After the conclusion of the Dutch War the reign of Louis XIV enters on a period of manifest decline. The cost of the war had been tremendous. In 1677 the expenditure had been one hundred ten millions, and Colbert had to meet this with a net revenue of eighty-one millions. The trade and commerce of the country had also suffered much during the war. With bitter grief the great minister saw himself compelled to reverse the beneficent policy of his earlier days, to add to the tax on salt, to increase the ever-crushing burden of the _taille_, to create new offices--hereditary employments in the government--to the extent of three hundred millions, augmenting the already monstrous army of superfluous officials, and, finally, simply to borrow money at high interest. The new exactions had produced widespread misery in the provinces before the war came to an end. In 1675 the Governor of Dauphine had written to Colbert, saying that commerce had entirely ceased in his district, and that the larger part of the people had lived during the winter on bread made from acorns and roots, and that at the time of his writing they were seen to be eating the grass of the fields and the bark of trees. The long-continued anguish produced at last despair and rebellion. In Bordeaux great excesses were committed by the mob, which were punished with severity. Six thousand soldiers were quartered in the town, and were guilty of such disorders that the best families emigrated, and trade was ruined for a long period. But Brittany witnessed still worse evils. There also riots and disturbances had been produced by the excessive pressure of the imposts. An army of five thousand men was poured into the province, and inflicted such terror on the population that the wretched peasants, at the mere sight of the soldiers, threw themselves on their knees in an attitude of supplication and exclaimed, "_Mea culpa_." The lively Madame de Sevigne gives us some interesting details concerning these events in the intervals when court scandal ran low and the brave doings of Madame de Montespan suffered a temporary interruption. "Would you like," says the tender-hearted lady to her daughter, "would you like to have news of Rennes? There are still five thousand soldiers here, as more have come from Nantes. A tax of one hundred thousand crowns has been laid upon the citizens, and if the money is not forthcoming in twenty-four hours the tax will be doubled and levied by the soldiers. All the inhabitants of a large street have already been driven out and banished, and no one may receive them under pain of death; so that all these poor wretches, old men, women recently delivered, and children, were seen wandering in tears as they left the town, not knowing whither to go or where to sleep or what to eat. The day before yesterday one of the leaders of the riot was broken alive on the wheel. Sixty citizens have been seized, and to-morrow the hanging will