e to Louis
XVI.:--"Your Majesty has been graciously pleased to permit me to place
before your eyes the engagement you took upon yourself, to support me in
the execution of plans of economy which are at all times, and now more
than ever, indispensable. I confine myself for the moment, Sir, to
reminding you of these three expressions: 1. No bankruptcies; 2. No
augmentation of imposts; 3. No loans. No bankruptcy, either avowed or
masked by forced reductions. No augmentation of imposts the reason for
that lies in the condition of your people, and still more in your
Majesty's own heart. No loans; because every loan always diminishes the
disposable revenue: it necessitates, at the end of a certain time, either
bankruptcy or augmentation of imposts. . . . Your Majesty will not
forget that, when I accepted the office of comptroller-general, I
perceived all the preciousness of the confidence with which you honor me;
. . . but, at the same time I perceived all the danger to which I was
exposing myself. I foresaw that I should have to fight single-handed
against abuses of every sort, against the efforts of such as gain by
those abuses, against the host of the prejudiced who oppose every reform,
and who, in the hands of interested persons, are so powerful a means of
perpetuating disorder. I shall be feared, shall be even hated by the
greater part of the court, by all that solicit favors. . . . This
people to whom I shall have sacrificed myself is so easy to deceive, that
I shall perhaps incur its hatred through the very measures I shall take
to defend it against harassment. I shall be calumniated, and perhaps
with sufficient plausibility to rob me of your Majesty's confidence.
. . . You will remember that it is on the strength of your promises
that I undertake a burden perhaps beyond my strength; that it is to you
personally, to the honest man, to the just and good man, rather than to
the king, that I commit myself."

It is to the honor of Louis XVI. that the virtuous men who served him,
often with sorrow and without hoping anything from their efforts, always
preserved their confidence in his intentions. "It is quite encouraging,"
wrote M. Turgot to one of his friends, "to have to serve a king who is
really an honest and a well-meaning man." The burden of the necessary
reforms was beyond the strength of the minister as well as of the
sovereign; the violence of opposing currents was soon about to paralyze
thei