Note 266 — VI. OF THE GIFTS OF FORTUNE.

By these initials are meant partisans, a name given to the farmers-general of the revenue. Until 1726, these persons obtained in France, for a fixed money payment, the right of collecting one or more of the public taxes. This system was first inaugurated by Sully (1560-1641), the able finance-minister of Henri IV., out of necessity, in order to raise money; and was continued for more than two hundred years, and the cause of many arbitrary measures and great oppression. The number of these fermiers-généraux was first forty and afterwards sixty, but there were a goodly number of sous-fermiers and many other agents, who were all practically irresponsible. In 1726, a company of capitalists undertook the collection of the greater part of the kingʼs taxes, which was called the fermes-générales or unies, and lasted till the first French Revolution. The ministre des finances, a name only first given in 1795, was, in the sixteenth and part of the seventeenth century, called surintendant des finances, and from 1661 till 1791 contrôleur-général des finances.