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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3
+by Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3
+       Being Secret Memoirs of Madame du Hausset, Lady's Maid to Madame de
+       Pompadour, and of an Unknown English Girl and The Princess Lamballe
+       
+
+Author: Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2004 [EBook #3878]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOUIS XV. AND XVI. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+MEMOIRS OF LOUIS XV. AND XVI.
+
+Being Secret Memoirs of Madame du Hausset,
+Lady's Maid to Madame de Pompadour,
+and of an unknown English Girl
+and the Princess Lamballe
+
+
+
+BOOK 3.
+
+
+SECRET COURT MEMOIRS OF LOUIS XVI. AND THE ROYAL FAMILY OF FRANCE
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+I should consider it great presumption to intrude upon the public
+anything respecting myself, were there any other way of establishing the
+authenticity of the facts and papers I am about to present.  To the
+history of my own peculiar situation, amid the great events I record,
+which made me the depositary of information and documents so important, I
+proceed, therefore, though reluctantly, without further preamble.
+
+I was for many years in the confidential service of the Princesse de
+Lamballe, and the most important materials which form my history have
+been derived not only from the conversations, but the private papers of
+my lamented patroness.  It remains for me to show how I became acquainted
+with Her Highness, and by what means the papers I allude to came into my
+possession.
+
+Though, from my birth, and the rank of those who were the cause of it
+(had it not been from political motives kept from my knowledge), in point
+of interest I ought to have been very independent, I was indebted for my
+resources in early life to His Grace the late Duke of Norfolk and Lady
+Mary Duncan.  By them I was placed for education in the Irish Convent,
+Rue du Bacq, Faubourg St. Germain, at Paris, where the immortal Sacchini,
+the instructor of the Queen, gave me lessons in music.  Pleased with my
+progress, the celebrated composer, when one day teaching Marie
+Antoinette, so highly overrated to that illustrious lady my infant
+natural talents and acquired science in his art, in the presence of her
+very shadow, the Princesse de Lamballe, as to excite in Her Majesty an
+eager desire for the opportunity of hearing me, which the Princess
+volunteered to obtain by going herself to the convent next morning with
+Sacchini.  It was enjoined upon the composer, as I afterwards learned,
+that he was neither to apprise me who Her Highness was, nor to what
+motive I was indebted for her visit.  To this Sacchini readily agreed,
+adding, after disclosing to them my connections and situation, "Your
+Majesty will be, perhaps, still more surprised, when I, as an Italian,
+and her German master, who is a German, declare that she speaks both
+these languages like a native, though born in England; and is as well
+disposed to the Catholic faith, and as well versed in it, as if she had
+been a member of that Church all her life."
+
+This last observation decided my future good fortune: there was no
+interest in the minds of the Queen and Princess paramount to that of
+making proselytes to their creed.
+
+The Princess, faithful to her promise, accompanied Sacchini.  Whether it
+was chance, ability, or good fortune, let me not attempt to conjecture;
+but from that moment I became the protege of this ever-regretted angel.
+Political circumstances presently facilitated her introduction of me to
+the Queen.  My combining a readiness in the Italian and German languages,
+with my knowledge of English and French, greatly promoted my power of
+being useful at that crisis, which, with some claims to their confidence
+of a higher order, made this august, lamented, injured pair more like
+mothers to me than mistresses, till we were parted by their murder.
+
+The circumstances I have just mentioned show that to mere curiosity, the
+characteristic passion of our sex and so often its ruin, I am to ascribe
+the introduction, which was only prevented by events unparalleled in
+history from proving the most fortunate in my life as it is the most
+cherished in my recollection.
+
+It will be seen, in the course of the following pages, how often I was
+employed on confidential missions, frequently by myself, and, in some
+instances, as the attendant of the Princess.  The nature of my situation,
+the trust reposed in me, the commissions with which I was honoured, and
+the affecting charges of which I was the bearer, flattered my pride and
+determined me to make myself an exception to the rule that "no woman can
+keep a secret."  Few ever knew exactly where I was, what I was doing, and
+much less the importance of my occupation.  I had passed from England to
+France, made two journeys to Italy and Germany, three to the Archduchess
+Maria Christiana, Governess of the Low Countries, and returned back to
+France, before any of my friends in England were aware of my retreat, or
+of my ever having accompanied the Princess.  Though my letters were
+written and dated at Paris, they were all forwarded to England by way of
+Holland or Germany, that no clue should be given for annoyances from idle
+curiosity.  It is to this discreetness, to this inviolable secrecy,
+firmness, and fidelity, which I so early in life displayed to the august
+personages who stood in need of such a person, that I owe the unlimited
+confidence of my illustrious benefactress, through which I was furnished
+with the valuable materials I am now submitting to the public.
+
+I was repeatedly a witness, by the side of the Princesse de Lamballe, of
+the appalling scenes of the bonnet rouge, of murders a la lanterne, and
+of numberless insults to the unfortunate Royal Family of Louis XVI., when
+the Queen was generally selected as the most marked victim of malicious
+indignity.  Having had the honour of so often beholding this much injured
+Queen, and never without remarking how amiable in her manners, how
+condescendingly kind in her deportment towards every one about her, how
+charitably generous, and withal, how beautiful she was,--I looked upon
+her as a model of perfection.  But when I found the public feeling so
+much at variance with my own, the difference became utterly
+unaccountable.  I longed for some explanation of the mystery.  One day I
+was insulted in the Tuileries, because I had alighted from my horse to
+walk there without wearing the national ribbon.  On this I met the
+Princess: the conversation which grew out of my adventure emboldened me
+to question her on a theme to me inexplicable.
+
+"What," asked I, "can it be which makes the people so outrageous against
+the Queen?"
+
+Her Highness condescended to reply in the complimentary terms which I am
+about to relate, but without answering my question.
+
+"My dear friend!" exclaimed she, "for from this moment I beg you will
+consider me in that light, never having been blessed with children of my
+own, I feel there is no way of acquitting myself of the obligations you
+have heaped upon me, by the fidelity with which you have executed the
+various commissions entrusted to your charge, but by adopting you as one
+of my own family.  I am satisfied with you, yes, highly satisfied with
+you, on the score of your religious principles; and as soon as the
+troubles subside, and we have a little calm after them, my father-in-law
+and myself will be present at the ceremony of your confirmation."
+
+The goodness of my benefactress silenced me gratitude would not allow me
+to persevere for the moment.  But from what I had already seen of Her
+Majesty the Queen, I was too much interested to lose sight of my
+object,--not, let me be believed, from idle womanish curiosity, but from
+that real, strong, personal interest which I, in common with all who ever
+had the honour of being in her presence, felt for that much-injured, most
+engaging sovereign.
+
+A propitious circumstance unexpectedly occurred, which gave me an
+opportunity, without any appearance of officious earnestness, to renew
+the attempt to gain the end I had in view.
+
+I was riding in the carriage with the Princesse de Lamballe, when a lady
+drove by, who saluted my benefactress with marked attention and respect.
+There was something in the manner of the Princess, after receiving the
+salute, which impelled me, spite of myself, to ask who the lady was.
+
+"Madame de Genlis," exclaimed Her Highness, with a shudder of disgust,
+"that lamb's face with a wolf's heart, and a fog's cunning."  Or, to
+quote her own Italian phrase which I have here translated, "colla faccia
+d'agnello, il cuore dun lupo, a la dritura della volpe."
+
+In the course of these pages the cause of this strong feeling against
+Madame de Genlis will be explained.  To dwell on it now would only turn
+me aside from my narrative.  To pursue my story, therefore:
+
+When we arrived at my lodgings (which were then, for private reasons, at
+the Irish Convent, where Sacchini and other masters attended to further
+me in the accomplishments of the fine arts), "Sing me something," said
+the Princess, "'Cantate mi qualche cosa', for I never see that woman"
+(meaning Madame de Genlis) "but I feel ill and out of humour.  I wish it
+may not be the foreboding of some great evil!"
+
+I sang a little rondo, in which Her Highness and the Queen always
+delighted, and which they would never set me free without making me sing,
+though I had given them twenty before it.
+
+[The rondo I allude to was written by Sarti for the celebrated Marches!
+Lungi da to ben mio, and is the same in which he was so successful in
+England, when he introduced it in London in the opera of Giulo Sabino.]
+
+Her Highness honoured me with even more than usual praise.  I kissed the
+hand which had so generously applauded my infant talents, and said, "Now,
+my dearest Princess, as you are so kind and good-humoured, tell me
+something about the Queen!"
+
+She looked at me with her eyes full of tears.  For an instant they stood
+in their sockets as if petrified: and then, after a pause, "I cannot,"
+answered she in Italian, as she usually did, "I cannot refuse you
+anything.  'Non posso neyarti niente'.  It would take me an age to tell
+you the many causes which have conspired against this much-injured Queen!
+I fear none who are near her person will escape the threatening storm
+that hovers over our heads.  The leading causes of the clamour against
+her have been, if you must know, Nature; her beauty; her power of
+pleasing; her birth; her rank; her marriage; the King himself; her
+mother; her imperfect education; and, above all, her unfortunate
+partialities for the Abbe Vermond; for the Duchesse de Polignac; for
+myself, perhaps; and last, but not least, the thorough, unsuspecting
+goodness of her heart!
+
+"But, since you seem to be so much concerned for her exalted, persecuted
+Majesty, you shall have a Journal I myself began on my first coming to
+France, and which I have continued ever since I have been honoured with
+the confidence of Her Majesty, in graciously giving me that unlooked-for
+situation at the head of her household, which honour and justice prevent
+my renouncing under any difficulties, and which I never will quit but
+with my life!"
+
+She wept as she spoke, and her last words were almost choked with sobs.
+
+Seeing her so much affected, I humbly begged pardon for having
+unintentionally caused her tears, and begged permission to accompany her
+to the Tuileries.
+
+"No," said she, "you have hitherto conducted yourself with a profound
+prudence, which has insured you my confidence.  Do not let your curiosity
+change your system.  You shall have the Journal.  But be careful.  Read
+it only by yourself, and do not show it to any one.  On these conditions
+you shall have it."
+
+I was in the act of promising, when Her Highness stopped me.
+
+"I want no particular promises.  I have sufficient proofs of your
+adherence to truth.  Only answer me simply in the affirmative."
+
+I said I would certainly obey her injunctions most religiously.
+
+She then left me, and directed that I should walk in a particular part of
+the private alleys of the Tuileries, between three and four o'clock in
+the afternoon.  I did so; and from her own hand I there received her
+private Journal.
+
+In the following September of this same year (1792) she was murdered!
+
+Journalising copiously, for the purpose of amassing authentic materials
+for the future historian, was always a favourite practice of the French,
+and seems to have been particularly in vogue in the age I mention.  The
+press has sent forth whole libraries of these records since the
+Revolution, and it is notorious that Louis XV. left Secret Memoirs,
+written by his own hand, of what passed before this convulsion; and had
+not the papers of the Tuileries shared in the wreck of royalty, it would
+have been seen that Louis XVI. had made some progress in the memoirs of
+his time; and even his beautiful and unfortunate Queen had herself made
+extensive notes and collections for the record of her own disastrous
+career.  Hence it must be obvious how one so nearly connected in
+situation and suffering with her much-injured mistress, as the Princesse
+de Lamballe, would naturally fall into a similar habit had she even no
+stronger temptation than fashion and example.  But self-communion, by
+means of the pen, is invariably the consolation of strong feeling, and
+reflecting minds under great calamities, especially when their
+intercourse with the world has been checked or poisoned by its malice.
+
+The editor of these pages herself fell into the habit of which she
+speaks; and it being usual with her benefactress to converse with all the
+unreserve which every honest mind shows when it feels it can confide, her
+humble attendant, not to lose facts of such importance, commonly made
+notes of what she heard.  In any other person's hands the Journal of the
+Princess would have been incomplete; especially as it was written in a
+rambling manner, and was never intended for publication.  But connected
+by her confidential conversations with me, and the recital of the events
+to which I personally bear testimony, I trust it will be found the basis
+of a satisfactory record, which I pledge myself to be a true one.
+
+I do not know, however, that, at my time of life, and after a lapse of
+thirty years, I should have been roused to the arrangement of the papers
+which I have combined to form this narrative, had I not met with the work
+of Madame Campan upon the same subject.
+
+This lady has said much that is true respecting the Queen; but she has
+omitted much, and much she has misrepresented: not, I dare say,
+purposely, but from ignorance, and being wrongly informed.  She was often
+absent from the service, and on such occasions must have been compelled
+to obtain her knowledge at second-hand.  She herself told me, in 1803, at
+Rouen, that at a very important epoch the peril of her life forced her
+from the seat of action.  With the Princesse de Lamballe, who was so much
+about the Queen, she never had any particular connexion.  The Princess
+certainly esteemed her for her devotedness to the Queen; but there was a
+natural reserve in the Princess's character, and a mistrust resulting
+from circumstances of all those who saw much company, as Madame Campan
+did.  Hence no intimacy was encouraged.  Madame Campan never came to the
+Princess without being sent for.
