t pressure upon public opinion; M. de
Maurepas determined to retract the last absolutist attempt of Louis XV.'s
reign; his first care was to send and demand of Chancellor Maupeou the
surrender of the seals. "I know what you have come to tell me," said the
latter to the Duke of La Vrilliere, who was usually charged with this
painful mission, "but I am and shall continue to be chancellor of
France," and he kept his seat whilst addressing the minister, in
accordance with his official privilege. He handed to the duke the
casket of seals, which the latter was to take straight to M. de
Miromesnil. "I had gained the king a great cause," said Maupeou; "he is
pleased to reopen a question which was decided; as to that he is master."
Imperturbable and haughty as ever, he retired to his estate at Thuit,
near the Andelys, where he drew up a justificatory memorandum of his
ministry, which he had put into the king's hands, without ever attempting
to enter the court or Paris again; he died in the country, at the outset
of the revolutionary storms, on the 29th of July, 1792, just as he had
made the State a patriotic present of 800,000 livres. At the moment when
the populace were burning him in effigy in the streets of Paris together
with Abbe Terray, when he saw the recall of the parliamentarians, and the
work of his whole life destroyed, he repeated with his usual coolness:
"If the king is pleased to lose his kingdom--well, he is master."

Abbe Terray had been less proud, and was more harshly treated. It was in
vain that he sought to dazzle the young king with ably prepared
memorials. "I can do no more," he said, "to add to the receipts, which I
have increased by sixty millions; I can do no more to keep down the.
debts, which I have reduced by twenty millions. . . . It is for you,
Sir, to relieve your people by reducing the expenses. This work, which
is worthy of your kind heart, was reserved for you." Abbe Terray had to
refund nearly 900,000 livres to the public treasury. Being recognized by
the mob as he was passing over the Seine in a ferry-boat, he had some
difficulty in escaping from the hands of those who would have hurled him
into the river.

The contrast was great between the crafty and unscrupulous ability of the
disgraced comptroller-general and the complete disinterestedness, large
views, and noble desire of good which animated his successor. After his
first interview with the king, at Compiegne, M. Turgot wrot