He soon found himself opposed by the Ligue du Bien Public, formed by the great vassals ostensibly to get rid of the pecuniary burden which oppressed the people, but really with the secret intention of restoring feudalism and lessening the King’s power.  He was not powerful enough openly to resist this, and appeared to give way by allowing the leagued nobles immense privileges, and himself consenting to the control of a sort of council of “thirty-six notables appointed to superintend matters of finance.”  Far from acknowledging himself vanquished, however, he immediately set to work to cause division among his enemies, so as to be able to overcome them.  He accordingly showed favour towards the bourgeois, whom he had already flattered, by granting new privileges, and abolishing or reducing certain vexatious taxes of which they complained.  The thirty-six notables appointed to control his financial management reformed nothing.  They were timid and docile under the cunning eye of the King, and practically assisted him in his designs; for in a very few years the taxes were increased from 1,800,000 ecus—­about 45,000,000 francs of present money—­to 3,600,000 ecus—­about 95,000,000 francs.  Towards the end of the reign they exceeded 4,700,000 ecus—­130,000,000 francs of present money.  Louis XI. wasted nothing on luxury and pleasure; he lived parsimoniously, but he maintained 110,000 men under arms, and was ready to make the greatest sacrifices whenever there was a necessity for augmenting the territory of the kingdom, or for establishing national unity.  At his death, on the 25th of August, 1483, he left a kingdom considerably increased in area, but financialty almost ruined.

When Anne de Beaujeu, eldest sister of the King, who was a minor, assumed the reins of government as regent, an immediate demand was made for reparation of the evils to which the finance ministers had subjected the unfortunate people.  The treasurer-general Olivier le Dain, and the attorney-general Jean Doyat, were almost immediately sacrificed to popular resentment, six thousand Swiss were subsidised, the pensions granted during the previous reign were cancelled, and a fourth part of the taxes was removed.  Public opinion being thus satisfied, the States-General assembled.  The bourgeois here showed great practical good sense, especially in matters of finance; they proved clearly that the assessment was illegal, and that the accounts were fictitious, inasmuch as the latter only showed 1,650,000 livres of subsidies, whereas they amounted to three times as much.  It was satisfactorily established that the excise, the salt tax, and the revenues of the public lands amply sufficed for the wants of the country and the crown.  The young King Charles was only allowed 1,200,000 livres for his private purse for two years, and 300,000 livres for the expenses of the festivities of his coronation.  On the Assembly being dissolved, the Queen Regent found ample means of pleasing the bourgeois and the people generally by breaking through the engagements she had entered into in the King’s name, by remitting taxation, and finally by force of arms destroying the power of the last remaining vassals of the crown.