ere at that time called _fermes generales_ (farmings-general), amounted
to thirty-seven millions during the first two years of Colbert's
administration, and rose to sixty-four millions at the time of his death.
"I should be apprehensive of going too far, and that the prodigious
augmentations of the _fermes_ (farmings) would be very burdensome to the
people," wrote Louis XIV. in 1680. The expenses of recovering the taxes,
which had but lately led to great abuses, were diminished by half. "The
bailiffs generally, and especially those who are set over the recovery of
talliages, are such terrible brutes that, by way of exterminating a good
number of these, you could not do anything more worthy of you than
suppress those," wrote Colbert to the criminal magistrate of Orleans.
"I am at this moment promoting two suits against the collectors of
talliages, in which I expect at present to get ten thousand crowns'
damages, without counting another against an assessor's officer, who
wounded one Grimault, the which had one of his daughters killed before
his eyes, his wife, another of his daughters, and his female servant
wounded with swords and sticks, the writ of distrainment being executed
whilst the poor creature was being buried." The bailiffs were
suppressed, and the king's justice was let loose not only against the
fiscal officers who abused their power, but also against tyrannical
nobles. Masters of requests and members of the Parliament of Paris went
to Auvergne and Velay and held temporary courts of justice, which were
called _grands jours_. Several lords were found guilty; Sieur de la
Mothe actually died upon the scaffold for having unjustly despoiled and
maltreated the people on his estates. "He was not one of the worst,"
says Flechier, in his _Journal des Grands Jours d'Auvergne_. The Duke of
Bouillon, governor of the province, had too long favored the guilty.
"I resolved," says the king in his _Memoires,_ "to prevent the people
from being subjected to thousands and thousands of tyrants, instead of
one lawful king, whose indulgence alone it is that causes all this
disorder." The puissance of the provincial governors, already curtailed
by Richelieu, suffered from fresh attacks under Louis XIV. Everywhere
the power passed into the hands of the superintendents, themselves
subjected in their turn to inspection by the masters of requests.
"Acting on the information I had that in many provinces the people were
plagued by