cannot be distant.

Necker, in the National Assembly, is making moan, as usual about his
Deficit: Barriers and Customhouses burnt; the Tax-gatherer hunted, not
hunting; his Majesty's Exchequer all but empty. The remedy is a Loan of
thirty millions; then, on still more enticing terms, a Loan of eighty
millions: neither of which Loans, unhappily, will the Stockjobbers
venture to lend. The Stockjobber has no country, except his own black
pool of Agio.

And yet, in those days, for men that have a country, what a glow of
patriotism burns in many a heart; penetrating inwards to the very purse!
So early as the 7th of August, a Don Patriotique, 'a Patriotic Gift
of jewels to a considerable extent,' has been solemnly made by certain
Parisian women; and solemnly accepted, with honourable mention. Whom
forthwith all the world takes to imitating and emulating. Patriotic
Gifts, always with some heroic eloquence, which the President must
answer and the Assembly listen to, flow in from far and near: in such
number that the honourable mention can only be performed in 'lists
published at stated epochs.' Each gives what he can: the very
cordwainers have behaved munificently; one landed proprietor gives a
forest; fashionable society gives its shoebuckles, takes cheerfully to
shoe-ties. Unfortunate females give what they 'have amassed in loving.'
(Histoire Parlementaire, ii. 427.) The smell of all cash, as Vespasian
thought, is good.

Beautiful, and yet inadequate! The Clergy must be 'invited' to melt
their superfluous Church-plate,--in the Royal Mint. Nay finally, a
Patriotic Contribution, of the forcible sort, must be determined on,
though unwillingly: let the fourth part of your declared yearly revenue,