e said: "he is making a desert round the
king; each loan is the recompense for something destroyed." "Just so,"
answered M. de Maurepas: "he gives us millions, provided that we allow
him to suppress certain offices." "And if he were to ask permission to
have the superintendents' heads cut off?" "Perhaps we should give it
him," said the veteran minister, laughing. "Find us the philosopher's
stone, as he has done, and I promise you that his Majesty will have you
into the ministry that very day."

M. Necker did not indulge in illusions, he owed to the embarrassments of
the government and to the new burdens created by the American war a
complaisance which his bold attempts would not have met with under other
circumstances. "Nobody will ever know," he himself said, "the
steadfastness I found necessary; I still recall that long and dark
staircase of M. de Maurepas' which I mounted in fear and sadness,
uncertain of succeeding with him as to some new idea which I had in my
mind, and which aimed most frequently at obtaining an increase of revenue
by some just but severe operation. I still recall that upstairs closet,
beneath the roof of Versailles, but over the rooms, and, from its
smallness and its situation, seeming to be really a superfine extract and
abstract of all vanities and ambitions; it was there that reform and
economy had to be discussed with a minister grown old in the pomps and
usages of the court. I remember all the delicate management I had to
employ to succeed, after many a rebuff. At last I would obttin some
indulgences for the commonwealth. I obtained them, I could easily see,
as recompense for the resources I had found during the war. I met with
more courage in dealing with the king. Young and virtuous, he could and
would hear all. The queen, too, lent me a favorable ear, but, all around
their Majesties, in court and city, to how much enmity and hatred did I
not expose myself? There were all kinds of influence and power which I
had to oppose with firmness; there were all sorts of interested factions
with which I had to fight in this perpetual struggle."

"Alas!" Madame Necker would say, "my heart and my regrets are ever
yearning for a world in which beneficence should be the first of virtues.
What reflections do I not make on our own particular case! I thought to
see a golden age under so pure an administration; I see only an age of
iron. All resolves itself into doing as little harm as possibl