. . . We ought not to hide from you, Sir, that
the way which would be most simple, most natural, and most in conformity
with the constitution of this monarchy, would be to hear the nation
itself in full assembly, and nobody should have the poltroonery to use
any other language to you; nobody should leave you in ignorance that the
unanimous wish of the nation is to obtain states-general or at the least
states-provincial. . . . Deign to consider, Sir, that on the day you
grant this precious liberty to your people it may be said that a treaty
has been concluded between king and nation against ministers and
magistrates: against the ministers, if there be any perverted enough to
wish to conceal from you the truth; against the magistrates, if there
ever be any ambitious enough to pretend to have the exclusive right of
telling you it."

Almost the whole ministry was in the hands of reformers; a sincere desire
to do good impelled the king towards those who promised him the happiness
of his people. Marshal Muy had succumbed to a painful operation. "Sir,"
he had said to Louis XVI., before placing himself in the surgeon's hands,
"in a fortnight I shall be at your Majesty's feet or with your august
father." He had succumbed. M. Turgot spoke to M. de Maurepas of the
Duke of St. Germain. "Propose him to the king," said the minister,
adding his favorite phrase "one can but try."

In the case of government, trials are often a dangerous thing. M. de St.
Germain, born in the Jura in 1707, and entered first of all amongst the
Jesuits, had afterwards devoted himself to the career of arms: he had
served the Elector Palatine, Maria Theresa, and the Elector of Bavaria;
enrolled finally by Marshal Saxe, he had distinguished himself under his
orders; as lieutenant-general during the Seven Years' War, he had brought
up his divisionn at Rosbach more quickly than his colleagues had theirs,
he had fled less far than the others before the enemy; but his character
was difficult, suspicious, exacting; he was always seeing everywhere
plots concocted to ruin him. "I am persecuted to the death," he would
say. He entered the service of Denmark: returning to France and in
poverty, he lived in Alsace on the retired list; it was there that the
king's summons came to find him out. In his solitude M. de St. Germain
had conceived a thousand projects of reform; he wanted to apply them all
at once. He made no sort of case of the picked corps an