en he was most deliberate and resolute, his rashness and
carelessness were incurable. He took no pains whatever to select members
favorable to his views; and the consequence was that, in March, 1787, in
the very first month of the session of the Notables, the whole body
protested against one of the taxes which he desired to impose; and his
enemies at once urged the king to dismiss him, basing their recommendation
on the practice of England, where, as they affirmed, a minister who found
himself in a minority on an important question immediately retired from
office.

Marie Antoinette, who, as we have seen, had been a diligent reader of
Hume, had also been led to compare the proceedings of the refractory
Notables with the conduct of our English parliamentary parties, and to an
English reader some of her comments can not fail to be as interesting as
they are curious. The Duchess de Polignac was drinking the waters at Bath,
which at that time was a favorite resort of French valetudinarians, and,
while she was still in that most beautiful of English cities, the queen
kept up an occasional correspondence with her. We have two letters which
Marie Antoinette wrote to her in April; one on the 9th, the very day on
which Calonne was dismissed; the second, two days latter; and even the
passages which do not relate to politics have their interest as specimens
of the writer's character, and of the sincere frankness with which she
laid aside her rank and believed in the possibility of a friendship of
complete equality.

"April 9th, 1787.

"I thank you, my dear heart, for your letter, which has done me good. I
was anxious about you. It is true, then, that you have not suffered much
from your journey. Take care of yourself, I insist on it, I beg of you;
and be sure and derive benefit from the waters, else I should repent of
the privation I have inflicted on myself without your health being
benefited. When you are near I feel how much I love you; and I feel it
much more when you are far away. I am greatly taken up with you and yours,
and you would be very ungrateful if you did not love me, for I can not
change toward you.

"Where you are you can at least enjoy the comfort of never hearing of
business. Although you are in the country of an Upper and a Lower House,
you can stop your ears and let people talk. But here it is a noise that
deafens one in spite of all I can do. The words 'opposition' and 'motions'
are established here as in