The fact that the young King was being despoiled was a greater grief to the people than the abasement of the Queen. It must be avowed that Mazarin was the most shameless thief who ever devoured a kingdom in the name of official duty and under the eyes and by the favour of a sovereign. His cry was the cry of the daughters of the horseleech. It was understood that Mazarin would not grant a service, or a demand of any kind, until his price had been put down, and in some cases the commission was demanded and paid twice. Bussy-Rabutin received a letter commanding him to "pay over and without delay" the sum of seven hundred livres. The letter is still in existence. Condé wrote it and despatched it, but it bears his personal endorsement to the effect that he had been "ordered" to write it. Montglat states that Anne of Austria asked for a fat office for one of her creatures, that the office was immediately granted, and that the appointee was taxed one hundred thousand écus. Anne of Austria was piqued: she had supposed that her position exempted her from the requirements of the ministerial tariff; she expostulated, but the Cardinal-Minister was firm; he made it clear, even to the dim perceptions of his royal lady, that the duties of the director of the French nation ranked the tender impulses of the lover. Patriotic duty nerved his hand, and the Queen, recognising the futility of resistance, trembling with excitement, and watering her fevered persuasions with her tears, opened her purse and paid Mazarin his commission. By a closely calculated policy the State's coffers were subjected to systematic drainage, the national expenses were cut, and millions, diverted from their regular channels, found their way into the strong box of the favourite. The soldiers of France were dying of starvation on the frontiers, the State's creditors were clamouring for their money, the Court was in need of the comforts of life[124]; the country had been ravaged by passing armies, pillaged by thieving politicians, harrowed by abuses of all kinds. The taxes were wrung from the beggared people by armed men; yet "poor Monsieur, the Cardinal," as the Queen always called him, gave insolently luxurious fêtes and expended millions upon his extravagant fancies. No one cared for his foreign policy. Would political triumphs bring back the dead, feed the starving, rehabilitate the dishonoured wives and daughters of the peasants, restore verdure to the ruined farms?