[2] Sophie Helene Beatrix, born July 9th, 1786, died June 9th, 1787, F. de Conches, i. p. 195.

[3] See her letter to her brother, February, 1788, Arneth, p. 112.

[4] “C’est un vrai enfant de paysan, grand frais et gros.”—­Arneth, pp. 113.

[5] Feuillet de Conches, i, p. 195.

[6] Apparently she means the Notables and the Parliament.

[7] The Duc de Guines.

[8] See ante, ch. xviii.

[9] “‘Il faut,’ dit-il, avec un mouvement d’impatience qui lui fit honneur, ‘que, du moins, l’archeveque de Paris croie en Dieu.’”—­ Souvenirs par le Duc de Levis, p. 102.

[10] The continuer of Sismondi’s history, A. Renee, however, attributes the archbishop’s appointment to the influence of the Baron de Breteuil.

[11] “Son grand art consistait a parler a chacun des choses qu’il croyait qu’on ignorait.”—­De Levis, p. 100.

[12] The loan he proposed in June was eighty millions (of francs); in October, that which he demanded was four hundred and forty millions.

[13] It is worth noticing that the French people in general did not regard the power of arbitrary imprisonment exercised by their kings as a grievance.  In their eyes it was one of his most natural prerogatives.  A year or two before the time of which we are speaking, Dr. Moore, the author of “Zeluco,” and father of Sir John Moore, who fell at Corunna, was traveling in France, and was present at a party of French merchants and others of the same rank, who asked him many questions about the English Constitution, When he said that the King of England could not impose a tax by his own authority, “they said, with some degree of satisfaction, ‘Cependant c’est assez beau cela.’"...  But when he informed them “that the king himself had not the power to encroach upon the liberty of the meanest of his subjects, and that if he or the minister did so, damages were recoverable in a court of law, a loud and prolonged ‘Diable!’ issued from every mouth.  They forgot their own situation, and turned to their natural bias of sympathy with the king, who, they all seemed to think, must be the most oppressed and injured of manhood.  One of them at last, addressing himself to the English politician, said, ’Tout ce que je puis vous dire, monsieur, c’est que votre pauvre roi est bien a plaindre.’”—­A View of the Society and Manners in France, etc., by Dr. John Moore, vol. i., p. 47, ed. 1788.

CHAPTER XXII.

[1] Feuillet de Conches, i., p. 205.

[2] M. Foulon was about this time made paymaster of the army and navy, and was generally credited with ability as a financier; but he was unpopular, as a man of ardent and cruel temper, and was brutally murdered by the mob in one of the first riots of the Revolution.

[3] The king.

[4] Necker.

[5] Feuillet de Conches, i., p. 214.