voked with so much solemnity. In the most tranquil times the expectation of a political change, the issue of which is uncertain, always gives a shock to credit. After a year of embarrassment in the administration, in the midst of a struggle in which Government had experienced so many defeats, the convocation of the StatesGeneral became alarming for the fortune of those very persons who had brought it about, under the pretence of establishing on fixed grounds the right of the King, of the Great, and of the nation, that is to say, with a desire of seeing it produce what was said to be wanting to France, a written constitution. There was a sudden stop of the circulation of specie. It became impossible to repeat the anticipations made by the Treasury every year of the revenue of the ensuing year; it was necessary to pay the anticipations which had been made the year preceding of the current year, and the excess of which was beyond all bounds of prudence. It was necessary to provide not only for the usual services, but likewise for expensive purchases of articles of subsistence, to keep off the scarcity which already began to be felt; for, if I may here take the liberty of using the expression, France was no less threatened with hunger, than tormented with the thirst of independence and

innovation. The Prime Minister saw the day close at hand when the Treasury would be entirely empty.

He conceived the idea of settling a part of all the payments for the remainder of the year, and to the last day of the year following, in which the States-General were to be held, by bills bearing interest. The decree of the Council, announcing this new measure of Finance, was published in Paris on the 16th of August. I heard the men usually employed to cry and hawk about the streets the acts of Administration, smothering their voice as they called this, and scarcely daring to go through the title which had been suggested for this edict by a man of considerable talents. Mr. de Loménie, having consulted Mr. de Rivarol on a softening title to be placed at the head of it, that the public might not be startled, the ingenious scholar advised him to call it: Decree of the Council of State, concerning payments; and for this epigrammatic turn the author obtained a place in the Prime Minister's office, and the promise of a pension. I shall never forget what I felt on hearing this decree cried at Paris and Versailles. At present, reflecting a little more calmly on so many atrocious scenes, the smothered voice of those public criers, which I think I still hear

that prelude of so many great and fatal events, brings to my mind those subterraneous noises, and those bellowings of animals, which in the new world are the certain presages of a convulsion of nature..

An universal alarm manifested itself, in such a manner as to create fears of an insurrection at Paris. The Prime Minister, frightened, implored the Queen's protection, representing himself as a victim of his zeal in supporting the Royal authority, and requested the assistance of Mr. Necker in the finances, blushing for all he had done for a year past to keep him away from any part in the administration of them. Mr. de Mercy applied to the old Director-General, requesting him to unite with the Prime Minister. Mr. Necker replied, that the year before he would have been ready to share the labours of the Archbishop of Sens, but that, at the present moment, he neither could nor would share his discredit. The Prime Minister knew not what to do, but was unwilling to resign. Discontents broke out every where. One of the King's brothers advised his Majesty of the fermentation which was rising in Paris. The Queen sent for the Archbishop, and told him that it was absolutely necessary to yield to the storm. The King came in during

the conversation. The Minister wept, and excited, and abused their Majesties' feelings. He wished to be consoled for his resignation by obtaining a Cardinal's cap for himself; for his nephew, who was scarcely of age, the coadjutorship of his Archbishopric, joined to one of the richest Abbeys of France; and for his niece a place of Lady of the Palace. He had, in the course of his short ministry, amassed a fortune of from five to six hundred thousand livres a-year on the estates of the Church. He left his brother Minister of War, having previously obtained for him a blue ribbon and the Government of a Province. The most brilliant, the most successful services could not have been better rewarded.

Mr. Necker, pointed out as the only person able to save the State, was called to Versailles the very next day. He was first introduced into the Queen's Cabinet, where he must have been greatly affected to hear Her Majesty bewail the wrongs suffered by so virtuous, so good a Prince as the unfortunate Louis XVI; where he must have felt exceedingly at the unhappiness She expressed to him, at the prayers She addressed to him, for the salvation of the Monarch and the Monarchy. The conversation had lasted nearly half an hour when the King joined them. He spoke of his people,

not of himself; of the repose of France, and not of his own. In testifying his favour to the Minister recalled, he used a particular expression, to make him forget the banishment to which his rival Calonne had had him condemned the year before. Mr. Necker protested his devotion. On leaving the Queen's apartments, he was received with the transports and acclamations of public joy. The galleries of the Palace, the Courts, the streets of Versailles, soon after, the metropolis, and by degrees all France, resounded with the cry of vive le Roi, vive Mr. Necker,

Mr. Necker was called to rule and to save France in very painful circumstances. He found the Royal Treasury containing only four hundred thousand livres, the Parliaments in exile, all the Provinces in commotion, the meeting of the States-General promised so solemnly as hardly to permit the postponing of it a single day, scarcity threatening France with all the horrors of famine, and Paris already overflowed with a deluge of pamphlets on the States-General, in consequence of the indiscreet application of the late Minister,

It must be allowed that the management of the new Administration contributed to remove imperceptibly most of the difficulties under which