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He supposed that the rebellion would of course be very easily suppressed, and that when it was suppressed he could make it an excuse for subjecting the province in which it had occurred to fines and confiscations that would greatly enrich his treasury.
The negotiation which had been long depending with the French Government on several important subjects, and particularly for a just indemnity for losses sustained in the late wars by the citizens of the United States under unjustifiable seizures and confiscations of their property, has not as yet had the desired effect.
The abbeys of Caen, William's Saint Stephen's, Matilda's Holy Trinity, now began to arise. Yet, at this moment of reparation, one or two facts seem to place William's government of his duchy in a less favourable light than usual. The last French invasion was followed by confiscations and banishments among the chief men of Normandy.
Few Catholic landowners had been left by the sweeping confiscations which had followed the successive revolts of the island, and oppressive laws forced even these few with scant exceptions to profess Protestantism.
A sum of forty millions of florins, which the confiscations in Bohemia and Moravia had produced, would have sufficed to reimburse both himself and his allies; but the Jesuits and his favourites soon squandered this sum, large as it was.
The king took a public oath never to exempt the culprits from the punishment thus imposed, and, as the thrifty Sully had obtained from the great king a private grant of all those confiscations, and as he judiciously promised twenty-five per cent. thereof to the informer, no doubt he filled his own purse while impoverishing the exchequer.
Later on, statecraft may be said to have supervened upon military tactics. It consisted of attempts made by alternate threats and bribes to induce the chiefs to transform the clan organisation by the acceptance of English institutions. But any systematic endeavours to complete the transformation were soon rendered abortive by being coupled with huge confiscations of land.
Everything belongs to the State. Confiscations and Sequestrations. Pre-emption and requisition and requisition of produce and merchandise. Individuals belong to the State. Drafts of persons for Military service. Drafts of persons for the Civil service. The State philanthropist, educator, theologian, moralist, censor and director of ideas and intimate feelings.
Glancing down the page, our eyes are greeted everywhere by the offer of lands at auction, for sale or to be leased, not by the rightful owners, but a rebel committee; notices of the town constable, that he is authorized to receive the taxes on such all estate, in default of which, that also is to be knocked down to the highest bidder; and notifications of complaints filed by the attorney-general against certain traitorous absentees, and of confiscations that are to ensue.
The court suggested that if the emperor's son, the King of Hungary, were put over Wallenstein's head, his name would be a tower of strength, but Wallenstein answered with a blasphemous frankness which must have made the ears of courtiers tingle. He would be emperor of the army; he would be emperor in the matter of confiscations. The last article shows how he won the soldier's heart.
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