mendicants and of vagabonds, was increasing every day in
Paris.

Meanwhile the Parliament had gained its point, the great baillie-courts
were abolished; the same difficulty had been found in constituting them
as in forming the plenary court; all the magistrates of the inferior
tribunals refused to sit in them; the Breton deputies were let out of the
Bastille; everywhere the sovereign courts were recalled. The return of
the exiles to Paris was the occasion for a veritable triumph and the
pretext for new disorders among the populace. It was the Parliament's
first duty to see to the extraordinary police (_haute police_) in its
district; it performed the duty badly and weakly. The populace had
applauded its return and had supported its cause during its exile; the
first resolution of the court was directed against the excesses committed
by the military in repressing the disorders. When it came to trying the
men seized with arms in their hands and the incendiaries who had
threatened private houses, all had their cases dismissed; by way of
example, one was detained a few days in prison. Having often been served
in its enterprises by the passions of the mob, the Parliament had not
foreseen the day when those same outbursts would sweep it away like chaff
before the wind with all that regimen of tradition and respect to which
it still clung even in its most audacious acts of daring.

For an instant the return of M. Necker to power had the effect of
restoring some hope to the most far-sighted. On his coming into office,
the treasury was empty, there was no scraping together as much as five
thousand livres. The need was pressing, the harvests were bad; the
credit and the able resources of the great financier sufficed for all;
the funds went up thirty percent. in one day, certain capitalists made
advances, the chamber of the notaries of Paris paid six millions into the
treasury, M. Necker lent two millions out of his private fortune.
Economy had already found its way into the royal household; Louis XVI.
had faithfully kept his promises; despite the wrath of courtiers, he had
reduced his establishment. The Duke of Coigny, premier equerry, had
found his office abolished. "We were truly grieved, Coigny and I," said
the king, kindly, "but I believe he would have beaten me had I let him."
"It is fearful to live in a country where one is not sure of possessing
to-morrow what one had the day before," said the great lords who were