ten galled him, had
sometimes forced his hand; M. de Clugny, who took the place of the
comptroller-general, had no passion for reform, and cared for nothing but
leading, at the treasury's expense, a magnificently scandalous life;
M. de Malesherbes had been succeeded in the king's household by Marquis
Amelot. "At any rate," said M. de Maurepas, "nobody will accuse me of
having picked him out for his wits."

Profoundly shocked at the irreligious tendencies of the philosophers, the
court was, nevertheless, aweary of the theoricians and of their essays in
reform; it welcomed the new ministers with delight; without fuss, and as
if by a natural recurrence to ancient usage, the edict relative to forced
labor was suspended, the anxieties of the noblesse and of the clergy
subsided; the peasantry knew nothing yet of M. Turgot's fall, but they
soon found out that the evils from which they had imagined they were
delivered continued to press upon them with all their weight. For their
only consolation Clugny opened to them the fatal and disgraceful chances
of the lottery, which became a royal institution. To avoid the
remonstrances of Parliament, the comptroller-general established the new
enterprise by a simple decree of the council. "The entries being
voluntary, the lottery is no tax and can dispense with enregistration,"
it was said. It was only seventy-five years later, in 1841, under the
government of King Louis Philippe and the ministry of M. Humann, that the
lottery was abolished, and this scandalous source of revenue forbidden to
the treasury.

So much moral weakness and political changeableness, so much poltroonery
or indulgence towards evil and blind passions disquieted serious minds,
and profoundly shook the public credit. The Dutch refused to carry out
the loan for sixty millions which they had negotiated with M. Turgot; the
discount-fund (_caisse d'escompte_) founded by him brought in very slowly
but a moderate portion of the assets required to feed it; the king alone
was ignorant of the prodigalities and irregularities of his minister.
M. de Maurepas began to be uneasy at the public discontent, he thought of
superseding the comptroller-general: the latter had been ill for some
time, on the 22d of October he died. By the advice of M. de Maurepas,
the king sent for M. Necker.

James Necker was born at Geneva in 1732. Engaging in business without
any personal taste for it and by his father's wish, he had been
su