farmers-general

There are magnificent avenues of elm-trees, great gardens encircled by the moat, and a circumference of walls about a huge manorial pile which represents the profits of the maltote, the gains of farmers-general, legalized malversation, or the vast fortunes of great houses now brought low beneath the hammer of the Civil Code.

A Woman of Thirty 2007

You have also the pleasure of contributing to the enriching of the farmers-general, but, after all, this money does not go out of the kingdom like that which is paid to the court of Rome.

A Philosophical Dictionary 2007

Church shall be considered as a tax-gatherer or a Pagan; we ought, therefore, to listen to the Church that we may not be disgraced and hated like the farmers-general.

A Philosophical Dictionary 2007

There was, in reality, a person of the name of Chotard; but he was a man ruined by debts and debauchery; a fraudulent bankrupt who embezzled forty thousand crowns from the tax office of the farmers-general in which he held a situation, and who is not likely to have given up a hundred thousand crowns to the grandmother of the doctor in laws.

A Philosophical Dictionary 2007

Moldavia, by the so-called Phanariote governors or farmers-general of the Porte.

Roumania Past and Present James Samuelson

As you probably know, we have made large shipments of tobacco, contracted for by several farmers-general, but such has been the delay in delivery and payment after reaching this country that we deemed it absolutely necessary to have someone over here to attend to the matter.

Calvert of Strathore Carter Goodloe

These speculators were called "farmers-general," -- France could be called their farm [Footnote: Etymologically, the French word for farm (_ferme_) was not necessarily connected with agriculture, but signified a fixed sum (_firma_) paid for a certain privilege, such as that of collecting a tax.] and money its produce.

A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. Carlton J. H. Hayes 1923

The collection of taxes was farmed out to the “farmers-general,” who kept half they got.

Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers Hubbard, Elbert, 1856-1915 1916

The budgets usually showed deficits, and the imposts of all kinds were raised by tyrannical farmers-general.

The Psychology of Revolution 1913

They give occasion, it is pretended, to much extortion in the officers of the farmers-general who collect the tax, which is in a great measure arbitrary and uncertain.

II. Book V. Of the Sources of the General or Public Revenue of the Society 1909