Taxes were imposed upon no regular plan, and whatever arrangement was made, it was liable to be broken through by the “good pleasure” of the king. This was especially the case in the reign of Francis I., whose subjects, when groaning under oppressive charges of _tailles_, _taillons_, _aides_, _subsides_, _impôts_, and _gabelle_, looked back and longed for the good old times of Louis XII. Francis squandered his income in the most reckless manner; every body plundered the national exchequer, especially his favorites and mistresses. So great were the expenses of the marriage (the _nôces salées_) of his niece Joan of Albret with the Duke of Cleves in 1541, that to make up the deficiency he not only extended the gabelle or salt tax to several of the southern provinces, but doubled it in those where it already existed, expecting that the returns would be doubled also. In this he was disappointed, and new sources of revenue had to be invented. The coinage was debased, raising the value of the silver mark from £165 to £185;[178] a multitude of offices was created, all to be had for money; judgeships were made venal, lotteries were established, additional _décimes_ imposed on the clergy;[179] the churches were robbed of their ornaments of gold, silver, and precious gems;[180] loans were raised by means of _rentes_ or stock offered for sale at the Hotel-de-Ville of Paris, and the citizens were expected to become purchasers. Eightscore thousand crowns were thus borrowed _au denier douze_; that is to say, at 8⅓ per cent. The superintendents of finance were bound to procure money, even if they had to borrow it on their own security; and, when all other means failed, and a large sum was wanted instantly for some royal caprice or some new mistress, a financier was hanged and his property confiscated. Such measures necessarily discontented every body and profited none but a few persons at court; yet by some means or other Francis I. contrived to leave four millions of livres in the treasury, which Henry II., aided by Diana of Poitiers, soon squandered. The new king took one important step toward financial accountability by dividing the kingdom into seventeen généralités, each of which was farmed at a very high rate.[181] Under his two successors, the government speculated in French vanity by making titles of nobility purchasable. Pasquier thought this an “inexhaustible source of supply,” but it does not appear to have made any large return to the treasury. The “deficit” became periodical, and to fill up the gulf the taxes (especially the gabelle) were augmented,[182] financiers were prosecuted and heavily mulcted, many useless offices were created on purpose to be sold, and new loans were contracted. Among other devices--all of them very startling to a modern chancellor of the exchequer--was a proposal to appoint 13,000 sergens, or baillies. Pasquier hopes this will not be done, for “it would eclipse the memory