While admitting that the Queen gave no direct encouragement to any art but
that of music, I should be wrong to pass over in silence the patronage
conferred by her and the Princes, brothers of the King, on the art of
printing.

[In 1790 the King gave a proof of his particular good-will to the
bookselling trade. A company consisting of the first Parisian
booksellers, being on the eve of stopping payment, succeeded in laying
before the King a statement of their distressed situation. The monarch was
affected by it; he took from the civil list the sum of which the society
stood in immediate need, and became security for the repayment of the
remainder of the 1,200,000 livres, which they wanted to borrow, and for
the repayment of which he fixed no particular time.]

To Marie Antoinette we are indebted for a splendid quarto edition of the
works of Metastasio; to Monsieur, the King's brother, for a quarto Tasso,
embellished with engravings after Cochin; and to the Comte d'Artois for a
small collection of select works, which is considered one of the chef
d'oeuvres of the press of the celebrated Didot.

In 1775, on the death of the Marechal du Muy, the ascendency obtained by
the sect of innovators occasioned M. de Saint-Germain to be recalled to
Court and made Minister of War. His first care was the destruction of the
King's military household establishment, an imposing and effectual rampart
round the sovereign power.

When Chancellor Maupeou obtained from Louis XV. the destruction of the
Parliament and the exile of all the ancient magistrates, the Mousquetaires
were charged with the execution of the commission for this purpose; and at
the stroke of midnight, the presidents and members were all arrested, each