+
+An attempt has been made since the Revolution utterly to destroy faith in
+the alleged attachment of Madame Campan to the Queen, by the fact of her
+having received the daughters of many of the regicides for education into
+her establishment at Rouen.  Far be it from me to sanction so unjust a
+censure.  Although what I mention hurt her character very much in the
+estimation of her former friends, and constituted one of the grounds of
+the dissolution of her establishment at Rouen, on the restoration of the
+Bourbons, and may possibly in some degree have deprived her of such aids
+from their adherents as might have made her work unquestionable, yet what
+else, let me ask, could have been done by one dependent upon her
+exertions for support, and in the power of Napoleon's family and his
+emissaries?  On the contrary, I would give my public testimony in favour
+of the fidelity of her feelings, though in many instances I must withhold
+it from the fidelity of her narrative.  Her being utterly isolated from
+the illustrious individual nearest to the Queen must necessarily leave
+much to be desired in her record.  During the whole term of the Princesse
+de Lamballe's superintendence of the Queen's household, Madame Campan
+never had any special communication with my benefactress, excepting once,
+about the things which were to go to Brussels, before the journey to
+Varennes; and once again, relative to a person of the Queen's household,
+who had received the visits of Petion, the Mayor of Paris, at her private
+lodgings.  This last communication I myself particularly remember,
+because on that occasion the Princess, addressing me in her own native
+language, Madame Campan, observing it, considered me as an Italian, till,
+by a circumstance I shall presently relate, she was undeceived.
+
+I should anticipate the order of events, and incur the necessity of
+speaking twice of the same things, were I here to specify the express
+errors in the work of Madame Campan.  Suffice it now that I observe
+generally her want of knowledge of the Princesse de Lamballe; her
+omission of many of the most interesting circumstances of the Revolution;
+her silence upon important anecdotes of the King, the Queen, and several
+members of the first assembly; her mistakes concerning the Princesse de
+Lamballe's relations with the Duchesse de Polignac, Comte de Fersan,
+Mirabeau, the Cardinal de Rohan, and others; her great miscalculation of
+the time when the Queen's confidence in Barnave began, and when that of
+the Empress-mother in Rohan ended; her misrepresentation of particulars
+relating to Joseph II.; and her blunders concerning the affair of the
+necklace, and regarding the libel Madame Lamotte published in England,
+with the connivance of Calonne:--all these will be considered, with
+numberless other statements equally requiring correction in their turn.
+What she has omitted I trust I shall supply; and where she has gone
+astray I hope to set her right; that, between the two, the future
+biographer of my august benefactresses may be in no want of authentic
+materials to do full justice to their honoured memories.
+
+I said in a preceding paragraph that I should relate a circumstance about
+Madame Campan, which happened after she had taken me for an Italian and
+before she was aware of my being in the service of the Princess.
+
+Madame Campan, though she had seen me not only at the time I mention but
+before and after, had always passed me without notice.  One Sunday, when
+in the gallery of the Tuileries with Madame de Stael, the Queen, with her
+usual suite, of which Madame Campan formed one, was going, according to
+custom, to hear Mass, Her Majesty perceived me and most graciously
+addressed me in German.  Madame Campan appeared greatly surprised at
+this, but walked on and said nothing.  Ever afterwards, however, she
+treated me whenever we met with marked civility.
+
+Another edition of Boswell to those who got a nod from Dr. Johnson!
+
+The reader will find in the course of this work that on the 2nd of
+August, 1792, from the kindness and humanity of my, august
+benefactresses, I was compelled to accept a mission to Italy, devised
+merely to send me from the sanguinary scenes of which they foresaw they
+and theirs must presently become victims.  Early in the following month
+the Princesse de Lamballe was murdered.  As my history extends beyond the
+period I have mentioned, it is fitting I should explain the indisputable
+authorities whence I derived such particulars as I did not see.
+
+A person, high in the confidence of the Princess, through the means of
+the honest coachman of whom I shall have occasion to speak, supplied me
+with regular details of whatever took place, till she herself, with the
+rest of the ladies and other attendants, being separated from the Royal
+Family, was immured in the prison of La Force.  When I returned to Paris
+after this dire tempest, Madame Clery and her friend, Madame de Beaumont,
+a natural daughter of Louis XV., with Monsieur Chambon of Rheims, who
+never left Paris during the time, confirmed the correctness of my papers.
+The Madame Clery I mention is the same who assisted her husband in his
+faithful attendance upon the Royal Family in the Temple; and this
+exemplary man added his testimony to the rest, in the presence of the
+Duchesse de Guiche Grammont, at Pyrmont in Germany, when I there met him
+in the suite of the late sovereign of France, Louis XVIII., at a concert.
+After the 10th of August, I had also a continued correspondence: with
+many persons at Paris, who supplied me with thorough accounts of the
+succeeding horrors, in letters directed to Sir William Hamilton, at
+Naples, and by him forwarded to me.  And in addition to all these high
+sources, many particular circumstances: have been disclosed to me by
+individuals, whose authority, when I have used it, I have generally
+affixed to the facts they have enabled me to communicate.
+
+It now only remains for me to mention that I have endeavoured to arrange
+everything, derived either from the papers of the Princesse de Lamballe,
+or from her remarks, my own observation, or the intelligence of others,
+in chronological order.  It will readily be seen by the reader where the
+Princess herself speaks, as I have invariably set apart my own
+recollections and remarks in paragraphs and notes, which are not only
+indicated by the heading of each chapter, but by the context of the
+passages themselves.  I have also begun and ended what the Princess says
+with inverted commas.  All the earlier part, of the work preceding her
+personal introduction proceeds principally from her pen or her lips: I
+have done little more than change it from Italian into English, and
+embody thoughts and sentiments that were often disjointed and detached.
+And throughout, whether she or others speak, I may safely say this work
+will be found the most circumstantial, and assuredly the most authentic,
+upon the subject of which it treats, of all that have yet been presented
+to the public of Great Britain.  The press has been prolific in fabulous
+writings upon these times, which have been devoured with avidity.  I hope
+John Bull is not so devoted to gilded foreign fictions as to spurn the
+unadorned truth from one of his downright countrywomen: and let me advise
+him en passant, not to treat us beauties of native growth with
+indifference at home; for we readily find compensation in the regard,
+patronage, and admiration of every nation in Europe.  I am old now, and
+may speak freely.
+
+I have no interest whatever in the work I submit but that of endeavouring
+to redeem the character of so many injured victims.  Would to Heaven my
+memory were less acute, and that I could obliterate from the knowledge of
+the world and posterity the names of their infamous destroyers; I mean,
+not the executioners who terminated their mortal existence for in their
+miserable situation that early martyrdom was an act of grace--but I mean
+some, perhaps still living, who with foul cowardice, stabbing like
+assassins in the dark, undermined their fair fame, and morally murdered
+them, long before their deaths, by daily traducing virtues the slanderers
+never possessed, from mere jealousy of the glory they knew themselves
+incapable of deserving.
+
+Montesquieu says, "If there be a God, He must be just!"  That divine
+justice, after centuries, has been fully established on the descendants
+of the cruel, sanguinary conquerers of South America and its butchered
+harmless Emperor Montezuma and his innocent offspring, who are now
+teaching Spain a moral lesson in freeing themselves from its insatiable
+thirst for blood and wealth, while God Himself has refused that blessing
+to the Spaniards which they denied to the Americans!  Oh, France!  what
+hast thou not already suffered, and what hast thou not yet to suffer,
+when to thee, like Spain, it shall visit their descendants even unto the
+fourth generation?
+
+To my insignificant losses in so mighty a ruin perhaps I ought not to
+allude.  I should not presume even to mention that fatal convulsion which
+shook all Europe and has since left the nations in that state of agitated
+undulation which succeeds a tempest upon the ocean, were it not for the
+opportunity it gives me to declare the bounty of my benefactresses.  All
+my own property went down in the wreck; and the mariner who escapes only
+with his life can never recur to the scene of his escape without a
+shudder.  Many persons are still living, of the first respectability, who
+well remember my quitting this country, though very young, on the budding
+of a brilliant career.  Had those prospects been followed up they would
+have placed me beyond the caprice of fickle fortune.  But the dazzling
+lustre of crown favours and princely patronage outweighed the slow,
+though more solid hopes of self-achieved independence.  I certainly was
+then almost a child, and my vanity, perhaps, of the honour of being
+useful to two such illustrious personages got the better of every other
+sentiment.  But now when I reflect, I look back with consternation on the
+many risks I ran, on the many times I stared death in the face with no
+fear but that of being obstructed in my efforts to serve, even with my
+life, the interests dearest to my heart--that of implicit obedience to
+these truly benevolent and generous Princesses, who only wanted the means
+to render me as happy and independent as their cruel destiny has since
+made me wretched and miserable!  Had not death deprived me of their
+patronage I should have had no reason to regret any sacrifice I could
+have made for them, for through the Princess, Her Majesty, unasked, had
+done me the honour to promise me the reversion of a most lucrative as
+well as highly respectable post in her employ.  In these august
+personages I lost my best friends; I lost everything--except the tears,
+which bathe the paper as I write tears of gratitude, which will never
+cease to flow to the memory of their martyrdom.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+JOURNAL COMMNENCED:
+
+"The character of Maria Theresa, the Empress-mother of Marie Antoinette,
+is sufficiently known.  The same spirit of ambition and enterprise which
+had already animated her contentions with France in the latter part of
+her career impelled her to wish for its alliance.  In addition to other
+hopes she had been encouraged to imagine that LOUIS XV. might one day aid
+her in recovering the provinces which the King of Prussia had violently
+wrested from her ancient dominions.  She felt the many advantages to be
+derived from a union with her ancient enemy, and she looked for its
+accomplishment by the marriage of her daughter.
+
+"Policy, in sovereigns, is paramount to every other consideration.  They
+regard beauty as a source of profit, like managers of theatres, who, when
+a female candidate is offered, ask whether she is young and
+handsome,--not whether she has talent.  Maria Theresa believed that her
+daughter's beauty would prove more powerful over France than her own
+armies.  Like Catharine II., her envied contemporary, she consulted no
+ties of nature in the disposal of her children,--a system more in
+character where the knout is the logician than among nations boasting
+higher civilization: indeed her rivalry with Catharine even made her
+grossly neglect their education.  Jealous of the rising power of the
+North, she saw that it was the purpose of Russia to counteract her views
+in Poland and Turkey through France, and so totally forgot her domestic
+duties in the desire to thwart the ascendency of Catharine that she often
+suffered eight or ten days to go by without even seeing her children,
+allowing even the essential sources of instruction to remain unprovided.
+Her very caresses were scarcely given but for display, when the children
+were admitted to be shown to some great personage; and if they were
+overwhelmed with kindness, it was merely to excite a belief that they
+were the constant care and companions of her leisure hours.  When they
+grew up they became the mere instruments of her ambition.  The fate of
+one of them will show how their mother's worldliness was rewarded.
+
+"A leading object of Maria Theresa's policy was the attainment of
+influence over Italy.  For this purpose she first married one of the
+Archduchesses to the imbecile Duke of Parma.  Her second manoeuvre was to
+contrive that Charles III.  should seek the Archduchess Josepha for his
+younger son, the King of Naples.  When everything had been settled, and
+the ceremony by proxy had taken place, it was thought proper to sound the
+Princess as to how far she felt inclined to aid her mother's designs in
+the Court of Naples.  'Scripture says,' was her reply, 'that when a woman
+is married she belongs to the country of her husband.'
+
+"'But the policy of State?' exclaimed Maria Theresa.
+
+"'Is that above religion?' cried the Princess.
+
+"This unexpected answer of the Archduchess was so totally opposite to the
+views of the Empress that she was for a considerable time undecided
+whether she would allow her daughter to depart, till, worn out by
+perplexities, she at last consented, but bade the Archduchess, previous
+to setting off for this much desired country of her new husband, to go
+down to the tombs, and in the vaults of her ancestors offer up to Heaven
+a fervent prayer for the departed souls of those she was about to leave.
+
+"Only a few days before that a Princess had been buried in the vaults--I
+think Joseph the Second's second wife, who had died of the small-pox.
+
+"The Archduchess Josepha obeyed her Imperial mother's cruel commands,
+took leave of all her friends and relatives, as if conscious of the
+result, caught the same disease, and in a few days died!
+
+"The Archduchess Carolina was now tutored to become her sister's
+substitute, and when deemed adequately qualified was sent to Naples,
+where she certainly never forgot she was an Austrian nor the interest of
+the Court of Vienna.  One circumstance concerning her and her mother
+fully illustrates the character of both.  On the marriage, the
+Archduchess found that Spanish etiquette did not allow the Queen to have
+the honour of dining at the same table as the King.  She apprised her
+mother.  Maria Theresa instantly wrote to the Marchese Tenucei, then
+Prime Minister at the Court of Naples, to say that, if her daughter, now
+Queen of Naples, was to be considered less than the King her husband, she
+would send an army to fetch her back to Vienna, and the King might
+purchase a Georgian slave, for an Austrian Princess should not be thus
+humbled.  Maria Theresa need not have given herself all this trouble, for
+before, the letter arrived the Queen of Naples had dismissed all the
+Ministry, upset the Cabinet of Naples, and turned out even the King
+himself from her bedchamber!  So much for the overthrow of Spanish
+etiquette by Austrian policy.  The King of Spain became outrageous at the
+influence of Maria Theresa, but there was no alternative.
