bearing no contradiction, had an absolute ascendancy over him; and around her were rallied the King’s brother D’Artois, the court generally, and the aristocratic part of his Ministers, particularly Breteuil, Broglio, Vauguyon, Foulon, Luzerne, men whose principles of government were those of the age of Louis XIV.  Against this host, the good counsels of Necker, Montmorin, St. Priest, although in unison with the wishes of the King himself, were of little avail.  The resolutions of the morning, formed under their advice, would be reversed in the evening, by the influence of the Queen and court.  But the hand of Heaven weighed heavily indeed on the machinations of this junto; producing collateral incidents, not arising out of the case, yet powerfully co-exciting the nation to force a regeneration of its government, and overwhelming, with accumulated difficulties, this liberticide resistance.  For, while laboring under the want of money for even ordinary purposes, in a government which required a million of livres a day, and driven to the last ditch by the universal call for liberty, there came on a winter of such severe cold, as was without example in the memory of man, or in the written records of history.  The Mercury was at times 50 deg. below the freezing point of Farenheit, and 22 deg. below that of Reaumur.  All out-door labor was suspended, and the poor, without the wages of labor, were, of course, without either bread or fuel.  The government found its necessities aggravated by that of procuring immense quantities of firewood, and of keeping great fires at all the cross streets, around which the people gathered in crowds, to avoid perishing with cold.  Bread, too, was to be bought, and distributed daily, gratis, until a relaxation of the season should enable the people to work:  and the slender stock of bread-stuff had for some time threatened famine, and had raised that article to an enormous price.  So great, indeed, was the scarcity of bread, that, from the highest to the lowest citizen, the bakers were permitted to deal but a scanty allowance per head, even to those who paid for it; and, in cards of invitation to dine in the richest houses, the guest was notified to bring his own bread.  To eke out the existence of the people, every person who had the means, was called on for a weekly subscription, which the Cures collected, and employed in providing messes for the nourishment of the poor, and vied with each other in devising such economical compositions of food, as would subsist the greatest number with the smallest means.  This want of bread had been foreseen for some time past, and M. de Montmorin had desired me to notify it in America, and that, in addition to the market price, a premium should be given on what should be brought from the United States.  Notice was accordingly given, and produced considerable supplies.  Subsequent information made the importations from America, during the months of March, April, and May, into the Atlantic ports of France, amount to about twenty-one thousand barrels of flour, besides what went to other ports, and in other months; while our supplies to their West Indian islands relieved them also from that drain.  This distress for bread continued till July.