The return of this Minister had been very much against the consent of Her Majesty and the King.  They both feared what actually happened soon afterwards.  They foresaw that he would be swept away by the current of popularity from his deference to the royal authority.  It was to preserve the favour of the mob that he allowed them to commit the shocking murders of M. de Foulon (who had succeeded him on his first dismission as Minister of Louis XVI.) and of Berthier, his son-in-law.  The union of Necker with D’ORLEANS, on this occasion, added to the cold indifference with which Barnave in one of his speeches expressed himself concerning the shedding of human blood, certainly animated the factious assassins to methodical murder, and frustrated all the efforts of La Fayette to save these victims from the enraged populace, to whom both unfortunately fell a sacrifice.

Necker, like La Fayette, when too late, felt the absurdity of relying upon the idolatry of the populace.  The one fancied he could command the Parisian ‘poissardes’ as easily as his own battalions; and the other persuaded himself that the mob, which had been hired to carry about his bust, would as readily promulgate his theories.

But he forgot that the people in their greatest independence are only the puppets of demagogues; and he lost himself by not gaining over that class which, of all others, possesses most power over the million, I mean the men of the bar, who, arguing more logically than the rest of the world, felt that from the new Constitution the long robe was playing a losing game, and therefore discouraged a system which offered nothing to their personal ambition or private emolument.  Lawyers, like priests, are never over-ripe for any changes or innovations, except such as tend to their personal interest.  The more perplexed the, state of public and private affairs, the better for them.  Therefore, in revolutions, as a body, they remain neuter, unless it is made for their benefit to act.  Individually, they are a set of necessary evils; and, for the sake of the bar, the bench, and the gibbet, require to be humoured.  But any legislator who attempts to render laws clear, concise, and explanatory, and to divest them of the quibbles whereby these expounders—­or confounders—­of codes fatten on the credulity of States and the miseries of unfortunate millions, will necessarily encounter opposition, direct or indirect, in every measure at all likely to reduce the influence of this most abominable horde of human depredators.  It was Necker’s error to have gone so directly to the point with the lawyers that they at once saw his scope; and thus he himself defeated his hopes of their support, the want of which utterly baffled all his speculations.

[The great Frederick of Prussia, on being told of the numbers of lawyers there were in England, said he wished he had them in his country.  “Why?” some one enquired.  “To do the greatest benefit in my power to society.”—­“How so?”—­“Why to hang one-half as an example to the other!”]