On the same day he held a council of finance, independently of another council which was also held on the same subject every Friday." It was by such assiduous toil that Charles VII., in concert with his advisers, was able to take in hand and accomplish, in the military, financial, and judicial system of the realm, those bold and at the same time prudent reforms which wrested the country from the state of disorder, pillage, and general insecurity to which it had been a prey, and commenced the era of that great monarchical administration, which, in spite of many troubles and vicissitudes, was destined to be, during more than three centuries, the government of France.

The constable De Richemont and marshal De la Fayette were, in respect of military matters, Charles VII.'s principal advisers; and it was by their counsel and with their co-operation that he substituted for feudal service and for the bands of wandering mercenaries (routiers), mustered and maintained by hap-hazard, a permanent army, regularly levied, provided for, paid, and commanded, and charged with the duty of keeping order at home, and at the same time subserving abroad the interests and policy of the state.

In connection with, and as a natural consequence of this military system, Charles VII., on his own sole authority, established certain permanent imposts with the object of making up any deficiency in the royal treasury, whilst waiting for a vote of such taxes extraordinary as might be demanded of the states-general.
Jacques Coeur, the two brothers Bureau, Martin Gouge, Michel Lailler, William Cousinot, and many other councillors, of burgher origin, labored zealously to establish this administrative system, so prompt and freed from all independent discussion.

Weary of wars, irregularities, and sufferings, France, in the fifteenth century, asked for nothing but peace and security; and so soon as the kingship showed that it had an intention and was in a condition to provide her with them, the nation took little or no trouble about political guarantees which as yet it knew neither how to establish nor how to exercise; its right to them was not disputed in principle, they were merely permitted to fall into desuetude; and Charles VII., who during the first half of his reign had twenty-four times assembled the states-general to ask them for taxes and soldiers, was able in the second to raise personally both soldiers and taxes without drawing forth any complaint hardly, save from his contemporary historian, the Bishop of Lisieux, Thomas Basin, who said, "Into such misery and servitude is fallen the realm of France, heretofore so noble and free, that all the inhabitants are openly declared by the generals of finance and their clerks taxable at the will of the king, without anybody's daring to murmur or even ask for mercy." There is at every juncture, and in all ages of the world, a certain amount, though varying very much, of good order, justice, and security, without which men cannot get on; and when they lack it, either through the fault of those who govern them or through their own fault, they seek after it with the blind eyes of passion, and are ready to accept it, no matter what power may procure it for them, or what price it may cost them.

Charles VII.