Chapter 1: 3.ii

Controller Calonne.

Under such circumstances of _tristesse_, obstruction and sick
langour, when to an exasperated Court it seems as if fiscal
genius had departed from among men, what apparition could be
welcomer than that of M. de Calonne? Calonne, a man of
indisputable genius; even fiscal genius, more or less; of
experience both in managing Finance and Parlements, for he has
been Intendant at Metz, at Lille; King’s Procureur at Douai. A
man of weight, connected with the moneyed classes; of unstained
name,—if it were not some peccadillo (of showing a Client’s
Letter) in that old D’Aiguillon-Lachalotais business, as good as
forgotten now. He has kinsmen of heavy purse, felt on the Stock
Exchange. Our Foulons, Berthiers intrigue for him:—old Foulon,
who has now nothing to do but intrigue; who is known and even
seen to be what they call a scoundrel; but of unmeasured wealth;
who, from Commissariat-clerk which he once was, may hope, some
think, if the game go right, to be Minister himself one day.

Such propping and backing has M. de Calonne; and then
intrinsically such qualities! Hope radiates from his face;
persuasion hangs on his tongue. For all straits he has present
remedy, and will make the world roll on wheels before him. On the
3d of November 1783, the Œil-de-Bœuf rejoices in its new
Controller-General. Calonne also shall have trial; Calonne also,
in his way, as Turgot and Necker had done in theirs, shall
forward the consummation; suffuse, with one other flush of
brilliancy, our now too leaden-coloured Era of Hope, and wind it
up—into fulfilment.

Great, in any case, is the felicity of the Œil-de-Bœuf.
Stinginess has fled from these royal abodes: suppression ceases;
your Besenval may go peaceably to sleep, sure that he shall awake
unplundered. Smiling Plenty, as if conjured by some enchanter,
has returned; scatters contentment from her new-flowing horn. And
mark what suavity of manners! A bland smile distinguishes our
Controller: to all men he listens with an air of interest, nay of
anticipation; makes their own wish clear to themselves, and
grants it; or at least, grants conditional promise of it. ‘I fear
this is a matter of difficulty,’ said her Majesty.—‘Madame,’
answered the Controller, ‘if it is but difficult, it is done, if
it is impossible, it shall be done (_se fera_).’ A man of such
“facility” withal. To observe him in the pleasure-vortex of
society, which none partakes of with more gusto, you might ask,
When does he work? And yet his work, as we see, is never
behindhand; above all, the fruit of his work: ready-money. Truly
a man of incredible facility; facile action, facile elocution,
facile thought: how, in mild suasion, philosophic depth sparkles
up from him, as mere wit and lambent sprightliness; and in her
Majesty’s Soirees, with the weight of a world lying on him, he is
the delight of men and women! By what magic does he accomplish
miracles? By the only true magic, that of genius. Men name him
“_the_ Minister;” as indeed, when was there another such? Crooked
things are become straight by him, rough places plain; and over
the Œil-de-Bœuf there rests an unspeakable sunshine.

Nay, in seriousness, let no man say that Calonne had not genius:
genius for Persuading; before all things, for Borrowing. With the
skilfulest judicious appliances of underhand money, he keeps the
Stock-Exchanges flourishing; so that Loan after Loan is filled up
as soon as opened. “Calculators likely to know”[51] have
calculated that he spent, in extraordinaries, “at the rate of one
million daily;” which indeed is some fifty thousand pounds
sterling: but did he not procure something with it; namely peace
and prosperity, for the time being? Philosophedom grumbles and
croaks; buys, as we said, 80,000 copies of Necker’s new Book: but
Nonpareil Calonne, in her Majesty’s Apartment, with the
glittering retinue of Dukes, Duchesses, and mere happy admiring
faces, can let Necker and Philosophedom croak.

The misery is, such a time cannot last! Squandering, and Payment
by Loan is no way to choke a Deficit. Neither is oil the
substance for quenching conflagrations;—but, only for assuaging
them, _not_ permanently! To the Nonpareil himself, who wanted not
insight, it is clear at intervals, and dimly certain at all
times, that his trade is by nature temporary, growing daily more
difficult; that changes incalculable lie at no great distance.
Apart from financial Deficit, the world is wholly in such a
new-fangled humour; all things working loose from their old
fastenings, towards new issues and combinations. There is not a
dwarf _jokei_, a cropt Brutus’-head, or Anglomaniac horseman
rising on his stirrups, that does not betoken change. But what
then? The day, in any case, passes pleasantly; for the morrow, if
the morrow come, there shall be counsel too. Once mounted (by
munificence, suasion, magic of genius) high enough in favour with
the Œil-de-Bœuf, with the King, Queen, Stock-Exchange, and so far
as possible with all men, a Nonpareil Controller may hope to go
careering through the Inevitable, in some unimagined way, as
handsomely as another.

At all events, for these three miraculous years, it has been
expedient heaped on expedient; till now, with such cumulation and
height, the pile topples perilous. And here has this
world’s-wonder of a Diamond Necklace brought it at last to the
clear verge of tumbling. Genius in that direction can no more:
mounted high enough, or not mounted, we must fare forth. Hardly
is poor Rohan, the Necklace-Cardinal, safely bestowed in the
Auvergne Mountains, Dame de Lamotte (unsafely) in the
Salpêtrière, and that mournful business hushed up, when our
sanguine Controller once more astonishes the world. An expedient,
unheard of for these hundred and sixty years, has been
propounded; and, by dint of suasion (for his light audacity, his
hope and eloquence are matchless) has been got
adopted,—_Convocation of the Notables._

Let notable persons, the actual or virtual rulers of their
districts, be summoned from all sides of France: let a true tale,
of his Majesty’s patriotic purposes and wretched pecuniary
impossibilities, be suasively told them; and then the question
put: What are we to do? Surely to adopt healing measures; such as
the magic of genius will unfold; such as, once sanctioned by
Notables, all Parlements and all men must, with more or less
reluctance, submit to.