CHAPTER XXII.
[1] Feuillet de Conches, i., p. 205.
[2] M. Foulon was about this time made paymaster of the army and navy, and was generally credited with ability as a financier; but he was unpopular, as a man of ardent and cruel temper, and was brutally murdered by the mob in one of the first riots of the Revolution.
[3] The king.
[4] Necker.
[5] Feuillet de Conches, i., p. 214.
[6] Ibid., p. 217.
[7] On one occasion when the Marquis de Bouillé pointed out to him the danger of some of his plans as placing the higher class at the mercy of the mob, "dirigé par les deux passions les plus actives du coeur humain, l'intérêt et l'amour propre, … il me répondit froidement, en levant les yeux au ciel, qu'il fallait bien compter sur les vertus morales des hommes."—Mémoires de M. de Bouillé, p. 70; and Madame de Staël admits of her father that he was "se fiant trop, il faut l'avouer, à l'empire de la raison," and adds that he "étudia constamment l'esprit public, comme la boussole à laquelle les décisions du roi devaient se conformer."— Considérations sur la Révolution Française, i., pp. 171, 172.
[8] Her exact words are "si … il fasse reculer l'autorité du roi" (if he causes the king's authority to retreat before the populace or the Parliament).
[9] "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," par M. Montjoye, p. 202.