The people complained
plentifully, but would not pay, because they did not like the steward;
this appeared a bad reason to Montesquieu, who was a man of the old
regime.

"You cannot offer these complaints to his majesty," said he, "without
appearing to rebel: pay first, and complain afterward; the king will
listen to your sorrows, but not to your antipathies to a man honored by
his choice."

Monsieur de Montaran, of whom the Bretons complained, gave no offense;
but, in being intendant of the province, any other would have been as
much disliked, and they persisted in their refusal to pay.

"Monsieur le Marechal," said their deputies, "your language might suit a
general treating with a conquered place, but cannot be accepted by free
and privileged men. We are neither enemies nor soldiers--we are citizens
and masters at home. In compensation of a service which we ask,
namely--that Monsieur de Montaran, whom we dislike, should be removed,
we will pay the tax demanded; but if the court takes to itself the
highest prize, we will keep our money, and bear as we best can the
treasurer who displeases us."

Monsieur de Montesquieu, with a contemptuous smile, turned on his
heel--the deputies did the same, and both retired with their original
dignity.

But the marshal was willing to wait; he behaved himself as an able
diplomatist, and thought that private reunions would set all right; but
the Breton nobles were proud--indignant at their treatment, they
appeared no more at the marshal's reception; and he, from contempt,
changed to angry and foolish resolves. This was what the Spaniards had
expected. Montesquieu, corresponding with the authorities at Nantes,
Quimper, Vannes, and Rennes, wrote that he had to deal with rebels and
mutineers, but that ten thousand of his soldiers should teach the
Bretons politeness.

The states were held again; from the nobility to the people in Bretagne
is but a step; a spark lights the whole; the citizens declared to M. de
Montesquieu that if he had ten thousand men, Bretagne had a hundred
thousand, who would teach his soldiers, with stones, forks and muskets,
that they had better mind their own business, and that only.

The marshal assured himself of the truth of this assertion, and was
quiet, leaving things as they were for a while; the nobility then made a
formal and moderate complaint; but Dubois and the council of the regency
treated it as a hostile manifesto, and used it as an instrument