produce results as desirable as rare,
and which M. de Calonne had hit upon to strengthen his shaky position,
was the same which, in 1628, had occurred to Cardinal Richelieu, when he
wanted to cover his responsibility in regard to the court of Rome. In
view of the stress at the treasury, of growing discontent, of vanished
illusions, the comptroller-general meditated convoking the Assembly of
Notables, the feeble resource of the old French kingship before the days
of pure monarchy, an expedient more insufficient and more dangerous than
the most far-seeing divined after the lessons of the philosophers and the
continuous abasement of the kingly Majesty.

The convocation of the Notables was the means upon which M. de Calonne
relied; the object was the sanctioning of a financial system new in
practice but old in theory. When the comptroller-general proposed to the
king to abolish privileges, and assess the impost equally, renouncing the
twentieths, diminishing the gabel, suppressing custom-houses in the
interior and establishing provincial assemblies, Louis XVI. recognized an
echo of his illustrious ministers. "This is sheer Necker!" he exclaimed.
"In the condition in which things are, Sir, it is the best that can be
done," replied M. de Calonne. He had explained his reasons to the king
in an intelligent and able note.

"Such a plan," said the comptroller-general, after having unfolded his
projects, "demands undoubtedly the most solemn examination and the most
authentic sanction. It must be presented in the form most calculated.
to place it beyond reach of any retardation and to acquire for it
unassailable strength by uniting all the suffrages of the nation. Now,
there is nothing but an assembly of notables that can fulfil this aim.
It is the only means of preventing all parliamentary resistance, imposing
silence on the clergy, and so clinching public opinion that no special
interest dare raise a voice against the overwhelming evidence of the
general interest. Assemblies of notables were held in 1558, in 1583, in
1596, in 1617, and in 1626; none was convoked for objects so important as
those in question now, and never were circumstances' more favorable to
success; as the situation requires strong measures, so it permits of the
employment of strong means."

The king hesitated, from instinctive repugnance and the traditions of
absolutism, at anything that resembled an appeal to the people. He was
won, however, by the