XXIII. 1787. place was garrisoned by no less than 7000 men, BOOK exclusive of the armed citizens, commanded by the Rhingrave of Salm, one of those base but specious characters who appear anxious to gain the public confidence merely to betray it. In a council of war he declared the city to be incapable of sustaining a siege, and concluded for its immediate evacuation, in contradiction to the opinion of M. Bellonet, a French officer at the head of the artillery, who engaged to maintain it for a month. The order of the rhingrave was executed in the utmost confusion. The troops of the garrison retired precipitately towards Amsterdam, and the commander consulting only his personal safety suddenly disappeared. After this conquest the march of the Prussian general bore the appearance of a triumphal procession. While a futile resolve to suspend the office of stadtholder passed the senate of Amsterdam-Gorcum, Dort, Schoonhoven, and other towns in his route, submitted tamely to the conqueror. On the seventh day from the commencement of the invasion, the prince of Orange made his public entry into the Hague. Amsterdam only made a shew of resistance: but on the icth of October that proud capital, now closely invested, opened its gates to the victor. To the astonishment of the world, that republic which maintained a contest of eighty years against the power of Spain, which contended XXIII. 1787. BOOK for the empire of the ocean with Great Britain, and which repelled the attacks of Louis XIV. in the zenith of his glory, was over-run by the arms of Prussia in a single month. Such and so dire are the effects which flow from civil discord and disunion! In the whole of this transaction, Prussia acted in intimate and avowed concert with England; and while France was slowly assembling troops in the vicinity of Liege, and the emperor was presenting feeble remonstrances at Berlin, the revolution projected by the stadtholderian faction was carried into complete execution, and the stadtholder triumphantly reinstated in all his real and pretended prerogatives. It is not to be imagined that the court of Versailles saw the termination of this great contest with frigid indifference; but the distracted state of her own affairs, and the increasing discontents and disorders of the kingdom, in a manner compelled her reluctant acquiescence. The projects of the new minister of finance, M. de Calonne, proved unsuccessful and abortive. In the latter end of the year 1785, a loan of 3,330,000l. being the acknowledged deficit of the current year, was negotiated; which the parliament of Paris, after repeated remonstrances, at last registered only in pursuance of the king's positive commands; at the same time accompanying it with a resolution importing" that the public œconomy was the only XXIII. 1787. genuine source of revenue, and the only means of BOOK providing for the necessities of the state, and of restoring that credit which borrowing had reduced to the brink of ruin." The king, incensed at their presumption, ordered this resolution to be erased from their records-declaring " that he would never consent that the parliament should so far abuse his confidence and clemency as to make themselves the censors of his administration. He declared himself satisfied with his comptrollergeneral, and determined on no account to suffer groundless apprehensions to interfere with the execution of plans calculated for the good of the state and the welfare of the nation." The hostile disposition of the parliament, and the evident impossibility of obtaining their cordial concurrence to the measures in contemplation, determined the minister to adopt a plan more suited to the boldness and extent of his views. In the month of August, 1786, M. de Calonne presented a memorial to the king, representing "the amelioration of the finances to be essentially connected with public order; and averring that what the national benefit required could not be effected by partial operations, and that the reparation of the whole was necessary to prevent the ruin of the whole. Of consequence, the project he had formed embraced all the parts of the monarchy, and was intended to bring them to a closer union. It would be an inexhaustible source XXIII. 1787. BOOK of happiness for the people of France; it would set the monarch for ever at rest respecting the situation of his finances; it would raise his POWER higher than that of the most prosperous of his ancestors, and enrol his name with those of the most virtuous and enlightened legislators. In fine, what induced him to conjure his majesty to adopt it was, that out of the circle of this reformation he could foresee nothing but calamity and ruin." This magnificent and wonder-working plan was no other than to convene, by royal authority and appointment, after the example of antient times, an assembly of the most considerable and enlightened persons in the kingdom, under the denomination of NOTABLES, by whose influence and under whose sanction" a reformation might (to use the words of M. de Calonne) be effected of whatever was vicious in the constitution of the state." The minister accompanied this proposal with a specification of various details, indicating a vigorous and comprehensive mind, penetrated with a clear conviction of the necessity of a radical reform in the state, so far at least as related to that detestable aggregate mass of extortion and oppression which assumed the lofty appellation of the National System of Finance. Amongst the new regulations recommended by M. de Calonne, were the equalization of the vingtièmes or territorial revenue-the abolition of the corvée-the establishment of an. uniform tariff throughout all the provinces of the XXII. 1787. kingdom-the alleviation of the odious gabelle BOOK the extinction of the feudal rights as vested in the crown-the suppression or melioration of the forest laws and the application of the royal demesne lands to the service of the public. of Notables Versailles. This memorial was received by the king with Assembly approbation; and before the termination of the convened at year summonses were issued accordingly for the meeting of the assembly of NOTABLES at Versailles, on the 22d of February, 1787. It consisted of one hundred and forty-four persons, amongst whom were seven princes of the blood, nine dukes and peers of France, eight field mareschals, eight counsellors of state, and eleven bishops and archbishops. The remaining members were chiefly selected from the different parliaments and magistracies in the kingdom. The Convention of NOTABLES was opened in great state by the king in person, with a speech from the throne, in which he declared "that they had been chosen by him from the different orders of the state, to impart to them his designs, and to receive from them the observations of which they might think them susceptible. This, said the monarch, has been the custom of many of my predecessors, and particularly of the CHIEF of my FAMILY, whose name remains still dear to every Frenchman, and whose example I shall always be proud to make the rule of my conduct. His majesty then in general terms stated the views by |