One form of wealth alone puzzled the beneficent monarch and his
Napoleonic advisers, and this was the production (for it then existed)
of literary matter.
At first this seemed as simple to tax as any one of the other numerous
activities upon which the Emperor's loyal and loving subjects were
engaged. A brief examination of the customs of the trade, conducted by
an army of officials who penetrated into the very dens and attics in
which Letters are evolved, reported that the method of payment was by
the measurement of a number of words.
"It is, your Majesty," wrote the permanent official of the department in
his minute, "the practice of those who charitably employ this sort of
person to pay them in classes by the thousand words; thus one man gets
one sequin a thousand, another two byzants, a third as much as a ducat,
while some who have singularly attracted the notice of the public can
command ten, twenty, nay forty scutcheons, and in some very exceptional
cases a thousand words command one of those beautiful pieces of stiff
paper which your Majesty in his bountiful provision tenders to his
dutiful subjects for acceptance as metal under diverse penalties. The
just taxation of these fellows can therefore be easily achieved if your
Majesty, in the exercise of his almost superhuman wisdom, will but add a
schedule to the Finance Act in which there shall be set down fifteen or
twenty classes of writers, with their price per thousand words, and a
compulsory registration of each class, enforced by the rude hand of the
police.
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