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_The Budget_ (Vol. vi., p. 604.).--It may be useful to inform
PRESTONIENSIS, that, in a recent work on political economy, M. Ch. Coquelin
says, that the word _budget_, in its present signification, has passed into
France from England: the latter country having first borrowed it from the
old French language--_bougette_ signifying (and particularly in old Norman)
a leather purse. It was the custom in England to put into a leather bag the
estimates of receipts and expenditure presented to parliament: and hence,
as Coquelin observes, the term passed from the containant to the contained,
and, with this new signification, returned from this country into France;
where it was first used in an official manner in the _arrêtés_ of the
Consul's 4th Themidor, year X, and 17th Germinal, year XI.