, from the time of
their creation by St. Louis, had been elected by the towns or the
corporations, now became the nominees of the crown.

[Illustration: Fig. 285.--_Amende honorable_ of Jacques Coeur before
Charles VII.--Fac-simile of a Miniature of the "Chroniques" of Monstrelet,
Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the National Library of Paris.]

Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, taxed his subjects but little:
"Therefore," says Philippe de Commines, "they became very wealthy, and
lived in much comfort." But Louis XI did not imitate him. His first care
was to reinstate that great merchant, that clever financier, Jacques
Coeur, to whom, as much as to Joan of Arc, the kingdom owed its freedom,
and whom Charles VII., for the most contemptible reasons, had had the
weakness to allow to be judicially condemned Louis XI. would have been
very glad to entrust the care of his finances to another Jacques Coeur;
for being sadly in want of money, he ran through his father's earnings,
and, to refill his coffers, he increased taxation, imposed a duty on the
importation of wines, and levied a tax on those holding offices, &c. A
revolution broke out in consequence, which was only quenched in the blood
of the insurgents. In this manner he continued, by force of arms, to
increase and strengthen his own regal power at the expense of feudalism.

He soon found himself opposed by the _Ligue du Bien Public_, formed by the
great vassals ostensibly to get rid of the pecuniary burden which
oppressed the people, but really with the secret intention of restoring
feudalism and lessening the King's power. He was not powerful enough
openly to resist this, and appeared to give way by allowing the leagued
nobles immense privileges, and himself consenting to the control of a sort
of council of "thirty-six notables appointed to superintend matters of
finance." Far from acknowledging himself vanquished, however, he
immediately set to work to cause division among his enemies, so as to be
able to overcome them. He accordingly showed favour towards the bourgeois,
whom he had already flattered, by granting new privileges, and abolishing
or reducing certain vexatious taxes of which they complained. The
thirty-six notables appointed to control his financial management reformed
nothing. They were timid and docile under the cunning eye of the King, and
practically assisted him in his designs; for in a very few years the taxes
were increased from 1,800,000 e