CHAP. The minister ordered the bank to refuse payment, at XXXVII. least of bills to any considerable amount. Under the scandal of such a bankruptcy, and for such a trifling sum, Ormesson was obliged to withdraw. In the In the space of two years, years mostly of peace, Ormesson and Fleury had increased the state liabilities by as large a sum as Necker, that is, by upwards of 400 millions.

The ship was evidently sinking. How little the king was aware of it, is apparent from his purchase of Rambouillet. Castries had the courage to declare that Necker alone could avoid a general bankruptcy. But Louis felt offended at the want of respect or etiquette shown by Necker in his letter of resignation. At the same time the queen and the princes had found a person to their taste in Calonne, a confident man, who promised wonders, and who had all Maurepas' art of pleasing and fascinating the great. Yet Calonne did not please Maurepas himself, whom he once tried to impress with the idea of his genius. But he failed, and was set down by the veteran as empty and presumptuous.

The queen would indeed have preferred Brienne, archbishop of Toulouse, for prime minister. But Louis had an objection to appoint an ecclesiastic to be minister, especially one like Brienne, of immoral character. Calonne was disagreeable to him also for being disorderly and indebted. But Vergennes supported him, and the Parisian capitalists expressed confidence in him. He was accordingly appointed towards the close of 1783. Calonne's first act was frank. It was to inform the king that he was indebted to the amount of 220,000 livres, which it was easy for a controller-general to pay, but it would render him more independent if his majesty would pay it. Louis, astonished at the boldness of the man, gave him the money. Calonne recounted these circumstances to

* Monthion.

Machault, and added, "the state of the finances was so CHAP. bad that I should not have undertaken to mend them XXXVII, if my own private affairs were not so desperate."

When Calonne entered upon office, there were nearly 650 millions of arrears. The expense of the marine had increased 400 millions, the fault of De Grasse's defeat. Of 500 millions raised from the tax-payers, but 300 reached the treasury. The ordinary expenses, independent of arrears, had risen to 350 millions. The labours of Turgot and Necker had thus in a couple of years been undone. Calonne thought it futile to recur to their system of economy. His policy seemed to be, first, to conciliate every influence, the king, the princes, the courtiers, the capitalists, the parliament, and the public; then, having secured the good-will of all, to come forward to redeem debt and renew abundance. He was rash enough to rely upon his ability to perform this miracle. And in the meantime he resolved to strew his path and that of everyone else with flowers. His first act was to renew the lease of the fermiers généraux, which his predecessor had cancelled; the fermiers généraux in return helped the minister by setting afloat the bank of discount, which Ormesson had ruined. A loan of 100 millions was the next operation. To encourage lenders, he promised to pay off the annuitants by means of the bank of discount, and issued a prospectus for reimbursing the floating debt in twenty-four years. This would bring Calonne's operations down to 1800, long before which time the deluge was likely to come, and did come. The new minister, no doubt, saw something of the kind in the future, but his only mode of preparing for it was the philosophic one of enjoying the present. The plenitude of money which Calonne was successful in procuring enabled him to gratify the court. He bought St. Cloud from the Duke of Orleans, and gave it to Marie Antoinette. The king's brothers had their

XXXVII.

CHAP. debts paid, and the grands seigneurs had what they pleased. "When I saw everyone tending his hand," observed a prince, "I stretched out my hat, and Calonne filled it." Not only the grandees, but the lesser courtiers, received their pensions and crosses that Turgot and Necker had so mercilessly cut off. He created all kinds of new places with high salaries for few or for many. Twelve receivers-general did Necker's work. Calonne appointed forty-eight of them. In an operation on what was called the rescription, the officers were allowed to make a profit of thirtytwo millions. He thus flung away the amount of a loan. If this went to satisfy the capital, the provinces had their share of expenditure. Considerable sums were given to each seaport for enlargement and embellishment; the navy was popular, The acquits au comptant, or payment without specification, swelled beyond the proportions of even Louis the Fifteenth's reign.

