Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/502

494

This day being the third of April, 1598, the King being at Nantes, wishing to gratify his subjects of the pretended Reformed religion, and to help them to meet various great expenses which they have incurred, has ordered and does order, that for the future, to commence on the first day of the present month, there shall be put into the hands of Monsieur de Vierse, appointed by His Majesty, by his Treasurers, each in his year, assignments for the sum of forty-five thousand crowns, to be employed in certain secret affairs which concern them, but which His Majesty does not choose to specify or declare; which sum shall be assigned from the general Receipts as follows: that is to say, Paris, six thousand crowns; Caen, three thousand crowns; Orleans, four thousand crowns; Poitiers, eight thousand crowns; Limoges, six thousand crowns; Bordeaux, eight thousand crowns. The whole amounting to the said sum of forty-five thousand crowns; payable quarterly every year, out of the first and most available of the general receipts, and no deduction shall be made for any falling short, or any other cause. Which sum of forty-five thousand crowns shall be furnished in ready money, which shall be put in the hands of the King's Treasurer, which shall serve to pay the whole of the assignments. And whereas, for the convenience of the above-named, it may be required to have some payments made from certain particular receipts; the Treasurers and Receivers-General, shall be ordered to make it, taking it from the assignments of the said Royal Treasurers; which shall afterwards be delivered by the said Sieur de Vierse to those persons who shall have been named to him, by those of said religion, at the beginning of the year as the parties to receive and dispense the funds received in virtue of this; of which they shall return a true account at the end of the year to the Sieur de Vierse, with the receipts of the parties taking it, for the information of His Majesty as to the employment of the money. Neither the Sieur de Vierse, nor those appointed to receive, by the authorities of said religion, shall be called to any account in any Chamber. His said Majesty has commanded all necessary letters and instructions to be given, and to him the account is to be rendered, in virtue of this present writing, which he has signed with his own hand,