lighted with this retreat, and frequently went thither on foot, followed by a single attendant; the wife of the steward served for lady of the bedchamber, and some of the wardrobe women and pages of the palace were likewise there. Of this circumstance also calumny took especial advantage to injure the princess. It was even reported that she designed to change the name of Little Trianon to Little Vienna, or Little Schönbrunn, which was utterly false. By such means, her enemies hoped to make the public believe that, in the heart of France, the queen's sentiments and feelings were still wholly Austrian.

Louis could not conceive how it happened that he was not beloved by a people for whose welfare he was disposed to do everything in his power, and he encountered all those anxieties to which an inexperienced and timid but well-meaning prince is subject. A dearth of corn, artificially produced by wealthy persons, enemies of Turgot's, occasioned discontent and riots. Hired vagabonds assembled in many parts of the kingdom, and clamoured furiously for bread; some were even disguised in female apparel, that they might commit disorders with the more impunity. Nobody knew at the time whence these hordes had so suddenly issued. Upon pretence that the free trade in corn had occasioned the dearth, large bodies of armed rioters broke open the magazines of the government and of private individuals, and destroyed the stores deposited there. The king showed great weakness on this occasion; he granted a general pardon to all the offenders, and his ministers returned to the system which Turgot had attempted to reform.

The ceremony of the coronation was postponed, for want of money, till June, 1775; many persons were wholly adverse to it, and conceived that this expensive

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formality, with which, moreover, various superstitious observances were mixed up, tended rather to injure than to increase the royal respectability. It nevertheless took place with all the customary ceremonies: the monarch was even required to swear that he would use his best endeavours for the extirpation of heretics.

Soon after Turgot and Malesherbes had relinquished the ministry, the most extravagant profusion succeeded a reasonable economy at court; and it was readily countenanced by the complaisant Maurepas. The king, who grudged all unnecessary expenditure, whether for his own person or for the public service, if fresh burdens were to be imposed on his people, granted to the queen and her favourites, with unpardonable weakness and indulgence, all that they solicited. If he deemed the cost of an entertainment too great, or a conversation not quite decorous, he withdrew; and his departure was the signal for general and boisterous mirth, which was frequently carried to excess. The old court, notwithstanding its extravagance, had occasioned less expense than the new, in consequence of the incessant changes of fashion in furniture, dress, and equipages. Maurepas considered this as an unavoidable evil, which he himself took pleasure in encouraging, and he even seemed to be afraid lest the king should be too strict. He deceived the latter by his looks, which appeared ever serene and free from care, and played the part of panegyrist of these expensive innovations. The privileged classes saw in Clugny, the comptroller-general, the champion of their pretended rights; he strove, indeed, to deserve that title, and daily neutralised the effect of many wholesome regulations adopted by Turgot for the benefit of the state and of the sovereign. Reason and prudence were banished from the council, where edicts, which

the king had sanctioned only a few months before by a lit de justice, were rescinded. These contradictions produced the most mischievous impression. Necessity had not by any means driven the monarch to this course, which deeply degraded himself, and gave a severe shock to his public consideration. It is unaccountable how Maurepas could lead his master into such humiliating measures. Clugny, on his part, aggravated the general complaints by introducing, during the short period of his administration, the baneful system of lotteries, as a source of profit to the State. The discontent against him soon increased to the highest pitch, and Louis sighed and lamented over the daily deterioration of the finances, which it was not in his power to remedy.

In this dilemma, Maurepas fixed his eyes upon Necker, a native of Geneva, but who had long resided in France, and enjoyed universal respect. He had formerly been engaged in business as a banker, and in the course of ten years had amassed a very large fortune by industry, judicious speculations, and integrity. He was a member of the East India Company, which he had ably defended against its enemies, by recapitulating the services which it had rendered to the state in the most critical times: every one was forced on this occasion to do justice to his eminent talents. He had subsequently been resident of the republic of Geneva at the French court, and thus become acquainted with the duke de Choiseul. He had also gained a literary reputation by several works, especially by one on the corntrade, twenty editions of which were printed. memorial on the resources of the state, which he wrote, and which was presented to the king, likewise excited a great sensation. He was soon afterwards appointed coadjutor to Taboureau, the comptroller-general, who

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succeeded Clugny, on his decease, after a vicious administration of six months, as director of the royal treasury, and eight months afterwards, comptrollergeneral instead of Taboureau.

Necker became director of the finances at a most difficult point of time, and under the most arduous circumstances. A man of liberal sentiments, and welldisposed to useful reforms and retrenchments, he had soon the same enemies to encounter that Turgot had met with. The economy which he strove to introduce in the royal establishment was called the attack of a republican spirit upon the prerogatives of the royal family; and the nobles, revelling in the produce of the toil of the people, beheld in him a formidable foe. To justify these measures of economy, he published, in 1781, his Compte rendu au Roi, more than 200,000 copies of which were sold. He now sought to obtain a place in the council; objections were raised on the score of religion: he demanded his dismissal, and received it, contrary to his expectation, in May, 1781. This is not the place for a minute investigation and exposition of the faults with which Necker was chargeable during his administration, and the most important of which was perhaps his too great readiness to raise loans; suffice it to explain, in a few words, the difficulties which he and every minister who enters upon office under similar circumstances must experience, and which prove insuperable when the minister is not duly supported by the firm resolution of a strong-minded, consistent, and persevering monarch.

The finances of France had, as we have seen, fallen into the utmost confusion and disorder, through the maladministration of several reigns: the king was auxious to remedy a state of things so alarming for himself and his people. He sought and found men capable of

accomplishing the object, but who met with the most determined resistance, the moment they took the only way that could have led to a successful result, and this was to set bounds to the profusion and the unnecessary expenses of the court, to reduce the host of useless placemen, not to lay the whole oppressive burden of the taxes and imposts upon the labouring and industrious class of the people, but to make it bear equally upon the privileged classes of plunderers. These men, moreover, received no support whatever in their measures from the weak and vacillating monarch. Under such circumstances, they could not fail to fall victims to their zeal. The bold attempt to apply a remedy is practicable only where the prince combines fixedness of purpose and firmness of character with upright intentions; but not where the tears or entreaties of a woman, or the cabals, flatteries, and intrigues of a tribe of greedy courtiers, are capable of overthrowing the most carefully digested and the most feasible plans.

The day on which Louis signed the treaty with the revolted American colonies of Great Britain (Feb. 7, 1778) decided his own fate: for Frauce was involved. by this step in a war, which not only served to spread republican ideas among the nation and the army, but cost, according to Audoin, 1400 million livres, occasioned an irremediable deficit, which led to the convocation of the states-general, and that to the downfall of the monarch and the monarchy. The king himself was against this war, but he was outvoted in the council of state, where his ministers calculated upon founding the prosperity of the commerce of France on the ruin of that of England. In 1782, the latter was obliged to acknowledge the independence of the United States; but the share which France had in producing this result served only to aggravate the fury of the storm already