The Queen's anxiety to create an affection strong enough to blind the eyes of her courtiers to her intimacy with Mazarin had inspired her with a desire to lavish gifts. "The Queen gives everything" had become a proverb; the courtiers knew the value of their complaisancy, and they flocked to the Palais Royal with petitions; offices, benefices, privileges, monopolies either to exploit, to concede, or to sell were freely bestowed upon all who demanded them. Each courtier had some new and unheard-of fancy to gratify, either for his own pleasure or for the pleasure of his friends; anything that could be made visible, anything that could be so represented as to appear visible to the imagination, was scheduled in the minds of the courtiers as dutiable and some one drew revenues from it. One of the ladies of the Court obtained from the Queen the right to tax all the Masses said in Paris.[125] "The 13th January, 1644, the Council of the King employed part of its session in refusing 'a quantity of gifts' which the Queen had accorded, and which were all of a character to excite laughter." The royal horn had ceased to pour; the Queen's strong-box was empty. The courtiers knew that there was nothing more to gain; one and all they raised their voices, and the threatening growl of the people of Paris echoed them. The day of reckoning was at hand; had Anne of Austria possessed all that she had given to buy the indulgence of her world, and had she willed to give it all again, she could not have stilled the tumult; to quote Mme. de Motteville's record: "The people's love for the Queen had diminished; the absolute power which the Queen had placed in the hand of Mazarin had destroyed her own influence, and from too fondly desiring that the Parisians should love her lover she had made them hate him." In the beginning of the Regency Mazarin had been popular; after a time the people had lost confidence in him, and the hatred which followed their distrust was mingled with contempt. Mazarin had emptied the treasury of France. No better statement of his conduct was ever given than Fénelon gave his pupil, the Duc de Bourgogne, in his _Dialogues des Morts_. Mazarin and Richelieu are the persons speaking. Each makes known the value of his own work; each criticises the work of the other. Mazarin reproaches Richelieu for his cruelty and thirst for blood; Richelieu answers: