"To afford some idea of the vastness and also of the visionary character of these designs, I will give, in a somewhat abbreviated form, part of the account furnished by Sully himself, of the contents of a cabinet to be prepared for the King in one of the halls of the Louvre, which were to comprise, arranged in drawers and cases, all the memoirs and reports about to be collected. 'The labour required was immense. To obtain a notion of it, without repetitions, let one imagine every thing connected, immediately or remotely with the finances, with war, with the artillery, with the navy, commerce and police, with the coinage, with the mines, and, in a word, with every part of government, interior and exterior, ecclesiastic, civil, political, and domestic. Every one of all these parts had its separate place in this state cabinet, so that all the documents concerning it would be found ready to the hand at a glance, in whatever quantity they might be. On the side appropriated to the finances, were seen the collection of different regulations, records of financial operations, changes made or to be made, the sums to receive or to be paid, and an almost innumerable mass of statements, memorials, totals, and summaries, more or less abridged. "In regard to military matters, besides the accounts, details, and memorials, marking the actual state of things, there would have been found the edicts and state papers, works upon tactics, plans, maps, and charts of France and other parts of the world. Large copies of these maps, mixed with various pieces of painting, were to be placed in the great gallery. The idea also was entertained of appropriating one of the large halls below, with the floor above, to the purposes of a museum of models and specimens of all the most curious machines destined to be used in war, the arts, and different trades, and in all sorts of exercises, noble, liberal, or mechanical, in order that those who sought; perfection might come and without trouble instruct themselves in this silent school. The lower story would have served for the heavier things, and the higher for the lighter. An exact inventory of both was to have been amongst the documents of the cabinet of which I am speaking. "Lists of all the benefices of the kingdom, with their denomination and just appreciation, reports of the whole ecclesiastical body, secular and regular, from the highest prelate to the lowest clerk, with the distinction of native and foreigner, and of both religions, would not have been amongst the least curious documents of those referring to the ecclesiastical government.