the other's hand.

"You are ruining us!" he cried, casting his hollow eyes over the scroll.
"What is all this? What need have we of so prodigious a household? Two
chaplains at ten livres a month each, and, a chapel clerk at one hundred
sols! A valet-de-chambre at ninety livres a year. Four head cooks at
six score livres a year each! A spit-cook, an herb-cook, a sauce-cook,
a butler, two sumpter-horse lackeys, at ten livres a month each! Two
scullions at eight livres! A groom of the stables and his two aids at
four and twenty livres a month! A porter, a pastry-cook, a baker, two
carters, each sixty livres a year! And the farrier six score livres! And
the master of the chamber of our funds, twelve hundred livres! And the
comptroller five hundred. And how do I know what else? 'Tis ruinous. The
wages of our servants are putting France to the pillage! All the ingots
of the Louvre will melt before such a fire of expenses! We shall have to
sell our plate! And next year, if God and our Lady (here he raised his
hat) lend us life, we shall drink our potions from a pewter pot!"

So saying, he cast a glance at the silver goblet which gleamed upon the
table. He coughed and continued,--

"Master Olivier, the princes who reign over great lordships, like kings
and emperors, should not allow sumptuousness in their houses; for
the fire spreads thence through the province. Hence, Master Olivier,
consider this said once for all. Our expenditure increases every year.
The thing displease us. How, _pasque-Dieu_! when in '79 it did not
exceed six and thirty thousand livres, did it attain in '80, forty-three
thousand six hundred and nineteen livres? I have the figures in my head.
In '81, sixty-six thousand six hundred and eighty livres, and this year,
by the faith of my body, it will reach eighty thousand livres! Doubled
in four years! Monstrous!"

He paused breathless, then resumed energetically,--

"I behold around me only people who fatten on my leanness! you suck
crowns from me at every pore."

All remained silent. This was one of those fits of wrath which are
allowed to take their course. He continued,--

"'Tis like that request in Latin from the gentlemen of France, that
we should re-establish what they call the grand charges of the Crown!
Charges in very deed! Charges which crush! Ah! gentlemen! you say that
we are not a king to reign _dapifero nullo, buticulario nullo_! We will
let you see, _pasque-Dieu_! whether we are not a k