113.

Necker Reviews His Own Administration

The review I take of my past administration occasions, I confess, neither remorse nor repentance: possibly I may even find in it some actions the remembrance of which will shed a happy influence over the remainder of my days; possibly I may recall that, if it had not been for the revival and support of public confidence, the enemies of the king—who relied on the effects of the former disorder and low state of public credit in France—might have gained advantages that have escaped them; possibly I may think that if, in the first years of the war, I had been obliged to furnish the resources of a prudent government by taxes or rigorous operations, the poor would have been very unhappy, and the other classes of citizens would have taken alarm.

Yet, to balance these pleasing recollections, I shall always behold the empty shadow of the more lively and pure satisfactions that my administration was deprived of; I shall have always present to my mind those benefits of every kind which it would have been so easy to have effected if the fruits of so many solicitudes, instead of being appropriated solely to the extraordinary expenses of the State, could have been applied daily to augment the happiness and prosperity of the people.

Alas! what might not have been done under other circumstances! It wounds my heart to think of it! I labored during the storm; I put the ship, as it were, afloat again, and others enjoy the command of her in the days of peace! But such is the fate of men; that Providence which searches the human heart and finds even in the virtues on which we pride ourselves some motives which are not perhaps pure enough in its sight, takes a delight in disappointing the most pardonable of all passions, namely, that of the love of glory and of the good opinion of the public. . . .

I regret, and I have made no secret of it, that I was interrupted in the middle of my career, and that I was not able to finish what I had conceived for the good of the State and for the honor of the kingdom. I have not the hypocritical vanity to affect a deceitful serenity, which would be too nearly allied to indifference to deserve a place among the virtues. That moment will be long present to my mind when, some days after my resignation, being occupied in assorting and classifying my papers, I came across those that contained my various ideas for future reforms, and more especially the plans I had formed for ameliorating the salt tax, for the suppression of every customhouse in the interior parts of the kingdom, and for the extension of the provincial administrations:—I could proceed no farther, and pushing away all these notes by a kind of involuntary motion, I covered my face with my hands, and a flood of tears overpowered me.