operty of deceased foreigners, and demanded for burghers
the freedom of purchasing the estates of nobles. He urged Frederick
William to abolish the prerogatives claimed by nobles and the helotism
of all who were not noble, and suggested that judges should be appointed
for life and justice rendered free of expense.

_III.--For King and People_

It was chiefly the meeting of the notables which had hastened Mirabeau's
return to Paris. He felt that his proper place was in the centre of the
great events announced and begun by this convocation. After the
undignified and inglorious prodigality of the previous reign, which had
laid the foundation of serious financial vicissitudes, the young King
Louis XVI. had brought with him to the throne the private virtues of a
good and honest man, but not the qualities of a sovereign.

Though economic to excess himself, he nevertheless suffered to exist and
even to increase around him those dilapidations which at last ruined the
resources of the state. He had no confidence in himself, and Mirabeau
respectfully reproached him with his fatal timidity. Nothing was done
either to increase revenue or diminish expenditure.

The possessors of privilege and representatives of personal interest,
the courtiers, the great lords, and the parliaments strenuously resisted
all reforms and then drove from office the best intentioned, the most
virtuous, and the ablest ministers whom the young king, in the sincerity
of his patriotism, had chosen on his accession, in deference to public
feeling. Among these ministers were Malesherbes, Turgot, Necker, and
Calonne.

Mirabeau returned to Paris on January 27, 1787. He at once published
that famous "Address to the Notables," in which he denounced the whole
corrupt system of finance and in which he demanded local provincial
administrations. This and his "Denunciation of Stock-jobbing" made great
impression on the public mind.

Nevertheless, the "Denunciation" displeased the government, and the
author was much persecuted. He learned that he was to be arrested and
sent, not to the Bastille, but to a remote provincial fortress, where he
would have been lost to public notice. So he escaped from Paris to
Liege, whence he again attacked the administration of Calonne and the
policy of Necker, declaring that loans should have been effected on
methods less onerous for the state.

His exile from Paris was of brief duration, for friends intervened. But
Mirabeau r