[253] La Planche, 218.
[254] See the scathing comparison of the house of Guise with that of Montmorency: “La plus ancienne yssue du premier chrestien du premier du royaume de la chrestienté.”—Livre des marchands, 428-30.
[255] “Messieurs de Guyse vouloyent venir aux armes pour effacer ceste poursuite des estats et réformation de l’église la poursuitte que nous avions si justement commencée de leur faire rendre compte de leurs dons excessifs, c’est-à-dire de leurs larcins, et de leur maniement des finances, ou plustost de leurs finesses.”—Ibid., 456.
The petition of the estates of Touraine, assembled at Tours on October 26, 1560, to the King, is a good example of this popular demand. The articles reflect the state of the times (C. S. P. For., No. 681). In connection with this authentic petition compare the imaginary “discours du drapier” in a fancied meeting of the estates-general, as given in Livre des marchands, 427-40, the satirical forerunner of the greatest political satire of the sixteenth century, the Satyre Menippée.
[256] La Planche, 260.
[257] Cf. La Place, 47-49, 110-13; La Planche, 342; and especially the indictment in Livre des marchands, 436-58.
[258] To be exact, 43,700,000 livres (Isambert, XIV, 63). Part of it was held by the Swiss cantons: “The French King is conferring with the Swiss about paying his debts, and offers two-thirds with a quarter for interest, and to pay the whole within three years; which conditions they refuse, and desire him either to stand to his written promises or that the matter shall be discussed in some place appointed in Switzerland.”—C. S. P. For., No. 763, December 3, 1560, from Strasburg.
[259] “In so much as it was necessary for him to find the wherewithal to satisfy some of these obligations, the late king had abolished certain of them and reduced others; he had let 50,000 footmen be billeted upon the cities of the kingdom and caused money to be raised by the imposition of subsidies, so much so that he had found it necessary in some places to diminish the taille, the people having abandoned the county of Normandy.”—C. S. P. For., No. 658, January 28, 1560; cf. La Place, 47; Livre des marchands, 447, 448; Nég. Tosc., III, 405 and 455.
[260] “The soldiers through necessity have begun to rob.”—C. S. P. For., ibid.
[261] La Place, 48.