uted by this minister evoked such violent opposition,
even from the Parlement in defence of the odious abuse of the _corvee_
(forced labor on the highways), that the timid king dismissed him, in
1776. He was succeeded by the Genoese banker, Necker, who in his turn
was obliged to resign, five years later, his intelligent efforts to
redeem the hopeless confusion into which the finances had fallen serving
only to increase the number of his enemies, amongst whom the Parlement
was again to be found. The treaty of alliance with the revolted American
colonies, signed February 6, 1778, was made the occasion of solemn
warnings addressed to the king as to the dangerous encouragement he was
thus giving the spirit of unrest and independence. The queen began to
interest herself in the affairs of the government; at her advice, the
direction of the finances was given to Calonne, in 1783, who in three
years increased the debt by the sum of five hundred millions of borrowed
money, and brought things to such a pass that he had no other resource
to offer the distracted monarch but the discarded measures of his
predecessor, Necker.

The quarrels with the Parlement increased in frequency and bitterness;
the king was guilty of irregularity in forcing the enregistering of
certain edicts,--"it is legal because I wish it so," he said; Calonne
was succeeded by Brienne for a year, and the latter by Necker again for
the same length of time, but it was too late; the demands for the _Etats
Generaux_, or even for an _Assemblee Nationale_, became more and more
peremptory. Brienne was burned in effigy in the streets of Paris, as
Calonne had been, and it was even intended to insult the queen in the
same manner. She was called _Madame Deficit_, and, at the request of the
lieutenant of police, the king promised to prevent her appearing in the
capital. Finally, a decree of the _Conseil du Roi_, December 27, 1788,
convoked the _Etats Generaux_ to meet at Versailles on the 1st of the
following May, and the beginning of the end had come.

One of the very first of the questions to be settled was that of the
number of representatives of the _tiers etat_. Many things had changed
since 1614, when they had been so humiliated, and it was recognized that
an increased representation should be given them, though the nobles
bitterly opposed this reform. A royal decree of the 1st of January,
1789, fixed the total number of members at, at least, a thousand, and
that of