"WOULD it not be of great satisfac-tion to the king to know, at a designated moment every year, the number of his subjects?" A military engineer by the , name of Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban posed this question to Louis XIV in 1686, pitching him the idea of a census. All France's resources, the wealth and poverty of its towns and the disposition of its nobles would be counted, so that the king could control them better.
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