might be demanded of the states-general.
Jacques Coeur, the two brothers Bureau, Martin Gouge, Michel Lailler,
William Cousinot, and many other councillors, of burgher origin, labored
zealously to establish this administrative system, so prompt and freed
from all independent discussion. Weary of wars, irregularities, and
sufferings, France, in the fifteenth century, asked for nothing but peace
and security; and so soon as the kingship showed that it had an intention
and was in a condition to provide her with them, the nation took little
or no trouble about political guarantees which as yet it knew neither how
to establish nor how to exercise; its right to them was not disputed in
principle, they were merely permitted to fall into desuetude; and Charles
VII., who during the first half of his reign had twenty-four times
assembled the states-general to ask them for taxes and soldiers, was able
in the second to raise personally both soldiers and taxes without drawing
forth any complaint hardly, save from his contemporary historian, the
Bishop of Lisieux, Thomas Basin, who said, "Into such misery and
servitude is fallen the realm of France, heretofore so noble and free,
that all the inhabitants are openly declared by the generals of finance
and their clerks taxable at the will of the king, without anybody's
daring to murmur or even ask for mercy." There is at every juncture, and
in all ages of the world, a certain amount, though varying very much, of
good order, justice, and security, without which men cannot get on; and
when they lack it, either through the fault of those who govern them or
through their own fault, they seek after it with the blind eyes of
passion, and are ready to accept it, no matter what power may procure it
for them, or what price it may cost them. Charles VII. was a prince
neither to be respected nor to be loved, and during many years his reign
had not been a prosperous one; but "he re-quickened justice, which had
been a long while dead," says a chronicler devoted to the Duke of
Burgundy; "he put an end to the tyrannies and exactions of the
men-at-arms, and out of an infinity of murderers and robbers he formed
men of resolution and honest life; he made regular paths in murderous
woods and forests, all roads safe, all towns peaceful, all nationalities
of his kingdom tranquil; he chastised the evil and honored the good, and
he was sparing of human blood."

Let it be added, in accordance with contempor