The treasure deposited in the Bastile, by Henry IV., did not remain long undissipated after his death. It began to melt away, like snow in the sun, as soon as the regency of Mary of Medicis was commenced. Swarms of her favourites and dependants clamoured to obtain the reward of their sycophancy. Like the horse-leech’s two daughters, they were perpetually crying, “Give! Give!” and, had such personages existed in the days of Solomon, he might have added a fifth thing to the four which he describes as never saying “It is enough.” Most prominent among the group were Concini and his wife; and, as they were exceedingly unpopular, they endeavoured to silence the cry against them, by stopping, at the public expense, the mouths of their most formidable censors. But it was not only her friends, as they called themselves, that Mary of Medicis had to satisfy; her enemies, and she had many, were to be bought off, and they sold their forbearance dearly. Fraud and shameless rapacity became universal. “Governors,” says Anquetil, “called for guards which they never enlisted, for augmentations of their garrisons, that they might gain something out of the pay, and fortifications, which often were useless. They themselves made the bargains, and, at the king’s cost, managed matters with the contractors. Reversions were granted down to the third generation. Those who by this means were excluded, required drafts on the royal treasury. Nothing was more common than the doubling and trebling of salaries, from the highest office to the lowest. Some obtained dowries for their daughters, others the payment of their debts: so that it was a general pillage.” To all this must be added, the loss sustained, and the injury done to every branch of industry, by the creation or revival of obnoxious tolls, privileges, and monopolies. Thus the money accumulated by Henry was speedily squandered. After all, it was, perhaps, more innocently spent in this manner, than it would have been in carrying on the wide-spreading war which he had planned, to realise his chimerical projects. Some drops of the golden shower probably descended among the multitude; and myriads were not led forth to spill their blood in foreign lands. The real mischief in this case was, that, when the hoard was gone, the spirit of spending remained; and to satisfy that spirit new taxes and exactions were pitilessly imposed on a people whose burthens were already oppressive. Having wholly lost his influence, Sully resigned many of his offices, and returned into private life. Among the places which he relinquished were the superintendence of the finances, and the government of the Bastile. He, however, did not make the sacrifice without taking especial care to be well remunerated for it. A million of livres, and a yearly pension of forty-eight thousand livres, was his price. It is quite clear that the virtuous Sully did not think, like Pope, that “virtue _only_ makes our bliss below.”