longer felt, as the tribute was collected on the principle of a
real, not of a personal imposition. ^* Several indigent citizens
contributed to compose a single head, or share of taxation; while
the wealthy provincial, in proportion to his fortune, alone
represented several of those imaginary beings. In a poetical
request, addressed to one of the last and most deserving of the
Roman princes who reigned in Gaul, Sidonius Apollinaris
personifies his tribute under the figure of a triple monster, the
Geryon of the Grecian fables, and entreats the new Hercules that
he would most graciously be pleased to save his life by cutting
off three of his heads. ^181 The fortune of Sidonius far exceeded
the customary wealth of a poet; but if he had pursued the
allusion, he might have painted many of the Gallic nobles with
the hundred heads of the deadly Hydra, spreading over the face of
the country, and devouring the substance of a hundred families.
II. The difficulty of allowing an annual sum of about nine
pounds sterling, even for the average of the capitation of Gaul,
may be rendered more evident by the comparison of the present
state of the same country, as it is now governed by the absolute
monarch of an industrious, wealthy, and affectionate people. The
taxes of France cannot be magnified, either by fear or by
flattery, beyond the annual amount of eighteen millions sterling,
which ought perhaps to be shared among four and twenty millions
of inhabitants. ^182 Seven millions of these, in the capacity of
fathers, or brothers, or husbands, may discharge the obligations
of the remaining multitude of women and children; yet the equal
proportion of each tributary subject will scarcely rise above
fifty shillings of our money, instead of a proportion almost four
times as considerable, which was regularly imposed on their
Gallic ancestors. The reason of this difference may be found,