Note 436 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY (continued 4)

Charles Alexandre de Calonne succeeded Necker as comptroller-general of finance in 1783. He was unable to reduce French finance to order, and in 1787 found it advisable to retire to England. In Sir Nathaniel Wraxhall’s Memoirs I find the following:—

“The tester of Calonne’s bed having fallen upon him during the night, together with a portion of the ceiling of the room, he narrowly escaped suffocation. All Paris, when the fact became known, exclaimed, ‘Juste ciel!’ The tester of a bed is denominated in French ‘le ciel du lit.’… With him may be said to have commenced the emigration (to England) which soon became so general.”