Ferme générale
Encyclopedia
The Ferme générale was, in ancien régime
Ancien Régime in France
The Ancien Régime refers primarily to the aristocratic, social and political system established in France from the 15th century to the 18th century under the late Valois and Bourbon dynasties...

France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, essentially an outsourced customs and excise operation which collected duties on behalf of the king, under six-year contracts. The major tax collectors in that tax farming
Tax farming
Farming is a technique of financial management, namely the process of commuting , by its assignment by legal contract to a third party, a future uncertain revenue stream into fixed and certain periodic rents, in consideration for which commutation a discount in value received is suffered...

 system were known as the fermiers généraux, which would be tax farmers-general in English.

In the 17th and 18th centuries fermiers généraux became immensely rich and figure prominently in the history of cultural patronage, as supporters of French music, collectors of paintings and sculpture, patrons of the marchands-merciers
Marchand-mercier
A marchand-mercier is a French term for a type of entrepreneur working outside the guild system of craftsmen but carefully constrained by the regulations of a corporation under rules codified in 1613.. The reduplicative term literally means a merchant of merchandise, but in the 18th century took...

and consumers of the luxury arts in the vanguard of Parisian fashions. Their sons or grandsons purchased patents of nobility and their daughters married into the aristocracy.

History

Before the French Revolution, the public revenue was based largely on taxes known as:
  • the taille
    Taille
    The taille was a direct land tax on the French peasantry and non-nobles in Ancien Régime France. The tax was imposed on each household and based on how much land it held.-History:Originally only an "exceptional" tax The taille was a direct land tax on the French peasantry and non-nobles in Ancien...

     – direct land tax imposed on French peasant
    Peasant
    A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...

     and non-noble households, based on how much land they held.
  • the taillon – a tax for military expenditure
  • the vingtième (one-twentieth) – based solely on revenues (5% of net earnings from land, property, commerce, industry and from official offices)
  • the gabelle
    Gabelle
    The gabelle was a very unpopular tax on salt in France before 1790. The term gabelle derives from the Italian gabella , itself from the Arabic qabala....

     – a system of salt taxes
  • the aides – national tariffs on various products (including wine and tobacco),
  • the douane – a local tariff on specialty products
  • the octroi – a local tariff levied on products entering towns
  • a local tariff levied on products sold at fairs
  • the "dîme" – a mandatory tithe
    Tithe
    A tithe is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Today, tithes are normally voluntary and paid in cash, cheques, or stocks, whereas historically tithes were required and paid in kind, such as agricultural products...

     to support the church (and so, not formally a tax).

Tax farming before Colbert

The Ferme générale developed at a time when the monarchy suffered from chronic financial difficulties. The Affermage (leasing, outsourcing
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is the process of contracting a business function to someone else.-Overview:The term outsourcing is used inconsistently but usually involves the contracting out of a business function - commonly one previously performed in-house - to an external provider...

) of the collection of the traite (customs duties and taxes) had the advantage of guaranteeing the Treasury foreseeable and regular receipts, while reducing the perception of its role in tax-collection. The rights were initially contracted separately to various tax farmers, who were named traitants (who had the right to collect the traite) or partisans (who had a share in the collection of the traite). They were obliged to pay to the royal Treasury the sum stipulated in their lease, and they received a share of the income and a share of any unexpected surplus. Each right was leased separately, which caused great administrative complexity: the taking of goods out of bond could involve several tax farms. Prior to 1598, this system had developed so that the tax farms were allocated among five pays (provinces).

In 1598, Sully
Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully
Maximilien de Béthune, first Duke of Sully was the doughty soldier, French minister, staunch Huguenot and faithful right-hand man who assisted Henry IV of France in the rule of France.-Early years:...

 entrusted tax collection to one farm, instead of five and he subjected the collection of duties raised in the provinces to the rights of the King. The single tax farm was called the Cinq Grosses Fermes (five large farms). In 1607, he issued new rules (Règlement Général sur les traites) on the collection of duties in an attempt to harmonize procedures. He also attempted to constitute the whole of France into a single customs area and gather together, but without success, the provinces considered foreign into the zone covered by the Cinq Grosses Fermes. In the middle of the 17th century, France was divided for tax purposes into three principal zones:
  • the provinces of the Cinq Grosses Fermes,
  • provinces considered foreign and therefore had negotiated lower rates on some taxes, and
  • provinces effectively following the example of the provinces considered foreign, which formed free zones.


Not all fermiers-généraux constrained their viewpoint to their own enrichment: Pierre-Paul Riquet
Pierre-Paul Riquet
Pierre-Paul Riquet was the engineer and canal-builder responsible for the construction of the Canal du Midi.-Background:...

, appointed collector in Roussillon-Languedoc in 1630, employed his fortune as the canal
Canal
Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...

