Some measures of retrenchment which the Notables had recommended had been adopted; some reductions had been made in the royal households; some costly ceremonies had been abolished; and one or two imposts, which had pressed with great severity on the poorer classes, had been extinguished or modified.

And not only did M.Lamoignon, the Keeper of the Seals, in the speech in which he dismissed them, venture to affirm that these reductions would be found to have effected all that was needed to restore universal prosperity to the kingdom; but the President of the Assembly, in his reply, thanked God "for having caused him to be born in such an age, under such a government, and for having made him the subject of a king whom he was constrained to love," and the thanksgiving was re-echoed by the whole Assembly.

But this contentment did not last long.

The embarrassments of the Treasury were too serious to be dissipated by soft speeches.

The Notables were hardly dissolved before the archbishop proposed a new loan of an enormous amount; and, as he might have foreseen, their dissolution revived the pretensions of the Parliament.