+
+"The other daughter of the Empress was married, as I have observed
+already, to the Duke of Parma for the purpose of promoting the Austrian
+strength in Italy against that of France, to which the Court of, Parma,
+as well as that of Modena, had been long attached.
+
+"The fourth Archduchess, Marie Antoinette, being the youngest and most
+beautiful of the family, was destined for France.  There were three older
+than Marie Antoinette; but she, being much lovelier than her sisters, was
+selected on account of her charms.  Her husband was never considered by
+the contrivers of the scheme: he was known to have no sway whatever, not
+even in the choice of his own wife!  But the character of Louis XV.  was
+recollected, and calculations drawn from it, upon the probable power
+which youth and beauty might obtain over such a King and Court.
+
+"It was during the time when Madame de Pompadour directed, not only the
+King, but all France with most despotic sway, that the union of the
+Archduchess Marie Antoinette with the grandson of Louis XV.  was
+proposed.  The plan received the warmest support of Choiseul, then
+Minister, and the ardent co-operation of Pompadour.  Indeed it was to
+her, the Duc de Choiseul, and the Comte de Mercy, the whole affair may be
+ascribed.  So highly was she flattered by the attention with which Maria
+Theresa distinguished her, in consequence of her zeal, by presents and by
+the title 'dear cousin,' which she used in writing to her, that she left
+no stone unturned till the proxy of the Dauphin was sent to Vienna, to
+marry Marie Antoinette in his name.
+
+"All the interest by which this union was supported could not, however,
+subdue a prejudice against it, not only among many of the Court, the
+Cabinet, and the nation, but in the Royal Family itself.  France has
+never looked with complacency upon alliances with the House of Austria:
+enemies to this one avowed themselves as soon as it was declared.  The
+daughters of Louis XV. openly expressed their aversion; but the stronger
+influence prevailed, and Marie Antoinette became the Dauphine.
+
+"Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, and afterwards of Sens, suggested the
+appointment of the Librarian of the College des Quatre Nations, the Abbe
+Vermond, as instructor to the Dauphine in French.  The Abbe Vermond was
+accordingly despatched by Louis XV. to Vienna.  The consequences of this
+appointment will be seen in the sequel.  Perhaps not the least fatal of
+them arose from his gratitude to the Archbishop, who recommended him.
+Some years afterwards, in influencing his pupil, when Queen, to help
+Brienne to the Ministry, he did her and her kingdom more injury than
+their worst foes.  Of the Abbe's power over Marie Antoinette there are
+various opinions; of his capacity there is but one--he was superficial
+and cunning.  On his arrival at Vienna he became the tool of Maria
+Theresa.  While there, he received a salary as the daughter's tutor, and
+when he returned to France, a much larger one as the mother's spy. He was
+more ambitious to be thought a great man, in his power over his pupil,
+than a rich one.  He was too Jesuitical to wish to be deemed rich. He
+knew that superfluous emoluments would soon have overthrown the authority
+he derived from conferring, rather than receiving favours; and hence he
+never soared to any higher post.  He was generally considered to be
+disinterested.  How far his private fortunes benefited by his station has
+never appeared; nor is it known whether, by the elevation of his friend
+and patron to the Ministry in the time of Louis XVI., he gained anything
+beyond the gratification of vanity, from having been the cause: it is
+probable he did not, for if he had, from the general odium against that
+promotion, no doubt it would have been exposed, unless the influence of
+the Queen was his protection, as it proved in so many cases where he
+grossly erred.  From the first he was an evil to Marie Antoinette; and
+ultimately habit rendered him a necessary evil.
+
+"The education of the Dauphine was circumscribed; though very free in her
+manners, she was very deficient in other respects; and hence it was she
+so much avoided all society of females who were better informed than
+herself, courting in preference the lively tittle-tattle of the other
+sex, who were, in turn, better pleased with the gaieties of youth and
+beauty than the more substantial logical witticisms of antiquated
+Court-dowagers.  To this may be ascribed her ungovernable passion for
+great societies, balls, masquerades, and all kinds of public and private
+amusements, as well as her subsequent attachment to the Duchesse de
+Polignac, who so much encouraged them for the pastime of her friend and
+sovereign.  Though naturally averse to everything requiring study or
+application, Marie Antoinette was very assiduous in preparing herself for
+the parts she performed in the various comedies, farces, and cantatas
+given at her private theatre; and their acquirement seemed to cost her no
+trouble.  These innocent diversions became a source of calumny against
+her; yet they formed almost the only part of her German education, about
+which Maria Theresa had been particular: the Empress-mother deemed them
+so valuable to her children that she ordered the celebrated Metastasio to
+write some of his most sublime cantatas for the evening recreations of
+her sisters and herself.  And what can more conduce to elegant literary
+knowledge, or be less dangerous to the morals of the young, than domestic
+recitation of the finest flights of the intellect?  Certain it is that
+Marie Antoinette never forgot her idolatry of her master Metastasio; and
+it would have been well for her had all concerned in her education done
+her equal justice.  The Abbe Vermond encouraged these studies; and the
+King himself afterwards sanctioned the translation of the works of his
+Queen's revered instructor, and their publication at her own expense, in
+a superb edition, that she might gratify her fondness the more
+conveniently by reciting them in French.  When Marie Antoinette herself
+became a mother, and oppressed from the change of circumstances, she
+regretted much that she had not in early life cultivated her mind more
+extensively.  'What a resource,' would she exclaim, is a mind well stored
+against human casualties!' She determined to avoid in her own offspring
+the error, of which she felt herself the victim, committed by her
+Imperial mother, for whose fault, though she suffered, she would invent
+excuses.  'The Empress,' she would say, was left a young widow with ten
+or twelve children; she had been accustomed, even during the Emperor's
+life, to head her vast empire, and she thought it would be unjust to
+sacrifice to her own children the welfare of the numerous family which
+afterwards devolved upon her exclusive government and protection.'
+
+"Most unfortunately for Marie Antoinette, her great supporter, Madame de
+Pompadour, died before the Archduchess came to France.  The pilot who was
+to steer the young mariner safe into port was no more, when she arrived
+at it.  The Austrian interest had sunk with its patroness.  The
+intriguers of the Court no sooner saw the King without an avowed
+favourite than they sought to give him one who should further their own
+views and crush the Choiseul party, which had been sustained by
+Pompadour.  The licentious Duc de Richelieu was the pander on this
+occasion.  The low, vulgar Du Barry was by him introduced to the King,
+and Richelieu had the honour of enthroning a successor to Pompadour, and
+supplying Louis XV. with the last of his mistresses.  Madame de Grammont,
+who had been the royal confidante during the interregnum, gave up to the
+rising star.  The effect of a new power was presently seen in new events.
+All the Ministers known to be attached to the Austrian interest were
+dismissed; and the time for the arrival of the young bride, the
+Archduchess of Austria, who was about to be installed Dauphine of France,
+was at hand, and she came to meet scarcely a friend, and many foes--of
+whom even her beauty, her gentleness, and her simplicity, were doomed to
+swell the phalanx."
+
+
+
+
+SECTION III.
+
+
+"On the marriage night, Louis XV. said gaily to the Dauphin, who was
+supping with his usual heartiness, 'Don't overcharge your stomach
+to-night'
+
+"'Why, I always sleep best after a hearty supper,' replied the Dauphin,
+with the greatest coolness.
+
+"The supper being ended, he accompanied his Dauphine to her chamber, and
+at the door, with the greatest politeness, wished her a good night.  Next
+morning, upon his saying, when he met her at breakfast, that he hoped she
+had slept well, Marie Antoinette replied, 'Excellently well, for I had no
+one to disturb me!'
+
+"The Princesse de Guemenee, who was then at the head of the household, on
+hearing the Dauphine moving very early in her apartment, ventured to
+enter it, and, not seeing the Dauphin, exclaimed, 'Bless me! he is risen
+as usual!'--'Whom do you mean?' asked Marie Antoinette.  The Princess
+misconstruing the interrogation, was going to retire, when the Dauphine
+said, 'I have heard a great deal of French politeness, but I think I am
+married to the most polite of the nation!'--'What, then, he is
+risen?'--'No, no, no!' exclaimed the Dauphine, 'there has been no rising;
+he has never lain down here.  He left me at the door of my apartment with
+his hat in his hand, and hastened from me as if embarrassed with my
+person!'
+
+"After Marie Antoinette became a mother she would often laugh and tell
+Louis XVI.  of his bridal politeness, and ask him if in the interim
+between that and the consummation he had studied his maiden aunts or his
+tutor on the subject.  On this he would laugh most excessively.
+
+"Scarcely was Marie Antoinette seated in her new country before the
+virulence of Court intrigue against her became active.  She was beset on
+all sides by enemies open and concealed, who never slackened their
+persecutions.  All the family of Louis XV., consisting of those maiden
+aunts of the Dauphin just adverted to (among whom Madame Adelaide was
+specially implacable), were incensed at the marriage, not only from their
+hatred to Austria, but because it had accomplished the ambition of an
+obnoxious favourite to give a wife to the Dauphin of their kingdom.  On
+the credulous and timid mind of the Prince, then in the leading strings
+of this pious sisterhood, they impressed the misfortunes to his country
+and to the interest of the Bourbon family, which must spring from the
+Austrian influence through the medium of his bride.  No means were left
+unessayed to steel him against her sway.  I remember once to have heard
+Her Majesty remark to Louis XVI., in answer to some particular
+observations he made, 'These, Sire, are the sentiments of our aunts, I am
+sure.'  And, indeed, great must have been their ascendency over him in
+youth, for up to a late date he entertained a very high respect for their
+capacity and judgment.  Great indeed must it have been to have prevailed
+against all the seducing allurements of a beautiful and fascinating young
+bride, whose amiableness, vivacity, and wit became the universal
+admiration, and whose graceful manner of address few ever equalled and
+none ever surpassed; nay, even so to have prevailed as to form one of the
+great sources of his aversion to consummate the marriage!  Since the
+death of the late Queen, their mother, these four Princesses (who, it was
+said, if old maids, were not so from choice) had received and performed
+the exclusive honours of the Court.  It could not have diminished their
+dislike for the young and lovely new-comer to see themselves under the
+necessity of abandoning their dignities and giving up their station.  So
+eager were they to contrive themes of complaint against her, that when
+she visited them in the simple attire in which she so much delighted,
+'sans ceremonie', unaccompanied by a troop of horse and a squadron of
+footguards, they complained to their father, who hinted to Marie
+Antoinette that such a relaxation of the royal dignity would be attended
+with considerable injury to French manufactures, to trade, and to the
+respect due to her rank.  'My State and Court dresses,' replied she,
+'shall not be less brilliant than those of any former Dauphine or Queen
+of France, if such be the pleasure of the King,--but to my grandpapa I
+appeal for some indulgence with respect to my undress private costume of
+the morning.
+
+"It was dangerous for one in whose conduct so many prying eyes were
+seeking for sources of accusation to gratify herself even by the
+overthrow of an absurdity, when that overthrow might incur the stigma of
+innovation.  The Court of Versailles was jealous of its Spanish
+inquisitorial etiquette.  It had been strictly wedded to its pageantries
+since the time of the great Anne of Austria.  The sagacious and prudent
+provisions of this illustrious contriver were deemed the ne plus ultra of
+royal female policy.  A cargo of whalebone was yearly obtained by her to
+construct such stays for the Maids of Honour as might adequately conceal
+the Court accidents which generally--poor ladies!--befell them in
+rotation every nine months.
+
+"But Marie Antoinette could not sacrifice her predilection for a
+simplicity quite English, to prudential considerations.  Indeed, she was
+too young to conceive it even desirable.  So much did she delight in
+being unshackled by finery that she would hurry from Court to fling off
+her royal robes and ornaments, exclaiming, when freed from them, 'Thank
+Heaven, I am out of harness!'
+
+"But she had natural advantages, which gave her enemies a pretext for
+ascribing this antipathy to the established fashion to mere vanity.  It
+is not impossible that she might have derived some pleasure from
+displaying a figure so beautiful, with no adornment except its native
+gracefulness; but how great must have been the chagrin of the Princesses,
+of many of the Court ladies, indeed, of all in any way ungainly or
+deformed, when called to exhibit themselves by the side of a bewitching
+person like hers, unaided by the whalebone and horse-hair paddings with
+which they had hitherto been made up, and which placed the best form on a
+level with the worst?  The prudes who practised illicitly, and felt the
+convenience of a guise which so well concealed the effect of their
+frailties, were neither the least formidable nor the least numerous of
+the enemies created by this revolution of costume; and the Dauphine was
+voted by common consent--for what greater crime could there be in
+France?--the heretic Martin Luther of female fashions!  The four
+Princesses, her aunts, were as bitter against the disrespect with which
+the Dauphine treated the armour, which they called dress, as if they
+themselves had benefited by the immunities it could, confer.
+
+"Indeed, most of the old Court ladies embattled themselves against Marie
+Antoinette's encroachments upon their habits.  The leader of them was a
+real medallion, whose costume, character, and notions spoke a genealogy
+perfectly antediluvian; who even to the latter days of Louis XV., amid a
+Court so irregular, persisted in her precision.  So systematic a
+supporter of the antique could be no other than the declared foe of any
+change, and, of course, deemed the desertion of large sack gowns,
+monstrous Court hoops, and the old notions of appendages attached to
+them, for tight waists and short petticoats, an awful demonstration of
+the depravity of the time!--[The editor needs scarcely add, that the
+allusion of the Princess is to Madame de Noailles.]