-builder responsible for the construction of the Canal du Midi
Canal du Midi
The is a long canal in Southern France . The canal connects the Garonne River to the on the Mediterranean and along with the Canal de Garonne forms the Canal des Deux Mers joining the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. The canal runs from the city of Toulouse down to the Étang de Thau...

 that links the southern coast of France to Toulouse to link to the canal/river system that ran across to the Bay of Biscay
Bay of Biscay
The Bay of Biscay is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Brest south to the Spanish border, and the northern coast of Spain west to Cape Ortegal, and is named in English after the province of Biscay, in the Spanish...

, one of the great engineering feats of the 17th century.

The farm under Colbert: traitants and partisans

The process was further developed under the aegis of Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing...

 Minister of Finance to Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

.
To reduce the number of these farmers and to increase the share of the collection transferred to the Treasury, Jean-baptiste Colbert sought to gather a great number of rights together in fermes générales (general farms). The first fermes générales was instituted in 1680 to collect gabelles, aides, taille and douane .

Although sometimes of obscure origin, the financiers which took these rights often quickly accumulated immense fortunes which enabled them to play a significant political and social rôle. Their greed and excesses shocked public opinion and were turned into objects of ridicule in literature, for example by Alain-René Lesage
Alain-René Lesage
Alain-René Lesage was a French novelist and playwright. Lesage is best known for his comic novel The Devil upon Two Sticks , his comedy Turcaret , and his picaresque novel Gil Blas .-Youth and education:Claude Lesage, the father of the novelist, held the united...

 in Turcaret, which was inspired by Paul Poisson de Bourvallais.

The Ferme générale (1726-1790)

In 1726, all the existing farms were gathered in a single lease. The forty farmers general, who went guarantee of the contractor of the lease, became powerful characters and fabulously rich persons. Among the representatives of the first generation of these tax farmers were Antoine Crozat
Antoine Crozat
Antoine Crozat, marquis du Châtel , French founder of an immense fortune, was the first private proprietary owner of French Louisiana from 1712 to 1717....

 (?) or the Pâris brothers.

Criticisms of the Ferme générale led the government in 1769 to introduce a system of regulation, into which the collection of taxes and the administration of the service to which the tax were entrusted to public organisations, with managers receiving a fixed remuneration. The public career of the reforming economist Turgot began with his appointment in 1761 as intendant of the généralité of Limoges.

In 1780, at the initiative of Jacques Necker indirect taxes were distributed between three tax farm companies: the Ferme générale (customs duties), the Ligue générale (taxes on alcohol) and the Administration générale des domaines et des droits domaniaux(land taxes and fees on land registration).

At the end of the 18th century, the Ferme générale had become the symbol of the inegalitarian society. The Ferme générale, with its colossal fortune, appeared to encapsulate the perversion of the political and social system. People blamed the injustices and the annoyances on the company, which actually arose from the complexity of the tax system, the brutality of the guards of the troops and the brutal repression of fraud and smuggling. The gabelle
Gabelle
The gabelle was a very unpopular tax on salt in France before 1790. The term gabelle derives from the Italian gabella , itself from the Arabic qabala....

 was the most unpopular of the taxes.

The Ferme générale was thus one of the institutions of Ancien Régime which were most highly criticized during the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

 and were depicted as birds of prey and tyrants; the Girondist
Girondist
The Girondists were a political faction in France within the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention during the French Revolution...

 Antoine Français de Nantes, for one, made an early reputation for himself attacking this prominent target. The Ferme générale was suppressed in 1790. The fermiers-générals paid the price at the scaffold: 28 former members of the consortium were guillotine
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...

d on 8 May 1794, including the "father of chemistry" Antoine Lavoisier
Antoine Lavoisier
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier , the "father of modern chemistry", was a French nobleman prominent in the histories of chemistry and biology...

, whose laboratory experiments had been supported from his administration of the Ferme générale; his wife the chemist Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze
Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze
Marie-Anne Pierette Paulze , was a French chemist. She was born in the town of Montbrison, Loire, in a small province in France...

, who escaped the guillotine, was herself the daughter of a fermier génèral.

Organisation

The lease of the Ferme générale was concluded under six-year contracts between the king and an individual who was a figurehead for the company. The Ferme générale stood guarantee for the contractor. Their number of partners was fixed at 40, after having reached nearly 90 earlier. The contractor committed himself to paying the Treasury the amount of the lease and received in return any surplus. An upper limit was set for this remuneration from 1780.

The Ferme générale had its headquarters in Paris. It employed in its central offices nearly 700 people including two chaplains. Its local operations included up to 42 provincial offices and nearly 25,000 agents distributed in two branches of activity; that of the offices which checked, liquidated and charged the fees; that of the brigades which sought and suppressed smuggling with very severe punishments (such as hard labour or hanging).

The employees of the Ferme générale were not royal civil servants, but they acted in the name of the king and therefore benefitted from particular privileges and the protection of the law. The guards of the service of the brigades moreover had the right to bear weapons.

