p. Ordinary abilities only were requisite to avail him of the
multitude of favorable circumstances, which, before he entered into the
administration, built up a fortune of six millions of livres. He owed
much of his good fortune to his connections with the Abbe Terrai,
of whose ignorance he did not scruple to profit. His riches,
his profession, his table, and a virtuous, reasonable, and well
informed wife, procured him the acquaintance of many persons of
distinction, among whom were many men of letters, who celebrated his
knowledge and wisdom.

The wise and just principles by which Turgot aimed to correct the Abuses
of the administration, not having been received with favor, he seized
the occasion to flatter ignorance and malignity, by publishing his work
against the freedom of the corn trade.

He had published, two years before, an eulogy on Colbert. Both these
productions exhibited the limited capacity of a banker, and, in no
degree, the enlarged views of a statesman. Not at all delicate in the
choice of his means, he succeeded to his wish in his object, which was
the establishing himself in public opinion. Elevated by a secret cabal
to the direction of the finances, he began by refusing the salaries of
his office. He affected a spirit of economy and austerity, which imposed
even on foreign nations, and showed the possibility of making war
without laying new taxes. Such at least was his boast; but, in reality,
they have been increased under his administration, about twenty
millions, partly by a secret augmentation of the bailies and of the
poll-tax, partly by some verifications of the twentieths, and partly
by the natural progression, which is tested by the amount of taxes
on consumption, the necessary result of the successive increase of
population, of riches, and of expensive tastes.

All these circumstances reared for him an astonishing reputation, which
his fall has consecrated. People will not reflect, that, in the short
period of his ministry, he had more than doubled his fortune. Not
that he had peculated on the public treasury; his good sense and pride
forbade a resort to this manoeuvre of weak minds; but by resorting to
loans and the costly operations of the bank, to provide the funds of
war, and being still connected with the house to which he addressed
himself for much the greater part of his negotiations. They have not
remarked that his great principles of economy have nothing more than
a false show, an