CHAP. VI.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

213

Then it was that the council really met. Emissarieshad poisoned the popular mind during so many hoursnight and day, that they deprived the grand masterof the little authority still left to him. Huzzas,cries of rage and fear, and shots could be heard fromthe square in its front, ringing through the palaceeven so as to penetrate into the council chamber inits rear. “ Whether it be that the gunpowder wasspoiled, or that there were means used for its notbeing rendered effectual by being served out, it isequally certain there was treason; which is alsoproved by yonder man having been forced in uponus by a popular sedition, which has ruined our orderand Malta. They call him a grand cross, as he wasonce; but he has himself renounced our order, so is nomember of it, and vitiates this our, perhaps last, sitting.Yet I am far from voting him out.” u Ho,” thunderedBansjat. “ It is not the people that have ruinedour order; but itself, its own finances. Which ofyou is a better judge than I am, who have been yourMinister of Finance for twenty-one years ? In1788 the revenue of the order was above threemillions of francs, in net revenue, and its expensesabout two; leaving a clear gain of two hundredthousand. But from the year 1790, there has beena deficit every year, and since 1792, when theproperty in France, Germany, and Arragon, was