In the time of the direct Valois kings, most of the government’s loans were arranged in the provinces, as in Normandy and Languedoc. But, beginning with Francis I, the city of Paris became increasingly the place where the crown obtained financial aid, so much so indeed that the supervision of the _rentes_ of the Hôtel-de-Ville became a separate administrative bureau of the royal treasury, although it must not be understood that the government’s operations were henceforth exclusively confined to Paris; for loans continued to be made wherever possible with towns, corporations, the clergy, and private loan brokers and bankers. These _rentes_ of the capital, it should be understood, were technically a substitution of the credit of the city of Paris for the somewhat dubious credit of the crown.[311] From that date (1522) forward in France, government loans took the form of perpetual annuities, payable at the Hôtel-de-Ville in Paris. But other cities, such as Orleans, Troyes, Toulouse, and Rouen, also furnished the King with money in the form of annuities. Aside from Paris, the church of France was the grand pillar of the government’s finances, and as the initiation of the _rentes_ is due to Francis I, so to this king also is the second expedient to be ascribed. In 1516, on the occasion of the _concordat_, Leo X allowed Francis I to exact a new tenth, theoretically to be distinguished from the _dîme_ of the clergy of France, the pretext being a war projected against the Turks. The new tithe was levied by the King’s officers alone, on the basis of a grand survey of the property of the clergy (_Description générale du bien d’église_) made in this year. In this financial survey the tax or quota of each benefice and the total of the tithe in every diocese were indicated. Thenceforth it was easy for numerous tithes to be levied by the will of the King alone. However, in order to conceal the arbitrariness of this conduct, the crown sometimes indicated its purpose to Rome which issued the necessary validation, but more often the King addressed the clergy itself united in assemblies of the bishops at Paris and in provincial or diocesan assemblies. The consent of the clergy was nothing but a formality, for the royal authority fixed in advance the sum to be paid. The diocesan assembly had nothing to do but distribute the impost. This concession of the Pope was successively renewed, under different pretexts, for a number of years, under the name of a _don caritatif_, and was equivalent to another tithe, the practice, prolonged year after year, at last hardening into a permanent form of taxation required of the clergy, so much so that under Henry II receivers of the “gift” were established in every diocese.[312]