Neither, while the War yet lasts, will Gibraltar surrender.  Not though Crillon, Nassau-Siegen, with the ablest projectors extant, are there; and Prince Conde and Prince d’Artois have hastened to help.  Wondrous leather-roofed Floating-batteries, set afloat by French-Spanish Pacte de Famille, give gallant summons:  to which, nevertheless, Gibraltar answers Plutonically, with mere torrents of redhot iron,—­as if stone Calpe had become a throat of the Pit; and utters such a Doom’s-blast of a No, as all men must credit. (Annual Register (Dodsley’s), xxv. 258-267.  September, October, 1782.)

And so, with this loud explosion, the noise of War has ceased; an Age of Benevolence may hope, for ever.  Our noble volunteers of Freedom have returned, to be her missionaries.  Lafayette, as the matchless of his time, glitters in the Versailles Oeil-de-Beouf; has his Bust set up in the Paris Hotel-de-Ville.  Democracy stands inexpugnable, immeasurable, in her New World; has even a foot lifted towards the Old;—­and our French Finances, little strengthened by such work, are in no healthy way.

What to do with the Finance?  This indeed is the great question:  a small but most black weather-symptom, which no radiance of universal hope can cover.  We saw Turgot cast forth from the Controllership, with shrieks,—­for want of a Fortunatus’ Purse.  As little could M. de Clugny manage the duty; or indeed do anything, but consume his wages; attain ‘a place in History,’ where as an ineffectual shadow thou beholdest him still lingering;—­and let the duty manage itself.  Did Genevese Necker possess such a Purse, then?  He possessed banker’s skill, banker’s honesty; credit of all kinds, for he had written Academic Prize Essays, struggled for India Companies, given dinners to Philosophes, and ‘realised a fortune in twenty years.’  He possessed, further, a taciturnity and solemnity; of depth, or else of dulness.  How singular for Celadon Gibbon, false swain as he had proved; whose father, keeping most probably his own gig, ’would not hear of such a union,’—­to find now his forsaken Demoiselle Curchod sitting in the high places of the world, as Minister’s Madame, and ‘Necker not jealous!’ (Gibbon’s Letters:  date, 16th June, 1777, &c.)

A new young Demoiselle, one day to be famed as a Madame and De Stael, was romping about the knees of the Decline and Fall:  the lady Necker founds Hospitals; gives solemn Philosophe dinner-parties, to cheer her exhausted Controller-General.  Strange things have happened:  by clamour of Philosophism, management of Marquis de Pezay, and Poverty constraining even Kings.  And so Necker, Atlas-like, sustains the burden of the Finances, for five years long? (Till May, 1781.) Without wages, for he refused such; cheered only by Public Opinion, and the ministering of his noble Wife.  With many thoughts in him, it is hoped;—­which, however, he is shy of uttering.  His Compte Rendu, published by the royal permission, fresh sign of a New Era, shows wonders;—­which what but the genius of some Atlas-Necker can prevent from becoming portents?  In Necker’s head too there is a whole pacific French Revolution, of its kind; and in that taciturn dull depth, or deep dulness, ambition enough.