of livres. They justified this advice by a statement of the various
acts of peculation and extortion which they had discovered, and an
edict to that effect was accordingly published and duly registered by
the parliaments of the kingdom.

Another tribunal was afterwards established, under the title of
the Chambre de l'Arsenal, which took cognizance of all the
malversations committed in the financial departments of the government
during the late unhappy period. A Master of Requests, named Falhonet,
together with the Abbe Clement, and two clerks in their employ, had
been concerned in divers acts of peculation, to the amount of upwards
of a million of livres. The first two were sentenced to be beheaded,
and the latter to be hanged; but their punishment was afterwards
commuted into imprisonment for life in the Bastile. Numerous other
acts of dishonesty were discovered, and punished by fine and
imprisonment.

D'Argenson shared with Law and the Regent the unpopularity which
had alighted upon all those concerned in the Mississippi madness. He
was dismissed from his post of Chancellor, to make room for
D'Aguesseau; but he retained the title of Keeper of the Seals, and was
allowed to attend the councils whenever he pleased. He thought it
better, however, to withdraw from Paris, and live for a time a life of
seclusion at his country-seat. But he was not formed for retirement,
and becoming moody and discontented, he aggravated a disease under
which he had long laboured, and died in less than a twelvemonth. The
populace of of Paris so detested him, that they carried their hatred
even to his grave. As his funeral procession passed to the church of
St. Nicholas du Chardonneret, the burying-place of his family, it was
beset by a riotous mob, and his two sons, who were following as