Christine visits the Queen--Hostility of the Duc d'Orleans to the Queen.--
Libels on her.--She is called Madame Deficit.--She has a Second Daughter,
who dies.--Ill Health of the Dauphin.--Unskillfulness and Extravagance of
Calonne's System of Finance.--Distress of the Kingdom.--He assembles the
Notables.--They oppose his Plans.--Letters of Marie Antoinette on the
Subject.--Her Ideas of the English Parliament.--Dismissal of Calonne.--
Character of Archbishop Lomenie de Brienne.--Obstinacy of Necker.--The
Archbishop is appointed Minister.--The Distress increases.--The Notables
are dissolved.--Violent Opposition of the Parliament--Resemblance of the
French Revolution to the English Rebellion of 1642.--Arrest of
d'Espremesnil and Montsabert.

It was owing to Marie Antoinette's influence that Louis himself in the
following year began to enter on a line of conduct which, if circumstances
had not prevented him from persevering in it, might have tended, more
perhaps than any thing else that he could have done, to make him also
popular with the main body of the people. The emperor, while at
Versailles, had strongly pressed upon him that it was his duty, as king of
the nation, to make himself personally acquainted with every part of his
kingdom, to visit the agricultural districts, the manufacturing towns, the
fortresses, arsenals, and harbors of the country. Joseph himself had
practiced what he preached. No corner of his dominions was unknown to him;
and it is plain that there can be no nation which must not be benefited by
its sovereign thus obtaining a personal knowledge of all the various
interests and resources of his subjects. But such personal investigations
were not yet understood to be a part of a monarch's duties. Louis's
contemporary, our own sovereign, George III., than whom, if rectitude of
intention and benevolence of heart be the principal standards by which
princes should be judged, no one ever better deserved to be called the
father of his country, scarcely ever went a hundred miles from Windsor,
and never once visited even those Midland Counties which before the end of
his reign had begun to give undeniable tokens of the contribution which
their industry was to furnish to the growing greatness of his empire; and
the last two kings of France, though in the course of their long reigns
they had once or twice visited their armies while waging war on the
Flemish or German frontier, had never seen their western or so