POJREST ADMINISTRATION. 21 



such a narrative I find it more pleasurable to read. Such 

 documents enable me, I fancy, to realise more correctly 

 the state of things at the time of their production, and in 

 making this translation I felt I was translating the state- 

 ments of a man thoroughly disgusted with the men — be 

 they bishops or archbishops, marquises or barons, gentle 

 or semple — who could do such things, and with the 

 Government and system of government under which such 

 a state of things could arise and exist. Contemptuous 

 terms and phrases are used as if it would defile the lan- 

 guage in its purity to speak of such doings in phraseology 

 current amongst noble-minded gentlemen. Too well, 

 perhaps, did he know that such abuses of power and office 

 were not uncommon at that time in France, but were 

 general ; and that this was only one manifestation of them 

 in the Government Department of State Forestry. But it 

 was the one with which he had then to deal, and though 

 ready loyally to fulfil the command of his sovereign to 

 report on the state of things in this part of the Augean 

 stable, his soul loathed what he saw, and he did not 

 hesitate to manifest his loathing. 



Of the proceedings which followed, the following account 

 is given by M. A. Joubain, Inspector of Forests, in the 

 Revue des Eaux el Forks, Annates Forestilre for April 1879 : — 



' Under what by Martin in his Histoire de France is 

 called "the foolish and corrupt government of Marie de 

 Medicis," the most serious abuses had obtained footing in 

 all departments and offices of the State. Absorbed with 

 the realisation of three great projects, the weakening of 

 Protestantism, the humiliation of the Great before the 

 Royal power, and the securing of a preponderating influence 

 for France in Europe, Richelieu had not time to attend 

 sufficiently to the internal administration of the kingdom. 

 His successor was in this respect incomparably worse. 

 He himself set the example of dishonesty ; and corruption 

 amongst the representatives of government and amongst 

 all holding authority of any kind became, especially 



