The reforms instituted by this minister evoked such violent opposition, even from the Parlement in defence of the odious abuse of the _corvée_ (forced labor on the highways), that the timid king dismissed him, in 1776. He was succeeded by the Genoese banker, Necker, who in his turn was obliged to resign, five years later, his intelligent efforts to redeem the hopeless confusion into which the finances had fallen serving only to increase the number of his enemies, amongst whom the Parlement was again to be found. The treaty of alliance with the revolted American colonies, signed February 6, 1778, was made the occasion of solemn warnings addressed to the king as to the dangerous encouragement he was thus giving the spirit of unrest and independence. The queen began to interest herself in the affairs of the government; at her advice, the direction of the finances was given to Calonne, in 1783, who in three years increased the debt by the sum of five hundred millions of borrowed money, and brought things to such a pass that he had no other resource to offer the distracted monarch but the discarded measures of his predecessor, Necker. The quarrels with the Parlement increased in frequency and bitterness; the king was guilty of irregularity in forcing the enregistering of certain edicts,--"it is legal because I wish it so," he said; Calonne was succeeded by Brienne for a year, and the latter by Necker again for the same length of time, but it was too late; the demands for the _États Généraux_, or even for an _Assemblée Nationale_, became more and more peremptory. Brienne was burned in effigy in the streets of Paris, as Calonne had been, and it was even intended to insult the queen in the same manner. She was called _Madame Déficit_, and, at the request of the lieutenant of police, the king promised to prevent her appearing in the capital. Finally, a decree of the _Conseil du Roi_, December 27, 1788, convoked the _États Généraux_ to meet at Versailles on the 1st of the following May, and the beginning of the end had come.