to economy; economy has induced this monarch to trench upon his own splendor rather than upon his people’s subsistence.  He has found in the suppression of a great number of places a resource for continuing the war without increasing his expenses.  He has stripped himself of the magnificence and pomp of royalty, but he has manned a navy; he has reduced the number of persons in his private service, but he has increased that of his vessels.  Louis XVI., like a patriotic king, has shown sufficient firmness to protect M. Necker, a foreigner, without support or connection at court, who owes his elevation to nothing but his own merit and the discernment of the sovereign who had sagacity enough to discover him, and to his wisdom which can appreciate him.  It is a noble example to follow:  if we would conquer France, it is on this ground and with her own weapons that we must fight her:  economy and reforms.”

It was those reforms, for which the English orator gave credit to M. Necker and Louis XVI., that rendered the minister’s fall more imminent every day.  He had driven into coalition against him the powerful influences of the courtiers, of the old families whose hereditary destination was office in the administration, and of the parliament everywhere irritated and anxious.  He had lessened the fortunes and position of the two former classes, and his measures tended to strip the magistracy of the authority whereof they were so jealous.  “When circumstances require it,” M. Necker had said in the Report, “the augmentation of imposts is in the hands of the king, for it is the power to order them which constitutes sovereign greatness;” and, in a secret Memoire which saw publicity by perfidious means:  “The imposts are at their height, and minds are more than ever turned towards administrative subjects.  The result is a restless and confused criticism which adds constant fuel to the desire felt by the parliaments to have a hand in the matter.  This feeling on their part becomes more and more manifest, and they set to work, like all those bodies that wish to acquire power, by speaking in the name of the people, calling themselves defenders of the nation’s rights; there can be no doubt but that, though they are strong neither in knowledge nor in pure love for the well-being of the state, they will put themselves forward on all occasions as long as they believe that they are supported by public opinion.  It is necessary, therefore, either to take this support away from them, or to prepare for repeated contests which will disturb the tranquillity of your Majesty’s reign, and will lead successively either to a degradation of authority or to extreme measures of which one cannot exactly estimate the consequences.”