indeed, voted
just as it had stood under Charles VII., but it became a temporary aid
granted for two years only; at the end of them the estates were to be
convoked and the tax augmented or diminished according to the public
wants. The great question appeared decided; by means of the vote,
necessary and at the same time temporary, in the case of the impost, the
states-general entered into real possession of a decisive influence in
the government; but the behavior and language of the officers of the
crown and of the great lords of the court rendered the situation as
difficult as ever. In a long and confused harangue the chancellor,
William de Rochefort, did not confine himself to declaring the sum voted,
twelve hundred thousand livres, to be insufficient, and demanding three
hundred thousand livres more; he passed over in complete silence the
limitation to two years of the tax voted and the requirement that at the
end of that time the states-general should be convoked. "Whilst the
chancellor was thus speaking," says Masselin, "many deputies of a more
independent spirit kept groaning, and all the hall resounded with a
slight murmuring because it seemed that he was not expressing himself
well as to the power and liberty of the people." The deputies asked
leave to deliberate in the afternoon, promising a speedy answer. "As you
wish to deliberate, do so, but briefly," said the chancellor; "it would
be better for you to hold counsel now so as to answer in the afternoon."
The deputies took their time; and the discussion was a long and a hot
one. "We see quite well how it is," said the princes and the majority of
the great lords; "to curtail the king's power, and pare down his nails to
the quick, is the object of your efforts; you forbid the subjects to pay
their prince as much as the wants of the state require: are they masters,
pray, and no longer subjects? You would set up the laws of some fanciful
monarchy, and abolish the old ones." "I know the rascals," said one of
the great lords [according to one historian, it was the Duke of Bourbon,
Anne de Beaujeu's brother-in-law]; "if they are not kept down by
over-weighting them, they will soon become insolent; for my part, I
consider this tax the surest curb for holding them in." "Strange words,"
says Masselin, "unworthy of utterance from the mouth of a man so eminent;
but in his soul, as in that of all old men, covetousness had increased
with age, and he appeared to fear a