and rouse that long
array of enemies by whom his religion, his birth, his wife, the epochs
and improvements of their fortune, are, at every moment of his
administration, exposed to the laughter or the scrutiny of the public.
Your Majesty finds yourself once more in the position in which you were
with respect to M. Turgot, when you thought proper to accelerate his
retirement; the same dangers and the same inconveniences arise from the
nature of their analogous systems."

It was paying M. Necker a great compliment to set his financial talents
on a par with the grand views, noble schemes, and absolute
disinterestedness of M. Turgot. Nevertheless, when the latter fell,
public opinion had become, if not hostile, at any rate indifferent to
him; it still remained faithful to M. Necker. Withdrawing his
pretensions to admission into the council, the director-general of
finance was very urgent to obtain other marks of the royal confidence,
necessary, he said, to keep up the authority of his administration.
M. de Maurepas had no longer the pretext of religion, but he hit upon
others which wounded M. Necker deeply; the latter wrote to the king on a
small sheet of common paper, without heading or separate line, and as if
he were suddenly resuming all the forms of republicanism: "The
conversation I have had with M. de Maurepas permits me to no longer defer
placing my resignation in the king's hands. I feel my heart quite
lacerated by it, and I dare to hope that his Majesty will deign to.
preserve some remembrance of five years' successful but painful toil, and
especially of the boundless zeal with which I devoted myself to his
service." [May 19, 1783.]

M. Necker had been treated less harshly than M. Turgot. The king
accepted his resignation without having provoked it. The queen made some
efforts to retain him, but M. Necker remained inflexible. "Reserved as
he was," says his daughter, "he had a proud disposition, a sensitive
spirit; he was a man of energy in his whole style of sentiments." The
fallen minister retired to his country-house at St. Ouen.

He was accompanied thither by the respect and regret of the public, and
the most touching proofs of their esteem. "You would have said, to see
the universal astonishment, that never was news so unexpected as that of
M. Necker's resignation," writes Grimm in his _Correspondance
litteraire;_ "consternation was depicted on every face; those who felt
otherwise were in a very sm