THE MAN OF FORTY CROWNS.--At this rate, then, Henry IV. was but a mean-spirited wretch, a miser, a plunderer, for I have been told that he had chested up in the Bastile, above fifty millions of livres according to our present currency. THE GEOMETRICIAN.--He was a man as good, and as prudent, as he was brave. He was preparing to make a just war, and by amassing in his coffers twenty-two millions of the currency of that time, besides which he had twenty more to receive, which he left in circulation, he spared the people above a hundred millions that it would have cost, if he had not taken those useful measures. He made himself morally sure of success against an enemy who had not taken the like precaution. The probabilities were prodigiously in his favor. His twenty-two millions, in bank, proved that there was then in this kingdom, twenty-two millions of surplusage of the territorial produce, so that no one was a sufferer. THE MAN OF FORTY CROWNS.--My father then told me the truth, when he said that the subject was in proportion more rich under the administration of the Duke of Sully than under that of our new ministers, who had laid on the _single_ tax, the _sole_ tax, and who, out of my forty crowns, have taken away twenty. Pray, tell me, is there another nation in the world that enjoys this precious advantage of the _sole tax_? THE GEOMETRICIAN.--Not one opulent nation. The English, who are not much giving to laughing, could not, however, help bursting out, when they heard that men of intelligence, among us, had proposed this kind of administration. The Chinese exact a tax from all the foreign trading ships that resort to Canton. The Dutch pay, at Nangazaqui, when they are received in Japan, under pretext that they are not Christians. The Laplanders, and the Samoieds, are indeed subjected to a sole tax in sables or marten-skins. The republic of St. Marino pays nothing more than tithes for the maintenance of that state in its splendor.