the Character of the Executive Functions of the
Monarchy." Had he been able to carry into effect all the grand precepts
he had observed in Fenelon, Louis XVI. would have been an accomplished
monarch, and France a powerful kingdom. The King used to accept the
speeches his ministers presented to him to deliver on important occasions;
but he corrected and modified them; struck out some parts, and added
others; and sometimes consulted the Queen on the subject. The phrase of
the minister erased by the King was frequently unsuitable, and dictated by
the minister's private feelings; but the King's was always the natural
expression. He himself composed, three times or oftener, his famous
answers to the Parliament which he banished. But in his letters he was
negligent, and always incorrect. Simplicity was the characteristic of the
King's style; the figurative style of M. Necker did not please him; the
sarcasms of Maurepas were disagreeable to him. Unfortunate Prince! he
would predict, in his observations, that if such a calamity should happen,
the monarchy would be ruined; and the next day he would consent in Council
to the very measure which he had condemned the day before, and which
brought him nearer the brink of the precipice.--SOULAVIE, "Historical and
Political Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XVI.," vol. ii.]

This Prince combined with his attainments the attributes of a good
husband, a tender father, and an indulgent master.

Unfortunately he showed too much predilection for the mechanical arts;
masonry and lock-making so delighted him that he admitted into his private
apartment a common locksmith, with whom he made keys and locks; and his
hands, blackened by that sort of work, were often, in my presence, the
subject of remonstrances and even sharp reproaches from the Queen, who
would have chosen other amusements for her husband.

[Louis XVI. saw that the art of lock-making was capable of application to
a higher study, He was an excellent geographer. The most valuable and
complete instrument for the study of that science was begun by his orders
and under his direction. It was an immense globe of copper, which was
long preserved, though unfinished, in the Mazarine library. Louis XVI.
invented and had executed under his own eyes the ingenious mechanism
required for this globe.--NOTE BY THE EDITOR.]

Austere and rigid with regard to himself alone, the King observed the laws
of the Church with scrupulous exactness