g to Besenval,
or hardly ever, had such display of intellect, dexterity, coolness,
suasive eloquence, been made by man. To the raging play of so many
fire-mouths he opposes nothing angrier than light-beams, self-possession
and fatherly smiles. With the imperturbablest bland clearness, he, for
five hours long, keeps answering the incessant volley of fiery captious
questions, reproachful interpellations; in words prompt as lightning,
quiet as light. Nay, the cross-fire too: such side questions and
incidental interpellations as, in the heat of the main-battle, he
(having only one tongue) could not get answered; these also he takes
up at the first slake; answers even these. (Besenval, iii. 196.) Could
blandest suasive eloquence have saved France, she were saved.

Heavy-laden Controller! In the Seven Bureaus seems nothing but
hindrance: in Monsieur's Bureau, a Lomenie de Brienne, Archbishop
of Toulouse, with an eye himself to the Controllership, stirs up the
Clergy; there are meetings, underground intrigues. Neither from without
anywhere comes sign of help or hope. For the Nation (where Mirabeau is
now, with stentor-lungs, 'denouncing Agio') the Controller has hitherto
done nothing, or less. For Philosophedom he has done as good as
nothing,--sent out some scientific Laperouse, or the like: and is he not
in 'angry correspondence' with its Necker? The very Oeil-de-Boeuf
looks questionable; a falling Controller has no friends. Solid M. de
Vergennes, who with his phlegmatic judicious punctuality might have kept
down many things, died the very week before these sorrowful Notables
met. And now a Seal-keeper, Garde-des-Sceaux Miromenil is thought to be
playing the traitor: spinning plots for Lomenie-Brienne! Queen's-Reader
Abbe de Vermond, unloved individual, was Brienne's creature, the work
of his hands from the first: it may be feared the backstairs passage is
open, ground getting mined under our feet. Treacherous Garde-des-Sceaux
Miromenil, at least, should be dismissed; Lamoignon, the
eloquent Notable, a stanch man, with connections, and even ideas,
Parlement-President yet intent on reforming Parlements, were not he the
right Keeper? So, for one, thinks busy Besenval; and, at dinner-table,
rounds the same into the Controller's ear,--who always, in the intervals
of landlord-duties, listens to him as with charmed look, but answers
nothing positive. (Besenval, iii. 203.)

Alas, what to answer? The force of private intrigue, and t