as steps to
the execution of some very great and difficult design, which would
require the whole resources of France to be economised for many
years; and, from the plans thus formed, issued a number of most
beneficial projects, few of which, unhappily for posterity, were
carried into effect. In the joint labours of the King and his
minister, new objects, new regulations, presented themselves every
hour; memorial brought forth memorial; one scheme branched out into
half a dozen others; institutions were conceived; laws were drawn up;
and a completely new organisation of society, founded on notions of
transcendent excellence, such as the world has never seen, appeared
as visions to the eyes of the monarch and his friend.

"To afford some idea of the vastness and also of the visionary
character of these designs, I will give, in a somewhat abbreviated
form, part of the account furnished by Sully himself, of the contents
of a cabinet to be prepared for the King in one of the halls of the
Louvre, which were to comprise, arranged in drawers and cases, all
the memoirs and reports about to be collected. 'The labour required
was immense. To obtain a notion of it, without repetitions, let one
imagine every thing connected, immediately or remotely with the
finances, with war, with the artillery, with the navy, commerce and
police, with the coinage, with the mines, and, in a word, with every
part of government, interior and exterior, ecclesiastic, civil,
political, and domestic. Every one of all these parts had its
separate place in this state cabinet, so that all the documents
concerning it would be found ready to the hand at a glance, in
whatever quantity they might be. On the side appropriated to the
finances, were seen the collection of different regulations, records
of financial operations, changes made or to be made, the sums to
receive or to be paid, and an almost innumerable mass of statements,
memorials, totals, and summaries, more or less abridged.

"In regard to military matters, besides the accounts, details, and
memorials, marking the actual state of things, there would have been
found the edicts and state papers, works upon tactics, plans, maps,
and charts of France and other parts of the world. Large copies of
these maps, mixed with various piec