Meanwhile the Parliament had gained its point, the great baillie-courts were abolished; the same difficulty had been found in constituting them as in forming the plenary court; all the magistrates of the inferior tribunals refused to sit in them; the Breton deputies were let out of the Bastille; everywhere the sovereign courts were recalled.  The return of the exiles to Paris was the occasion for a veritable triumph and the pretext for new disorders among the populace.  It was the Parliament’s first duty to see to the extraordinary police (haute police) in its district; it performed the duty badly and weakly.  The populace had applauded its return and had supported its cause during its exile; the first resolution of the court was directed against the excesses committed by the military in repressing the disorders.  When it came to trying the men seized with arms in their hands and the incendiaries who had threatened private houses, all had their cases dismissed; by way of example, one was detained a few days in prison.  Having often been served in its enterprises by the passions of the mob, the Parliament had not foreseen the day when those same outbursts would sweep it away like chaff before the wind with all that regimen of tradition and respect to which it still clung even in its most audacious acts of daring.

For an instant the return of M. Necker to power had the effect of restoring some hope to the most far-sighted.  On his coming into office, the treasury was empty, there was no scraping together as much as five thousand livres.  The need was pressing, the harvests were bad; the credit and the able resources of the great financier sufficed for all; the funds went up thirty percent. in one day, certain capitalists made advances, the chamber of the notaries of Paris paid six millions into the treasury, M. Necker lent two millions out of his private fortune.  Economy had already found its way into the royal household; Louis XVI. had faithfully kept his promises; despite the wrath of courtiers, he had reduced his establishment.  The Duke of Coigny, premier equerry, had found his office abolished.  “We were truly grieved, Coigny and I,” said the king, kindly, “but I believe he would have beaten me had I let him.”  “It is fearful to live in a country where one is not sure of possessing to-morrow what one had the day before,” said the great lords who were dispossessed; “it’s a sort of thing seen only in Turkey.”  Other sacrifices and more cruel lessons in the instability of human affairs were already in preparation for the French noblesse.

The great financial talents of M. Necker, his probity, his courage, had caused illusions as to his political talents; useful in his day and in his degree, the new minister was no longer equal to the task.  The distresses of the treasury had powerfully contributed to bring about, to develop the political crisis; the public cry for the States-general had arisen in a great degree from the deficit; but henceforth financial