+
+"This lady had been first lady to the sole Queen of Louis XV.  She was
+retained in the same station for Marie Antoinette.  Her motions were
+regulated like clock-work.  So methodical was she in all her operations
+of mind and body, that, from the beginning of the year to its end, she
+never deviated a moment.  Every hour had its peculiar occupation.  Her
+element was etiquette, but the etiquette of ages before the flood.  She
+had her rules even for the width of petticoats, that the Queens and
+Princesses might have no temptation to straddle over a rivulet, or
+crossing, of unroyal size.
+
+"The Queen of Louis XV.  having been totally subservient in her movements
+night and day to the wishes of the Comtesse de Noailles, it will be
+readily conceived how great a shock this lady must have sustained on
+being informed one morning that the Dauphine had actually risen in the
+night, and her ladyship not by to witness a ceremony from which most
+ladies would have felt no little pleasure in being spared, but which, on
+this occasion, admitted of no delay!  Notwithstanding the Dauphine
+excused herself by the assurance of the urgency allowing no time to call
+the Countess, she nearly fainted at not having been present at that,
+which others sometimes faint at, if too near!  This unaccustomed
+watchfulness so annoyed Marie Antoinette, that, determined to laugh her
+out of it, she ordered an immense bottle of hartshorn to be placed upon
+her toilet.  Being asked what use was to be made of the hartshorn, she
+said it was to prevent her first Lady of Honour from falling into
+hysterics when the calls of nature were uncivil enough to exclude her
+from being of the party.  This, as may be presumed, had its desired
+effect, and Marie Antoinette was ever afterwards allowed free access at
+least to one of her apartments, and leave to perform that in private
+which few individuals except Princesses do with parade and publicity.
+
+"These things, however, planted the seeds of rancour against Marie
+Antoinette, which Madame de Noailles carried with her to the grave. It
+will be seen that she declared against her at a crisis of great
+importance.  The laughable title of Madame Etiquette, which the Dauphine
+gave her, clung to her through life; though conferred only in merriment,
+it never was forgiven.
+
+"The Dauphine seemed to be under a sort of fatality with regard to all
+those who had any power of doing her mischief either with her husband or
+the Court.  The Duc de Vauguyon, the Dauphin's tutor, who both from
+principle and interest hated everything Austrian, and anything whatever
+which threatened to lessen his despotic influence so long exercised over
+the mind of his pupil, which he foresaw would be endangered were the
+Prince once out of his leading-strings and swayed by a young wife, made
+use of all the influence which old courtiers can command over the minds
+they have formed (more generally for their own ends than those of
+uprightness) to poison that of the young Prince against his bride.
+
+"Never were there more intrigues among the female slaves in the Seraglio
+of Constantinople for the Grand Signior's handkerchief than were
+continually harassing one party against the other at the Court of
+Versailles.  The Dauphine was even attacked through her own tutor, the
+Abbe Vermond.  A cabal was got up between the Abbe and Madame Marsan,
+instructress of the sisters of Louis XVI. (the Princesses Clotilde and
+Elizabeth) upon the subject of education.  Nothing grew out of this
+affair excepting a new stimulus to the party spirit against the Austrian
+influence, or, in other words, the Austrian Princess; and such was
+probably its purpose.  Of course every trifle becomes Court tattle.  This
+was made a mighty business of, for want of a worse.  The royal aunts
+naturally took the part of Madame Marsan.  They maintained that their
+royal nieces, the French Princesses, were much better educated than the
+German Archduchesses had been by the Austrian Empress.  They attempted to
+found their assertion upon the embonpoint of the French Princesses.  They
+said that their nieces, by the exercise of religious principles, obtained
+the advantage of solid flesh, while the Austrian Archduchesses, by
+wasting themselves in idleness and profane pursuits, grew thin and
+meagre, and were equally exhausted in their minds and bodies!  At this
+the Abbe Vermond, as the tutor of Marie Antoinette, felt himself highly
+offended, and called on Comte de Mercy, then the Imperial Ambassador, to
+apprise him of the insult the Empire had received over the shoulders of
+the Dauphine's tutor.  The Ambassador gravely replied that he should
+certainly send off a courier immediately to Vienna to inform the Empress
+that the only fault the French Court could find with Marie Antoinette was
+her being not so unwieldy as their own Princesses, and bringing charms
+with her to a bridegroom, on whom even charms so transcendent could make
+no impression!  Thus the matter was laughed off, but it left, ridiculous
+as it was, new bitter enemies to the cause of the illustrious stranger.
+
+"The new favourite, Madame du Barry, whose sway was now supreme, was of
+course joined by the whole vitiated intriguing Court of Versailles.  The
+King's favourite is always that of his parasites, however degraded.  The
+politics of the De Pompadour party were still feared, though De Pompadour
+herself was no more, for Choiseul had friends who were still active in
+his behalf.  The power which had been raised to crush the power that was
+still struggling formed a rallying point for those who hated Austria,
+which the deposed Ministry had supported; and even the King's daughters,
+much as they abhorred the vulgarity of Du Barry, were led, by dislike for
+the Dauphine, to pay their devotions to their father's mistress.  The
+influence of the rising sun, Marie Antoinette, whose beauteous rays of
+blooming youth warmed every heart in her favour, was feared by the new
+favourite as well as by the old maidens.  Louis XV. had already expressed
+a sufficient interest for the friendless royal stranger to awaken the
+jealousy of Du Barry, and she was as little disposed to share the King's
+affections with another, as his daughters were to welcome a future Queen
+from Austria in their palace.  Mortified at the attachment the King daily
+evinced, she strained every nerve to raise a party to destroy his
+predilections.  She called to her aid the strength of ridicule, than
+which no weapon is more false or deadly.  She laughed at qualities she
+could not comprehend, and underrated what she could not imitate.  The Duc
+de Richelieu, who had been instrumental to her good fortune, and for whom
+(remembering the old adage: when one hand washes the other both are made
+clean) she procured the command of the army--this Duke, the triumphant
+general of Mahon and one of the most distinguished noblemen of France,
+did not blush to become the secret agent of a depraved meretrix in the
+conspiracy to blacken the character of her victim!  The Princesses, of
+course, joined the jealous Phryne against their niece, the daughter of
+the Caesars, whose only faults were those of nature, for at that time she
+could have no other excepting those personal perfections which were the
+main source of all their malice.  By one considered as an usurper, by the
+others as an intruder, both were in consequence industrious in the quiet
+work of ruin by whispers and detraction.
+
+"To an impolitic act of the Dauphine herself may be in part ascribed the
+unwonted virulence of the jealousy and resentment of Du Barry.  The old
+dotard, Louis XV., was so indelicate as to have her present at the first
+supper of the Dauphine at Versailles.  Madame la Marechale de Beaumont,
+the Duchesse de Choiseul, and the Duchesse de Grammont were there also;
+but upon the favourite taking her seat at table they expressed themselves
+very freely to Louis XV. respecting the insult they conceived offered to
+the young Dauphine, left the royal party, and never appeared again at
+Court till after the King's death.  In consequence of this scene, Marie
+Antoinette, at the instigation of the Abbe Vermond, wrote to her mother,
+the Empress, complaining of the slight put upon her rank, birth, and
+dignity, and requesting the Empress would signify her displeasure to the
+Court of France, as she had done to that of Spain on a similar occasion
+in favour of her sister, the Queen of Naples.
+
+"This letter, which was intercepted, got to the knowledge of the Court
+and excited some clamour.  To say the worst, it could only be looked upon
+as an ebullition of the folly of youth.  But insignificant as such
+matters were in fact, malignity converted them into the locust, which
+destroyed the fruit she was sent to cultivate.
+
+"Maria Theresa, old fox that she was, too true to her system to retract
+the policy, which formerly, laid her open to the criticism of all the
+civilised Courts of Europe for opening the correspondence with De
+Pompadour, to whose influence she owed her daughter's footing in
+France--a correspondence whereby she degraded the dignity of her sex and
+the honour of her crown--and at the same time suspecting that it was not
+her daughter, but Vermond, from private motives, who complained, wrote
+the following laconic reply to the remonstrance:
+
+"'Where the sovereign himself presides, no guest can be exceptionable.'
+
+"Such sentiments are very much in contradiction with the character of
+Maria Theresa.  She was always solicitous to impress the world with her
+high notion of moral rectitude.  Certainly, such advice, however politic,
+ought not to have proceeded from a mother so religious as Maria Theresa
+wished herself to be thought; especially to a young Princess who, though
+enthusiastically fond of admiration, at least had discretion to see and
+feel the impropriety of her being degraded to the level of a female like
+Du Barry, and, withal, courage to avow it.  This, of itself, was quite
+enough to shake the virtue of Marie Antoinette; or, at least, Maria
+Theresa's letter was of a cast to make her callous to the observance of
+all its scruples.  And in that vitiated, depraved Court, she too soon,
+unfortunately, took the hint of her maternal counsellor in not only
+tolerating, but imitating, the object she despised.  Being one day told
+that Du Barry was the person who most contributed to amuse Louis XV.,
+'Then,' said she, innocently, 'I declare myself her rival; for I will try
+who can best amuse my grandpapa for the future.  I will exert all my
+powers to please and divert him, and then we shall see who can best
+succeed.'
+
+"Du Barry was by when this was said, and she never forgave it.  To this,
+and to the letter, her rancour may principally be ascribed.  To all those
+of the Court party who owed their places and preferments to her exclusive
+influence, and who held them subject to her caprice, she, of course,
+communicated the venom.
+
+"Meanwhile, the Dauphin saw Marie Antoinette mimicking the monkey tricks
+with which this low Sultana amused her dotard, without being aware of the
+cause.  He was not pleased; and this circumstance, coupled with his
+natural coolness and indifference for a union he had been taught to deem
+impolitic and dangerous to the interests of France, created in his
+virtuous mind that sort of disgust which remained so long an enigma to
+the Court and all the kingdom, excepting his royal aunts, who did the
+best they could to confirm it into so decided an aversion as might induce
+him to impel his grandfather to annul the marriage and send the Dauphine
+back to Vienna."
+
+"After the Dauphin's marriage, the Comte d'Artois and his brother
+Monsieur--[Afterwards Louis XVIII., and the former the present Charles
+X.]--returned from their travels to Versailles.  The former was delighted
+with the young Dauphine, and, seeing her so decidedly neglected by her
+husband, endeavoured to console her by a marked attention, but for which
+she would have been totally isolated, for, excepting the old King, who
+became more and more enraptured with the grace, beauty, and vivacity of
+his young granddaughter, not another individual in the Royal Family was
+really interested in her favour.  The kindness of a personage so
+important was of too much weight not to awaken calumny.  It was, of
+course, endeavoured to be turned against her.  Possibilities, and even
+probabilities, conspired to give a pretext for the scandal which already
+began to be whispered about the Dauphine and D'Artois.  It would have
+been no wonder had a reciprocal attachment arisen between a virgin wife,
+so long neglected by her husband, and one whose congeniality of character
+pointed him out as a more desirable partner than the Dauphin.  But there
+is abundant evidence of the perfect innocence of their intercourse.  Du
+Barry was most earnest in endeavouring, from first to last, to establish
+its impurity, because the Dauphine induced the gay young Prince to join
+in all her girlish schemes to tease and circumvent the favourite.  But
+when this young Prince and his brother were married to the two Princesses
+of Piedmont, the intimacy between their brides and the Dauphine proved
+there could have been no doubt that Du Barry had invented a calumny, and
+that no feeling existed but one altogether sisterly.  The three stranger
+Princesses were indeed inseparable; and these marriages, with that of the
+French Princess, Clotilde, to the Prince of Piedmont, created
+considerable changes in the coteries of Court.
+
+"The machinations against Marie Antoinette could not be concealed from
+the Empress-mother.  An extraordinary Ambassador was consequently sent
+from Vienna to complain of them to the Court of Versailles, with
+directions that the remonstrance should be supported and backed by the
+Comte de Mercy, then Austrian Ambassador at the Court of France.  Louis
+XV. was the only person to whom the communication was news.  This old
+dilettanti of the sex was so much engaged between his seraglio of the
+Parc-aux-cerfs and Du Barry that he knew less of what was passing in his
+palace than those at Constantinople.  On being informed by the Austrian
+Ambassador, he sent an Ambassador of his own to Vienna to assure the
+Empress that he was perfectly satisfied of the innocent conduct of his
+newly acquired granddaughter.
+
+"Among the intrigues within intrigues of the time I mention, there was
+one which shows that perhaps Du Barry's distrust of the constancy of her
+paramour, and apprehension from the effect on him of the charms of the
+Dauphine, in whom he became daily more interested, were not utterly
+without foundation.  In this instance even her friend, the Duc de
+Richelieu, that notorious seducer, by lending himself to the secret
+purposes of the King, became a traitor to the cause of the King's
+favourite, to which he had sworn allegiance, and which he had supported
+by defaming her whom he now became anxious to make his Queen.
