can a Chief Minister do? Taxes profit little:
this of the Second Twentieth falls not due till next year; and will
then, with its 'strict valuation,' produce more controversy than
cash. Taxes on the Privileged Classes cannot be got registered; are
intolerable to our supporters themselves: taxes on the Unprivileged
yield nothing,--as from a thing drained dry more cannot be drawn. Hope
is nowhere, if not in the old refuge of Loans.

To Lomenie, aided by the long head of Lamoignon, deeply pondering this
sea of troubles, the thought suggested itself: Why not have a Successive
Loan (Emprunt Successif), or Loan that went on lending, year after year,
as much as needful; say, till 1792? The trouble of registering such Loan
were the same: we had then breathing time; money to work with, at
least to subsist on. Edict of a Successive Loan must be proposed. To
conciliate the Philosophes, let a liberal Edict walk in front of it, for
emancipation of Protestants; let a liberal Promise guard the rear of it,
that when our Loan ends, in that final 1792, the States-General shall be
convoked.

Such liberal Edict of Protestant Emancipation, the time having come for
it, shall cost a Lomenie as little as the 'Death-penalties to be put in
execution' did. As for the liberal Promise, of States-General, it can be
fulfilled or not: the fulfilment is five good years off; in five
years much intervenes. But the registering? Ah, truly, there is the
difficulty!--However, we have that promise of the Elders, given secretly
at Troyes. Judicious gratuities, cajoleries, underground intrigues, with
old Foulon, named 'Ame damnee, Familiar-demon, of the Parlement,'
may perhaps do the rest. At worst and lowest, the Royal Authority has
resources,--which ought it not to put forth? If it cannot realise
money, the Royal Authority is as good as dead; dead of that surest and
miserablest death, inanition. Risk and win; without risk all is already
lost! For the rest, as in enterprises of pith, a touch of stratagem
often proves furthersome, his Majesty announces a Royal Hunt, for the
19th of November next; and all whom it concerns are joyfully getting
their gear ready.

Royal Hunt indeed; but of two-legged unfeathered game! At eleven in the
morning of that Royal-Hunt day, 19th of November 1787, unexpected blare
of trumpetting, tumult of charioteering and cavalcading disturbs the
Seat of Justice: his Majesty is come, with Garde-des-Sceaux Lamoignon,
and Peers and retinu