VAUBAN Sébastien le Prestre de Projet d’une Dixme Royale. Qui supprimant la Taille, les Aydes, les Doüanes d’une province à l’autre, les Décimes du clergé, les Affaires extraordinaires; & tous autres Impôts onereux…

En français dans le texte, 134; Carpenter, X; Goldsmiths’ 4432 (for an undated edition with the same pagination); Kress, 2586; voir INED, 4397 (edition with 270 pages).

One of the editions published in the year of the first.

Born in May 1633 in Saint-Léger-de-Foucherets (Saint léger Vauban in the Yonne), Vauban is the best-known of all French military engineers. The archetypal honest man of the 17th century, he wrote numerous treatises throughout his life on science, economics, agriculture, strategy and military architecture.

In 1689, he wrote a memoir on the “recall of the Huguenots”, urging Louis XIV to reverse the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in the name of freedom of conscience. In 1698, he set up a population census, but above all, in 1707, he drew up a tax project known as the “royal tithe” to simplify taxes (which were numerous, complicated and inefficient): he proposed a single tax on income, which could be at different rates, but with a maximum of 10%. In order to justify this project (which Mirabeau was to follow), Vauban argued, in the manner of William Petty, on the basis of facts, weights and measures. Not only did he participate in the creation of statistics, he also used them to support his arguments.

“C’est ce qui fait de lui un économiste classique, au sens apologétique du mot, et un précurseur des tendances modernes” (Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis , pp. 203 passim).

The publication of this work compromised Vauban’s position with Louis XIV. Printed without privilege, copies were immediately seized.

“Décembre 1706 : un maréchal de France [Vauban] âgé de soixante treize ans, introduit lui-même dans son carrosse franchissant la porte Saint Denis, deux ballots de feuilles clandestinement imprimées à Rouen, qu’il fait aussitôt relier chez la Veuve Fétil, rue Saint Jacques. Un bel in-quarto qu’il s’agit de distribuer aux amis influents qui auraient pu contribuer au succès de son action. Les Arrêts du Conseil privé du roi devaient enjoindre que tous les exemplaires (au nombre de 276) fussent saisis, confisqués et mis au pilon.”(En Français dans le texte).

Michel de Boislisle states in La Proscription du projet de Dime Royale et la mort de Vauban that the bookbinder declared to the police that she had only received 264 copies in total, of which 12 had been bound in morocco and the rest in calfskin or vellum. The ban on the original edition (in quarto format) had the opposite effect and the production of counterfeits was launched; in the two years that followed there was a very large number of editions, all without the author’s name, sometimes without a date.