The direction of the company was insured collectively by the Ferme générale. They met as committees of experts and had control of the external services.

The day before the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

, almost all the rights of drafts and rights indirect (gabelle, tax on tobacco and a number of local taxes) were awarded.

The income from the Ferme générale represented more than half of the public revenue.

The company built the Wall of the Farmers-General
Wall of the Farmers-General
The Wall of the Farmers-General was built between 1784 and 1791 by the Ferme générale, the corporation of tax farmers. It was one of the several city walls of Paris built between the early Middle Ages to the mid 19th century. It was 24 kilometers long and roughly followed the route now occupied by...

 between 1784 and 1791 to ensure the payment of taxes to the Ferme générale on goods entering Paris.

Criticisms of tax collection methods

The internal organization of the Ferme générale is regarded today by some as the administrative system that was most equitable and most modern of the Ancien Régime. The Ferme générale was useful, in its administrative operation, as a model for the tax authorities of the 19th century. However, the same criticisms that were made in relation to the Ferme générale include that:
  • public bodies were deprived of a resource;
  • the service rendered was not always better in the long term;
  • the cost could be higher for the taxpayer, who paid his taxes plus the margin taken by the Ferme générale ;
  • the recovery of debts (of tax arrears) by the Ferme générale could be brutal;
  • depriving itself of a resource, the community became involved in debt, and had to find new taxes to obtain additional money.


Thus at the end of the 18th century, the French State had become involved in considerable debt and this factored among the causes of the French Revolution
Causes of the French Revolution
The Causes of the French Revolution were the significant historical factors that led to the revolution of 1789 in France.Although France in 1785 faced economic difficulties, mostly concerning the equitability of taxation, it was one of the richest and most powerful nations of Europe...

.

Cultural roles of the fermiers

The fermiers généraux of the Ancien Régime figure prominently in the history of cultural patronage. The enlightened fermier-général Le Normant de Tournehem
Charles François Paul Le Normant de Tournehem
Charles François Paul Le Normant de Tournehem was a French financier, a fermier-général, or tax-farmer.He is best known for his connection with Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson , future marquise de Pompadour. Her legal guardian from 1725, after her official father was forced to leave the country, he may...

 was the legal guardian of Mme de Pompadour, responsible for her careful education; in turn, thanks to her influence he was made directeur général of the Bâtiments du Roi
Bâtiments du Roi
The Bâtiments du Roi was a division of Department of the household of the Kings of France in France under the Ancien Régime. It was responsible for building works at the King's residences in and around Paris.-History:...

 in December 1745, and held the post, overseeing royal building works, until his death. “Without artistic prejudices,” Fiske Kimball observed, “he was a man of ability, honesty and simplicity, who devoted himself to efficient administration.”

The class of fermiers-généraux figure among prominent supporters of French music, collectors of paintings and sculpture, such as Pierre Grimod du Fort
Pierre Grimod du Fort
Pierre Grimaud du Fort was a fermier général and art collector under Louis XV, and a member of the famous Grimaud family. One of the richest fermiers, he was also superintendent of the Post Office....

, and as patrons of the marchands-merciers
Marchand-mercier
A marchand-mercier is a French term for a type of entrepreneur working outside the guild system of craftsmen but carefully constrained by the regulations of a corporation under rules codified in 1613.. The reduplicative term literally means a merchant of merchandise, but in the 18th century took...

.

As consumers of the luxury arts the fermiers-généraux were in the vanguard of Parisian fashions, like Ange-Laurant La Live de Jully, a connoisseur and patron of the arts who embraced the early form of neoclassicism called the Goût grec
Goût grec
Goût grec is the term applied to the earliest expression of the neoclassical style in France, it refers specifically to the decorative arts and architecture of the mid-1750s to the late 1760s. The style was more fanciful than historically accurate though the first archaeological surveys of Greece...

. Others merely made themselves notorious for their dissipation, like Ange-Laurent's brother, the estranged husband of the writer and saloniste Louise d'Épinay
Louise d'Epinay
Louise Florence Pétronille Tardieu d'Esclavelles d'Épinay was a French writer, a saloniste and woman of fashion, known on account of her liaisons with Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who gives malicious reports of her in his Confessions...

. The gastronome Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière
Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière
Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière , trained as a lawyer, acquired fame during the reign of Napoleon, for his sensual and public gastronomic lifestyle. Son of Laurent Grimod de La Reynière, he inherited the family fortune on the death of his father, a fermier général, in 1792...

 was the son of the fermier général Laurent Grimod de La Reynière
Laurent Grimod de La Reynière
Laurent Grimod de La Reynière was a French financier and fermier général. He was the son of Antoine Gaspard Grimod de La Reynière , another fermier général, and the father of the famous gastronome Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière .In 1775 he had the hôtel Grimod de La Reynière...

.

Sons or grandsons of fermiers-généraux purchased patents of nobility, and their daughters married into the aristocracy.
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