[52] Cor. Conf. de Louis XVI., ii., 178.
[53] Lectures on the French Revolution, by William Smyth, i., 115.
[54] "The notion that our maladies were incapable of remedy, and that no human mind could cure them, added keenly to the general grief. We saw ourselves plunged into a gulf of debts and public engagements, the interest alone of which absorbed the third part of the revenue, and which, far from being put into a course of liquidation, were continually accumulating by loans and anticipations."—History of the French Revolution, by M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 19.
[55] "And so Necker, Atlas-like, sustains the burden of the finances for five years long. Without wages—for he refused such—cheered only by public opinion and the ministering of his noble wife. He, too, has to produce his scheme of taxing; clergy, noblesse to be taxed—like a mere Turgot. Let Necker also depart; not unlamented."—Carlyle, French Revolution, vol. i., p. 46.
[56] M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 22.
[57] Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XVI., by the Abbé Soulavie, vol. ii., p. 191.
THE ASSEMBLY OF THE NOTABLES.