In the midst of such prodigality, Calonne's first loan was soon exhausted, whilst the produce of the regular revenue was much diminished. The winter was rigorous, the summer unproductive, leaving no surplus or profit wherewith to pay the taille and other taxes. Many localities required food, instead of paying contributions. Calonne issued another loan about the same time that Necker published a work on the administration of the finances, which proved a complete satire and exposure of the malversation of his successor.*

It is difficult to reconcile the patriotism of Louis the Sixteenth with his support of Calonne. There was no war, no extraordinary need of such large sums, against which the parliament protested, and the nation murmured. Some misgiving ought surely to have aroused the vigilance of Louis, which had been so easily awakened in the case of Turgot and of Necker, but so benumbed in that of a Maurepas or a Calonne.

* Necker, Œuvres, Calonne's Mémoire, Calonne tout entier, Mémoires de Mirabeau, Bachaumont.

XXXVII.

The king supported the latter against the remon- CHAP. strances of parliament, forcing it to register his edicts. He closed the eyes and ears of court and administration to those reports, which everywhere circulated, of the fraudulent and unconscionable mode by which Calonne strove to raise money. No budget would have been sufficient; no credit enabled him to resist the difficulties which his reckless administration raised up. Loans became impossible. New taxes still more so. And even the old tax of the third vingtième, the term of which expired, Calonne dared not, in the face of parliament, venture to renew.

Reduced to the last extremity and to the verge of bankruptcy, the result of his three years' jubilant administration, Calonne had no resource but to confess his situation to the king. Full 1,000 millions were levied on the French people; one-half of the sum was destined for the treasury, but what with expense of collection, mortgages to pay interest, and fermiers, there were not 200 millions of revenue to meet 300 millions and more of expense. This was in time of peace. Necker, with his boasted borrowing, had left a disastrous example, as well as facility, to his successor. If he had thus procured 440 millions, Fleury and Ormesson had raised as much, whilst Calonne, borrowing all that he could, had increased the incumbrances by 500 millions. The whole debt stood at 1,600,000,000. Calonne avowed a yearly deficit of 114 millions, with an arrear of 600 millions.

After such an astounding confession, Calonne proposed to stave off bankruptcy and ruin by calling an Assembly of Notables, and proposing to them the very plans of Turgot and Necker for which the king had got rid of these ministers.* Wondrous as was the audacity of Calonne, still more wondrous was the acquiescence of the monarch. The natural movement of

Caloune's Mémoire.

CHAP.

almost any sovereign on such an exposure should XXXVII. have been to expel Calonne, and call at least Necker, to superintend and complete the schemes which he and Turgot had proposed. But no; Louis retained his anger against Necker, as well as his faith and friendship to Calonne. That the king fully perceived the origin as well as the tendency of Calonne's proposal is evident from the observation which he uttered on receiving them. "This is pure Necker," said Louis. Calonne did not deny it, merely rejoining that this was the best course he could suggest. The minister's main argument with the monarch might indeed have awakened the mistrust of the latter, had he known aught of history. Convoking the Notables in lieu of the estates had been a device of Henry the Fourth and of Sully, both of whom dreaded the bigot prejudices and hot passions, exaggerated by recent civil war, which influenced both citizen and gentleman. Henry summoned the notables; their first step being to demand the receipt and management of half the revenues of the State. Sully amply indulged their greed, and acquiesced in their monstrous demands, aware that they could make no use of their power, and that it would prove merely an embarrassment. So indeed it did prove, but the circumstance might have deterred a wiser monarch than Louis the Sixteenth from adopting the measure of his great progenitor.

It is said, and is probable, that Louis would not have given such implicit confidence to Calonne but for the support which the latter received from Vergennes. He was of the old courtier school, in some respects the double of Maurepas, for whom Louis showed much deference. Vergennes, too, had been a successful minister. The war for America and the subsequent peace with England were due to him. The rela

tions of Versailles with European courts had also been discreetly managed, whilst the task was some