each; one on barristers, attorneys, and solicitors, at forty-eight

francs a year a head; one on tanned skins, notwithstanding, said the

preamble, the complaints of the workers in leather; one on soap,

notwithstanding the petitions of the City of Exeter and of the whole of

Devonshire, where great quantities of cloth and serge were manufactured;

one on wine at four shillings; one on flour; one on barley and hops; and

one renewing for four years "the necessities of the State," said the

preamble, "requiring to be attended to before the remonstrances of

commerce"--tonnage-dues, varying from six francs per ton, for ships

coming from the westward, to eighteen francs on those coming from the

eastward. Finally, the bill, declaring the sums already levied for the

current year insufficient, concluded by decreeing a poll-tax on each

subject throughout the kingdom of four shillings per head, adding that a

double tax would be levied on every one who did not take the fresh oath

to Government. The fifth bill forbade the admission into the hospital of

any sick person who on entering did not deposit a pound sterling to pay

for his funeral, in case of death. These last three bills, like the

first two, were one after the other sanctioned and made law by a bow to

the throne, and the four words pronounced by the under-clerk, "la Reine

le veut," spoken over his shoulder to the Commons. Then the under-clerk

knelt down again before the fourth woolsack, and the Lord Chancellor

said,--

Soit fait comme il est désiré."

This terminated the royal sitting. The Speaker, bent double before the

Chancellor, descended from the stool, backwards, lifting up his robe

840

The Man Who Laughs