M. de Calonne had just been sworn in at the Court of Aids, pompously
attended by a great number of magistrates and financiers; he was for the
first time transacting business with the king. "Sir," said he, "the
comptrollers-general have many means of paying their debts: I have at
this moment two hundred and twenty thousand livres' worth payable on
demand; I thought it right to tell your Majesty, and leave everything to
your goodness." Louis XVI., astounded at such language, stared a moment
at his minister, and then, without any answer, walked up to a desk.
"There are your two hundred and twenty thousand livres," he said at last,
handing M. de Calonne a packet of shares in the Water Company. The
comptroller-general pocketed the shares, and found elsewhere the
resources necessary for paying his debts. "If my own affairs had not
been in such a bad state, I should not have undertaken those of France,"
said Calonne gayly to M. de Machault, at that time advanced in age and
still the centre of public esteem. The king, it was said, had but lately
thought of sending for him as minister in the room of M. de Maurepas,
he had been dissuaded by the advice of his aunts; the late
comptroller-general listened gravely to his frivolous successor; the
latter told the story of his conversation with the king. "I had
certainly done nothing to deserve a confidence so extraordinary,"
said M. de Machault to his friends. He set out again for his estate
at Arnonville, more anxious than ever about the future.

If the first steps of M. de Calonne dismayed men of foresight and of
experience in affairs, the public was charmed with them, no less than the
courtiers. The _bail des fermes_ was re-established, the _Caisse
d'escompte_ had resumed payment, the stockholders (_rentiers_) received
their quarters' arrears, the loan whereby the comptroller-general met all
expenses had reached eleven per cent. "A man who wants to borrow," M. de
Calonne would say, "must appear rich, and to appear rich he must dazzle
by his expenditure. Act we thus in the public administration. Economy
is good for nothing, it warns those who have money, not to lend it to an
indebted treasury, and it causes decay among the arts which prodigality
vivifies." New works, on a gigantic scale, were undertaken everywhere.
"Money abounds in the kingdom," the comptroller-general would remark to
the king; "the people never had more openings for work; lavishness
rejoices their ey