they might possibly incur by attempting to raise the necessary supplies by increasing taxation under the royal mandate; secondly, they hoped to receive a large accession of strength from the Catholic members. Each party, indeed, labored to gain the popular support, and at the electoral meetings throughout the kingdom there was an excitement that augured well for the revival of constitutional forms of government. The Huguenots of Paris went to the Hotel-de-Ville and insisted that their remonstrance and confession should be embodied in the _cahier_ of instructions. In that drawn up by the municipality of Provins the grievances of the people were declared in plain and forcible language. “The clergy,” they said, “are too rich, the Church too wealthy; the priests should have less money and keep fewer concubines; they should give the people more instruction in good manners, distribute more liberal alms to the poor, and be less disorderly in their passions, less luxurious in their dress, less given to haunting taverns and houses of ill-fame; they should not ride out a hunting so frequently with hawks and hounds, or so grind the people in body and goods.... Justice is too dear, the fees are excessive, and the judge ought to be paid out of the public purse.... The people are oppressed by the soldiery, who beat and plunder them, and turn them out of house and home, and kill them. They are grievously oppressed by taxes, from which the rich by favor are exempt.... The salt is not good, dry, or pure; it contains a sixth part of rubbish.... The gentry do not defend their people or neighbors, as they are bound to do; they hold taxable property, and carry on trades without paying for licenses.”[218]