For the Nation (where Mirabeau is now, with stentor-lungs, 'denouncing Agio') the Controller has hitherto done nothing, or less.

For Philosophedom he has done as good as nothing,--sent out some scientific Laperouse, or the like: and is he not in 'angry correspondence' with its Necker?
The very Oeil-de-Boeuf looks questionable; a falling Controller has no friends.

Solid M.de Vergennes, who with his phlegmatic judicious punctuality might have kept down many things, died the very week before these sorrowful Notables met.

And now a Seal-keeper, Garde-des-Sceaux Miromenil is thought to be playing the traitor: spinning plots for Lomenie-Brienne! Queen's-Reader Abbe de Vermond, unloved individual, was Brienne's creature, the work of his hands from the first: it may be feared the backstairs passage is open, ground getting mined under our feet.

Treacherous Garde-des-Sceaux Miromenil, at least, should be dismissed; Lamoignon, the eloquent Notable, a stanch man, with connections, and even ideas, Parlement-President yet intent on reforming Parlements, were not he the right Keeper?
So, for one, thinks busy Besenval; and, at dinner-table, rounds the same into the Controller's ear,--who always, in the intervals of landlord-duties, listens to him as with charmed look, but answers nothing positive.