The chief sources of revenue are the direct taxes, including the poll-tax and the taxes on the products of the soil, which together amounted to £172,636 in 1904. The chief heads of expenditure are the civil list, comprising the personal allowance to the king and the royal family (£46,018 in 1904), public works (£39,593) and government house and residences (£29,977).
History.—The Khmers, the ancient inhabitants of Cambodia, are conjectured to have been the offspring of a fusion between the autochthonous dwellers in the Indo-Chinese peninsula, now represented by the Kouis and other savage tribes, and an invading race from the plateaus of central Asia. As early as the 12th century B.C., Chinese chronicles, which are almost the only source for the history of Cambodia till the 5th century A.D., mention a region called Fou-nan, in later times appearing under the name of Tchin-la; embracing the basin of the Menam, it extended eastwards to the Mekong and may be considered approximately coextensive with the Khmer kingdom. Some centuries before the Christian era, immigrants from the east coast of India began to exert a powerful influence over Cambodia, into which they introduced Brahmanism and the Sanskrit language. This Hinduizing process became more marked about the 5th century A.D., when, under S’rutavarman, the Khmers as a nation rose into prominence. The name Kambuja, whence the European form Cambodia, is derived from the Hindu Kambu, the name of the mythical founder of the Khmer race; it seems to have been officially adopted by the Khmers as the title of their country about this period. At the end of the 7th century the dynasty of S’rutavarman ceased to rule over the whole of Cambodia, which during the next century was divided into two portions ruled over by two sovereigns. Unity appears to have been re-established about the beginning of the 9th century, when with Jayavarman III. there begins a dynasty which embraces the zenith of Khmer greatness and the era during which the great Brahman monuments were built. The royal city of Angkor-Thom (see Angkor) was completed under Yasovarman about A.D. 900. In the 10th century Buddhism, which had existed for centuries in Cambodia, began to become powerful and to rival Brahmanism, the official religion. The construction of the temple of Angkor Vat dates probably from the first half of the 12th century, and appears to have been carried out under the direction of the Brahman Divakara, who enjoyed great influence under the monarchs of this period. The conquest of the rival kingdom of Champa, which embraced modern Cochin-China and southern Annam, and in the later 15th century was absorbed by Annam, may probably be placed at the end of the 12th century, in the reign of Jayavarman VIII., the last of the great kings. War was also carried on against the western neighbours of Cambodia, and the exhaustion consequent upon all these efforts seems to have been the immediate cause of the decadence which now set in. From the last decade of the 13th century there dates a valuable description of Tchin-la[1] written by a member of a Chinese embassy thereto. The same period probably also witnessed the liberation of the Thais or inhabitants of Siam from the yoke of the Khmers, to whom they had for long been subject, and the expulsion of the now declining race from the basin of the Menam. The royal chronicles of Cambodia, the historical veracity of which has often to be questioned, begin about the middle of the 14th century, at which period the Thais assumed the offensive and were able repeatedly to capture and pillage Angkor-Thom. These aggressions were continued in the 15th century, in the course of which the capital was finally abandoned by the Khmer kings, the ruin of the country being hastened by internal revolts and by feuds between members of the royal family. At the end of the 16th century, Lovek, which had succeeded Angkor-Thom as capital, was itself abandoned to the conquerors. During that century, the Portuguese had established some influence in the country, whither they were followed by the Dutch, but after the middle of the 17th century, Europeans counted for little in Cambodia till the arrival of the French. At the beginning of the 17th century the Nguyen, rulers of southern Annam, began to encroach on the territory of Cochin-China, and in the course of that and the 18th century, Cambodia, governed by two kings supported respectively by Siam and Annam, became a field for the conflicts of its two powerful neighbours. At the end of the 18th century the provinces of Battambang and Siem-reap were annexed by Siam. The rivalries of the two powers were concluded after a last and indecisive war by the treaty of 1846, as a result of which Ang-Duong, the protégé of Siam, was placed on the throne at the capital of Oudong, and the Annamese evacuated the country. In 1863, in order to counteract Siamese influence there, Doudart de Lagrée was sent by Admiral la Grandière to the court of King Norodom, the successor of Ang-Duong, and as a result of his efforts Cambodia placed itself under the protectorate of France. In 1866 Norodom transferred his capital to Pnom-Penh. In 1867 a treaty between France and Siam was signed, whereby Siam renounced its right to tribute and recognized the French protectorate over Cambodia in return for the provinces of Battambang and Angkor, and the Laos territory as far as the Mekong. In 1884 another treaty was signed by the king, confirming and extending French influence, and reducing the royal authority to a shadow, but in view of the discontent aroused by it, its provisions were not put in force till several years later. In 1904 the territory of Cambodia was increased by the addition to it of the Siamese provinces of Melupré and Bassac, and the maritime district of Krat, the latter of which, together with the province of Dansai, was in 1907 exchanged for the provinces of Battambang, Siem-reap and Sisophon. By the same treaty France renounced its sphere of influence on the right bank of the Mekong. In 1904 King Norodom was succeeded by his brother Sisowath.
See E. Aymonier, Le Cambodge (3 vols., Paris, 1900–1904); L. Moura, Le royaume de Cambodge (2 vols., Paris, 1883); A. Leclère, Les codes cambodgiens (2 vols., Paris, 1898), and other works on Cambodian law; Francis Gamier, Voyage d’exploration en Indo-Chine (Paris, 1873).
CAMBON, PIERRE JOSEPH (1756–1820), French statesman,
was the son of a wealthy cotton merchant at Montpellier. In
1785 his father retired, leaving the direction of the business to
Pierre and his two brothers, but in 1788 Pierre turned aside to
politics, and was sent by his fellow-citizens as deputy suppléant
to Versailles, where he was little more than a spectator. In
January 1790 he returned to Montpellier, was elected a member
of the municipality, was one of the founders of the Jacobin club
in that city, and on the flight of Louis XVI. in 1791, he drew up
a petition to invite the Constituent Assembly to proclaim a
republic,—the first in date of such petitions. Elected to the
Legislative Assembly, Cambon became noted for his independence,
his honesty and his ability in finance. He was the most active
member of the committee of finance and was often charged to
verify the state of the treasury. Nothing could be more false
than the common opinion that as a financier his sole expedient
was to multiply the emissions of assignats. His remarkable
speech of the 24th of November 1791 is a convincing proof of his
sagacity. In politics, while he held aloof from the clubs, and
even from parties, he was an ardent defender of the new institutions.
On the 9th of February 1792, he succeeded in having a
law passed sequestrating the possessions of the émigrés, and demanded,
though in vain, the deportation of refractory priests to
French Guiana. He was the last president of the Legislative
Assembly. Re-elected to the Convention, he opposed the pretensions
of the Commune and the proposed grant of money to
the municipality of Paris by the state. He denounced Marat’s
placards as inciting to murder, summoned Danton to give an
account of his ministry, watched carefully over the furnishing
of military supplies, and was a strong opponent of Dumouriez,
in spite of the general’s great popularity. Cambon then incurred
the hatred of Robespierre by proposing the suppression of the
pay to the clergy, which would have meant the separation of
church and state. His authority grew steadily. On the 15th of
December 1792 he got the Convention to adopt a proclamation to
all nations in favour of a universal republic. In the trial of
- ↑ Translated by Abel Rémusat, Nouveaux Mélanges Asiatiques (1829).
