his errors. Thus visibly does Heaven bless so holy a house."
In 1566 the Grand Bureau des Pauvres was formed at the Council of Paris. Under it the infirm poor were placed at the charge of their parish, and in 1616 we find the indigents of the Grand Bureau wearing a red and yellow cross on their shoulder, as later in England in the reign of William III. The Grand Bureau distributed "pain d'aumône "on Sunday after mass. In 1640, however, we hear of "prodigious disorders," and some "private individuals of great virtue were touched at the deplorable state of the souls of these poor unhappy Christians: as for their bodies, however afflicted they appeared, they were not real objects of compassion, as they found in the alms of the people more than was sufficient for their wants and even for their debauches; but their souls, plunged in total ignorance of religion and in extreme corruption of morals, gave the utmost grief to persons animated with zeal for their salvation." These conditions led to the foundation of the Hôpital Général by Louis XIV., composed of the Pitié, Bicêtre, Scipion, the Salpêtrière, and others. The edict under which it was founded, after reciting the "libertinage" of the beggars of the city, forbids begging under the severest penalties, and orders the "renfermement" of the poor unable to support themselves. It was announced from the pulpit, in all the parishes, that the Hôpital Général would be open on 7th May 1657, for the poor who wished to enter it of their own will, and the magistrates, by public crier, forbade people to ask for alms in Paris. On the 14th "l'enfermement des pauvres fut accompli sans aucune emotion." As the result "all Paris on that day changed its face: the greater part of the beggars withdrew to the provinces, the wiser began to think of earning their living without begging, and the
