to
say that it was impolitic and immoral to see palaces belonging to a Queen
of France.

[The Queen never forgot this affront of M. d'Espremenil's; she said that
as it was offered at a time when social order had not yet been disturbed,
she had felt the severest mortification at it. Shortly before the
downfall of the throne M. Espremenil, having openly espoused the King's
side, was insulted in the gardens of the Tuileries by the Jacobins, and so
ill-treated that he was carried home very ill. Somebody recommended the
Queen, on account of the royalist principles he then professed, to send
and inquire for him. She replied that she was truly grieved at what had
happened to M. d'Espremenil, but that mere policy should never induce her
to show any particular solicitude about the man who had been the first to
make so insulting an attack upon her character.--MADAME CAMPAN]

The Queen was very much dissatisfied with the manner in which M. de
Calonne had managed this matter. The Abbe de Vermond, the most active and
persevering of that minister's enemies, saw with delight that the
expedients of those from whom alone new resources might be expected were
gradually becoming exhausted, because the period when the Archbishop of
Toulouse would be placed over the finances was thereby hastened.

The royal navy had resumed an imposing attitude during the war for the
independence of America; glorious peace with England had compensated for
the former attacks of our enemies upon the fame of France; and the throne
was surrounded by numerous heirs. The sole ground of uneasiness was in
the finances, but that uneasiness related only to the manner in which they
were administered. In a word, France felt confident in its own strength
and resources, when two events, which seem scarcely worthy of a place in
history, but which have, nevertheless, an important one in that of the
French Revolution, introduced a spirit of ridicule and contempt, not only
against the highest ranks, but even against the most august personages. I
allude to a comedy and a great swindling transaction.

Beaumarchais had long possessed a reputation in certain circles in Paris
for his wit and musical talents, and at the theatres for dramas more or
less indifferent, when his "Barbier de Seville" procured him a higher
position among dramatic writers. His "Memoirs" against M. Goesman had
amused Paris by the ridicule they threw upon a Parliament which was
disliked; and his a