"The king," said Mme.

de Pompadour, "would sign away a million without thinking of it, but he would scarcely bestow a hundred louis out of his own little treasury."-- Louis XVI strives for some time to remove some of the wheels, to introduce better ones and to reduce the friction of the rest; but the pieces are too rusty, and too weighty.

He cannot adjust them, or harmonize them and keep them in their places; his hand falls by his side wearied and powerless.

He is content to practice economy himself; he records in his journal the mending of his watch, and leaves the State carriage in the hands of Calonne to be loaded with fresh abuses that it may revert back to the old rut from which it is to issue only by breaking down.
Undoubtedly the wrong they do, or which is done in their name, dissatisfies the kings and upsets them, but, at the bottom, their conscience is not disturbed.

They may feel compassion for the people, but they do not feel guilty; they are its sovereigns and not its representatives.