ht
to the service of the state superior views, consummate experience, and
indomitable perseverance. The position of affairs required no fewer
virtues. "Disorder reigned everywhere," says the king; "on casting over
the various portions of my kingdom not eyes of indifference, but the eyes
of a master, I was sensibly affected not to see a single one which did
not deserve and did not press to be taken in hand. The destitution of
the lower orders was extreme, and the finances, which give movement and
activity to all this great framework of the monarchy, were entirely
exhausted and in such plight that there was scarcely any resource to be
seen; the affluent, to be seen only amongst official people, on the one
hand cloaked all their malversations by divers kinds of artifices, and
uncloaked them on the other by their insolent and audacious extravagance,
as if they were afraid to leave me in ignorance of them."

The punishment of the tax-collectors (_traitants_), prosecuted at the
same time as superintendent Fouquet, the arbitrary redemption of rentes
(_annuities_) on the city of Paris or on certain branches of the taxes,
did not suffice to alleviate the extreme suffering of the people. The
talliages from which the nobility and the clergy were nearly everywhere
exempt pressed upon the people with the most cruel inequality. "The poor
are reduced to eating grass and roots in our meadows like cattle," said a
letter from Blaisois those who can find dead carcasses devour them, and,
unless God have pity upon them, they will soon be eating one another."
Normandy, generally so prosperous, was reduced to the uttermost distress.
"The great number of poor has exhausted charity and the power of those
who were accustomed to relieve them," says a letter to Colbert from the
superintendent of Caen. "In 1662 the town was obliged to throw open the
doors of the great hospital, having no longer any means of furnishing
subsistence to those who were in it. I can assure you that there are
persons in this town who have gone for whole days without anything to
eat. The country, which ought to supply bread for the towns, is crying
for mercy's sake to be supplied therewith itself." The peasants, wasted
with hunger, could no longer till their fields; their cattle had been
seized for taxes. Colbert proposed to the king to remit the arrears of
talliages, and devoted all his efforts to reducing them, whilst
regulating their collection. His desire was