DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

Harassed by anxieties and by the condition of affairs, she applied her energies to the business of the state, and to directing the policy of the king. Unluckily she was not fitted by capacity or training for such work. A woman with noble and high- minded instincts, she had neither system, practical knowledge, nor policy ; and, while animated by the best motives, she failed in her schemes, partly be- cause of the weakness of the king, and partly be- cause of her own inaptitude. Moreover, her political reputation had never recovered the injury it had sustained the year after her husband’s accession, when she procured the dismissal of Turgot —a minister who would not pander to her extrava- gance and to the demands of her favourites, and probably the only one Louis XVI. ever had who was gifted with any real ability. The storm was rapidly brewing. The advent of a revolution was considered by all classes not only a possibility but a desirable event. In the salons of Paris ladies and gentlemen regarded the coming struggle in the light of a burlesque. Young men began to cultivate the art of public speaking at the meetings of the Free- mason lodges, ladies’ boudoirs were turned into legislative assemblies, and the cafés on the Boule- vards into debating societies. The loiterer in the street, as well as the duke in his palace, looked upon himself as a politician and a reformer ; and