Ineffectual King of France from 1715 to 1774 who was dominated by his strong-willed and unscrupulous mistress, Madame de Pompadour. Handwritten letter in French by King Louis XV, unsigned, one page, 6.5 x 8.5, August 2, 1754. Letter to the Chancellor de Lamoignon, in part (translated): "Give the [test] to the first president [Rene-Charles de Maupeou, first president of the Parliament of Paris] and he will probably be happy with me when he comes here. I read again and again, every day, the draft bill about the letters patent, I agree with all the alleviations for the Parliament; but you are not cutting off anything for the Clergy, and I am rightly worried about it. I always leave from here on Tuesdays; your coming here would do more harm than good. On Friday I will be in Versailles, and we can meet on Saturday if necessary." In fine condition.
Taxation in France was a recurring issue throughout the 18th century, particularly as the nation's elite sought to avoid it whenever possible. In Louis the Beloved, Olivier Bernier writes of the 1757 attempts at reform: 'Parlements did their best to make the two vingtiemes [income taxes] as ineffective as possible. The clergy, too…managed to squeeze an abonnement…The attempt at financial reform, that perennial struggle, had failed once again. This had two consequences, one short-term and highly visible, the other hidden but even more dangerous. The first was, obviously, a growing deficit, which hampered the war effort, created constant difficulties for the government and made it look improvident; the second was a general recognition that if, like the Nobility and Clergy, you were strong enough to resist, you could quite easily avoid paying taxes…The people who were now fighting the vingtieme—the Parlement and the clergy—belonged to the upper classes and were, in effect, refusing to bear their part of the common burden; yet, amazingly, they managed to convince the poor that they were acting in their interest.' Louis XV's inability to reign in his country's tax problem set the stage for the government's collapse and the French Revolution in the 1780s.
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