Her husband, Henry IV., entered a country that was completely exhausted. The state debt at the time he entered upon his reign clearly showed the spirit of the previous governments. In 1560 the state debt was 43,000,000 livres. At the end of the century it had risen to 300,000,000. The Valois sold titles and dignities to the rich, squeezed them besides and were finally capable of mortgaging anything they could lay their hands upon. In 1595 Henri IV. remarked in Blois that “the majority of the farms and almost all the villages were uninhabited and empty.” This mounting of the state debt clearly indicates the extent of the depravity of the court. During the reign of Charles IX. and Henri III., that is between 1570 and 1590, the dissoluteness reached its height and this made it possible for Brantôme to collect such a large number of stories and anecdotes. Catherine of Medici, who outlived her race by a year and whose influence continued during this entire period, does not seem to have been a saint herself. But the last three of the Valois were the worst, the most frivolous and lascivious of them all. It was during their reign that the rule of mistresses was at its height in the Louvre and the royal castles which furnished Brantôme with his inexhaustible material. Such were the Valois. This is the background of Brantôme’s life. We should like to know more about him. He has written about many generals and important women of his age, but there are only fragments regarding himself. The family Bourdeille is one of the most important in Perigord. Like other old races they sought to trace their ancestors back into the times of Gaul and Rome. Charlemagne is said to have founded the Abbey Brantôme. Brantôme’s father was the “first page of the royal litter.” His son speaks of him as “un homme scabreaux, haut a la main et mauvais garçon.” His mother, a born Châtaigneraie, was lady-in-waiting of the Queen of Navarre. Pierre was probably also born in Navarre, but nothing is known as to the exact day of birth. Former biographers simply copied, one from the other, that he had died in 1614 at the age of eighty-seven. This would make 1528 the year of his birth. But now it is well known that Brantôme spent the first years of his life in Navarre. Queen Marguerite died in 1549 and Brantôme later writes of his sojourn at her court: “Moy estant petit garçon en sa court.” Various methods of calculation seem to indicate that he was born in 1540.