Vallette.

"The presidents and councils of sovereign courts have been imprisoned,
banished, suspended--a thing before unheard of--because they have raised
their voices for the king or for the public.

"The highest offices of justice, who fill them? Infamous and corrupt
men, who suck the blood and gold of the country. Paris and the maritime
towns taxed; the rural districts ruined and laid waste by the soldiers
and other agents of the Cardinal; the peasants reduced to feed on animals
killed by the plague or famine, or saving themselves by self-banishment--
such is the work of this new justice. His worthy agents have even coined
money with the effigy of the Cardinal-Duke. Here are some of his royal
pieces."

The grand ecuyey threw upon the table a score of gold doubloons whereon
Richelieu was represented. A fresh murmur of hatred toward the Cardinal
arose in the apartment.

"And think you the clergy are less trampled on and less discontented?
No. Bishops have been tried against the laws of the State and in
contempt of the respect due to their sacred persons. We have seen, in
consequence, Algerine corsairs commanded by an archbishop. Men of the
lowest condition have been elevated to the cardinalate. The minister
himself, devouring the most sacred things, has had himself elected
general of the orders of Citeaux, Cluny, and Premontre, throwing into
prison the monks who refused him their votes. Jesuits, Carmelites,
Cordeliers, Augustins, Dominicans, have been forced to elect general
vicars in France, in order no longer to communicate at Rome with their
true superiors, because he would be patriarch in France, and head of the