He tells Madame de Bourges, of whose kind and active interest he seems very sure, that he has bought the velvet bed belonging to his aunt, Madame de Marconnay. He has also come into possession of a stately bed with hangings of silk and gold, which belonged to his great-uncle, “deffunct M. de Luçon.” This style is out of fashion, apparently, for he asks advice and help as to arranging the episcopal bed with Bergamesque tapestry. A little later, he concludes that even a beggar like himself must entertain his neighbours with a noble air, so that the country may esteem him “un grand monsieur.” He will therefore be obliged to Madame de Bourges if she will let him know the cost of two dozen silver plates “de belle grandeur.” He hopes to get them for five hundred crowns, but seems pretty sure that his kind friend will make up any deficiency: “I know that for the sake of a hundred crowns you would not let me have anything mean.” In return for all these services the Bishop was expected to interest himself in finding a husband for Madame de Bourges’ daughter Magdeleine. The task was not easy: he assures his correspondent that there is not a gentleman in the country possessing either money or goods. “Nous sommes tous gueux en ce pays, et moi le premier,” he says with a light-hearted air. From the first he was very fortunate in his servants, several of whom came to him at this time and stayed with him all his life. One of these was his _maître d’hôtel_, a young man named La Brosse, who had been in the service of the late Duc de Montpensier. La Brosse ordered everything in the household, knew how the Bishop’s guests should be entertained, and troubled him with nothing but accounts. This was well, for the work of the diocese, once undertaken, was enough to occupy both thought and time. The destitution of the flock was twofold--bodily and spiritual. Richelieu’s first care was to get his poor people relieved of some of the heavy burden of taxes which weighed them down. Under the system of those days, France was divided into _pays d’états_ and _pays d’élection_. The _pays d’états_--chiefly provinces which had been originally independent of the crown of France--were taxed by their own representative Estates, sitting at the principal town. The _pays d’élection_ were assessed by crown officials, who farmed out the taxes to local companies; and among the provinces thus farmed was that of Poitou. The system meant local greed, dishonesty and oppression; the small townspeople of such a place as Luçon and the country-folk of its poverty-stricken neighbourhood had no redress from the tax-gatherers of Poitiers. The worst burden of all was the direct tax known as _la taille_. A man paid this on all his possessions in money and kind, and it always amounted to a quarter of his property, sometimes to a great deal more. The clergy and nobles were exempt from _la taille_, which crushed the poor peasants and the smaller people to the earth.