iliarity. Finding the court circles a
constraint and an annoyance, Marie Antoinette became accustomed to seek
in the drawing-room of Madame de Polignac amusements and a freedom which
led before long to sinister gossip. Those who were admitted to this
royal intimacy were not always prudent or discreet, they abused the
confidence as well as the generous kindness of the queen; their ambition
and their cupidity were equally concerned in urging Marie Antoinette to
take in the government a part for which she was not naturally inclined.
M. de Calonne was intimate with Madame de Polignac; she, created a
duchess and appointed governess to the children of France (the royal
children), was all-powerful with her friend the queen; she dwelt upon
the talents of M. de Calonne, the extent and fertility of his resources;
M. de Vergennes was won over, and the office of comptroller-general,
which had but lately been still discharged with lustre by M. Turgot and
M. Necker, fell on the 30th of October, 1784, into the hands of M. de
Calonne.

Born in 1734 at Douai, Charles Alexander de Calonne belonged to a family
of magistrates of repute and influence in their province; he commenced
his hereditary career by the perfidious manoeuvres which contributed to
the ruin of M. de la Chalotais. Discredited from the very first by a
dishonorable action, he had invariably managed to get his vices
forgotten, thanks to the charms of a brilliant and fertile wit. Prodigal
and irregular as superintendent of Lille, he imported into the
comptroller-generalship habits and ideas opposed to all the principles of
Louis XVI. "The peace would have given hope a new run," says M. Necker
in his Memoires, "if the king had not confided the important functions of
administering the finances to a man more worthy of being the hero of
courtiers than the minister of a king. The reputation of M. de Calonne
was a contrast to the morality of Louis XVI., and I know not by what
argumentation, by what ascendency such a prince was induced to give a
place in his council to a magistrate who was certainly found agreeable in
the most elegant society of Paris, but whose levity and principles were
dreaded by the whole of France. Money was lavished, largesses were
multiplied, there was no declining to be good-natured or complaisant,
economy was made the object of ridicule, it was daringly asserted that
immensity of expenditure, animating circulation, was the true principle
of credit."