+
+"It has already been said, that the famous Duchesse de Grammont was one
+of the confidential friends of Louis XV.  before he took Du Barry under
+his especial protection.  Of course, there can be no difficulty in
+conceiving how likely a person she would be, to aid any purpose of the
+King which should displace the favourite, by whom she herself had been
+obliged to retire, by ties of a higher order, to which she might prove
+instrumental.
+
+"Louis XV. actually flattered himself with the hope of obtaining
+advantages from the Dauphin's coolness towards the Dauphine.  He
+encouraged it, and even threw many obstacles in the way of the
+consummation of the marriage.  The apartments of the young couple were
+placed at opposite ends of the palace, so that the Dauphin could not
+approach that of his Dauphine without a publicity which his bashfulness
+could not brook.
+
+"Louis XV. now began to act upon his secret passion to supplant his
+grandson, and make the Dauphine his own Queen, by endeavouring to secure
+her affections to himself.  His attentions were backed by gifts of
+diamonds, pearls, and other valuables, and it was at this period that
+Boehmer, the jeweller, first received the order for that famous necklace,
+which subsequently produced such dreadful consequences, and which was
+originally meant as a kingly present to the intended Queen, though
+afterwards destined for Du Barry, had not the King died before the
+completion of the bargain for it.
+
+"The Queen herself one day told me, 'Heaven knows if ever I should have
+had the blessing of being a mother had I not one evening surprised the
+Dauphin, when the subject was adverted to, in the expression of a sort of
+regret at our being placed so far asunder from each other.  Indeed, he
+never honoured me with any proof of his affection so explicit as that you
+have just witnessed'--for the King had that moment kissed her, as he left
+the apartment--'from the time of our marriage till the consummation. The
+most I ever received from him was a squeeze of the hand in secret. His
+extreme modesty, and perhaps his utter ignorance of the intercourse with
+woman, dreaded the exposure of crossing the palace to my bedchamber; and
+no doubt the accomplishment would have occurred sooner, could it have
+been effectuated in privacy.  The hint he gave emboldened me with
+courage, when he next left me, as usual, at the door of my apartment, to
+mention it to the Duchesse de Grammont, then the confidential friend of
+Louis XV., who laughed me almost out of countenance; saying, in her gay
+manner of expressing herself, "If I were as young and as beautiful a wife
+as you are I should certainly not trouble myself to remove the obstacle
+by going to him while there were others of superior rank ready to supply
+his place."  Before she quitted me, however, she said: "Well, child, make
+yourself easy: you shall no longer be separated from the object of your
+wishes: I will mention it to the King, your grandpapa, and he will soon
+order your husband's apartment to be changed for one nearer your own."
+And the change shortly afterwards took place.
+
+"'Here,' continued the Queen, 'I accuse myself of a want of that courage
+which every virtuous wife ought to exercise in not having complained of
+the visible neglect shown me long, long before I did; for this, perhaps,
+would have spared both of us the many bitter pangs originating in the
+seeming coldness, whence have arisen all the scandalous stories against
+my character--which have often interrupted the full enjoyment I should
+have felt had they not made me tremble for the security of that
+attachment, of which I had so many proofs, and which formed my only
+consolation amid all the malice that for yearn had been endeavouring to
+deprive me of it!  So far as regards my husband's estimation, thank fate,
+I have defied their wickedness!  Would to Heaven I could have been
+equally secure in the estimation of my people--the object nearest to my
+heart, after the King and my dear children!'"
+
+[The Dauphine could not understand the first allusion of the Duchess; but
+it is evident that the vile intriguer took this opportunity of sounding
+her upon what she was commissioned to carry on in favour of Louis XV.,
+and it is equally apparent that when she heard Marie Antoinette express
+herself decidedly in favour of her young husband, and distinctly saw how
+utterly groundless were the hopes of his secret rival, she was led
+thereby to abandon her wicked project; and perhaps the change of
+apartments was the best mask that could have been devised to hide the
+villany.]
+
+"The present period appears to have been one of the happiest in the life
+of Marie Antoinette.  Her intimate society consisted of the King's
+brothers, and their Princesses, with the King's saint-like sister
+Elizabeth; and they lived entirely together, excepting when the Dauphine
+dined in public.  These ties seemed to be drawn daily closer for some
+time, till the subsequent intimacy with the Polignacs.  Even when the
+Comtesse d'Artois lay-in, the Dauphine, then become Queen, transferred
+her parties to the apartments of that Princess, rather than lose the
+gratification of her society.
+
+"During all this time, however, Du Barry, the Duc d'Aiguillon, and the
+aunts-Princesses, took special care to keep themselves between her and
+any tenderness on the part of the husband Dauphin, and, from different
+motives uniting in one end, tried every means to get the object of their
+hatred sent back to Vienna."
+
+
+
+
+SECTION IV.
+
+
+"The Empress-mother was thoroughly aware of all that was going on.  Her
+anxiety, not only about her daughter, but her State policy, which it may
+be apprehended was in her mind the stronger motive of the two, encouraged
+the machinations of an individual who must now appear upon the stage of
+action, and to whose arts may be ascribed the worst of the sufferings of
+Marie Antoinette.
+
+"I allude to the Cardinal Prince de Rohan.
+
+"At this time he was Ambassador at the Court of Vienna.  The reliance the
+Empress placed on him favoured his criminal machinations against her
+daughter's reputation.  He was the cause of her sending spies to watch
+the conduct of the Dauphine, besides a list of persons proper for her to
+cultivate, as well as of those it was deemed desirable for her to exclude
+from her confidence.
+
+"As the Empress knew all those who, though high in office in Versailles,
+secretly received pensions from Vienna, she could, of course, tell,
+without much expense of sagacity, who were in the Austrian interest.  The
+Dauphine was warned that she was surrounded by persons who were not her
+friends.
+
+"The conduct of Maria Theresa towards her daughter, the Queen of Naples,
+will sufficiently explain how much the Empress must have been chagrined
+at the absolute indifference of Marie Antoinette to the State policy
+which was intended to have been served in sending her to France.  A less
+fitting instrument for the purpose could not have been selected by the
+mother.  Marie Antoinette had much less of the politician about her than
+either of her surviving sisters; and so much was she addicted to
+amusement, that she never even thought of entering into State affairs
+till forced by the King's neglect of his most essential prerogatives, and
+called upon by the Ministers themselves to screen them from
+responsibility.  Indeed, the latter cause prevailed upon her to take her
+seat in the Cabinet Council (though she took it with great reluctance)
+long before she was impelled thither by events and her consciousness of
+its necessity.  She would often exclaim to me: 'How happy I was during
+the lifetime of Louis XV.!  No cares to disturb my peaceful slumbers!  No
+responsibility to agitate my mind!  No fears of erring, of partiality, of
+injustice, to break in upon my enjoyments!  All, all happiness, my dear
+Princess, vanishes from the bosom of a woman if she once deviate from the
+prescribed domestic character of her sex!  Nothing was ever framed more
+wise than the Salique Laws, which in France and many parts of Germany
+exclude women from reigning, for few of us have that masculine capacity
+so necessary to conduct with impartiality and justice the affairs of
+State!'
+
+"To this feeling of the impropriety of feminine interference in masculine
+duties, coupled with her attachment to France, both from principle and
+feeling, may be ascribed the neglect of her German connexions, which led
+to many mortifying reproaches, and the still more galling espionage to
+which she was subjected in her own palace by her mother.  These are,
+however, so many proofs of the falsehood of the allegations by which she
+suffered so deeply afterwards, of having sacrificed the interests of her
+husband's kingdom to her predilection for her mother's empire.
+
+"The subtle Rohan designed to turn the anxiety of Maria Theresa about the
+Dauphine to account, and he was also aware that the ambition of the
+Empress was paramount in Maria Theresa's bosom to the love for her child.
+He was about to play a deep and more than double game.  By increasing the
+mother's jealousy of the daughter, and at the same time enhancing the
+importance of the advantages afforded by her situation, to forward the
+interests of the mother, he, no doubt, hoped to get both within his
+power: for who can tell what wild expectation might not have animated
+such a mind as Rohan's at the prospect of governing not only the Court of
+France but that of Austria?--the Court of France, through a secret
+influence of his own dictation thrown around the Dauphine by the mother's
+alarm; and that of Austria, through a way he pointed out, in which the
+object that was most longed for by the mother's ambition seemed most
+likely to be achieved!  While he endeavoured to make Maria Theresa beset
+her daughter with the spies I have mentioned, and which were generally of
+his own selection, he at the same time endeavoured to strengthen her
+impression of how important it was to her schemes to insure the
+daughter's co-operation.  Conscious of the eagerness of Maria Theresa for
+the recovery of the rich province which Frederick the Great of Prussia
+had wrested from her ancient dominions, he pressed upon her credulity the
+assurance that the influence of which the Dauphine was capable over Louis
+XV., by the youthful beauty's charms acting upon the dotard's admiration,
+would readily induce that monarch to give such aid to Austria as must
+insure the restoration of what it lost.  Silesia, it has been before
+observed, was always a topic by means of which the weak side of Maria
+Theresa could be attacked with success.  There is generally some peculiar
+frailty in the ambitious, through which the artful can throw them off
+their guard.  The weak and tyrannical Philip II., whenever the recovery
+of Holland and the Low Countries was proposed to him, was always ready to
+rush headlong into any scheme for its accomplishment; the bloody Queen
+Mary, his wife, declared that at her death the loss of Calais would be
+found engraven on her heart; and to Maria Theresa, Silesia was the
+Holland and the Calais for which her wounded pride was thirsting.
+
+"But Maria Theresa was wary, even in the midst of the credulity of her
+ambition.  The Baron de Neni was sent by her privately to Versailles to
+examine, personally, whether there was anything in Marie Antoinette's
+conduct requiring the extreme vigilance which had been represented as
+indispensable.  The report of the Baron de Neni to his royal mistress was
+such as to convince her she had been misled and her daughter
+misrepresented by Rohan.  The Empress instantly forbade him her presence.
+
+"The Cardinal upon this, unknown to the Court of Vienna, and indeed, to
+every one, except his factotum, principal agent, and secretary, the Abbe
+Georgel, left the Austrian capital, and came to Versailles, covering his
+disgrace by pretended leave of absence.  On seeing Marie Antoinette he
+fell enthusiastically in love with her.  To gain her confidence he
+disclosed the conduct which had been observed towards her by the Empress,
+and, in confirmation of the correctness of his disclosure, admitted that
+he had himself chosen the spies which had been set on her.  Indignant at
+such meanness in her mother, and despising the prelate, who could be base
+enough to commit a deed equally corrupt and uncalled for, and even thus
+wantonly betrayed when committed, the Dauphine suddenly withdrew from his
+presence, and gave orders that he should never be admitted to any of her
+parties.
+
+"But his imagination was too much heated by a guilty passion of the
+blackest hue to recede; and his nature too presumptuous and fertile in
+expedients to be disconcerted.  He soon found means to conciliate both
+mother and daughter; and both by pretending to manage with the one the
+self-same plot which, with the other, he was recommending himself by
+pretending to overthrow.  To elude detection he interrupted the regular
+correspondence between the Empress and the Dauphine, and created a
+coolness by preventing the communications which would have unmasked him,
+that gave additional security to the success of his deception.
+
+"By the most diabolical arts he obtained an interview with the Dauphine,
+in which he regained her confidence.  He made her believe that he had
+been commissioned by her mother, as she had shown so little interest for
+the house of Austria, to settle a marriage for her sister, the
+Archduchess Elizabeth, with Louis XV.  The Dauphine was deeply affected
+at the statement.  She could not conceal her agitation.  She
+involuntarily confessed how much she should deplore such an alliance. The
+Cardinal instantly perceived his advantage, and was too subtle to let it
+pass.  He declared that, as it was to him the negotiation had been
+confided, if the Dauphine would keep her own counsel, never communicate
+their conversation to the Empress, but leave the whole matter to his
+management and only assure him that he was forgiven, he would pledge
+himself to arrange things to her satisfaction.  The Dauphine, not wishing
+to see another raised to the throne over her head and to her scorn, under
+the assurance that no one knew of the intention or could prevent it but
+the Cardinal, promised him her faith and favour; and thus rashly fell
+into the springs of this wily intriguer.
+
+"Exulting to find Marie Antoinette in his power, the Cardinal left
+Versailles as privately as he arrived there, for Vienna.  His next object
+was to ensnare the Empress, as he had done her daughter; and by a
+singular caprice, fortune, during his absence, had been preparing for him
+the means.
