is 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. If it is impossible, I will take care and manage it." But being
very unscrupulous himself, he overshot his mark when he sought to
propitiate her further by offering to represent as hers acts of charity
which she had not performed. The winter of 1783 was one of unusual
severity. The thermometer at Paris was, for some weeks, scarcely above
zero; scarcity, with its inevitable companion, clearness of price, reduced
the poor of the northern provinces, and especially of the capital and its
neighborhood, to the verge of starvation. The king, queen, and princesses
gave large sums from their privy purses for their relief; but as such
supplies were manifestly inadequate, Louis ordered the minister to draw
three millions of francs from the treasury, and to apply them for the
alleviation of the universal distress. Calonne cheerfully received and
executed the beneficent command. He was perhaps not sorry, at his first
entrance on his duties, to show how easy it was for him to meet even an
unforeseen demand of so heavy an amount; and he fancied he saw in it a
means of ingratiating himself with Marie Antoinette. He proposed to her
that he should pay one of the millions to her treasurer, that that officer
might distribute it, in her name, as a gift from her own allowance; but
Marie Antoinette disdained such unworthy artifi