of recovery since the country had been at peace, and the persecution
of the Huguenots had ceased, that at first the taxation provoked few
murmurs. The resources of the Crown were further augmented by
permitting almost all magistrates and persons who held public offices
to secure the succession to their sons on the payment of a tariff
called LA PAULETTE, from the magistrate who invented it.

In the next reign, however, an effort was made to secure greater
equality of burthens. On the meeting of the States-General--the only
popular assembly possessed by France--Louis XIII., however, after
hearing the complaints, and promising to consider them, shut the
doors against the deputies, made no further answer, and dismissed
them to their houses without the slightest redress. The Assembly was
never to meet again till the day of reckoning for all, a hundred and
seventy years later.

Under the mighty hand of Cardinal Richelieu the nobles were still
more effectually crushed, and the great course of foreign war begun,
which lasted, with short intervals, for a century. The great man
died, and so did his feeble master; and his policy, both at home and
abroad, was inherited by his pupil Giulio Mazarini, while the regency
for the child, Louis XIV., devolved on his mother, Anne of Austria--a
pious and well-meaning, but proud and ignorant, Spanish Princess--who
pinned her faith upon Mazarin with helpless and exclusive devotion,
believing him the only pilot who could steer her vessel through
troublous waters.

But what France had ill brooked from the high-handed son of her
ancient nobility was intolerable from a low-born Italian, of graceful
but insinuating manners. Moreover, the war increased the burthens of