+
+"The Abbe Georgel, his secretary, by underhand manoeuvres, to which he
+was accustomed, had obtained access to all the secret State
+correspondence, in which the Empress had expressed herself fully to the
+Comte de Mercy relative to the views of Russia and Prussia upon Poland,
+whereby her own plans were much thwarted.  The acquirement of copies of
+these documents naturally gave the Cardinal free access to the Court and
+a ready introduction once more to the Empress.  She was too much
+committed by his possession of such weapons not to be most happy to make
+her peace with him; and he was too sagacious not to make the best use of
+his opportunity.  To regain her confidence, he betrayed some of the
+subaltern agents, through whose treachery he had procured his evidences,
+and, in farther confirmation of his resources, showed the Empress several
+dispatches from her own Ministers to the Courts of Russia and Prussia. He
+had long, he said, been in possession of similar views of aggrandisement,
+upon which these Courts were about to act; and had, for a while, even
+incurred Her Imperial Majesty's displeasure, merely because he was not in
+a situation fully to explain; but that he had now thought of the means to
+crush their schemes before they could be put in practice. He apprised her
+of his being aware that Her Imperial Majesty's Ministers were actively
+carrying on a correspondence with Russia, with a view of joining her in
+checking the French co-operation with the Grand Signior; and warned her
+that if this design were secretly pursued, it would defeat the very views
+she had in sharing in the spoliation of Poland; and if openly, it would
+be deemed an avowal of hostilities against the Court of France, whose
+political system would certainly impel it to resist any attack upon the
+divan of Constantinople, that the balance of power in Europe might be
+maintained against the formidable ambition of Catherine, whose gigantic
+hopes had been already too much realised.
+
+"Maria Theresa was no less astonished at these disclosures of the
+Cardinal than the Dauphine had been at his communication concerning her.
+She plainly saw that all her plans were known, and might be defeated from
+their detection.
+
+"The Cardinal, having succeeded in alarming the Empress, took from his
+pocket a fabulous correspondence, hatched by his secretary, the Abbe
+Georgel.  'There, Madame,' said he, 'this will convince Your Majesty that
+the warm interest I have taken in your Imperial house has carried me
+farther than I was justified in having gone; but seeing the sterility of
+the Dauphine, or, as it is reported by some of the Court, the total
+disgust the Dauphin has to consummate the marriage, the coldness of your
+daughter towards the interest of your Court, and the prospect of a race
+from the Comtesse d'Artois, for the consequences of which there is no
+answering, I have, unknown to Your Imperial Majesty, taken upon myself to
+propose to LOUIS XV. a marriage with the Archduchess Elizabeth, who, on
+becoming Queen of France, will immediately have it in her power to
+forward the Austrian interest; for LOUIS XV., as the first proof of his
+affection to his young bride, will at once secure to your Empire the aid
+you stand so much in need of against the ambition of these two rising
+States.  The recovery of Your Imperial Majesty's ancient dominions may
+then be looked upon as accomplished from the influence of the French
+Cabinet.
+
+"The bait was swallowed.  Maria Theresa was so overjoyed at this scheme
+that she totally forgot all former animosity against the Cardinal.  She
+was encouraged to ascribe the silence of Marie Antoinette (whose letters
+had been intercepted by the Cardinal himself) to her resentment of this
+project concerning her sister; and the deluded Empress, availing herself
+of the pretended zeal of the Cardinal for the interest of her family,
+gave him full powers to return to France and secretly negotiate the
+alliance for her daughter Elizabeth, which was by no means to be
+disclosed to the Dauphine till the King's proxy should be appointed to
+perform the ceremony at Vienna.  This was all the Cardinal wished for.
+
+"Meanwhile, in order to obtain a still greater ascendency over the Court
+of France, he had expended immense sums to bribe secretaries and
+Ministers; and couriers were even stopped to have copies taken of all the
+correspondence to and from Austria.
+
+"At the same crisis the Empress was informed by Prince Kaunitz that the
+Cardinal and his suite at the palace of the French Ambassador carried on
+such an immense and barefaced traffic of French manufactures of every
+description that Maria Theresa thought proper, in order to prevent future
+abuse, to abolish the privilege which gave to Ministers and Ambassadors
+an opportunity of defrauding the revenue.  Though this law was levelled
+exclusively at the Cardinal, it was thought convenient under the
+circumstances to avoid irritating him, and it was consequently made
+general.  But, the Comte de Mercy now obtaining some clue to his
+duplicity, an intimation was given to the Court at Versailles, to which
+the King replied, 'If the Empress be dissatisfied with the French
+Ambassador, he shall be recalled.'  But though completely unmasked, none
+dared publicly to accuse him, each party fearing a discovery of its own
+intrigue.  His official recall did not in consequence take place for some
+time; and the Cardinal, not thinking it prudent to go back till Louis XV.
+should be no more, lest some unforeseen discovery of his project for
+supplying her royal paramour with a Queen should rouse Du Barry to get
+his Cardinalship sent to the Bastille for life, remained fixed in his
+post, waiting for events.
+
+"At length Louis XV. expired, and the Cardinal returned to Versailles. He
+contrived to obtain a private audience of the young Queen.  He presumed
+upon her former facility in listening to him, and was about to betray the
+last confidence of Maria Theresa; but the Queen, shocked at the knowledge
+which she had obtained of his having been equally treacherous to her and
+to her mother, in disgust and alarm left the room without receiving a
+letter he had brought her from Maria Theresa, and without deigning to
+address a single word to him.  In the heat of her passion and resentment,
+she was nearly exposing all she knew of his infamies to the King, when
+the coolheaded Princesse Elizabeth opposed her, from the seeming
+imprudence of such an abrupt discovery; alleging that it might cause an
+open rupture between the two Courts, as it had already been the source of
+a reserve and coolness, which had not yet been explained.  The Queen was
+determined never more to commit herself by seeing the Cardinal.  She
+accordingly sent for her mother's letter, which he himself delivered into
+the hands of her confidential messenger, who advised the Queen not to
+betray the Cardinal to the King, lest, in so doing, she should never be
+able to guard herself against the domestic spies, by whom, perhaps, she
+was even yet surrounded!  The Cardinal, conceiving, from the impunity of
+his conduct, that he still held the Queen in check, through the influence
+of her fears of his disclosing her weakness upon the subject of the
+obstruction she threw in the way of her sister's marriage, did not resign
+the hope of converting that ascendency to his future profit.
+
+"The fatal silence to which Her Majesty was thus unfortunately advised I
+regret from the bottom of my soul!  All the successive vile plots of the
+Cardinal against the peace and reputation of the Queen may be attributed
+to this ill-judged prudence!  Though it resulted from an honest desire of
+screening Her Majesty from the resentment or revenge to which she might
+have subjected herself from this villain, who had already injured her in
+her own estimation for having been credulous enough to have listened to
+him, yet from this circumstance it is that the Prince de Rohan built the
+foundation of all the after frauds and machinations with which he
+blackened the character and destroyed the comfort of his illustrious
+victim.  It is obvious that a mere exclusion from Court was too mild a
+punishment for such offences, and it was but too natural that such a mind
+as his, driven from the royal presence, and, of course, from all the
+noble societies to which it led (the anti-Court party excepted), should
+brood over the means of inveigling the Queen into a consent for his
+reappearance before her and the gay world, which was his only element,
+and if her favour should prove unattainable to revenge himself by her
+ruin.
+
+"On the Cardinal's return to France, all his numerous and powerful
+friends beset the King and Queen to allow of his restoration to his
+embassy; but though on his arrival at Versailles, finding the Court had
+removed to Compiegne, he had a short audience there of the King, all
+efforts in his favour were thrown away.  Equally unsuccessful was every
+intercession with the Empress-mother.  She had become thoroughly awakened
+to his worthlessness, and she declared she would never more even receive
+him in her dominions as a visitor.  The Cardinal, being apprised of this
+by some of his intimates, was at last persuaded to give up the idea of
+further importunity; and, pocketing his disgrace, retired with his hey
+dukes and his secretary, the Abbe Georgel, to whom may be attributed all
+the artful intrigues of his disgraceful diplomacy.
+
+"It is evident that Rohan had no idea, during all his schemes to supplant
+the Dauphine by marrying her sister to the King, that the secret hope of
+Louis XV. had been to divorce the Dauphin and marry the slighted bride
+himself.  Perhaps it is fortunate that Rohan did not know this.  A brain
+so fertile in mischief as his might have converted such a circumstance to
+baneful uses.  But the death of Louis XV. put an end to all the then
+existing schemes for a change in her position.  It was to her a real,
+though but a momentary triumph.  From the hour of her arrival she had a
+powerful party to cope with; and the fact of her being an Austrian,
+independent of the jealousy created by her charms, was, in itself, a
+spell to conjure up armies, against which she stood alone, isolated in
+the face of embattled myriads!  But she now reared her head, and her foes
+trembled in her presence.  Yet she could not guard against the moles busy
+in the earth secretly to undermine her.  Nay, had not Louis XV. died at
+the moment he did, there is scarcely a doubt, from the number and the
+quality of the hostile influences working on the credulity of the young
+Dauphin, that Marie Antoinette would have been very harshly dealt
+with,--even the more so from the partiality of the dotard who believed
+himself to be reigning.  But she has been preserved from her enemies to
+become their sovereign; and if her crowned brow has erewhile been stung
+by thorns in its coronal, let me not despair of their being hereafter
+smothered in yet unblown roses."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Embonpoint of the French Princesses
+Few individuals except Princesses do with parade and publicity
+Frailty in the ambitious, through which the artful can act
+Laughed at qualities she could not comprehend
+Mind well stored against human casualties
+Policy, in sovereigns, is paramount to every other
+Quiet work of ruin by whispers and detraction
+Ridicule, than which no weapon is more false or deadly
+Salique Laws
+Thank Heaven, I am out of harness
+Traducing virtues the slanderers never possessed
+Underrated what she could not imitate
+Where the knout is the logician
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI.,
+Volume 3, by Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOUIS XV. AND XVI. ***
+
+***** This file should be named 3878.txt or 3878.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
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+
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+
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+
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+The Project Gutenberg Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, by Madame Hausset, v3
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+Title: The Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, v3
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+
+MEMOIRS OF LOUIS XV. AND XVI.
+
+Being Secret Memoirs of Madame du Hausset,  Lady's Maid to Madame
+de Pompadour, and of an unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
+
+
+
+BOOK 3.
+
+
+SECRET COURT MEMOIRS OF LOUIS XVI. AND THE ROYAL FAMILY OF FRANCE
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+I should consider it great presumption to intrude upon the public
+anything respecting myself, were there any other way of establishing the
+authenticity of the facts and papers I am about to present.  To the
+history of my own peculiar situation, amid the great events I record,
+which made me the depositary of information and documents so important, I
+proceed, therefore, though reluctantly, without further preamble.
+
+I was for many years in the confidential service of the Princesse de
+Lamballe, and the most important materials which form my history have
+been derived not only from the conversations, but the private papers of
+my lamented patroness.  It remains for me to show how I became acquainted
+with Her Highness, and by what means the papers I allude to came into my
+possession.
+
+Though, from my birth, and the rank of those who were the cause of it
+(had it not been from political motives kept from my knowledge), in point
+of interest I ought to have been very independent, I was indebted for my
+resources in early life to His Grace the late Duke of Norfolk and Lady
+Mary Duncan.  By them I was placed for education in the Irish Convent,
+Rue du Bacq, Faubourg St. Germain, at Paris, where the immortal Sacchini,
+the instructor of the Queen, gave me lessons in music.  Pleased with my
+progress, the celebrated composer, when one day teaching Marie
+Antoinette, so highly overrated to that illustrious lady my infant
+natural talents and acquired science in his art, in the presence of her
+very shadow, the Princesse de Lamballe, as to excite in Her Majesty an
+eager desire for the opportunity of hearing me, which the Princess
+volunteered to obtain by going herself to the convent next morning with
+Sacchini.  It was enjoined upon the composer, as I afterwards learned,
+that he was neither to apprise me who Her Highness was, nor to what
+motive I was indebted for her visit.  To this Sacchini readily agreed,
+adding, after disclosing to them my connections and situation, "Your
+Majesty will be, perhaps, still more surprised, when I, as an Italian,
+and her German master, who is a German, declare that she speaks both
+these languages like a native, though born in England; and is as well
+disposed to the Catholic faith, and as well versed in it, as if she had
+been a member of that Church all her life."
+
+This last observation decided my future good fortune: there was no
+interest in the minds of the Queen and Princess paramount to that of
+making proselytes to their creed.
+
+The Princess, faithful to her promise, accompanied Sacchini.  Whether it
+was chance, ability, or good fortune, let me not attempt to conjecture;
+but from that moment I became the protege of this ever-regretted angel.
+Political circumstances presently facilitated her introduction of me to
+the Queen.  My combining a readiness in the Italian and German languages,
+with my knowledge of English and French, greatly promoted my power of
+being useful at that crisis, which, with some claims to their confidence
+of a higher order, made this august, lamented, injured pair more like
+mothers to me than mistresses, till we were parted by their murder.
+
+The circumstances I have just mentioned show that to mere curiosity, the
+characteristic passion of our sex and so often its ruin, I am to ascribe
+the introduction, which was only prevented by events unparalleled in
+history from proving the most fortunate in my life as it is the most
+cherished in my recollection.
