But it was in the graver affairs of the realm that Henry derived still greater advantage from the wisdom and the conduct of the Chancellor.[24] To Becket's counsels his admiring biographers attribute the pacification of the kingdom, the expulsion of the foreign mercenaries who during the civil wars of Stephen's reign had devastated the land and had settled down as conquerors, especially in Kent, the humiliation of the refractory barons and the demolition of their castles. The peace was so profound that merchants could travel everywhere in safety, and even the Jews collect their debts.[25] The magnificence of Becket redounded to the glory of his sovereign. In his ordinary life he was sumptuous beyond precedent; he kept an open table, where those who were not so fortunate as to secure a seat at the board had clean rushes strewn on the floor, on which they might repose, eat, and carouse at the Chancellor's expense. His household was on a scale vast even for that age of unbounded retainership, and the haughtiest Norman nobles were proud to see their sons brought up in the family of the merchant's son. [SN: Ambassador to Paris A. D. 1160.] In his embassy to Paris to demand the hand of the Princess Margaret for the king's infant son, described with such minute accuracy by Fitz-Stephen,[26] he outshone himself, yet might seem to have a loyal rather than a personal aim in this unrivaled pomp. The French crowded from all quarters to see the splendid procession pass, and exclaimed, "What must be the king, whose Chancellor can indulge in such enormous expenditure?" [SN: War in Toulouse.]