958. 4 Dialogue in Lmpyreum, between Louis XVI. and Charles 1. 
hagors, by plunder, by affaflination, by 
régicide. Tag 
-C€. If fympathy be thy only with, feek 
it rather among the kings who have feared 
than among thofe who Toe undergone thy 
fate. A hundred and fifty years refi- 
dence in Empyreum is a marvellous cor- 
reGtor of impaflioned judgments and 
fierce refentment, when we have much 
converfed with men of other times. 
L. Was ever prince mifufed like me? 
Always diftinguifhed for love toward my 
fubjects; did I not employ Turgot to 
pleafe them—the Americans to pleafe 
them=call the States-General to pleafe 
them—accept the conftitution to pleafe 
them; and for all this, their ingratitude 
annihilates my income, traduces my cha- 
racter, and as my fources of influence 
abate, they drag me. from the throne to a 
dungeon, and thence to a {caffold. 
C. Let us analyze the benefits you 
enumerated... About the year 1774, the 
philofophic.. fect of Phyfiocrates was . 
already organized into a political body, 
which had friends in moft of the great 
incorporations of France, in the cham- 
bers of commerce, the magiftracies, the 
parliaments, Some powerful families 
among the nobility, who pleafed not at 
your court, fupported this faction. 
L. Only the. Rochefoucaulds—thofe 
hereditary heretics. 
C..A fedition broke out in the metro- 
polis. You was alarmed, and accepted 
at their hands Turgot for minifter, under 
conditions which you fub(cribed, like a 
conquered enemy. Security was foon 
reftored, and reformation began. But 
‘Turgot having the weaknefs to believe, 
that the opinions of the wife will never 
be thofe of the people, continued the re- 
fcri€tions of the prefs. He formed, there- 
fore, no barrier of public opinion againit 
court-mutability ; and, as foon as the 
Parifians had forgotten politics, to enter 
into Rouffeau’s quarrel about their mufic, 
‘Turgot found his fupporters purchaled, 
undermined, deterred, diftanced, diffi- 
pated—and had to refign. 
_ L. It was not I who difappointed this 
minifter of influence, but the manage- 
ment of the queen’s advifers. 
C. France is not the only country 
which a double cabinet has condemned to 
fluctuating counfels. Your next minifter 
was NECKER, aman whom Turgot had 
oppreiied for writing in favour of limit- 
ations upon the corn trade—a moderate 
man in temper, in abilities, and in opi- 
nions. You chofe him becaufe the Paris 
bankers would lend to no one elfe. His 
dalents, as a anancier, the enemy of your 
enemies applauded in the Englith parlia- 
ment, whilft he was borrowing capital to 
pay the intereft of the French debt, and | 
thus, by the accelerated operation of com- 
pound intereft, was fecuring that finan- 
cial cataftrophe. 
L. Which the church-lands and a tax | 
upon noble eftates might eafily have 
averted. : 
C. Not expecting, however, the fub- 
miffion of thefe powerful orders to your 
authority, like vulgar bankrupts, you 
fummoned a meeting of your more nota- - 
ble creditors, relations, and friends, whe 
advifed the convention of the ftate; after 
which, even CALONNE dared not help 
you through without convoking them. — 
b., Ant 
C. Of all your boafted conceflions thus 
far, which of them could you have 
avoided ? Which of them was even made 
with a grace? Which of them was not 
the obvious preference between two evils? 
L. The—the declaring for the Ame- 
ricans. 
C. And you will be rewarded for it by 
the generous pity of American and Eng- 
lifh republicans. Yet, even in this caie, 
was you not a little eager to bufy fome 
ftirring {pirits among the more gallant 
- of your nobility? ‘To avoid a civil, wage 
a foreign war, ts an old adage of profli- 
gate flate-craft. 
L. Some people about me might reafon 
fo. 
G. The ftates met. Is there a fingle 
boon they owe to your generofity? Your 
people pulled down the Baftille, or you 
would have iflued lettres de cachet againt 
their members. ~Your foldiers refufed 
their bayonets, or you would have over- 
awed their deliberations, and hare 
L. Not J, not J, ethers might wifh— 
C. Ina word, you found that public 
opinion, and confequently public force, 
was at the command of thefé national 
affemblies. ‘They raifed NECKER to the 
clouds when’you wanted to difmifs him} 
in order to fhew him independent of you.’ 
Reftored at their bidding, they ftffered 
him to refume his pompous importance. 
L. A curious proof of the caprice of 
popular aflemblies. ", 
C. The contftituting a popular affembly ! 
Yet De Retz faid to me, after the 4th 
Auguit, you fee all great bodies are 
populace; when they are not puppets.”’ 
L. Puppets!—are fenates ever fo? I 
feel that kings may— aa 
C. And fometimes, as in your cafe, 
fhould. Your wvetos,; when exerted at 
the requeft of a party, always drew at- 
tention, even after your captivation. 

