s object, and it
was at length determined that the Prince should solicit the privilege of
exacting a duty of fifteen sous upon every bale of cloth, either
imported or exported throughout the kingdom; while the Marquise pledged
herself to exert her influence to induce the King to consent to the
arrangement, for which service she was to receive one-fifth of the
proceeds resulting from the tax. Extraordinary as such a demand must
appear in the present day, it was, according to Sully, by no means an
unusual one at that period; when, by his rigorous retrenchments, he had
greatly reduced the revenues of the Court nobles, and put it out of the
power of the monarch to bestow upon them, as he had formerly done, the
most lavish sums from his own privy purse; thus inducing them to adopt
every possible expedient in order to increase their diminished incomes.
Sympathizing with the annoyance of his impoverished courtiers, and
anxious to silence their murmurs, the good-natured and reckless
sovereign seldom met their requests with a denial, and from this abuse a
number of petty taxes, each perhaps insignificant in itself, but in the
aggregate amounting to a heavy infliction upon the people, were levied
on all sides, and under all pretences; and the evil at length became so
serious that the prudent minister found it necessary to expostulate
respectfully with his royal master upon the danger of such a system,
and to entreat of him to discountenance any further imposts which had no
tendency to increase the revenues of the state, but merely served to
encourage the prodigality of the nobles.

It was precisely at this unpropitious moment that M. de Soissons
proffered his demand, which was warmly seconded by Madame de Verneuil,
who represented to the monarch the impossibility of his refusing a
favour of this nature to a Prince of the Blood, when he had so
frequently made concessions of the same nature to individuals of
inferior rank; and the certainty that, were his request negatived, M. de
Soissons would not fail to feel himself at once injured and aggrieved.
Still, mindful of the promise which had been extorted from him by Sully,
the King hesitated; but upon being more urgently pressed by the
favourite, he at length demanded what would be the probable yearly
produce of the tax, when he was assured by the Count that it could not
exceed ten thousand crowns; upon which Henry, who was anxious not to
irritate him by a refusal where the favour so