I.

1574

1589.

when we find that he frequently entertained CHA P. the King at his own house, in the most sumptuous manner: and that Prince having several times ordered Adjacet to discharge a debt, which he had incurred with a merchant, for the purchase of pearls, to the amount of two thousand crowns; the financier turned a deaf ear to the solicitation, and declined compliance with Henry's request.

h

In 1589, Molan, one of the treasurers of Molan. France, having quitted Paris when the party of "the League" took possession of the capital, concealed his wealth, by burying a considerable part of it under his house. He joined the King in Touraine; but under pretence of poverty, he constantly refused to advance to that monarch, any sum however small, notwithstanding the state of distress to which the crown was reduced. In his house at Paris, after a long search, were discovered above a million of Livres in specie'; which sum came most opportunely, to enable the Duke of Mayenne to equip and pay his forces. Irritated at Molan's refusal to assist him, when possessed of such vast resources, Henry caused him to be arrested; and the unfortunate financier was glad to compound for his freedom and pardon, by the payment of fifteen thousand crowns to the King. '

1

b Memoires pour ser. a l'Hist. de France, p. 99, and p. 131 and 132.

About forty thousand pounds.

* Memoires de Bassompierre, vol. i. p. 18. Memoires pour ser. a l'Hist. de France, p. 274.

1 Chron. Nov. vol. i. p. 176. De Thou, vol. x. p. 605.

CHAP.

I.

The alliances which the opulent contractors formed with the greatest families in the king1594- dom, ensured their protection from research and punishment. Very ample powers of enImpunity of the quiring, suspending, and bringing to trial, all financiers. persons who appeared to have defrauded the

Practice of funding.

revenue, were entrusted to the commissioners sent in 1579, to discover abuses. Collectors, controllers, receivers, and treasurers, were rendered amenable to the tribunal, which institution seemed to promise a beneficial change in the finances". But in 1585, Henry compounded at once with all the treasurers of France, and gave them a complete abolition of their past malversations, exactions, and oppressions. For this act of grace and oblivion, they presented him with only a hundred and twenty thousand crowns; a sum very inadequate to the magnitude of their extortions, and which at the same time secured their future impunity. In order to levy the money, they imposed a contribution on the individuals composing their own body; and Henry's necessities induced him gladly to accept a temporary aid, at the price of the felicity and property of his subjects."

The practice of funding, which in our time has been carried to so prodigious an extent in. almost every European state, was not unknown

m Memoires de Nevers, vol. i. p. 608 and 609:

p. 191.

Tavannes, p. 313. Memoires pour ser. a l'Hist. de France,

in

in France, under Henry the Third.

That CHA P.

I.

Prince had contracted before the year 1577,

1589.

a debt of near a million and a half of pounds 1574-
Sterling. Persons were found, who voluntarily
advanced him sums of money, for which he
gave them public security on the receipts of
the revenue, or of the domain. He paid them
sixteen per cent. interest, and he even rejected
the entreaties of the States, who exhorted him
to break the contract, as being usurious. Henry
appears the more meritorious in thus adhering
to his engagements, as Philip the Second, King
of Spain, had given him a recent example of
the infraction of pecuniary faith, in bis treat-
ment of the Genoese, to whom he stood in-
debted". Charles the Ninth borrowed money Interest of
at as high an interest as twenty per cent. Yet money.
under his grandfather Francis the First, a bank
had been opened at Lyons, which lent money
at only eight per cent'. During the reign of
the last mentioned monarch, annuities had been
granted, payable by and at the town-hall of
Paris, for which the King became security.
They still subsisted under Henry the Third.
Ten per cent. constituted the rate of interest
paid to the holders or lenders; and the majority
of the inhabitants of the metropolis possessed Life rents.
scarcely any other property or subsistence, in-
dependent of their labor and professions, than

• Memoires de Nevers, vol. i. p.925.
Chron. Nov. vol. i. p. 231.

9 L'Art. de Ver. vol. i. p. 653.

D 2

r Ibid. p. 640.

the

CHAP. the income derived from the payment of the I. rents of the town-hall. It was therefore felt as

of their payment.

a most serious calamity, when on the King's 1589. being compelled against his inclination, in 1585, to make war upon the Hugonots, he suspended the regular dividends or payments. In order to ingratiate himself with the Parisians, the Duke of Guise, during the course of the short negotiation which took place between him and the King, before the flight of the latter from Suspension the Louvre, in May, 1588; expressly proposed, as one of the articles of accommodation, that an assignment should be made on Henry's part, to secure in future the constant and certain payments from the town-hall". At the commencement of the war between the Duke of Mayenne and Henry, in April, 1589, they were totally discontinued: but such was the frenzy of the time, and so great the detestation borne to the royal name and dignity, that all private losses or distresses were swallowed up and forgotten in the enthusiasm of rebellion. *

Coin.

The coin of the kingdom, like every other institution of civil government, was fallen into a deplorable state of confusion or debasement, during the reign of the two last princes of the house of Valois. In 1577, Henry the Third issued a celebrated edict, designed to regulate the standard of the current money, and to reduce it nearly to its intrinsic weight. The esta

De Thou, vol. x. p. 598.
Ibid. vol. ix. p. 335.
Davila, p. 695.

Davila, p.571. Memoires de Nevers, vol. i. p. 907. * De Thou, vol. x. p. 598.

blished

I.

1574

1589. Edicts rela

coin.

blished custom of estimating and reckoning by CHA P. Livres, an imaginary coin, was abolished on account of the inconveniences arising from the fluctuation of its value. All effects were ordered to be estimated in sales and contracts, by the tive to the Ecu, or gold crown of three Livres, which from current the first day of January ensuing, was enjoined to be taken at sixty Sous, or thirty pence. They had previously risen to near double that value, and were circulated in the common mercantile intercourse, at five, and even at six livres, in some places. This edict was productive of the most beneficial consequences to commerce'. Previous to the accession of Henry the Second, the effigy of the sovereign was not commonly engraven either on the gold, or the silver coin: but in 1548, the year after he ascended the throne, that Prince caused it to be universally substituted, instead of the figure of a cross, which was more easily effaced by time or accidents. Soon afterwards, the specific year in which the piece of money was struck, and the particular rank which the sovereign held among those of his own name, were added on the current coin. Ecus and Testons formed the common money of France; but, the Doubloons and Pistoles of Spain were universally received in payments thro'out the kingdom. *

a

Before the accession of Francis the First in State of the 1515, the French kings can scarcely be said to

y De Thou, vol. vii. p. 531 and 532.

z L'Art de Ver. vol. iii. p. 644.

a Brantome, vol. iii. p. 199 and 202. vol. iv. p. 29.

military force, be

D 3

have