permanence which distinguishes no devotion but that which is pure and noble, as he showed ten years later by the well-planned and courageous, though unsuccessful, efforts which he made for the deliverance of the queen and all her family. That Marie Antoinette, who from early youth had shown an intuitive accuracy of judgment in her estimate of character, should, from the very first, honorably distinguish a man capable of such devotion to her service was not unnatural; but there was another circumstance in his favor, which he shared with the other foreign nobles, English and German, who in these years were well received by the queen. Their disinterestedness presented a striking contrast to the rapacity of the French. Every French noble valued the court only for what he could obtain from it. Even Madame de Polignac, whom the queen specially honored with the title of her friend, exhibited an all-grasping covetousness, of which, with all her efforts to shut her eyes to it, Marie Antoinette could not be unconscious; and her perception of the difference between her French and her foreign courtiers was marked by herself in a few words, when the Comte de la Marck, who was himself of foreign extraction, ventured once to recommend to her greater caution in her display of liking for the foreign nobles, as what might excite the jealousy of the French;[8] and she replied that "he might be right, but the foreigners were the only people who asked her for nothing." Meanwhile, the war went on in America; the colonists themselves were making but little, if any, progress, and the French contingent were certainly reaping no honor, M. de La Fayette, the only officer who came in contact with a British force, showing no military skill or capacity, and not even much courage. But in the course of the spring France sustained a far heavier loss than even the defeat of an army could have inflicted on her, in the retirement of Necker from the ministry. As a statesman, he was certainly not entitled to any very high rank. He had neither extensive knowledge, nor large views, nor firmness; the only project of constitutional reform which he had brought forward had been but a mutilated and imperfect copy of the system devised by the original and statesman-like daring of Turgot. At a subsequent period he proved himself incapable of discerning the true character of the circumstances which surrounded him, and wholly ignorant of the feelings of the nation, and of the principles and objects of those who aspired to take a lead in its councils. But as yet his financial policy had undoubtedly been successful. He had greatly relieved the general distress, he had maintained the public credit, and he had inspired the nation with confidence in itself, and other countries also with confidence in its resources; but he had made many and powerful enemies by the retrenchments which had been a necessary part of his system. As early as the spring of 1780, Mercy had reported to