the apartment for an interval, in order to give vent to the horrible
agitation which he had been enduring and so bravely concealing ever since
the fatal words had been spoken. That a city so important, the key to
Paris, without a moment's warning, without the semblance of a siege,
should thus fall into the hands of the enemy, was a blow as directly to
the heart of De Bethune as it could have been to any other of Henry's
adherents. But while they had been distracting the king by unavailing
curses or wailings, Henry, who had received the intelligence just as he
was getting into bed, had sent for support and consolation to the tried
friend of years, and he now reproachfully contrasted their pusillanimity
with De Rosny's fortitude.

A great plan for reorganising the finances of the kingdom was that very
night submitted by Rosny to the king, and it was wrought upon day by day
thereafter until it was carried into effect.

It must be confessed that the crudities and immoralities which the
project revealed do not inspire the political student of modern days with
so high a conception of the financial genius of the great minister as his
calm and heroic deportment on trying occasions, whether on the battle-
field or in the council-chamber, does of his natural authority over his
fellow-men. The scheme was devised to put money in the king's coffers,
which at that moment were completely empty. Its chief features were to
create a great many new offices in the various courts of justice and
tribunals of administration, all to be disposed of by sale to the highest
bidder; to extort a considerable loan from the chief courtiers and from
the richest burghers in the principal towns; to compel all the leading
peculators--whose name in the public service was legion--to disgorge a
portion of their ill-gotten gains, on being released from prosecution;
and to increase the tax upon salt.