lic estate, and,
consequently, pass judgment upon its administration. "The principal
cause of the financial prosperity of England, in the very midst of war,
said the minister, "is to be found in the confidence with which the
English regard their administration and the source of the government's
credit." The annual publication of a financial report was, M. Necker
thought, likely to inspire the same confidence in France. It was paying
a great compliment to public opinion to attribute to it the power derived
from free institutions and to expect from satisfied curiosity the serious
results of a control as active as it was minute.

The Report to the king was, moreover, not of a nature to stand the
investigation of a parliamentary committee. In publishing it M. Necker
had a double end in view. He wanted, by an able exposition of the
condition of the treasury, to steady the public credit which was
beginning to totter, to bring in fresh subscribers for the loans which
were so necessary to support the charges of the war; he wanted at the
same time to call to mind the benefits and successes of his own
administration, to restore the courage of his friends and reduce his
enemies to silence. With this complication of intentions, he had drawn
up a report on the ordinary state of expenditure and receipts, designedly
omitting the immense sacrifices demanded by the land and sea armaments as
well as the advances made to the United States. He thus arrived, by a
process rather ingenious than honest, at the establishment of a budget
showing a surplus of ten million livres. The maliciousness of M. de
Maurepas found a field for its exercise in the calculations which he had
officially overhauled in council. The Report was in a cover of blue
marbled paper. Have you read the _Conte bleu_ (a lying story)?" he
asked everybody who went to see him; and, when he was told of the great
effect which M. Necker's work was producing on the public: "I know, I
know," said the veteran minister, shrugging his shoulders, "we have
fallen from Turgomancy into Necromancy."

M. Necker had boldly defied the malevolence of his enemies. "I have
never," said he, "offered sacrifice to influence or power. I have
disdained to indulge vanity. I have renounced the sweetest of private
pleasures, that of serving my friends or winning the gratitude of those
who are about me. If anybody owes to my mere favor a place, a post, let
us have the name." He enumerated