Indeed the time had now arrived when the upright character, financial skill, and approved ability of the Swiss adventurer, rendered him a personage whom the Government could not overlook. His disposition was so amiable that it inspired love and esteem in those who were best acquainted with him; while his generosity and munificence had fascinated the masses, and won him popular applause. Besides, his intellect had impressed itself on public feeling, and on the national mind. He enunciated the doctrine, not under all circumstances agreeable, that no new tax was lawful till all the resources of economy had been tried; and he held opinions in favor of retrenchment before the idea was in fashion with the multitude. Such a man was unquestionably of no small value in the administration of affairs. The finances were in all but hopeless disorder, and war was apparently approaching. Therefore, though he was, as a foreigner, distasteful to the nobles, and as a Protestant an object of aversion――not unmingled, perhaps, with dread――to the clergy, urgent necessity overbore considerations which might not have yielded to a less imperious monitor, and he was nominated Director-general of the Finances. To allay the foolish murmurs of the privileged classes, he was not admitted to a seat in the cabinet; and to the complaints of the clergy, who naturally remonstrated against a Protestant being intrusted with an office of such importance, the prime minister of the day used this very significant and conclusive argument: “I will give him up to you, if you will pay the debts of the State.” Having thus placed his foot on the ladder of power, Necker speedily made his influence beneficially felt. Various reforms, great and small, in the administration of the national finances, testified that a strong hand and a clear head were enlisted in the service of a country that much required them. He commenced his official career by prudently declining to receive the emoluments pertaining to the post he occupied, and forthwith signalized his accession to office by suppressing some six hundred places about the Court and Treasury. His early education had strongly impressed him in favor of free institutions; and his system of government was essentially popular. His plan was, to render as public as possible the national accounts and expenditure, and to form provincial assemblies, in which local affairs and taxation might be discussed and debated. His schemes, however, were not in any respect agreeable to the courtiers, and he was assailed by a continuous shower of pamphlets from the members of the Parliament of Paris. Under these untoward circumstances he deemed a place in the Council requisite, that he might be in a proper position to defend his measures when they were under the deliberation of that body. “What! you in the Council, and you do not go to mass!” exclaimed the First Minister of the Crown, with every feature of his countenance marked with surprise.