The people, indeed, regarded the young monarch as the “hope of the nation,” and named him “_Louis le Desire_,”—a testimony to the ardor with which they had looked forward to his accession. And it is probable that, had a more able pilot—“a king more a king” than that feeblest of monarchs, Louis XVI.—been called to the helm at that period, “the vessel of state might have been safely guided through the shoals and quicksands surrounding her, and escaped the eddies of that devastating whirlpool in which she was eventually engulfed.” Indeed, if sincerely wishing to see his people prosperous and happy could have made them so, France would have had no more beneficent ruler than Louis XVI. But his good wishes and intentions were rendered of no avail by his utter want of energy and ability to carry them out. Infirm of purpose at the first, he remained so to the end. The decree, “Let there be light,” unfortunately, never went forth to quicken his mental faculties. The queen, on the other hand, possessed all the courage and resolution of her imperial mother, Maria Theresa; and, had she been able to control affairs, the revolution would have been crushed in its infancy with an iron hand. Again, had the king been able to hold to his milder measures, to maintain on the following day that which he had declared the day before, it is possible that France might have passed quietly from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy. But the self-will and determination of the one, and the weakness and instability of the other, rendered a union of ideas impossible and the revolution inevitable. Little was known by the nation at large of the mental qualities of the young king. He was now in his twentieth year; and it had been noised among the people that he had inherited all the virtues of his father, “_Le Grand Dauphin_” to which were added the frugal tastes, the genial temper, and the air of _bonhomie_ to which the gallant Henry IV. owed so much of his popularity. “No wonder, then, that the accession of Louis XVI. was hailed throughout France with general delight, or that the enthusiastic people—their many expected reforms already conceded in imagination—should have written in conspicuous characters, ‘RESURREXIT,’ beneath the statue of the gallant Henry, whose jovial humor and pliant conscience enabled him to gratify his Catholic subjects with his presence at a _Te Deum_.” When the king made his public entry into the capital, the joyous demonstrations of the Parisians affected him deeply. “What have I done,” he exclaimed, “that they should love me so much?” Ah, Louis! you have as yet done nothing; but much, very much, is expected from you! But Louis XVI. possessed no energy; and the torpid action of his mind was but too plainly evinced by the sluggish inactivity of his heavy frame, as, stolid in his immense corpulence, he sat lolling in his chariot.