+
+It will be seen, in the course of the following pages, how often I was
+employed on confidential missions, frequently by myself, and, in some
+instances, as the attendant of the Princess.  The nature of my situation,
+the trust reposed in me, the commissions with which I was honoured, and
+the affecting charges of which I was the bearer, flattered my pride and
+determined me to make myself an exception to the rule that "no woman can
+keep a secret."  Few ever knew exactly where I was, what I was doing, and
+much less the importance of my occupation.  I had passed from England to
+France, made two journeys to Italy and Germany, three to the Archduchess
+Maria Christiana, Governess of the Low Countries, and returned back to
+France, before any of my friends in England were aware of my retreat, or
+of my ever having accompanied the Princess.  Though my letters were
+written and dated at Paris, they were all forwarded to England by way of
+Holland or Germany, that no clue should be given for annoyances from idle
+curiosity.  It is to this discreetness, to this inviolable secrecy,
+firmness, and fidelity, which I so early in life displayed to the august
+personages who stood in need of such a person, that I owe the unlimited
+confidence of my illustrious benefactress, through which I was furnished
+with the valuable materials I am now submitting to the public.
+
+I was repeatedly a witness, by the side of the Princesse de Lamballe, of
+the appalling scenes of the bonnet rouge, of murders a la lanterne, and
+of numberless insults to the unfortunate Royal Family of Louis XVI., when
+the Queen was generally selected as the most marked victim of malicious
+indignity.  Having had the honour of so often beholding this much injured
+Queen, and never without remarking how amiable in her manners, how
+condescendingly kind in her deportment towards every one about her, how
+charitably generous, and withal, how beautiful she was,--I looked upon
+her as a model of perfection.  But when I found the public feeling so
+much at variance with my own, the difference became utterly
+unaccountable.  I longed for some explanation of the mystery.  One day I
+was insulted in the Tuileries, because I had alighted from my horse to
+walk there without wearing the national ribbon.  On this I met the
+Princess: the conversation which grew out of my adventure emboldened me
+to question her on a theme to me inexplicable.
+
+"What," asked I, "can it be which makes the people so outrageous against
+the Queen?"
+
+Her Highness condescended to reply in the complimentary terms which I am
+about to relate, but without answering my question.
+
+"My dear friend!" exclaimed she, "for from this moment I beg you will
+consider me in that light, never having been blessed with children of my
+own, I feel there is no way of acquitting myself of the obligations you
+have heaped upon me, by the fidelity with which you have executed the
+various commissions entrusted to your charge, but by adopting you as one
+of my own family.  I am satisfied with you, yes, highly satisfied with
+you, on the score of your religious principles; and as soon as the
+troubles subside, and we have a little calm after them, my father-in-law
+and myself will be present at the ceremony of your confirmation."
+
+The goodness of my benefactress silenced me gratitude would not allow me
+to persevere for the moment.  But from what I had already seen of Her
+Majesty the Queen, I was too much interested to lose sight of my object,
+--not, let me be believed, from idle womanish curiosity, but from that
+real, strong, personal interest which I, in common with all who ever had
+the honour of being in her presence, felt for that much-injured, most
+engaging sovereign.
+
+A propitious circumstance unexpectedly occurred, which gave me an
+opportunity, without any appearance of officious earnestness, to renew
+the attempt to gain the end I had in view.
+
+I was riding in the carriage with the Princesse de Lamballe, when a lady
+drove by, who saluted my benefactress with marked attention and respect.
+There was something in the manner of the Princess, after receiving the
+salute, which impelled me, spite of myself, to ask who the lady was.
+
+"Madame de Genlis," exclaimed Her Highness, with a shudder of disgust,
+"that lamb's face with a wolf's heart, and a fog's cunning."  Or, to
+quote her own Italian phrase which I have here translated, "colla faccia
+d'agnello, il cuore dun lupo, a la dritura della volpe."
+
+In the course of these pages the cause of this strong feeling against
+Madame de Genlis will be explained.  To dwell on it now would only turn
+me aside from my narrative.  To pursue my story, therefore:
+
+When we arrived at my lodgings (which were then, for private reasons, at
+the Irish Convent, where Sacchini and other masters attended to further
+me in the accomplishments of the fine arts), "Sing me something," said
+the Princess, "'Cantate mi qualche cosa', for I never see that woman "
+(meaning Madame de Genlis) "but I feel ill and out of humour.  I wish it
+may not be the foreboding of some great evil!"
+
+I sang a little rondo, in which Her Highness and the Queen always
+delighted, and which they would never set me free without making me sing,
+though I had given them twenty before it.
+
+     [The rondo I allude to was written by Sarti for the celebrated
+     Marches!, Lungi da to ben mio, and is the same in which he was so
+     successful in England, when he introduced it in London in the opera
+     of Giulo Sabino.]
+
+Her Highness honoured me with even more than usual praise.  I kissed the
+hand which had so generously applauded my infant talents, and said, "Now,
+my dearest Princess, as you are so kind and good-humoured, tell me
+something about the Queen!"
+
+She looked at me with her eyes full of tears.  For an instant they stood
+in their sockets as if petrified: and then, after a pause, "I cannot,"
+answered she in Italian, as she usually did, "I cannot refuse you
+anything.  'Non posso neyarti niente'.  It would take me an age to tell
+you the many causes which have conspired against this much-injured Queen!
+I fear none who are near her person will escape the threatening storm
+that hovers over our heads.  The leading causes of the clamour against
+her have been, if you must know, Nature; her beauty; her power of
+pleasing; her birth; her rank; her marriage; the King himself; her
+mother; her imperfect education; and, above all, her unfortunate
+partialities for the Abbe Vermond; for the Duchesse de Polignac; for
+myself, perhaps; and last, but not least, the thorough, unsuspecting
+goodness of her heart!
+
+"But, since you seem to be so much concerned for her exalted, persecuted
+Majesty, you shall have a Journal I myself began on my first coming to
+France, and which I have continued ever since I have been honoured with
+the confidence of Her Majesty, in graciously giving me that unlooked-for
+situation at the head of her household, which honour and justice prevent
+my renouncing under any difficulties, and which I never will quit but
+with my life!"
+
+She wept as she spoke, and her last words were almost choked with sobs.
+
+Seeing her so much affected, I humbly begged pardon for having
+unintentionally caused her tears, and begged permission to accompany her
+to the Tuileries.
+
+"No," said she, "you have hitherto conducted yourself with a profound
+prudence, which has insured you my confidence.  Do not let your curiosity
+change your system.  You shall have the Journal.  But be careful.  Read
+it only by yourself, and do not show it to any one.  On these conditions
+you shall have it."
+
+I was in the act of promising, when Her Highness stopped me.
+
+"I want no particular promises.  I have sufficient proofs of your
+adherence to truth.  Only answer me simply in the affirmative."
+
+I said I would certainly obey her injunctions most religiously.
+
+She then left me, and directed that I should walk in a particular part of
+the private alleys of the Tuileries, between three and four o'clock in
+the afternoon.  I did so; and from her own hand I there received her
+private Journal.
+
+In the following September of this same year (1792) she was murdered!
+
+Journalising copiously, for the purpose of amassing authentic materials
+for the future historian, was always a favourite practice of the French,
+and seems to have been particularly in vogue in the age I mention.  The
+press has sent forth whole libraries of these records since the
+Revolution, and it is notorious that Louis XV. left Secret Memoirs,
+written by his own hand, of what passed before this convulsion; and had
+not the papers of the Tuileries shared in the wreck of royalty, it would
+have been seen that Louis XVI. had made some progress in the memoirs of
+his time; and even his beautiful and unfortunate Queen had herself made
+extensive notes and collections for the record of her own disastrous
+career.  Hence it must be obvious how one so nearly connected in
+situation and suffering with her much-injured mistress, as the Princesse
+de Lamballe, would naturally fall into a similar habit had she even no
+stronger temptation than fashion and example.  But self-communion, by
+means of the pen, is invariably the consolation of strong feeling, and
+reflecting minds under great calamities, especially when their
+intercourse with the world has been checked or poisoned by its malice.
+
+The editor of these pages herself fell into the habit of which she
+speaks; and it being usual with her benefactress to converse with all the
+unreserve which every honest mind shows when it feels it can confide, her
+humble attendant, not to lose facts of such importance, commonly made
+notes of what she heard.  In any other person's hands the Journal of the
+Princess would have been incomplete; especially as it was written in a
+rambling manner, and was never intended for publication.  But connected
+by her confidential conversations with me, and the recital of the events
+to which I personally bear testimony, I trust it will be found the basis
+of a satisfactory record, which I pledge myself to be a true one.
+
+I do not know, however, that, at my time of life, and after a lapse of
+thirty years, I should have been roused to the arrangement of the papers
+which I have combined to form this narrative, had I not met with the work
+of Madame Campan upon the same subject.
+
+This lady has said much that is true respecting the Queen; but she has
+omitted much, and much she has misrepresented: not, I dare say,
+purposely, but from ignorance, and being wrongly informed.  She was often
+absent from the service, and on such occasions must have been compelled
+to obtain her knowledge at second-hand.  She herself told me, in 1803, at
+Rouen, that at a very important epoch the peril of her life forced her
+from the seat of action.  With the Princesse de Lamballe, who was so much
+about the Queen, she never had any particular connexion.  The Princess
+certainly esteemed her for her devotedness to the Queen; but there was a
+natural reserve in the Princess's character, and a mistrust resulting
+from circumstances of all those who saw much company, as Madame Campan
+did.  Hence no intimacy was encouraged.  Madame Campan never came to the
+Princess without being sent for.
+
+An attempt has been made since the Revolution utterly to destroy faith in
+the alleged attachment of Madame Campan to the Queen, by the fact of her
+having received the daughters of many of the regicides for education into
+her establishment at Rouen.  Far be it from me to sanction so unjust a
+censure.  Although what I mention hurt her character very much in the
+estimation of her former friends, and constituted one of the grounds of
+the dissolution of her establishment at Rouen, on the restoration of the
+Bourbons, and may possibly in some degree have deprived her of such aids
+from their adherents as might have made her work unquestionable, yet what
+else, let me ask, could have been done by one dependent upon her
+exertions for support, and in the power of Napoleon's family and his
+emissaries?  On the contrary, I would give my public testimony in favour
+of the fidelity of her feelings, though in many instances I must withhold
+it from the fidelity of her narrative.  Her being utterly isolated from
+the illustrious individual nearest to the Queen must necessarily leave
+much to be desired in her record.  During the whole term of the Princesse
+de Lamballe's superintendence of the Queen's household, Madame Campan
+never had any special communication with my benefactress, excepting once,
+about the things which were to go to Brussels, before the journey to
+Varennes; and once again, relative to a person of the Queen's household,
+who had received the visits of Petion, the Mayor of Paris, at her private
+lodgings.  This last communication I myself particularly remember,
+because on that occasion the Princess, addressing me in her own native
+language, Madame Campan, observing it, considered me as an Italian, till,
+by a circumstance I shall presently relate, she was undeceived.
+
+I should anticipate the order of events, and incur the necessity of
+speaking twice of the same things, were I here to specify the express
+errors in the work of Madame Campan.  Suffice it now that I observe
+generally her want of knowledge of the Princesse de Lamballe; her
+omission of many of the most interesting circumstances of the Revolution;
+her silence upon important anecdotes of the King, the Queen, and several
+members of the first assembly; her mistakes concerning the Princesse de
+Lamballe's relations with the Duchesse de Polignac, Comte de Fersan,
+Mirabeau, the Cardinal de Rohan, and others; her great miscalculation of
+the time when the Queen's confidence in Barnave began, and when that of
+the Empress-mother in Rohan ended; her misrepresentation of particulars
+relating to Joseph II.; and her blunders concerning the affair of the
+necklace, and regarding the libel Madame Lamotte published in England,
+with the connivance of Calonne:--all these will be considered, with
+numberless other statements equally requiring correction in their turn.
+What she has omitted I trust I shall supply; and where she has gone
+astray I hope to set her right; that, between the two, the future
+biographer of my august benefactresses may be in no want of authentic
+materials to do full justice to their honoured memories.
+
+I said in a preceding paragraph that I should relate a circumstance about
+Madame Campan, which happened after she had taken me for an Italian and
+before she was aware of my being in the service of the Princess.
+
+Madame Campan, though she had seen me not only at the time I mention but
+before and after, had always passed me without notice.  One Sunday, when
+in the gallery of the Tuileries with Madame de Stael, the Queen, with her
+usual suite, of which Madame Campan formed one, was going, according to
+custom, to hear Mass, Her Majesty perceived me and most graciously
+addressed me in German.  Madame Campan appeared greatly surprised at
+this, but walked on and said nothing.  Ever afterwards, however, she
+treated me whenever we met with marked civility.
+
+Another edition of Boswell to those who got a nod from Dr. Johnson!
+
+The reader will find in the course of this work that on the 2nd of
+August, 1792, from the kindness and humanity of my, august
+benefactresses, I was compelled to accept a mission to Italy, devised
+merely to send me from the sanguinary scenes of which they foresaw they
+and theirs must presently become victims.  Early in the following month
+the Princesse de Lamballe was murdered.  As my history extends beyond the
+period I have mentioned, it is fitting I should explain the indisputable
+authorities whence I derived such particulars as I did not see.
+
+A person, high in the confidence of the Princess, through the means of
+the honest coachman of whom I shall have occasion to speak, supplied me
+with regular details of whatever took place, till she herself, with the
+rest of the ladies and other attendants, being separated from the Royal
+Family, was immured in the prison of La Force.  When I returned to Paris
+after this dire tempest, Madame Clery and her friend, Madame de Beaumont,
+a natural daughter of Louis XV., with Monsieur Chambon of Rheims, who
+never left Paris during the time, confirmed the correctness of my papers.
