Concerning the Civil Justice there: it is nowhere more corrupt or expenseful. The corruptness of it proceeds, First, by reason that the King sells the places of justice at as high a rate as can honestly be made of them: so that all thriving is left to corruption; and the gain the King hath that way, tempts him to make a multitude of officers, which are another burden to the subject. Secondly, the Presidents are not bound to judge according to the written Law, but according to the equity drawn out of it; which liberty doth not so much admit Conscience, as leave Wit without limits. The expensefulness of it ariseth from the multitude of laws, and multiplicity of forms of processes; the which too doth beget doubt, and make them long in resolving. And all this _chicanery_, as they call it, was brought into France from Rome, upon the Popes coming to reside at Avignon. * * * * * For the strength of France. It is at this day, the greatest united force of Christendom. The particulars in which it consists, are these. The shape of the country; which being round, no one part is far from succouring another. The multitude of good towns and places of strength therein are able to stay an army, if not to waste it; as Metz did the Emperor's. The mass of treasure which the King hath in the Bastille. The number of arsenals distributed upon the frontiers, besides that of Paris: all which are full of good arms and artillery. And for ready men, the five Regiments bestowed up and down in garrisons, together with the 2,000 of the Guard [and] the troops of Ordinary and Light Horse: all ever in pay. Besides their Gentry, all bred soldiers; of which they think there are, at this present, 50,000 fit to bear arms. And to command all these, they have, at this day, the best Generals of Christendom; which were the only commodity the Civil Wars did leave them.