opening of States General of ijSg ij 



financial situation. The amount of the deficit was indicated and 

 means pointed out which might be used to relieve it. In the 

 course of this discussion, Necker criticized those bailliages which 

 had indicated in their instructions to their representatives that the 

 financial condition was of secondary importance.^® As far as the 

 government was concerned, nothing was more urgent than the 

 financial afifairs of the nation, but the people of France were 

 much more interested in the promised constitutional changes. 

 Moreover, while Necker emphasized the necessity of measures 

 being taken to relieve the financial situation, he also attempted 

 to show that the states general had been called together, not 

 because the king had been forced to take this action on account 

 of the condition of the finances of the realm, but simply because 

 of the monarch's generosity and good will toward his subjects. ^^ 

 The speaker pointed out in detail the various means which the 

 king might have used to relieve the financial difficulties ; he did 

 not explain, however, why these had not been employed by the 

 government. The logical deduction from Necker's statement that 

 the calling of the states general was not due to necessity, but 

 merely to the good will of the monarch, would be that if the king 



present at an annual general meeting of that society when Mons. de Brous- 

 sonnet had read a discourse with a powerful piercing voice, that was 

 heard distinctly to the greatest distance. This gentleman attended him 

 several times to takes his instructions and to be sure of understanding 

 the interlineations that were made, even after the speech was finished. 

 M. Broussonnet was with him the evening before the assembly of the 

 states, at nine o'clock: and next day, when he came to read it in public, 

 he found still more corrections and alterations, which Mons. Necker had 

 made after quitting him ; they were chiefly in style and show how solici- 

 tous he was in regard to the form and decoration of his matter : the ideas 

 in my opinion wanted this attention more than the style. Mons. Brous- 

 sonnet himself told me this little anecdote." 



^^ Discours de M. le directeur-gencral des finances in Ouverture des 

 etats-generaux, 23-118. 



^^ Disc ours de M. le directeur-gcneral des finances, 66. Necker worded 

 this assertion thus : " Enfin, Messieurs, et il est bon de vous le faire ob- 

 server afin que vous aimiez encore davantage votre auguste monarque, ce 

 n'est pas a la necessite absolue d'un secours d'argent que vous devez le 

 precieux avantage d'etre rassemblee par sa majeste en etats-generaux." 



219 



