Several lords were found guilty; Sieur de la Mothe actually died upon the scaffold for having unjustly despoiled and maltreated the people on his estates.

"He was not one of the worst," says Flechier, in his _Journal des Grands Jours d'Auvergne_.

The Duke of Bouillon, governor of the province, had too long favored the guilty.
"I resolved," says the king in his _Memoires,_ "to prevent the people from being subjected to thousands and thousands of tyrants, instead of one lawful king, whose indulgence alone it is that causes all this disorder." The puissance of the provincial governors, already curtailed by Richelieu, suffered from fresh attacks under Louis XIV.

Everywhere the power passed into the hands of the superintendents, themselves subjected in their turn to inspection by the masters of requests.
"Acting on the information I had that in many provinces the people were plagued by certain folks who abused their title of governors in order to make unjust requisitions," says the king in his _Memoires,_ "I posted men in all quarters for the express purpose of keeping myself more surely informed of such exactions, in order to punish them as they deserved." Order was restored in all parts of France.

"The _Auvergnats,_" said a letter to Colbert from President de Novion, "never knew so certainly that they had a king as they do now." "A useless banquet at a cost of a thousand crowns causes me incredible pain," said Colbert to Louis XIV., and yet, when it is a question of millions of gold for Poland, I would sell all my property, I would pawn my wife and children, and I would go afoot all my life to provide for it if necessary.