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days predicted of him, that he would lead
France to
accomplish great results, if he should ever become the director of the government.
1 At length he was raised to be first minister by a king who looked up to him with simple-minded deference and implicit trust.
The tenor of his mind was unchanged; but he was so enfeebled by long exclusion from public affairs and the heavy burden of years and infirmities, that no daring design could lure him from the love of quiet.
By habit he put aside all business which admitted of delay, and shunned every effort of heroic enterprise.
When the question of the alliance with
America became urgent, he shrunk from proposing new taxes, which the lately restored parliaments might refuse to register; and he gladly accepted the guarantee of Necker, that all war expenditures could be met by the use of credit, varied financial operations, and reforms.
It was only after the assurance of a sufficient supply of money from loans, of which the repayment would not disturb the remnant of his life, that he no longer attempted to stem the prevailing opinion of
Paris in favor of
America.
The same fondness for ease, after hostilities were begun, led him to protect Necker from the many enemies who, from hatred of his reforms, joined the clamor against him as a foreigner and a Calvinist.
The strength of the cabinet lay in Vergennes, whose superior statesmanship was yet not in itself sufficient to raise him above the care of maintaining himself in favor.
He secured the unfailing good-will of his sovereign by his political principles, recognising no authority of either clergy, or nobility, or third
