CHAPTER XVIII.
Peace is re-established .-- Embarrassments of the Ministry .-- Distress of the Kingdom .-- M.

de Calonne becomes Finance Minister .-- The Winter of 1783-'84 is very Severe .-- The Queen devotes Large Sums to Charity .-- Her Political Influence increases--Correspondence between the Emperor and her on European Politics .-- The State of France .-- The Baron de Breteuil .-- Her Description of the Character of the King.
The conclusion of peace between France and England was one of the earliest events of the year 1783, but it brought no strength to the ministry; or, rather, it placed its weakness in a more conspicuous light.

Maurepas had died at the end of 1781, and, since his death, the Count de Vergennes had been the chief adviser of the king; but his attention was almost exclusively directed to the conduct of the diplomacy of the kingdom, and to its foreign affairs, and he made no pretensions to financial knowledge.
Unluckily the professed ministers of finance, Joly de Fleury and his successor, D'Ormesson, were as ignorant of that great subject as himself, and, within two years after Necker's retirement, their mismanagement had brought the kingdom to the very verge of bankruptcy.

D'Ormesson was dismissed, and for many days it was anxiously deliberated in the palace by whom he should be replaced.

Some proposed that Necker should he recalled, but the king had felt himself personally offended by some circumstances which had attended the resignation of that minister two years before.