ady collecting materials for a manifesto which he
designed to publish the moment that he found himself safely out of Paris.
It would explain the reasons for his flight; it would declare an amnesty
to the people in general, to whom it would impute no worse fault than that
of being misled (none being excepted but the chief leaders of the disloyal
factions; the city of Paris, unless it should at once return to its
ancient tranquillity; and any persons or bodies who might persist in
remaining in arms). To the nation in general the manifesto would breathe
nothing but affection. The Parliaments would be re-established, but only
as judicial tribunals, which should have no pretense to meddle with the
affairs of administration or finance. In short, the king and she had
determined to take his declaration of the 23d of June[12] as the basis of
the Constitution, with such modifications as subsequent circumstances
might have suggested. Religion would be one of the matters placed in the
foreground.

So sanguine were they, or rather was she, of success, that she had even
taken into consideration the principles on which future ministries should
be constituted; and here for the first time she speaks of herself as
chiefly concerned in planning the future arrangements. "In private we
occupy ourselves with discussing the very difficult choice which we shall
have to make of the persons whom we shall desire to call around us when we
are at liberty. I think that it will be best to place a single man at the
head of affairs, as M. Maurepas was formerly; and if it be settled in this
way, the king would thus escape having to transact business with each
individual minister separately, and affairs would proceed more uniformly
and more steadily. Tell me what you think of this idea. The fit man is not
easy to find, and the more I look for him, the greater inconveniences do I
see in all that occur to me."

She proceeds to discuss foreign affairs, the probable views and future
conduct of almost every power in Europe--of Holland, Prussia, Spain,
Sweden, England; still showing the lingering jealousy which she
entertained of the British Government, which she suspected of wishing to
detach the chivalrous Gustavus from the alliance of France by the offer of
a subsidy. But she is sanguine that, "though some may he glad to see the
influence of France diminished, no wise statesman in any country can
desire her ruin or dismemberment. What is going on in France