with court ceremonial, remaining chiefly in her private apartments with her brother. It did not probably occur to her that, in omitting to invite the Duc d’Orléans to share this sisterly intercourse, she was inflicting a wound that would one day distil its deadly poison upon herself and those dearest to her. So it was, however. Philip never forgave what he considered a slight, and bitterly did he make the thoughtless young queen repent having inflicted it. The gardens of the Palais Royal, which had given rise to his first unpopularity, were destined to be the scene of the upheaving of the revolution. All was ready, only waiting for a bold hand to give a push to the pendulum and set it going. Camille Desmoulins did it. It was the 12th of July, 1789. Yesterday the great crisis had been prepared, and to-day it burst. Necker, the universal genius whose advent to the ministry was hailed as the panacea for all discords, and difficulties, and threatened dangers; Necker, the “Achilles of computation,” whose, vigorous hand and capacious brain were to seize France, tottering on the brink of some invisible gulf, and steady her; Necker, to whom the timid, apathetic king, and the proud, valiant queen, had all but gone on their knees to induce him to come and redeem the treasury by “swift arithmetic,” and save the government and—yes, even at this date they must have included it in the salvations to be accomplished by Necker—the throne; Necker, who had yielded to the royal suppliants with these words: “I yield in obedience to duty, but with the certainty that I am doomed”—Necker had been dismissed. On the 11th of July, Louis XVI. signed the letter imploring the minister to leave the kingdom “at once and without _éclat_.” When his secretary objected that Necker’s extraordinary popularity was a strong presumption against his obeying this last command; that he had only to show himself, and the people would rise _en masse_ to prevent his flight, Louis replied: “I know Necker; he will guard us against himself; he will obey me scrupulously, and fly without _éclat_.” And he was right. The minister received the letter at three in the afternoon, and quietly put it in his pocket without communicating its contents even to his wife; he dined at the usual hour with some friends already invited; nothing in his appearance or conversation betrayed the slightest emotion during the repast; on leaving the table, he showed the letter of dismissal to Mme. Necker, ordered his carriage, and they went out for a drive; when they were about two hundred yards from the house, he pulled the check-string, and desired the coachman to drive to the nearest post-station. It was not till the following morning that his daughter and his numerous friends knew of his departure. The news electrified everybody. Camille Desmoulins’ grand opportunity had arrived. He had already made himself notorious as a leader of malcontents; this afternoon he was drinking with a certain set of them in a _café_ at