"I could offer the king only uprightness and good-heartedness," he said himself, "two qualities insufficient to make a minister, even a mediocre one." The courtiers, in fact, called him "good-heart" (_bonhomme_).

"M.

de Malesherbes has doubts about everything," wrote Madame du Deffand; "M.
Turgot has doubts about nothing." M.de Maurepas having, of set purpose, got up rather a serious quarrel with him, Malesherbes sent in his resignation to the king; the latter pressed him to withdraw it: the minister remained inflexible.

"You are better off than I," said Louis XVI.

at last, "you can abdicate." For a long while the king had remained faithful to M.Turgot.