The dispatches of Killigrew, embassador to the court of France about this time, present a striking picture of the misery and ignorance of the lower classes. On the 15th November, 1559, he writes: “It is very secretly reported that the French king is become a leper, and for fear of his coming to Chatelherault the people have (it is said) removed their children; and of late there be certain of them wanting about Tours, which can not be heard of, and there is commandment given that there shall not be any pursuit made for the same.” A horrible light is thrown on these last words by a letter of the 28th January, 1560: “The 20th of this present month there was a man executed here at Blois, who lately, with a companion, traveled abroad in the country to seek fair children, to use their blood for curing of a disease which, they said, the king had: alleging that they had a command so to do. The one of them used to go before to make search for them, and the other came after to ask if such a man had been there for such a purpose: whereupon the people made lamentation for their children.” It was of course only an impudent means of extorting money. The population of France at the accession of Charles IX. has been variously estimated, but it probably did not much (if at all) exceed fifteen millions, of whom almost one-third lived in towns. Yet complaints of over-population were frequent; and La Noue, speaking of the multitude of inhabitants before the religious wars, says: “They swarm!” They paid in taxation a greater proportional amount than is contributed by their more numerous and fortunate posterity under the second empire. Finance was in its infancy, and taxes were levied so as to produce the greatest amount of vexation to the payer and the smallest result to the royal treasury. At the end of the century--forty years later than the period at which we have arrived--the duties and aids were farmed for 232 millions of livres, equivalent to £42,000,000 sterling.[177]