to him to deliver on important occasions; but he corrected and modified them; struck out some parts, and added others; and sometimes consulted the Queen on the subject.  The phrase of the minister erased by the King was frequently unsuitable, and dictated by the minister’s private feelings; but the King’s was always the natural expression.  He himself composed, three times or oftener, his famous answers to the Parliament which he banished.  But in his letters he was negligent, and always incorrect.  Simplicity was the characteristic of the King’s style; the figurative style of M. Necker did not please him; the sarcasms of Maurepas were disagreeable to him.  Unfortunate Prince! he would predict, in his observations, that if such a calamity should happen, the monarchy would be ruined; and the next day he would consent in Council to the very measure which he had condemned the day before, and which brought him nearer the brink of the precipice.—­Soulavie, “Historical and Political Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XVI.,” vol. ii.]

This Prince combined with his attainments the attributes of a good husband, a tender father, and an indulgent master.

Unfortunately he showed too much predilection for the mechanical arts; masonry and lock-making so delighted him that he admitted into his private apartment a common locksmith, with whom he made keys and locks; and his hands, blackened by that sort of work, were often, in my presence, the subject of remonstrances and even sharp reproaches from the Queen, who would have chosen other amusements for her husband.

[Louis XVI. saw that the art of lock-making was capable of application to a higher study, He was an excellent geographer.  The most valuable and complete instrument for the study of that science was begun by his orders and under his direction.  It was an immense globe of copper, which was long preserved, though unfinished, in the Mazarine library.  Louis XVI. invented and had executed under his own eyes the ingenious mechanism required for this globe.—­Note by the editor.]

Austere and rigid with regard to himself alone, the King observed the laws of the Church with scrupulous exactness.  He fasted and abstained throughout the whole of Lent.  He thought it right that the queen should not observe these customs with the same strictness.  Though sincerely pious, the spirit of the age had disposed his mind to toleration.  Turgot, Malesherbes, and Necker judged that this Prince, modest and simple in his habits, would willingly sacrifice the royal prerogative to the solid greatness of his people.  His heart, in truth, disposed him towards reforms; but his prejudices and fears, and the clamours of pious and privileged persons, intimidated him, and made him abandon plans which his love for the people had suggested.

Monsieur—­

[During his stay at Avignon, Monsieur, afterwards Louis XVIII, lodged with the Duc de Crillon; he refused the town-guard which was offered him, saying, “A son of France, under the roof of a Crillon, needs no guard.”—­Note by the editor.]