"I wish it to be known that I am satisfied with my comptroller-general," said Louis XVI.

with that easy confidence which he did not always place wisely.
When he returned from Cherbourg, at the end of June, 1786, M.de Calonne had at last arrived at the extremity of his financial expedients.

He set his views and his ideas higher.

Speculation was succeeded by policy.
"Sir," said the note handed to the king by the comptroller-general, "I will not go back to the fearful position in which the finances were when your Majesty deigned to intrust them to me.

It is impossible to recall without a shudder that there was at that time neither money nor credit, that the pressing debts were immense, the revenues exhausted in anticipation, the resources annihilated, the public securities valueless, the coinage impoverished and without circulation, the discount-fund bankrupt, the general tax-exchequer (_ferme general_) on the point of failing to meet its bills, and the royal treasury reduced to two bags of 1200 livres.