He would also revise his finances, in such sort as to levy on the people but twelve hundred thousand francs, and that in form of talliage, besides his own property on which he would live, as did the kings of old." His two immediate predecessors, Charles VII.

and Louis IX., had decreed the collation and revision of local customs, so often the rule of civil jurisdiction; but the work made no progress: Charles VIII., by a decree dated March 15, 1497, abridged the formalities, and urged on the execution of it, though it was not completed until the reign of Charles IX.

By another decree, dated August 2, 1497, he organized and regulated, as to its powers as well as its composition, the king's grand council, the supreme administrative body, which was a fixture at Paris.

He began even to contemplate a reformation of his own life; he had inquiries made as to how St.Louis used to proceed in giving audience to the lower orders; his intention, he said, was to henceforth follow the footsteps of the most justice-loving of French kings.

"He set up," says Commynes, "a public audience, whereat he gave ear to everybody, and especially to the poor; I saw him thereat, a week before his death, for two good hours, and I never saw him again.