SIRE, IN in the month of July 1814, my predecessor submitted to your majesty the situation of your finances, and presented to your approbation the probable amount of the budgets of receipts and expenditures of 1814 and 1815.

The law of the 23d September following sanctioned, with some amendments, the provisional adjustment of those budgets and the arrangements proposed for the payment of the debt in arrears.

The treaty of Paris, the first favour conferred on your people by your majesty, had restored peace to France. After twenty-five years of wars and misfortunes, France was at rest, and preserved her glory. Our relations with foreign powers were re-established; our internal commerce was reviving; agriculture was repairing its losses; all the seeds of public prosperity were beginning to germinate; and full of confidence in the future, we did not recollect past evils but to bless the return of your majesty which had so happily terminated them.

An event for ever to be deplored has again plunged France into new calamities. I shall not lay before your majesty the sad picture. The results which I am going to submit to you, the comparisons which the results will suggest, will prove but too clearly the fatal influence of this event on our finances, and

the necessity of the sacrifices which it has entailed. Your majesty has taken the noble lead in making those sacrifices. This example will not be lost upon your people. In making yourself a sharer in misfortunes which it was not in your power to prevent, but which you are anxious to repair, you have traced to all Frenchmen a line of duty which they will not hesitate to follow.

The law of the 23d of September 1814 has provided for every thing which is anterior to that year. It has judiciously connected with its receipts all the collections remaining to be made from the preceding years. For, if it belong to a wise foresight to insert in a report at the opening of a financial term (exercice) the probable amount of the wants of the public service, and the means of providing for the same, the pursuit of a chimerical perfection would prove the complete abortion of this useful plan, if it should lead to keeping the fiscal terms indefi. nitely open for the sake of establishing in each one an apparent but unattainable equilibrium of receipts and expenditures.

In the results and propositions which I am going to submit to your majesty, I will then only take into consideration the years 1814, 1815, and 1816.

The receipts and expenditures

of 1814 are now positively ascertained. I offer first the budget for that year.

Passing then to the still imperfect estimation of the receipts and expenditures of 1815, not so imperfect, however, as it had been in the first instance, I will propose a new settlement of the budget of that year.

The probable insignificance of the collections which remain to be made for the year 1814, and the manifest inadequacy of those which may be expected on account of the year 1815, leave, for those two years, a considerable surplus of expenditures which must be pro

vided for.

I ought, on this occasion, to repeat the observations made by my predecessor, that this surplus of expense was provided for out of the receipts of the anterior terms from the special funds, and deposits, and other anticipations; that it is necessarily a part of the debt in arrears prior to the first of April 1814, and that, accordingly, it can have no influence on the situation of the nine last months of 1814.

This account of the receipts and expenditures of the first three months was inserted pour memoire (or as a memorandum or nota bene) in the provisional budget agreed to for this term. For the same reason I present its results in the budget now offered.

RECEIPTS.

The law of the 23d September had estimated the receipts to be made for the first nine months at 442,928,000 francs.

The ordinary receipts have exceeded this estimate, and amounted to 460,941,020, including therein a sum of 13,236,412, the proceeds of receipts made posterior to the 1st of April, from the term 1813 and the preceding, and which, in compliance with the law of September, was to be added to the recourses of 1814.

Nevertheless several heads of reserve did not reach the estimates of the budget. But the deficits which result from this, have been nearly balanced by a surplus of amount in the receipts arising from other items.

I shall indicate both briefly.

At the epoch at which the budget of 1814 was proposed, all the purchasers of timber had filed claims against the treasury. Their accounts were then under exami

nation, and regulations were in progress to adjust the indemnities, and discharges to which they might have a right in consequence of the losses which they had experienced, owing to the invasion of our territory. It was then impossible to furnish any but a very imperfect

estimate of the amount to be expected from this source of revenue. It has exceeded all hope, notwithstanding the reductions, the discharges, and the indemnities justly granted to the purchasers

whose claims were found to be well grounded.

I ought to add, however, that this sum of 26,698,500 francs is the gross amount of the sale of timber, and that in order to reduce it to the net proceeds, it is necessary to deduct from it about six millions for the expenses of the administration of our forests, and which have been supplied out of the revenue of the stamp and do

mainal administrations.

ed, and temptation to fraud been diminished.

The price of the farm of the salt-works has been ultimately fixed for 1814 at two millions. The

proceeds from this item had been valued provisionally at 1,500,000. There is then a surplus of 500,000. The several receipts have exceeded by 557,447 francs the first estimate. The uncertainty of those receipts sufficiently excuses the inaccuracy of the first estimate. But

on the other hand several branches of the revenue have not come up to the first estimate.

The direct taxes valued at 291,266,000 francs, deducting the contingent of the departments severed from France, leave a deficit of 26,000,000.

Nearly the whole of these 26 millions is to be obtained from departments which have been twice occupied by foreign armies, and will be absorbed by the remis sions granted to those departments. I do not believe that more than from 5 to 600 thousand francs can be obtained from this portion of the arrears.

The proceeds of the stamps, and those of the lottery and of the post office, exhibit likewise a deficit; but I repeat that this deficit is more than compensated by the surplus obtained from other branches of revenue, and that of course they leave no deficit in the budget.

Certain extraordinary receipts have been made by the treasury in 1814. I submit the account of them to your majesty: they amount to 60,690,230 francs. This sum includes a payment of 9,515,500 francs made to the royal treasury by the extraordinary domains in 1814, and the additional cents imposed in 1813 and 1814, which remained to be collected on the 1st of April 1814: An order in coun3 в

cil of the 13th June following has authorised the commutation of these cents for requisition-notes. This commutation has taken place, and will be speedily terminated in the eastern, western, and southern departments. It was more slow in its operation but draws now to a close in the central and western departments. The sums which have not been absorbed by this mode of liquidation, have been paid into the treasury, and there has resulted from them an increase in the receipts of 51,174,730.

In adding the amount of these extraordinary receipts of 1814

To the ordinary receipts And superadding likewise a sum of 12,084,689 francs, the surplus of the collections made out of the proceeds of the debt in arrears beyond the payments made on the same account

There results a total of

60,690,230 460,941,020

12,084,690 533,715,940

the system of this law, all the payments remaining to be made for a period anterior to the first of April were to be made in that mode. But as these provisions could not be executed before the end of 1814, the result has been that ministers have sanctioned and the treasury has actually paid in specie, in the same mode as for the expenses of the last nine months, a great portion of the expenses belonging to the three first months.

We must then give up entirely those first calculations which are at variance with facts, and rest upon a new basis, the budget of the expenses of the last nine months.

Since the first of April 1814 there has been paid in specie on account of the first three months, 59,423,592 franes, which belong to the arrears and which ought to have been paid out of the resources set apart for its

extinction, if this pay

ment had not been called for prior to the epoch at which the law of the 23d of September could be put in execution On account of the last nine months

In order to complete the payment of the expenditures of this period there is wanting a sum of .

This credit of 231,606,000 francs from the proceeds of the arrears, was intended to cover the deficit foreseen in the expenditures of the year, a deficit the cause of which is to be found in the excess of the expenses of the first quarter of 1814. And, indeed, according to

*The reign of the Bourbons commenced only at the end of this quarter.

I propose, then, to fix ultimately the budget of the last three quarters of 1814 at this sum of

The budget of the or dinary and extraordina ry receipts is of

There results accordingly, for this term, a surplus of expense amounting to

103,716,622

103,716,622