state,
surrounded by his escort. The people's advocate fell on his knees, and
appealed to the king's clemency in dealing with a revolt of which every
one repented. The king, who was seated on a wooden boarding, rose up.
"Speak we no more of revolt," said he; "I desire neither to destroy your
persons nor to seize your goods, as was lately done by the Emperor
Charles to the Ghentese, whereby his hands are stained with blood; I long
more for the hearts of my subjects than for their lives and their riches.
I will never at any time of my life think again of your offence, and I
pardon you without excepting a single thing. I desire that the keys of
your city and your arms be given back to you, and that you be completely
reinstated in your liberties and your privileges." The cheers of the
people responded to these words of the king. "I think I have won your
hearts," said the king on retiring; "and I assure you, on the honor of a
gentleman, that you have mine. I desire that you ring your bells, for
you are pardoned." The Rochellese were let off for a fine of two hundred
thousand francs, which the king gave to his keeper of the seals, Francis
de Montholon, whom he wished to compensate for his good service. The
keeper of the seals in his turn made a present of them to the town of
Rochelle to found a hospital. But the ordinances as to the salt-tax were
maintained in principle, and their extension led, some years afterwards,
to a rising of a more serious character, and very differently repressed.

In 1548, hardly a year after the accession of Henry II., and in the midst
of the rejoicings he had gone to be present at in the north of Italy, he
received news at Turin to the effect that in Guienne, Angoumois, and
Saintonge a violent and pretty general insurrection had broken out
against the salt-tax, which Francis I., shortly before his death, had made
heavier in these provinces. The local authorities in vain attempted to
repress the rising; the insurgent peasants scoured the country in strong
bodies, giving free rein not only to their desires, but also to their
revengeful feelings; the most atrocious excesses of which a mob is
capable were committed; the director-general of the gabel was massacred
cruelly; and two of his officers, at Angouleme, were strapped down stark
naked on a table, beaten to death, and had their bodies cast into the
river with the insulting remark, "Go, wicked gabellers, and salt the fish
of the Charente