gabelle

noun

1. A tax; especially, the tax on salt levied in pre-Revolutionary France.

   “The proceeds of the gabelle on retail wine were pledged directly to repayment of the forced loans imposed during Baumgarten and Sterz's raid in 1364.”

   “Salt, for example, was a state monopoly, and the tax on it – the much-detested gabelle – was levied at six different levels in the various regions […]”