But to return to the year 1709.  People never ceased wondering what had become of all the money of the realm.  Nobody could any longer pay, because nobody was paid:  the country-people, overwhelmed with exactions and with valueless property, had become insolvent:  trade no longer yielded anything—­good faith and confidence were at an end.  Thus the King had no resources, except in terror and in his unlimited power, which, boundless as it was, failed also for want of having something to take and to exercise itself upon.  There was no more circulation, no means of re-establishing it.  All was perishing step by step; the realm was entirely exhausted; the troops, even, were not paid, although no one could imagine what was done with the millions that came into the King’s coffers.  The unfed soldiers, disheartened too at being so badly commanded, were always unsuccessful; there was no capacity in generals or ministers; no appointment except by whim or intrigue; nothing was punished, nothing examined, nothing weighed:  there was equal impotence to sustain the war and bring about peace:  all suffered, yet none dared to put the hand to this arch, tottering as it was and ready to fall.

This was the frightful state to which we were reduced, when envoys were sent into Holland to try and bring about peace.  The picture is exact, faithful, and not overcharged.  It was necessary to present it as it was, in order to explain the extremity to which we were reduced, the enormity of the concessions which the King made to obtain peace, and the visible miracle of Him who sets bounds to the seas, by which France was allowed to escape from the hands of Europe, resolved and ready to destroy her.

Meanwhile the money was re-coined; and its increase to a third more than its intrinsic value, brought some profit to the King, but ruin to private people, and a disorder to trade which completed its annihilation.

Samuel Bernard, the banker, overthrew all Lyons by his prodigious bankruptcy, which caused the most terrible results.  Desmarets assisted him as much as possible.  The discredit into which paper money had fallen, was the cause of his failure.  He had issued notes to the amount of twenty millions, and owed almost as much at Lyons.  Fourteen millions were given to him in assignats, in order to draw him out of his difficulties.  It is pretended that he found means to gain much by his bankruptcy, but this seems doubtful.

The winter at length passed away.  In the spring so many disorders took place in the market of Paris, that more guards than usual were kept in the city.  At Saint Roch there was a disturbance, on account of a poor fellow who had fallen, and been trampled under foot; and the crowd, which was very large, was very insolent to D’Argenson, Lieutenant of Police, who had hastened there.  M. de la Rochefoucauld, who had retired from the Court to Chenil, on account of his loss of sight, received an atrocious letter