226 HUME. 



secret, and were opposed by the Parliament of Paris as 

 soon as their proceedings became known. Mr. Hume 

 obtained a very early though somewhat exaggerated 

 account of these things through two of the foreign 

 ambassadors ; and when he communicated it to the 

 Bishop of Senlis, he was treated with contempt, as if 

 nothing could be so wild, and as if some enemy of the 

 Church had invented the fable to discredit her. Mar- 

 shal Con way appears by his dispatches (which are also 

 excellent) to have rested his hopes of these differ- 

 ences passing off on the prevailing irreligious spirit in 

 France, where " the Dauphin alone," he says, " has any 

 care for such matters ; and he has of late taken a mili- 

 tary turn." In a short time the whole ferment was 

 allayed by the prudent and able conduct of Brienne, 

 Archbishop of Toulouse ; the don gratuit was voted ; 

 and the Assembly was prorogued to the following 

 May. Mr. Hume praises Brienne very highly on this, 

 as indeed he did on all occasions. In John Home's 

 Journal of his excursion with the historian to Bath, 

 in his last illness (1776), we find the same opinion 

 expressed ; Hume considering him as the only man in 

 France fit to be minister, and relating several instances 

 of his great ability. 1 * It was the same prelate, thus 

 highly commended, who proved so insufficient to meet 

 the tempest of the Revolution, when, twelve years later, 

 he was placed in the situation for which the partiality 

 of the historian had early predicted his exclusive fit- 

 ness. -\ 



* Mackenzie's Life of John Home, p. 170. 



f One writer has taken upon him to decide against Mr. Hume's 



