This little Claude de Bullion was a very great personage, though the tininess of his stature provoked all kinds of jeers. He was the son of a Burgundian magistrate, and his mother was one of the twenty children of Charles de Lamoignon. Tallemant des Réaux has related that a certain Countess de Sault had contributed to the advancement of the little Claude, and had succeeded in getting him nominated as President of the Inquests. "Ah! Madame!" she said one day to Marie de Médicis, "if you only knew Monsieur de Bullion as well as I do!" "Gawd preserve me from it, Madame la Comtesse!" replied the Italian. Henri IV had charged him with various embassies. Louis XIII made him guardian of the seals of his orders, and then superintendent of the finances. Whatever may have been the origin of the good luck of Bullion, he showed himself worthy of his position by his talent and probity. When he became superintendent of the finances, he had the prudence to make an inventory of his property, in order to be able to defend himself against any future accusation of peculation. It became necessary for him to provide for the financial demands of Richelieu, which were terrible. So he laid new taxes and became very unpopular, but it did not displease him to oppose the multitude. In 1636, when the Spanish army had invaded the kingdom, Richelieu did not dare to face the discontent of the people, exasperated by defeat. "And I," said Bullion to him, "whom they hate more than your Eminence, I will go through the whole city on horseback, followed by two lackeys only, and no one will say a word to me." He did it as he had promised, and the next day the Cardinal, emboldened, repaired in a carriage with doors open from his palace to the Porte Saint Antoine. The King and his minister backed up Bullion. He groaned incessantly about the state of the finances and forecast bankruptcy. His complaints did not trouble Richelieu: "As to the humors of M. de Bullion," wrote the Cardinal, "we must overlook them without worrying about them, when they are bad."