concessions; the Duc de Bouillon sought the liquidation of some alleged
debts, the proceeds of the excise, and salt duties, and all other
imposts levied in the viscounty of Turenne, the arrears of pay due to
his garrisons, the liquidation of all pensions which had been
discontinued during his exile, with the royal assent to a general
assembly of the Protestants; the Chancellor followed with a demand of
all the fees appertaining to the lesser seals, that the salary of his
office should be doubled, and that he should have letters of nobility
in Normandy. All the officers of the Crown sought an increase of
twenty-four thousand livres to their several pensions; members of the
Council, augmented emoluments; governors of provinces, the revenues of
these provinces which had hitherto reverted to the Crown; municipal
companies, exemptions and privileges previously unthought of; and
finally, Concini, who had arrived in the French capital only a few years
previously comparatively destitute, set forth his requirements to be
these--the _baton_ of Marshal of France, the governments of Bourg,
Dieppe, and Pont-de-l'Arche, the proceeds of the salt duties of
Languedoc, and those of the reduction accorded at Moissets and Feydant.

Such, and much more of the same description, were the contents of the
documents upon which the wrath of Sully scarcely permitted him to dwell
with patience. It was a chaos whence he dreaded even to attempt to draw
the elements of order, feeling as he did that every concession made to
one of the parties must necessarily evoke the jealousy and indignation
of another, while it was utterly impossible, and would, moreover, be
dangerously impolitic in any case, to satisfy the pretensions of all.
The enormous sums produced by the imposts, whose transfer from the Crown
to individuals was thus unblushingly demanded, would have rendered the
Princes to whom they might be granted more wealthy than many of the
petty sovereigns of Europe; while the governments and provinces sought
to be obtained by others must inevitably make them independent of the
King, and thus place the subjects who should have been the support of
the throne in direct rivalry with their sovereign. The finance minister
was aghast; and the more earnestly he considered the subject, the more
he became convinced that there was no alternative save to negative all
these egregious claims _en masse_; a conviction which satisfied him that
by fearlessly adopting this