Memoirs of Louis XIV, vol 8 | Page 4

wish to sample the author's ideas before making
an entire meal of them. D.W.]

MEMOIRS OF LOUIS XIV AND HIS COURT AND OF THE
REGENCY
BY THE DUKE OF SAINT-SIMON
VOLUME 8.
CHAPTER LV
State of the Country.--New Taxes.--The King's Conscience Troubled.--
Decision of the Sorbonne.--Debate in the Council.--Effect of the Royal
Tithe.--Tax on Agioteurs.--Merriment at Court.--Death of a Son of
Marechal Boufflers.--The Jesuits.
CHAPTER LVI
My Interview with Du Mont.--A Mysterious Communication. --Anger
of Monseigneur against Me.--Household of the Duchesse de
Berry.--Monseigneur Taken Ill of the Smallpox.--Effect of the
News.--The King Goes to Meudon.--The Danger Diminishes.--Madame
de Maintenon at Meudon.--The Court at Versailles.--Hopes and
Fears.--The Danger Returns.--Death of Monseigneur.--Conduct of the
King.
CHAPTER LVII

A Rumour Reaches Versailles.--Aspect of the Court.--Various Forms
of Grief.--The Duc d'Orleans.--The News Confirmed at
Versailles.--Behaviour of the Courtiers.--The Duc and Duchesse de
Berry.--The Duc and Duchesse de Bourgogne.--Madame.--A Swiss
Asleep.--Picture of a Court.--The Heir- Apparent's Night.--The King
Returns to Marly.--Character of Monseigneur. --Effect of His Death.
CHAPTER LVIII
State of the Court at Death of Monseigneur.--Conduct of the Dauphin
and the Dauphine.--The Duchesse de Berry.--My Interview with the
Dauphin.-- He is Reconciled with M. d'Orleans.
CHAPTER LIX
Warnings to the Dauphin and the Dauphine.--The Dauphine Sickens
and Dies.--Illness of the Dauphin.--His Death.--Character and Manners
of the Dauphine.--And of the Dauphin.
CHAPTER LX
Certainty of Poison.--The Supposed Criminal.--Excitement of the
People against M. d'Orleans.--The Cabal.--My Danger and
Escape.--The Dauphin's Casket.
CHAPTER LV
Although, as we have just seen, matters were beginning to brighten a
little in Spain, they remained as dull and overcast as ever in France.
The impossibility of obtaining peace, and the exhaustion of the realm,
threw, the King into the most cruel anguish, and Desmarets into the
saddest embarrassment. The paper of ail kinds with which trade was
inundated, and which had all more or less lost credit, made a chaos for
which no remedy could be perceived. State-bills, bank-bills, receiver-
general's-bills, title-bills, utensil-bills, were the ruin of private people,
who were forced by the King to take them in payment, and who lost
half, two-thirds, and sometimes more, by the transaction. This

depreciation enriched the money people, at the expense of the public;
and the circulation of money ceased, because there was no longer any
money; because the King no longer paid anybody, but drew his
revenues still; and because all the specie out of his control was locked
up in the coffers of the possessors.
The capitation tax was doubled and trebled, at the will of the Intendants
of the Provinces; merchandise and all kinds of provision were taxed to
the amount of four times their value; new taxes of all kinds and upon
all sorts of things were exacted; all this crushed nobles and roturiers,
lords and clergy, and yet did not bring enough to the King, who drew
the blood of all his subjects, squeezed out their very marrow, without
distinction, and who enriched an army of tax-gatherers and officials of
all kinds, in whose hands the best part of what was collected remained.
Desmarets, in whom the King had been forced to put all his confidence
in finance matters, conceived the idea of establishing, in addition to so
many taxes, that Royal Tithe upon all the property of each community
and of each private person of the realm, that the Marechal de Vauban,
on the one hand, and Boisguilbert on the other, had formerly proposed;
but, as I have already described, as a simple and stile tax which would
suffice for all, which would all enter the coffers of the King, and by
means of which every other impost would be abolished.
We have seen what success this proposition met with; how the fanciers
trembled at it; how the ministers blushed at it, with what anathemas it
was rejected, and to what extent these two excellent and skilful citizens
were disgraced. All this must be recollected here, since Desmarets, who
had not lost sight of this system (not as relief and
remedy--unpardonable crimes in the financial doctrine), now had
recourse to it.
He imparted his project to three friends, Councillors of State, who
examined it well, and worked hard to see how to overcome the
obstacles which arose in the way of its execution. In the first place, it
was necessary, in order to collect this tax, to draw from each person a
clear statement of his wealth, of his debts, and so on. It was necessary
to demand sure proofs on these points so as not to be deceived. Here

was all the difficulty. Nothing was thought of the desolation this extra
impost must cause to a prodigious number of men, or of their despair
upon finding themselves obliged to disclose their family secrets; to hate
a lamp thrown, as it were, upon their most delicate parts; all