"Soldiers are more likely to be wanted in Lower Brittany than in any other spot," said a letter to Colbert from the lieutenant general, M.de Lavardin; "it is a rough and wild country, which breeds inhabitants who resemble it.
They understand French but slightly, and reason not much better.

The Parliament is at the back of all this." Riots were frequent, and were put down with great severity.

"The poor Low-Bretons collect by forty or fifty in the fields," writes Madame de Sevigne on the 24th of September, 1675: "as soon as they see soldiers, they throw themselves on their knees, saying, Mea culpa! all the French they know..

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." "The severities are abating," she adds on the 3d of November: "after the hangings there will be no more hanging." All these fresh imposts, which had cost so much suffering and severity, brought in but two millions five hundred thousand livres at Colbert's death.