When the Duke of Orleans assumed the regency, the finances of the kingdom were in a lamentable state. The protracted and expensive wars into which Louis XIV. had wantonly plunged, the boundless extravagance in which he had indulged, and the peculations, and wasteful expenditure of every kind, which had so long prevailed, had not only drained the treasury, but had also caused a heavy load of debt, and almost dried up the sources of supply. The government was indebted to an enormous amount, the revenue of three years had been anticipated, and public credit was destroyed. From all quarters a loud cry was raised for fiscal reform. A national bankruptcy was proposed in the council, but the proposal was unanimously rejected. The means which were adopted in its stead were, however, scarcely less unjust; they were the same clumsy and violent means which former rulers had almost uniformly employed. Contracts, entered into by the ministers of the late king, were capriciously annulled, annuities and pensions were cut down to one half, offices, which the holders had bought at a great price, were abolished without any compensation being given, a new coinage was issued at a higher nominal value, and government securities, to the amount of six hundred millions, were at one stroke reduced to two hundred and fifty millions, and even of this diminished sum the creditors were defrauded of more than a fifth part. But the grand panacea, for restoring the consumptive exchequer to its pristine vigour, was the establishment of a court, antithetically denominated a chamber of justice. This chamber was directed to institute a rigorous inquiry into the conduct of all persons who had any connection with the finances, or with contracts of any kind, and compel them to disgorge their spoil. A sweeping edict brought under the jurisdiction of this inquisitorial body several thousands of individuals, from the richest farmer-general, or contractor, down to the poorest clerk. “The custom,” says Lemontey, “of drawing back by proscriptions the rapines which a vicious administration has tolerated, is an Asiatic art which ill beseems regular governments. But, condemned to a financial anarchy by its squandering habits, France, for a long while, could find no other than this odious remedy.” The remedy was indeed an odious one! The retrospective operation of this edict extended as far back as seven-and-twenty years; so that it clutched in its iron grasp not only living presumed criminals, but the children, grandchildren, and relations of those who had ceased to exist, and thus at once inflicted torment on a multitude of guiltless victims, and shook property to its very basis. The means employed to give effect to the edict were of the most base and barbarous kind. Death was the penalty denounced against all who were convicted, whoever made an incorrect declaration of his fortune was doomed to the galleys, and, that there might be no lack of evidence, the pillory was held up