Duke de Polignac demonstrates, to the complete silencing of ministerial logic, that his place cannot be abolished; then gallantly, turning to the Queen, surrenders it, since her Majesty so wishes.

Less chivalrous was Duke de Coigny, and yet not luckier: "We got into a real quarrel, Coigny and I," said King Louis; "but if he had even struck me, I could not have blamed him." (Besenval, iii.

255-58.) In regard to such matters there can be but one opinion.
Baron Besenval, with that frankness of speech which stamps the independent man, plainly assures her Majesty that it is frightful (affreux); "you go to bed, and are not sure but you shall rise impoverished on the morrow: one might as well be in Turkey." It is indeed a dog's life.
How singular this perpetual distress of the royal treasury! And yet it is a thing not more incredible than undeniable.

A thing mournfully true: the stumbling-block on which all Ministers successively stumble, and fall.

Be it 'want of fiscal genius,' or some far other want, there is the palpablest discrepancy between Revenue and Expenditure; a Deficit of the Revenue: you must 'choke (combler) the Deficit,' or else it will swallow you! This is the stern problem; hopeless seemingly as squaring of the circle.