirute un franc”.
The receipt is signed by Le Percepter [The Collector], a Monsieur Deschaud.
The average labourer earned much less than 1 franc per day so this gives a sense of how intent the authorities were to collect even the smallest amount of money from the citizenry.
Although only a small example of the bureaucratic machinery of government, this receipt is also a symbol. It was the heavy and deeply unfair taxation system in France that directly contributed to the French Revolution and the destruction of the French nobility and position of the Roman Catholic church.
For a historian, it is a tangible hint of the tax burdens that still weighed on the average person.
The document measures 2.0 inches by 6.0 inches. The paper is in good condition. It is a printed form with space for the recipient’s name, date and particulars handwritten in a lovely script.
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