With this complication of intentions, he had drawn up a report on the ordinary state of expenditure and receipts, designedly omitting the immense sacrifices demanded by the land and sea armaments as well as the advances made to the United States.

He thus arrived, by a process rather ingenious than honest, at the establishment of a budget showing a surplus of ten million livres.

The maliciousness of M.de Maurepas found a field for its exercise in the calculations which he had officially overhauled in council.

The Report was in a cover of blue marbled paper.

Have you read the _Conte bleu_ (a lying story) ?" he asked everybody who went to see him; and, when he was told of the great effect which M.Necker's work was producing on the public: "I know, I know," said the veteran minister, shrugging his shoulders, "we have fallen from Turgomancy into Necromancy." M.Necker had boldly defied the malevolence of his enemies.