to induce the King to consent to the arrangement, for which service she was to receive one-fifth of the proceeds resulting from the tax.  Extraordinary as such a demand must appear in the present day, it was, according to Sully, by no means an unusual one at that period; when, by his rigorous retrenchments, he had greatly reduced the revenues of the Court nobles, and put it out of the power of the monarch to bestow upon them, as he had formerly done, the most lavish sums from his own privy purse; thus inducing them to adopt every possible expedient in order to increase their diminished incomes.  Sympathizing with the annoyance of his impoverished courtiers, and anxious to silence their murmurs, the good-natured and reckless sovereign seldom met their requests with a denial, and from this abuse a number of petty taxes, each perhaps insignificant in itself, but in the aggregate amounting to a heavy infliction upon the people, were levied on all sides, and under all pretences; and the evil at length became so serious that the prudent minister found it necessary to expostulate respectfully with his royal master upon the danger of such a system, and to entreat of him to discountenance any further imposts which had no tendency to increase the revenues of the state, but merely served to encourage the prodigality of the nobles.

It was precisely at this unpropitious moment that M. de Soissons proffered his demand, which was warmly seconded by Madame de Verneuil, who represented to the monarch the impossibility of his refusing a favour of this nature to a Prince of the Blood, when he had so frequently made concessions of the same nature to individuals of inferior rank; and the certainty that, were his request negatived, M. de Soissons would not fail to feel himself at once injured and aggrieved.  Still, mindful of the promise which had been extorted from him by Sully, the King hesitated; but upon being more urgently pressed by the favourite, he at length demanded what would be the probable yearly produce of the tax, when he was assured by the Count that it could not exceed ten thousand crowns; upon which Henry, who was anxious not to irritate him by a refusal where the favour solicited was so comparatively insignificant, at once signified his compliance; and as the subject had been cleverly mooted by the two interested parties at Fontainebleau, while the minister of finance was absent in the capital, Madame de Verneuil, by dint of importunity, succeeded in inducing the monarch to sign an order for the immediate imposition of the duty in favour of M. de Soissons; but before he was prevailed upon to do this, he declared to the Prince that he should withdraw his consent to the arrangement, if it were proved that the produce of the tax exceeded the yearly sum of fifty thousand francs, or that it pressed too heavily upon the people and the commercial interests of the kingdom.  This reservation was by no means palatable to M. de Soissons, who had, when questioned as to the amount likely to be derived from the transaction, answered rather from impulse than calculation; but as the said reservation was merely verbal, while the edict authorizing the levy of the impost was tangible and valid, the Prince, after warmly expressing his acknowledgments to the monarch, carried off the document without one misgiving of success.