'Item, the provost of Paris, who had held for some time the office of grand master of waters and forests, has now resigned it to the lord de Jury, for which six thousand francs have been levied. But beside the provostship of Paris, he holds the government of the town of Cherbourg and its dependancies, which brings him an annual rent of six thousand francs, with the government of Nemours, amounting to two thousand more. Your income is also ruined by another mode, namely, by the immense number of receivers, treasurers, clerks, comptrollers and other officers, who swallow enormous sums by way of fees, over and above the regular fees of office, of which the provost and his dependants have the greater share, and which they regard as their own personal property, to your great loss, and to the delay of payments to many of your faithful servants, knights, and counsellors of state. It is daily witnessed, that when a young man has been appointed to any of the above offices, however poor his situation may have been before, or how little versed he may be in the management of public affairs, he soon becomes rich, keeps a grand establishment, and purchases large estates and manors, all at your expense. 'There are great frauds committed by your treasurers of the war department, who are accustomed to take from your knights and esquires blank receipts sealed by them, of which they make a very bad use, as they know to their cost: but they can more fully inform you on this head than we can. It is melancholy to hear their complaints of the delays in the payment of their salaries, which are always much curtailed, at least to the greater part of them. It is consequently now become a rule among your men at arms, when their salary is in arrear, to pay themselves from the countries they are quartered in, saying, that, since they cannot obtain their pay, they must live by their service.