Opposition irritated him more and more, till his hatred of the opponents became deadly; but it, at the same time, confirmed him in his purpose.

"'Tis no time to temporize," he wrote to Granvelle; "we must inflict chastisement with full rigor and severity.

These rascals can only be made to do right through fear, and not always even by that means." At the same time, the royal finances did not admit of any very active measures, at the moment, to enforce obedience to a policy which was already so bitterly opposed.

A rough estimate, made in the King's own handwriting, of the resources and obligations of his exchequer, a kind of balance sheet for the years 1560 and 1561, drawn up much in the same manner as that in which a simple individual would make a note of his income and expenditure, gave but a dismal picture of his pecuniary, condition.

It served to show how intelligent a financier is despotism, and how little available are the resources of a mighty empire when regarded merely as private property, particularly when the owner chances to have the vanity of attending to all details himself: "Twenty millions of ducats," began the memorandum, "will be required to disengage my revenues.