_in terrorem_ to negligent witnesses. But, bad as all this was, there was something still worse. Informers were to be rewarded with a fifth part of the confiscations, and to receive a certificate, stating that they were under the king’s protection, and exempt from being sued by their creditors; to slander them was rendered punishable with death. By another enactment, servants were allowed to denounce their masters, under fictitious names; a happy invention for destroying all domestic confidence! To excite the people, already sufficiently excited, a medal was struck, on which the culprits were typified by the robber Cacus, horrible songs and prints were circulated, and it was ordered that a portion of the confiscated property should be distributed among the inhabitants of the place where the condemned individual resided. The whole scheme of proceeding was consistently infamous; it never deviated into anything like justice. To prevent the escape of those who were marked out for prosecution, an order was suddenly issued, forbidding them to leave their abodes on pain of death. Such, however, was the terror inspired by this unexpected measure that many took flight, and others put an end to their own existence. Of those who remained, multitudes were dragged from their homes in the most studiously disgraceful manner, amidst the hootings of the populace, who lent their willing aid to the officers of police. The Bastile and the other prisons were speedily so crowded, that numbers were obliged to be left in their houses under a guard. For six months the chamber proceeded in its career, purveying liberally for the pillory, the galleys, and the scaffold. It was at last discovered, that this was a tedious and unsatisfactory process; that though revenge and malice were gratified, there was little profit; and the system was in consequence changed. To levy enormous fines and impositions was the new course which was adopted. Twenty lists of pecuniary proscription were made out, containing the names of 4470 heads of families, from whom the sum of two hundred and twenty millions of livres—about nine millions sterling—was demanded. The celebrated Bourvalais, who had risen from being a footman to be one of the richest financiers in France, was taxed at 4,400,000 livres. In many instances envy or personal enmity contrived to have insufferable burthens laid upon obnoxious individuals. Then, on the part of the sufferers, ensued solicitations and bribes to men and women in power, to procure more favourable terms; the golden harvest was eagerly reaped by the courtiers, and the court became a theatre of underhand manœuvres and gross corruption. The people, meanwhile, were rapidly growing disgusted with the chamber of justice. They found that they had derived no benefit whatever from its labours, the sums extorted by it having chiefly been wasted in gifts and pensions to the privileged classes. There was another and yet stronger reason for their dissatisfaction.