aid, "may exist under two forms so different
that one might say they were two sorts of economy: one, which strikes the
eye by its external strictness, which proclaims itself by startling and
harshly uttered refusals, which flaunts its severity in the smallest
matters in order to discourage the throng of applicants. It has an
imposing appearance which really proves nothing, but which does a great
deal as regards opinion; it has the double advantage of keeping
importunate cupidity at arm's length and of quieting anxious ignorance.
The other, which considers duty rather than force of character, can do
more, whilst showing less strictness and reserve, as regards whatever is
of any importance; it affects no austerity as regards that which is of
none; it lets the talk be of what it grants, and does not talk about what
it saves. Because it is seen to be accessible to requests, people will
not believe that it refuses the majority of them; because it has not the
useful and vulgar character of inflexibility, people refuse it that of
wise discretion, and often, whilst by assiduous application to all the
details of an immense department, it preserves the finances from the most
fatal abuses and the most ruinously unskilful handling, it seems to
calumniate itself by an easy-going appearance which the desire to injure
transforms very soon into lavishness."

So much easy grace and adroitness succeeding the austere stiffness of M.
Necker had been powerless to relieve the disorder of the finances; it was
great and of ancient date. "A deficit has been existing in France for
centuries," the comptroller-general asserted. It at last touched the
figure of a hundred millions a year. "What is left for filling up so
frightful a void and for reaching the desired level?" exclaimed M. de
Calonne: "abuses! Yes, gentlemen, it is in abuses themselves that there
is to be found a mine of wealth which the state has a right to reclaim
and which must serve to restore order. Abuses have for their defenders
interests, influence, fortune, and some antiquated prejudices which time
seems to have respected. But of what force is such a vain confederation
against the public welfare and the necessity of the state? Let others
recall this maxim of our monarchy: 'As willeth the king, so willeth the
law;' his Majesty's maxim is: 'As willeth the happiness of the people, so
willeth the king.'"

Audaciously certain of the success of his project, M. de Calonne ha