June 25, 1787.

case the King should have been taught to do without him, for a minister, worthy of the name, would have been sensible that the crisis was one of those in which it was necessary to think of the safety of Kings, and not of their antipathies and disgusts.

On the day when the assembly of Notables was dissolved, the prime minister ought to have been struck with the prospect of the future preparing for him. While all the addresses to the King spoke of the gratitude, of the boundless love, of the devotion of all the French to his sacred person, of the emulation for the public welfare which was about to enflame every heart, of the prompt execution of the plans of order, justice, and economy, which the wisdom of the Monarch had formed, the first President of the Parliament of Paris rising, with all the members of the other Courts present, pronounced the following sinister expressions, which were all, if I may so say, pregnant with storms: The Notables saw with dread the magnitude of the evil. A prudent and circumfpect Administration should now remove the NATION's fears of the woeful consequences which your Parliament have more than once predicted. The different plans proposed to your Majesty deserve the most serious consideration. It would be indiscreet in us, AT THIS MOMENT, to dare to point out to you

the measures to be preferred.-The most respectful silence is, AT THIS MOMENT, the only part we can take.

Farther, in the last and memorable sitting, the keeper of the seals said to the Notables: you have been the counsellors of your King; you have prepared and facilitated the most desirable REVOLUTION, without any other authority than that of confidence, which is the first of powers in the government of States. The following still more remarkable words came from the prime minister, who spoke next: Since one and the same interest should animate the three orders, it might be expected that each should have an equal number of representatives. The two first have chosen to unite in a body, by which the Tiers-Etat, certain of having in their own order AS MANY VOTES as the clergy and nobility together, will never fear that any private interest may mislead the suffrages. Besides, it is just that this portion of his Majesty's subjects, so numerous, so interesting, and so worthy of protection, should at least receive, by the number of votes, a compensation for the influence which riches, rank, and birth necessarily bestow.

In pursuing the same object, continued the Archbishop of Toulouse, the King will direct that the votes be taken, not by orders but INDIVIDUALLY.

The majority of orders does not always prove that real majority, which alone truly expresses the sense of an assembly.

When one pretends to enquire who was responsible for the double representation of the Tiers Etat, and voting individually, it is folly, or injustice, bordering on dishonesty, to omit these particulars.

The montent soon arrived, for which the Parliaments had reserved themselves to break silence and caft off respect. The Princes and Peers received the King's order to go to the Parliament of Paris for registering the edicts passed by the Notables. The establishment of the Provincial Assemblies, and the regulation respecting the corn-trade, were admitted without any difficulty: but on the suppression of corvées, commissioners were appointed; and the moment the stamp-act appeared, the Parliament declared that it was impossible for them to satisfy themselves of the necessity of the tax, before they had themselves ascertained the deficit, and seen the accounts of receipts and expences, as well as the account of the reforms and improvements mentioned by his Majesty; and they entreated the King to order these papers to be communicated to them.

If ever there was a juncture that could command dispatch, inspire confidence, and make all private views vanish before the supreme law of the public safety, it was undoubtedly the preThe conductors of the State had just

sent one.

emerged from a long and dreadful error; but they had had the frankness to avow it, and the courage to search it to the bottom; they were resolved to repair the mischiefs of it, and to prevent its return. The plans presented by the ministry had been examined, discussed, and fixed upon by an assembly of Notables, who had been very far from being servile. That assembly had verified this deficit, had surveyed the statements and papers, of which the Parliament of Paris demanded a new verification and a new production. The Chief President, three Sub-Presidents, and the Procureur-General of that Parliament were among the Notables who had revised them. A King, the honestest man in his kingdom, had solemnly eagaged to publish yearly the account of the public receipts and expences. He had promised not only improvements and reforms, but facrifices, the daily execution of which was apparent. The Minister of Justice, who worded and fealed all these edicts, had been taken from the Parliament of Paris, who, in the tempestuous times of the magistracy, had celebrated the Prefident de Lamoignon as their hero, and in ordi

nary times, had constantly held him up as an example of the nobleness, integrity, and disinterestedness which stamp the character of the true magistrate. The minister newly placed at the head. of the government was as yet known only by the reputation he had acquired long before: nor had his speech at the close of the assembly of Notables been beneath his fame. The Council of Finance, which he had formed, was an undeniable proof of the purity of his intentions. The members he had added to the ministers composing this council were M. de Malesherbes, the Duke of Nivernois, the former Comptroller-General d'Ormesson, and the Counsellor of State Lambert, names rendered facred by respect and public favour. There is not a doubt that if, at this period, the Courts had cordially concurred in the resolutions taken by the King, and in the operations of his ministers, France might have passed from a frightful crisis to a state of durable prosperity. That very Archbishop of Toulouse, who, thwarted in all his plans, lost himself, and justly became an object first of contempt and then of execration, would, had he been fupported in his labours, have discovered talents, and have deserved to hear his administration blessed; nor would he have become the most abject of men, after proving himself the most unskilful: so much do the destiny,