Turgot conciliatoriness (_conciliabilite_), and M.de Maurepas soul enough to follow his lights." "M.

de Malesherbes," wrote Condorcet, "has, either from inclination or from default of mental rectitude, a bias towards eccentric and paradoxical ideas; he discovers in his mind numberless arguments for and against, but never discovers a single one to decide him.

In his private capacity he had employed his eloquence in proving to the king and the ministers that the good of the nation was the one thing needful to be thought of; when he became minister, he employed it in proving that this good was impossible." "I understand two things in the matter of war," said M.de St.Germain just before he became minister, "to obey and to command; but, if it comes to advising, I don't know anything about it." He was, indeed, a bad adviser; and with the best intentions he had no idea either how to command or how to make himself obeyed.

M.Turgot had correctly estimated the disorder of affairs, when he wrote to the king on the 30th of April, a fortnight before his disgrace: "Sir, the parliaments are already in better heart, more audacious, more implicated in the cabals of the court than they were in 1770, after twenty years of enterprise and success.

Minds are a thousand times more excited upon all sorts of matters, and your ministry is almost as divided and as feeble as that of your predecessor.