[178] Le Vassor, vol. i. p. 263.

[179] Nicolas de Verdun, First President of the Parliament of Paris, a devoted adherent of M. de Villeroy.

[180] Louis Servin, Councillor of State, Advocate-General of the Parliament of Paris, and one of the most able magistrates of his time, served with zeal and fidelity under Henri III, Henri IV, and Louis XIII.  He died suddenly, at the feet of the latter monarch, on the 19th of March 1626, while remonstrating with him in the name of the Parliament, where he was holding his Bed of Justice, against certain financial edicts.  He was the author of several legal writings, orations, and sundry other works.

[181] Henri Auguste de Lomenie, Comte de Brienne, was the son of Antoine de Lomenie and of Anne d’Aubourg, and was born in 1594.  In 1609 he attracted the attention of Henri IV, who occasionally admitted him to his councils, in order to familiarize him with public affairs; and Marie de Medicis continued, after the death of that monarch, to honour him with her regard.  In 1617 he became Master of the Ceremonies and Provost of the King’s Orders.  In 1621 he followed Louis XIII to Languedoc, where he distinguished himself at the siege of Clerac; and in the following campaign he served under the Prince de Conde with equal credit.  After struggling successfully throughout the long and stormy administration of Richelieu, he incurred the displeasure of Louis XIII a short time after the death of that minister, and disposed of his office as secretary of state; but during the regency of Anne of Austria he was recalled; and until Louis XIV undertook to govern the nation in his own person, he retained great influence in the Council.  Age was, however, creeping upon him; and a short time subsequent to the marriage of that monarch, having attained his sixty-seventh year, he retired from the Government.  He died in 1666.

[182] Petitot, Notice sur le Comte de Brienne, p. 278.

[183] This privilege rendered the financial and judicial offices hereditary, on the payment of an annual tax of one-tenth of the sum at which they had been originally purchased; and the nobility were jealous of this hereditary tenure of the most lucrative civil appointments under the Crown, all of which were thus, as a natural consequence, engrossed by the tiers-etat. The paulette owed its name to Charles Paulet, who was the inventor of this extraordinary source of revenue.

[184] Tiers-etat, or middle state, was the name given to that portion of the French people who belonged neither to the aristocracy nor to the Church.

[185] Pierre de Roncherolles, Baron du Pont Saint-Pierre.

[186] Robert Miron, Provost of the Merchants, an able politician, whose zeal and talents were recompensed by the confidence and favour of Louis XIII, by whom he was, in 1625, entrusted with the embassy to Switzerland.

[187] Bonnechose, vol. i. pp. 451, 452.  Mezeray, vol. xi. pp. 73-78.  Le Vassor, vol. i. pp. 298-302.