As PM Jones pointed out, the ancient regime imposed several direct and indirect and they were collected in different ways. The direct taxes were – taille , capitation and vingitiemes. The nobility paid capitation and vingitiemes but not taille which was a major direct . The clergy paid a sum to the royal treasury known as ‘don gratuity .’10 The first two estates paid very less taxes. The huge burden of taxation fell on the peasantry. They had to pay taille, the major , in addition to it the indirect taxes such as ‘gabelle’(salt tax) and the royal tax. The clergy and the nobility were exempted from taxation and were considered to be the ‘privileged order’. The system of taxation in prior to the revolution was very unfair. The privileged order did not even pay the royal tax. The payment of tax became unbearable when additional taxes such as and feudal were imposed on the peasant’s income.

Though the economy was facing a major crisis with food prices touching a new height, rise in unemployment and with people resorting to begging, the government increased the indirect taxes. PM Jones says that indirect taxes which included gabelle(salt tax) and other taxes on corn and drinks hit the commoners the hardest. With the first two estates not paying a fair share of taxes, there was widespread anger among the people . The people revolted against such an oppressive system of taxation.

The taxation system in the ancient regime was bitterly resented by the common people . The richer the man the less the tax he pays. The burden of taxation became too excessive for the rural community. It is inevitable that people will rise in rebellion against such a harsh system of taxation. This was also one of the major causes of the participation of the rural community in the which signalled the downfall of the ancien regime.

Lefebvre is of the opinion that the peasants were unable to save money due to the huge burden of taxation. Hence no capital development took place and there was no improvement in agriculture. Lefebvre held the view that the rate of taxation increased in the years before the outbreak of the revolution as royal expenditure increased in order to maintain a large bureaucracy. Not to

10PM Jones, The peasantry in the French revolution ,(Cambridge university press,1988), pp-42 forget the fact that with the involvement of France in the American war, the Government increased the .

With all these discontentment, oppression, ‘wrongs’ and injustices inflicted upon them , the rural community rose in rebellion against the Bourbon monarchy. Lefebvre argues that it was the peasantry who occupied the centre stage in the revolution. The peasantry played a crucial role in the revolutionary process and set forth the political agendas. 11 Alfred Cobban has criticised this view of Lefebvre . Cobban is also critical of Lefebvre’s system of social classification. Lefebvre has remarked that peasants “destroyed the feudal regime but consolidated the agrarian structure of France” and that the stance of peasantry was both conservative and revolutionary. Lefebvre has termed the revolution as a social revolt in his classical Marxist historiography. G. V. Taylor and William Doyle have agreed that the French revolution was “a political revolution with social consequences and not a social revolution with political consequences”.12

PM Jones highlights the fact that between 1788 and March 1790, the situation in the countryside was very volatile. Peasant mobilisation took place during these months. The districts around Paris were the scene of large scale riots. The people demanded the abolition of tolls and they refused to pay various taxes such as gabelle, taxes on drinks etc. As Lefebvre points out that the riots in Paris encouraged the peasants to rise in revolt.

The peasants attacked the king’s agents who collected taxes, the privileged orders. The revolutionaries attacked tax offices, salt and tobacco warehouses. The chateaux which symbolised aristocracy were attacked and burnt down. People refused to pay taxes, tithes and feudal dues. The provinces which did not rise in armed rebellion participated by refusing to pay the hated taxes. These peasant rebellion were greatly influenced by the Paris revolution. The ‘aristocratic plot’ spurned the peasants into rebellion. The peasants felt that the aristocrats were trying to deprive them of recent privileges granted to them by the king. Lefebvre says that Franche-comte witnessed violent disturbances since the end of 1788. The nobility and the parlement opposed

11 Taken from the article by PM Jones , Georges Lefebvre and the peasant revolution: fifty years on, French historical studies , 16:3:1990, pp-647. 12 Ibid, pp-652 the privilege of double voting given to them by the king. The presence of feudal monarchy was also very strong in this area.

The revolts were not organised or planned. What united the peasants was the common hatred against high prices and the refusal to pay taxes. The peasants targeted the seigneur and his officers. The peasant revolts abolished feudal dues and tithes , attacked feudal rights which were the hallmarks of the ancien regime. The abolition of feudal rights, dues , taxes marks the end of the ancien regime which is replaced by a constitutional republic.

Historians still differ on the question of the nature of the revolution- whether it was a bourgeois/democratic or a political revolution. Historians also raise important questions such as who were the revolutionaries or was the revolution related to provinces or was it a Parisian revolution. The French revolution is a complex phenomena in which the entire socio-political structure of erstwhile France underwent a complete change. The ancient regime was violently uprooted and a new society was established based on the rights of equality, fraternity and universal brotherhood.