To negotiate was to bribe right and left, and at every step. All the
ministers and great functionaries received presents, as a matter of
course, and it was necessary to pave the pathway even of their ante-
chambers with gold.

The king was fully aware of the practice, but winked at it, because
his servants, thus paid enormous sums by the public and by foreign
Governments, were less importunate for rewards and salaries from himself.

One man in the kingdom was said to have clean hands, the venerable and
sagacious chancellor, Pomponne de Bellievre. His wife, however, was less
scrupulous, and readily disposed of influence and court-favour for a
price, without the knowledge, so it was thought, of the great judge.

Jeannin, too, was esteemed a man of personal integrity, ancient Leaguer
and tricky politician though he were.

Highest offices of magistracy and judicature, Church and State, were
objects of a traffic almost as shameless as in Spain. The ermine was
sold at auction, mitres were objects of public barter, Church preferments
were bestowed upon female children in their cradles. Yet there was hope
in France, notwithstanding that the Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis, the
foundation of the liberties of the Gallican Church, had been annulled by
Francis, who had divided the seamless garment of Church patronage with
Leo.

Those four thousand great Huguenot lords, those thirty thousand hard-
fighting weavers, and blacksmiths, and other plebeians, those seven
hundred and forty churches, those very substantial fortresses in every