These festivities exasperated Louis XIV. "Ah, Madame," he said to his mother, "shall we not make all these people disgorge?" Infallible signs announced the approaching catastrophe. In his Council, the King proposed to suppress those very orders to pay cash which served, as we have said, to cover the secret expenditure of the Superintendents. The Chancellor strongly supported the proposal. "Do I count for nothing, then?" cried Foucquet indiscreetly. Then he suddenly corrected himself and said that other ways would be found to provide for the secret expenses of the State. "I myself will provide for them," said Louis XIV. Nevertheless, Foucquet, though deprived of the gown, was still a formidable enemy. Before he could be reduced his Breton strongholds must be captured. The prudent King had thought of this, and presently conceived a clever scheme. As there was need of money, it was resolved to increase the taxation of the State domains. This impost, described euphemistically as a gratuitous gift, was voted by the Provincial Assemblies. The presence of the King seemed necessary in order to determine the Breton Estates to make a great financial sacrifice, and Foucquet himself advised the King to go to Nantes, where the Provincial Assembly was to be held.[71] Foucquet himself helped to bring about his own ruin. At Nantes he had a sorrowful presentiment of this. He was suffering from an intermittent fever, the attacks of which were very weakening. "Why," he said, in a low voice to Brienne, "is the King going to Brittany, and to Nantes in particular? Is it not in order to make sure of Belle-Isle?" And several times in his weakness he murmured: "Nantes, Belle-Isle!" When Brienne went out, he embraced him with tears in his eyes.[72] The King arrived at Nantes on the ist of September, and took up his abode at the Château. Foucquet had his lodging at the other end of the town, in a house which communicated with the Loire by means of a subterranean passage. In that way he could reach the river, where a boat was waiting for him, and escape to Belle-Isle.