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King, convened on the 22nd of February. The Minister, (Calonne) stated to them, that the annual excess of expenses beyond the re venue, when Louis XVI. came to the throne, was thirty-seven millions of livres ; that four hundred and forty millions had been borrowed to re-establish the navy ; that the American war had cost them fourteen hundred and forty millions, (two hundred and fifty- six millions of dollars) and that the interest of these sums, with other increased expenses, had added forty millions more to the annual deficit. (But a subsequent and more candid estimate made it fifty-six millions.) He proffered them an universal redress of grievances, laid open those grievances fully, pointed out sound remedies, and, covering his canvass with objects of mis magnitude, the deficit dwindled to a little accessory, scarcely attracting atten tion. The persons chosen, were the most able and independent characters in the kingdom, and their support, if it could be ob tained, would be enough for him. They improved the occasion for redressing their grievances, and agreed that the public wants should be relieved ; but went into an examination of the causes of them. It was supposed that Colonne was conscious that his ac counts could not bear examination ; and it was said, and believed, that he asked of the King, to send four members to the Bastile, of whom the Marquis de la Fayette was one, to banish twenty others, and two of his Ministers. The King found it shorter to banish him. His successor went on in full concert with the Assembly. The result was an augmentation of the revenue, a promise of economies in its expenditure, of an annual settlement of the pub lic accounts before a council, which the Comptroller, having been heretofore obliged to settle only with the King in person, of course never settled at all ; an acknowledgment that the King could not lay a new tax, a reformation of the Criminal laws, abolition of tor ture, suppression of corvees, reformation of the gabelles, removal of the interior Custom Houses, free commerce of grain, internal and external, and the establishment of Provincial Assemblies; which, altogether, constituted a great mass of improvement in the condition of the nation. The establishment of the Provincial As semblies was, in itself, a fundamental improvement. They would be of the choice of the people, one third renewed every year, in those provinces where there are no states, that is to say, over about three fourths of the kingdom. They would be partly an Executive themselves, and partly an Executive Council to the In- tendant, to whom the Executive power, in his province, had been heretofore entirely delegated. Chosen by the people, they would soften the execution of hard laws, and, having a right of represen- tation to the King, they would censure bad laws, suggest good ones, VOL. i. 8
