Nevertheless, when the latter fell, public opinion had become, if not hostile, at any rate indifferent to him; it still remained faithful to M.Necker.

Withdrawing his pretensions to admission into the council, the director-general of finance was very urgent to obtain other marks of the royal confidence, necessary, he said, to keep up the authority of his administration.
M.de Maurepas had no longer the pretext of religion, but he hit upon others which wounded M.Necker deeply; the latter wrote to the king on a small sheet of common paper, without heading or separate line, and as if he were suddenly resuming all the forms of republicanism: "The conversation I have had with M.de Maurepas permits me to no longer defer placing my resignation in the king's hands.

I feel my heart quite lacerated by it, and I dare to hope that his Majesty will deign to.
preserve some remembrance of five years' successful but painful toil, and especially of the boundless zeal with which I devoted myself to his service." [May 19, 1783.] M.Necker had been treated less harshly than M.Turgot.

The king accepted his resignation without having provoked it.

The queen made some efforts to retain him, but M.Necker remained inflexible.