Judicial reform was only one aspect of the political instability of the mid-1780s. The seat of the problem lay at Versailles itself, in the ministerial upheavals and realignments that began in October 1783. In a sense, stability was never regained, since factional warfare on the conseil now became endemic. Most disturbing of all was the way in which these conflicts came to draw in the rest of the political nation – public opinion, finance, and the magistrature. The final crisis of the ancien régime hardly came unheralded.

The initial conflict at court in this period was between Vergennes and Miromesnil, and their opponents. The alliance of the queen's ministers and the société against the comité des finances emerged strengthened from the crisis of October 1783. Castries and Ségur remained in office, but d'Ormesson was replaced by Calonne, a candidate of the société. Finally, the ailing and mediocre Amelot was pushed out of the maison du roi in mid-November to make way for that long-standing rival of Vergennes, the baron de Breteuil, whose links with the queen and her société were well known.

The interest of the ministerial politics of these years lies in the way in which, from a very unpromising start, Vergennes gradually fought his enemies to a standstill. His ally Miromesnil had managed to beat off the attacks on his own position by mid-1784. Vergennes' contribution, the most crucial of all, was to detach Calonne from the opposition and turn him into an ally of the ruling faction. Calonne's adherence eventually brought with it, through a complex series of manoeuvres and financial transactions, that of most of the société de la reine.