The conclusion of peace between France and England was one of the earliest events of the year 1783, but it brought no strength to the ministry; or, rather, it placed its weakness in a more conspicuous light.  Maurepas had died at the end of 1781, and, since his death, the Count de Vergennes had been the chief adviser of the king; but his attention was almost exclusively directed to the conduct of the diplomacy of the kingdom, and to its foreign affairs, and he made no pretensions to financial knowledge.  Unluckily the professed ministers of finance, Joly de Fleury and his successor, D’Ormesson, were as ignorant of that great subject as himself, and, within two years after Necker’s retirement, their mismanagement had brought the kingdom to the very verge of bankruptcy.  D’Ormesson was dismissed, and for many days it was anxiously deliberated in the palace by whom he should be replaced.  Some proposed that Necker should he recalled, but the king had felt himself personally offended by some circumstances which had attended the resignation of that minister two years before.  The queen inclined to favor the pretensions of Lomenie de Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse; not because he had any official experience, but because fifteen years before he had recommended the Abbe de Vermond to Maria Teresa; and the abbe, seeing in the present embarrassment an opportunity of repaying the obligation, now spoke highly to her of the archbishop’s talents.  But Madame de Polignac and her party persuaded her majesty to acquiesce in the appointment of M. de Calonne, a man who, like Turgot, had already distinguished himself as intendant of a province, though he had not inspired those who watched his career with as high an opinion of his uprightness as of his talents.  He had also secured the support of the Count d’Artois by promising to pay his debts; and Louis himself was won to think well of him by the confidence which he expressed in his own capacity to grapple with the existing, or even with still greater difficulties.

Nor, indeed, had he been possessed of steadiness, prudence, and principle, was he very unfit for such a post at such a time.  For he was very fertile in resources, and well-endowed with both physical and moral courage; but these faculties were combined with, were indeed the parents of, a mischievous defect.  He had such reliance on his own ingenuity and ability to deal with each difficulty or danger as it should arise, that he was indifferent to precautions which might prevent it from arising.  The spirit in which he took office was exemplified in one of his first speeches to the queen.  Knowing that he was not the minister whom she would have preferred, he made it his especial business to win her confidence; and he had not been long installed in office when she expressed to him her wish that he would find means of accomplishing some object which she desired to promote.  “Madame,” was his courtly reply, “if it is possible, it is done already.