His work was no sooner begun than it was prematurely cut short. A violent opposition party was at once formed, which comprised the court nobility, the upper clergy, the nobility of office, farmers of the _gabelle_ and other indirect taxes, judges in Parliament, masters of guilds and state officials--in a word, all those who made profit out of existing abuses, and whose special privileges were assailed. ‘Everybody fears,’ a friend of Turgot wrote to him, ‘either for himself, or for his brother, or for his friend.’ ♦Louis XVI.♦ Whether Turgot was to stand or fall depended entirely on the resolution of the King. Louis XVI. was well-intentioned, conscientious, and sincerely desirous of ruling for the good of his subjects, but he lacked the qualities which are requisite to a prince called on to govern at a great national crisis. He was without self-confidence, irresolute in action, and incapable of judging the real value of men, or of grasping the real bearing of events and measures. He could not even rule his own court. Simple in his tastes, and shy and reserved by disposition, his happiest hours were spent in the hunting field, or in the company of a blacksmith, mastering the art of making locks. It was no wonder that such a King should be driven to and fro between conflicting opinions, when those who surrounded his throne, and with whom he came in daily contact, accused his Minister of violence and injustice, and of entertaining projects destructive to monarchical government. ‘The King,’ said Turgot, ‘is above all, for the good of all.’ Louis could never rise to this conception of his position. Turgot would have made him ruler of men equal before the law, and in possession of equal rights as citizens. Desirous as Louis was to ease the lower classes of their burdens, he was never able to conceive of the noble as being on the same footing as the common man. ♦Marie Antoinette.♦ The only person in whom he reposed confidence was his wife, Marie Antoinette, a daughter of the Empress Maria Theresa, and with fatal weakness he often yielded to her desires in opposition to his own better judgment. She had been married to him while still a child, and left to grow up uninstructed and without guides in the corrupt atmosphere of the court of Versailles. At the age of nineteen, when she became Queen, she was a bright and vivacious, but ignorant and thoughtless woman, whose days were spent in a never ceasing round of formalities and dissipation. She employed her influence over her husband to obtain for her friends pensions and offices, without any sense of what was due to her position as Queen in the midst of a frivolous and intriguing court, or of what she owed to the starving and suffering masses who were deprived of their hard-won earnings for the enrichment of an idle and spendthrift nobility. When ministers sought to put a check on her extravagance, or in any way thwarted her inclinations, they provoked her resentment, dangerous in proportion to