17358 — No place, (1788). 2 works in 1 volume. 144, (2) pp.; 12 pp. 8vo. Modern boards. First work: Kress B.1266 (other edition); Goldsmiths 13454 (other edition); Einaudi 3412 (other edition); INED 2915 (other edition); Stourm, pp. 145-146 (other edition). One of three editions from the same year, no priority has been established. The French crown faced bankruptcy when the Controller-General, Calonne, presented a financial schem to end the crisis. The keystone in his program was a tax to be levied on all property owners without discrimination of estate. Calonne also proposed liberating commerce in grains from all internal tariffs. When Calonne was unable to pass this in the Assembly of Notables, he was replaced by Loménie de Brienne. 'Linguet lent the support of his publicity to the Calonne property tax and published this work just after the Notables had turned down Calonne's master plan. (.....) Linguet viewed it as a means by which the government, provisioned in grains, could compete with entrepreneurs, control the market price of wheat, and in that way guarantee the lives of an impoverished and progressively more restless population of dispossessed persons. Linguet saw the unpopular tax program as a key government stratagem for warding off two spectres: bankruptcy and a people's revolution' (D. Gay Levy, The Ideas and Careers of Simon-Nicolas-Henri Linguet, p. 240).Second work: Not in Kress; not in Goldsmiths; not in Einaudi; not in INED; not in Stourm.Calonne's reforms failed, Brienne's attempts failed, and the King gave in, recalled Jacques Necker to face the acute financial crisis, recalled the parlements and annulled all judicial reforms. Linguet answered with number 116 of his Annales again proposing fiscal reform. The parlements answered by ordering this number 116 to be lacerated and burned. The present work is Linguet's protest against these decisions by the parlement. - Inner margin of the first title and last leaf of the second work strengthened.
