nce
of the homage paid by Henry IV. to that fundamental maxim of free
government, which, as early as under Louis XI., Philip de Commynes
expressed in these terms: "There is no king or lord on earth who hath
power, over and above his own property, to put a single penny on his
subjects without grant and consent of those who have to pay, unless by
tyranny and violence." The ideas expressed and the counsels given by the
assembly of notables were not, however, without good effect upon the
general administration of the state; but the principal and most salutary
result of its presence and influence was the personal authority which
Sully drew from it, and of which he did not hesitate to make full use.
Having become superintendent-general of finance and grand master of the
ordnance, he exerted all his power to put in practice, as regarded the
financial department, a system of receipts and expenses, and as regarded
materials for the service of war, the reforms and maxims of economy,
accountability, and supervision, which were suggested to him by his great
good sense, and in which Henry IV. supported him with the spirit of one
who well appreciated the strength they conferred upon his government,
civil and military.

His relations with the Protestants gave him embarrassments to surmount
and reforms to accomplish of quite a different sort, and more difficult
still. At his accession, their satisfaction had not been untinged by
disquietude; they foresaw the sacrifices the king would be obliged to
make to his new and powerful friends the Catholics. His conversion to
Catholicism threw into more or less open opposition the most zealous and
some of the ambitious members of his late church. It was not long before
their feelings burst forth in reproaches, alarms, and attacks. In 1597,
a pamphlet, entitled _The Plaints of the Reformed Churches of France_
[_Memoires de la Ligue,_ t. vi. pp. 428-486], was published and spread
prodigiously. "None can take it ill," said the anonymous author, "that
we who make profession of the Reformed religion should come forward to
get a hearing for our plaints touching so many deeds of outrage,
violence, and injustice which are daily done to us, and done not here or
there, but in all places of the realm; done at a time, under a reign in
which they seemed less likely, and which ought to have given us better
hopes. . . . We, sir, are neither Spaniards nor Leaguers; we have had
such happiness as to s