pts
have greatly increased, you would find that the expenses have much
exceeded the receipts, which might perhaps induce you to moderate and
retrench such as are excessive. I am aware, Sir, that the figure I
present herein is not an agreeable one; but in your Majesty's service
there are different functions; some entail nothing but agreeables whereof
the expenses are the foundation; that with which your Majesty honors me
entails this misfortune, that it can with difficulty produce anything
agreeable, since the proposals for expenses have no limit; but one must
console one's self by constantly laboring to do one's best."

Louis XIV. did not "moderate or retrench his expenses."

Colbert labored to increase the receipts; the new imposts excited
insurrections in Angoumois, in Guyenne, in Brittany. Bordeaux rose in
1695 with shouts of "_Hurrah! for the king without gabel_." Marshal
d'Albret ventured into the streets in the district of St. Michel; he was
accosted by one of the ringleaders. "Well, my friend," said the marshal,
"with whom is thy business? Dost wish to speak to me?" "Yes," replied
the townsman, "I am deputed by the people of St. Michel to tell you that
they are good servants of the king, but that they do not mean to have any
gabel, or marks on pewter or tobacco, or stamped papers, or _yreffe
d'arbitrage_ (arbitration-clerk's fee)." It was not until a year
afterwards that the taxes could be established in Gascony; troops had to
be sent to Rennes to impose the stamp-tax upon the Bretons. "Soldiers
are more likely to be wanted in Lower Brittany than in any other spot,"
said a letter to Colbert from the lieutenant general, M. de Lavardin; "it
is a rough and wild country, which breeds inhabitants who resemble it.
They understand French but slightly, and reason not much better. The
Parliament is at the back of all this." Riots were frequent, and were
put down with great severity. "The poor Low-Bretons collect by forty or
fifty in the fields," writes Madame de Sevigne on the 24th of September,
1675: "as soon as they see soldiers, they throw themselves on their
knees, saying, Mea culpa! all the French they know.. . ."

"The severities are abating," she adds on the 3d of November: "after the
hangings there will be no more hanging." All these fresh imposts, which
had cost so much suffering and severity, brought in but two millions five
hundred thousand livres at Colbert's death. The indirect taxes, which
w