CHAPTER XXII.
Formidable Riots take place in some Provinces .-- The Archbishop invites Necker to join his Ministry .-- Letter of Marie Antoinette describing her Interview with the Archbishop, and her Views .-- Necker refuses .-- The Queen sends Messages to Necker .-- The Archbishop resigns, and Necker becomes Minister .-- The Queen's View of his Character .-- General Rejoicing .-- Defects in Necker's Character .-- He recalls the Parliament .-- Riots in Paris .-- Severe Winter .-- General Distress .-- Charities of the King and Queen .-- Gratitude of the Citizens .-- The Princes are concerned in the Libels published against the Queen .-- Preparations for the Meeting of the States- general .-- Long Disuse of that Assembly .-- Need of Reform .-- Vices Of the Old Feudal System .-- Necker's Blunders in the Arrangements for the Meeting of the States .-- An Edict of the King concedes the Chief Demands of the Commons .-- Views of the Queen.
The whole kingdom was thrown into great and dangerous excitement by these transactions.

Little as were the benefits which the people had ever derived from the conduct of the Parliament, their opposition to the archbishop, who had already had time to make himself generally hated and despised, caused the councilors to be very generally regarded as champions of liberty; and in the most distant provinces, in Bearn, in Isere, and in Brittany, public meetings (a thing hitherto unknown in the history of the nation) were held, remonstrances were drawn up, confederacies were formed, and oaths were administered by which those who took them bound themselves never to surrender what they affirmed to be the ancient privileges of the nation.
The archbishop became alarmed; a little, perhaps, for the nation and the king, but far more for his own place, which he had already contrived to render profitable to himself by the preferments which it had enabled him to engross.

And, in the hope of saving it, he now entreated Necker to join the Government, proposing to yield up the management of the finances to him, and to retain only the post of prime minister.
A letter from the queen to Mercy shows that she acquiesced in the scheme.
Her disapproval of Necker's past conduct was outweighed by her sense of the need which the State had of his financial talents; though, for reasons which she explains, she was unwilling wholly to sacrifice the archbishop; and the letter has a further interest as displaying some of the difficulties which arose from the peculiar disposition of the king, while every one was daily more and more learning to look upon her as the more important person in the Government.

On the 19th of August, 1783, she writes to Mercy,[1] whom the archbishop had employed as his agent to conciliate the stubborn Swiss Banker: "The archbishop came to me this morning, immediately after he had seen you, to report to me the conversation which he had had with you.

I spoke to him very frankly, and was touched by what he said.