Acquaviva, presented his _Mahomet_ to him in 1746, and the amiable Pope, quite innocent of the satire on Christianity, wrote to tell Voltaire how he had successfully defended his Latin verses.[329] Benedict's immediate predecessor, Clement XII., an elderly disciplinarian whose strength was not equal to his pretensions, had left the internal and foreign affairs of the Quirinal--the Popes now dwelt chiefly in that palace--in a condition of strain and disorder, nor was Benedict's Secretary of State, Cardinal Valenti, the man to relieve the Pope of the work of reform. Choiseul, who was then the French representative at Rome, describes Valenti as very able but very lazy: a man of great charm, especially to ladies, and easy morals. Yet the treasury was empty, and the finances were shockingly disorganized. Although Clement XII. had introduced the lottery to support his extravagant expenditure, the Papal income in 1739 fell short of the expenses by 200,000 crowns a year, and the Camera owed between fifty and sixty million crowns--President de Brosses says 380,000,000 francs--to the _Monti_, or funds out of which the Popes paid life-incomes. Smuggling was so general, even among ambassadors and cardinals, that half the Papal revenue was lost. Cardinals Acquaviva and Albani each granted immunity from excise to four thousand traders: so Benedict wrote to Tencin in 1743. A third of the population of Rome consisted of ecclesiastics who lived on the Papal system, and a third were foreigners of no greater financial value; while the natives could so easily obtain food at the innumerable monasteries, or by begging, that there was little incentive to industry.