by publishing a reply to some of Calonne’s statements, in defiance of the king’s express prohibition, and had been banished from Paris for the act; and the queen, recollecting how he had formerly refused to withdraw his resignation at her entreaty, felt that she had no reason to expect any great consideration for the opinions or wishes of either herself or the king from one so conceited and self-willed, who would be likely to attribute his re-appointment, not to the king’s voluntary choice, but to his necessities:  she therefore strongly pressed that the archbishop should be preferred.  In an unhappy moment she prevailed;[10] and on the 1st of May, 1787, Lomenie de Brienne was installed in office with the title of Chief of the Council of Finance.

A more unhappy choice could not possibly have been made.  The new minister was soon seen to be as devoid of information and ability as he was known to be of honesty.  He had a certain gravity of outward demeanor which imposed upon many, and he had also the address to lead the conversation to points which, his hearers understood still less than himself; dilating on finance and the money market even to the ladies of the court, who had had some share in persuading the queen of his fitness for office.[11] But his disposition was in reality as rash as that of Calonne; and it was a curious proof of his temerity, as well as of his ignorance of the feeling of parties in Paris, that though he knew the Notables to be friendly to him, as indeed they would have been to any one who might have superseded Calonne, he dismissed them before the end of the month.  And the language held on their dissolution both by the ministers and by the President of the Notables, and which was cheerfully accepted by the people, is remarkable from the contrast which it affords to the feelings which swayed the national council exactly two years afterward.  Some measures of retrenchment which the Notables had recommended had been adopted; some reductions had been made in the royal households; some costly ceremonies had been abolished; and one or two imposts, which had pressed with great severity on the poorer classes, had been extinguished or modified.  And not only did M. Lamoignon, the Keeper of the Seals, in the speech in which he dismissed them, venture to affirm that these reductions would be found to have effected all that was needed to restore universal prosperity to the kingdom; but the President of the Assembly, in his reply, thanked God “for having caused him to be born in such an age, under such a government, and for having made him the subject of a king whom he was constrained to love,” and the thanksgiving was re-echoed by the whole Assembly.  But this contentment did not last long.  The embarrassments of the Treasury were too serious to be dissipated by soft speeches.  The Notables were hardly dissolved before the archbishop proposed a new loan of an enormous amount; and, as he might have foreseen, their dissolution