+The Madame Clery I mention is the same who assisted her husband in his
+faithful attendance upon the Royal Family in the Temple; and this
+exemplary man added his testimony to the rest, in the presence of the
+Duchesse de Guiche Grammont, at Pyrmont in Germany, when I there met him
+in the suite of the late sovereign of France, Louis XVIII., at a concert.
+After the 10th of August, I had also a continued correspondence: with
+many persons at Paris, who supplied me with thorough accounts of the
+succeeding horrors, in letters directed to Sir William Hamilton, at
+Naples, and by him forwarded to me.  And in addition to all these high
+sources, many particular circumstances: have been disclosed to me by
+individuals, whose authority, when I have used it, I have generally
+affixed to the facts they have enabled me to communicate.
+
+It now only remains for me to mention that I have endeavoured to arrange
+everything, derived either from the papers of the Princesse de Lamballe,
+or from her remarks, my own observation, or the intelligence of others,
+in chronological order.  It will readily be seen by the reader where the
+Princess herself speaks, as I have invariably set apart my own
+recollections and remarks in paragraphs and notes, which are not only
+indicated by the heading of each chapter, but by the context of the
+passages themselves.  I have also begun and ended what the Princess says
+with inverted commas.  All the earlier part, of the work preceding her
+personal introduction proceeds principally from her pen or her lips: I
+have done little more than change it from Italian into English, and
+embody thoughts and sentiments that were often disjointed and detached.
+And throughout, whether she or others speak, I may safely say this work
+will be found the most circumstantial, and assuredly the most authentic,
+upon the subject of which it treats, of all that have yet been presented
+to the public of Great Britain.  The press has been prolific in fabulous
+writings upon these times, which have been devoured with avidity.  I hope
+John Bull is not so devoted to gilded foreign fictions as to spurn the
+unadorned truth from one of his downright countrywomen: and let me advise
+him en passant, not to treat us beauties of native growth with
+indifference at home; for we readily find compensation in the regard,
+patronage, and admiration of every nation in Europe.  I am old now, and
+may speak freely.
+
+I have no interest whatever in the work I submit but that of endeavouring
+to redeem the character of so many injured victims.  Would to Heaven my
+memory were less acute, and that I could obliterate from the knowledge of
+the world and posterity the names of their infamous destroyers; I mean,
+not the executioners who terminated their mortal existence for in their
+miserable situation that early martyrdom was an act of grace--but I mean
+some, perhaps still living, who with foul cowardice, stabbing like
+assassins in the dark, undermined their fair fame, and morally murdered
+them, long before their deaths, by daily traducing virtues the slanderers
+never possessed, from mere jealousy of the glory they knew themselves
+incapable of deserving.
+
+Montesquieu says, "If there be a God, He must be just!"  That divine
+justice, after centuries, has been fully established on the descendants
+of the cruel, sanguinary conquerers of South America and its butchered
+harmless Emperor Montezuma and his innocent offspring, who are now
+teaching Spain a moral lesson in freeing themselves from its insatiable
+thirst for blood and wealth, while God Himself has refused that blessing
+to the Spaniards which they denied to the Americans!  Oh, France!  what
+hast thou not already suffered, and what hast thou not yet to suffer,
+when to thee, like Spain, it shall visit their descendants even unto the
+fourth generation?
+
+To my insignificant losses in so mighty a ruin perhaps I ought not to
+allude.  I should not presume even to mention that fatal convulsion which
+shook all Europe and has since left the nations in that state of agitated
+undulation which succeeds a tempest upon the ocean, were it not for the
+opportunity it gives me to declare the bounty of my benefactresses.  All
+my own property went down in the wreck; and the mariner who escapes only
+with his life can never recur to the scene of his escape without a
+shudder.  Many persons are still living, of the first respectability, who
+well remember my quitting this country, though very young, on the budding
+of a brilliant career.  Had those prospects been followed up they would
+have placed me beyond the caprice of fickle fortune.  But the dazzling
+lustre of crown favours and princely patronage outweighed the slow,
+though more solid hopes of self-achieved independence.  I certainly was
+then almost a child, and my vanity, perhaps, of the honour of being
+useful to two such illustrious personages got the better of every other
+sentiment.  But now when I reflect, I look back with consternation on the
+many risks I ran, on the many times I stared death in the face with no
+fear but that of being obstructed in my efforts to serve, even with my
+life, the interests dearest to my heart--that of implicit obedience to
+these truly benevolent and generous Princesses, who only wanted the means
+to render me as happy and independent as their cruel destiny has since
+made me wretched and miserable!  Had not death deprived me of their
+patronage I should have had no reason to regret any sacrifice I could
+have made for them, for through the Princess, Her Majesty, unasked, had
+done me the honour to promise me the reversion of a most lucrative as
+well as highly respectable post in her employ.  In these august
+personages I lost my best friends; I lost everything--except the tears,
+which bathe the paper as I write tears of gratitude, which will never
+cease to flow to the memory of their martyrdom.
+
+
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+JOURNAL COMMNENCED:
+
+"The character of Maria Theresa, the Empress-mother of Marie Antoinette,
+is sufficiently known.  The same spirit of ambition and enterprise which
+had already animated her contentions with France in the latter part of
+her career impelled her to wish for its alliance.  In addition to other
+hopes she had been encouraged to imagine that LOUIS XV. might one day aid
+her in recovering the provinces which the King of Prussia had violently
+wrested from her ancient dominions.  She felt the many advantages to be
+derived from a union with her ancient enemy, and she looked for its
+accomplishment by the marriage of her daughter.
+
+"Policy, in sovereigns, is paramount to every other consideration.  They
+regard beauty as a source of profit, like managers of theatres, who, when
+a female candidate is offered, ask whether she is young and handsome,--
+not whether she has talent.  Maria Theresa believed that her daughter's
+beauty would prove more powerful over France than her own armies.  Like
+Catharine II., her envied contemporary, she consulted no ties of nature
+in the disposal of her children,--a system more in character where the
+knout is the logician than among nations boasting higher civilization:
+indeed her rivalry with Catharine even made her grossly neglect their
+education.  Jealous of the rising power of the North, she saw that it was
+the purpose of Russia to counteract her views in Poland and Turkey
+through France, and so totally forgot her domestic duties in the desire
+to thwart the ascendency of Catharine that she often suffered eight or
+ten days to go by without even seeing her children, allowing even the
+essential sources of instruction to remain unprovided.  Her very caresses
+were scarcely given but for display, when the children were admitted to
+be shown to some great personage; and if they were overwhelmed with
+kindness, it was merely to excite a belief that they were the constant
+care and companions of her leisure hours.  When they grew up they became
+the mere instruments of her ambition.  The fate of one of them will show
+how their mother's worldliness was rewarded.
+
+"A leading object of Maria Theresa's policy was the attainment of
+influence over Italy.  For this purpose she first married one of the
+Archduchesses to the imbecile Duke of Parma.  Her second manoeuvre was to
+contrive that Charles III.  should seek the Archduchess Josepha for his
+younger son, the King of Naples.  When everything had been settled, and
+the ceremony by proxy had taken place, it was thought proper to sound the
+Princess as to how far she felt inclined to aid her mother's designs in
+the Court of Naples.  'Scripture says,' was her reply, 'that when a woman
+is married she belongs to the country of her husband.'
+
+"'But the policy of State?' exclaimed Maria Theresa.
+
+"'Is that above religion?' cried the Princess.
+
+"This unexpected answer of the Archduchess was so totally opposite to the
+views of the Empress that she was for a considerable time undecided
+whether she would allow her daughter to depart, till, worn out by
+perplexities, she at last consented, but bade the Archduchess, previous
+to setting off for this much desired country of her new husband, to go
+down to the tombs, and in the vaults of her ancestors offer up to Heaven
+a fervent prayer for the departed souls of those she was about to leave.
+
+"Only a few days before that a Princess had been buried in the vaults--I
+think Joseph the Second's second wife, who had died of the small-pox.
+
+"The Archduchess Josepha obeyed her Imperial mother's cruel commands,
+took leave of all her friends and relatives, as if conscious of the
+result, caught the same disease, and in a few days died!
+
+"The Archduchess Carolina was now tutored to become her sister's
+substitute, and when deemed adequately qualified was sent to Naples,
+where she certainly never forgot she was an Austrian nor the interest of
+the Court of Vienna.  One circumstance concerning her and her mother
+fully illustrates the character of both.  On the marriage, the
+Archduchess found that Spanish etiquette did not allow the Queen to have
+the honour of dining at the same table as the King.  She apprised her
+mother.  Maria Theresa instantly wrote to the Marchese Tenucei, then
+Prime Minister at the Court of Naples, to say that, if her daughter, now
+Queen of Naples, was to be considered less than the King her husband, she
+would send an army to fetch her back to Vienna, and the King might
+purchase a Georgian slave, for an Austrian Princess should not be thus
+humbled.  Maria Theresa need not have given herself all this trouble, for
+before, the letter arrived the Queen of Naples had dismissed all the
+Ministry, upset the Cabinet of Naples, and turned out even the King
+himself from her bedchamber!  So much for the overthrow of Spanish
+etiquette by Austrian policy.  The King of Spain became outrageous at the
+influence of Maria Theresa, but there was no alternative.
+
+"The other daughter of the Empress was married, as I have observed
+already, to the Duke of Parma for the purpose of promoting the Austrian
+strength in Italy against that of France, to which the Court of, Parma,
+as well as that of Modena, had been long attached.
+
+"The fourth Archduchess, Marie Antoinette, being the youngest and most
+beautiful of the family, was destined for France.  There were three older
+than Marie Antoinette; but she, being much lovelier than her sisters, was
+selected on account of her charms.  Her husband was never considered by
+the contrivers of the scheme: he was known to have no sway whatever, not
+even in the choice of his own wife!  But the character of Louis XV.  was
+recollected, and calculations drawn from it, upon the probable power
+which youth and beauty might obtain over such a King and Court.
+
+"It was during the time when Madame de Pompadour directed, not only the
+King, but all France with most despotic sway, that the union of the
+Archduchess Marie Antoinette with the grandson of Louis XV.  was
+proposed.  The plan received the warmest support of Choiseul, then
+Minister, and the ardent co-operation of Pompadour.  Indeed it was to
+her, the Duc de Choiseul, and the Comte de Mercy, the whole affair may be
+ascribed.  So highly was she flattered by the attention with which Maria
+Theresa distinguished her, in consequence of her zeal, by presents and by
+the title 'dear cousin,' which she used in writing to her, that she left
+no stone unturned till the proxy of the Dauphin was sent to Vienna, to
+marry Marie Antoinette in his name.
+
+"All the interest by which this union was supported could not, however,
+subdue a prejudice against it, not only among many of the Court, the
+Cabinet, and the nation, but in the Royal Family itself.  France has
+never looked with complacency upon alliances with the House of Austria:
+enemies to this one avowed themselves as soon as it was declared.  The
+daughters of Louis XV. openly expressed their aversion; but the stronger
+influence prevailed, and Marie Antoinette became the Dauphine.
+
+"Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, and afterwards of Sens, suggested the
+appointment of the Librarian of the College des Quatre Nations, the Abbe
+Vermond, as instructor to the Dauphine in French.  The Abbe Vermond was
+accordingly despatched by Louis XV. to Vienna.  The consequences of this
+appointment will be seen in the sequel.  Perhaps not the least fatal of
+them arose from his gratitude to the Archbishop, who recommended him.
+Some years afterwards, in influencing his pupil, when Queen, to help
+Brienne to the Ministry, he did her and her kingdom more injury than
+their worst foes.  Of the Abbe's power over Marie Antoinette there are
+various opinions; of his capacity there is but one--he was superficial
+and cunning.  On his arrival at Vienna he became the tool of Maria
+Theresa.  While there, he received a salary as the daughter's tutor,
+and when he returned to France, a much larger one as the mother's spy.
+He was more ambitious to be thought a great man, in his power over his
+pupil, than a rich one.  He was too Jesuitical to wish to be deemed rich.
+He knew that superfluous emoluments would soon have overthrown the
+authority he derived from conferring, rather than receiving favours; and
+hence he never soared to any higher post.  He was generally considered to
+be disinterested.  How far his private fortunes benefited by his station
+has never appeared; nor is it known whether, by the elevation of his
+friend and patron to the Ministry in the time of Louis XVI., he gained
+anything beyond the gratification of vanity, from having been the cause:
+it is probable he did not, for if he had, from the general odium against
+that promotion, no doubt it would have been exposed, unless the influence
+of the Queen was his protection, as it proved in so many cases where he
+grossly erred.  From the first he was an evil to Marie Antoinette; and
+ultimately habit rendered him a necessary evil.
+
+"The education of the Dauphine was circumscribed; though very free in her
+manners, she was very deficient in other respects; and hence it was she
+so much avoided all society of females who were better informed than
+herself, courting in preference the lively tittle-tattle of the other
+sex, who were, in turn, better pleased with the gaieties of youth and
+beauty than the more substantial logical witticisms of antiquated Court-
+dowagers.  To this may be ascribed her ungovernable passion for great
+societies, balls, masquerades, and all kinds of public and private
+amusements, as well as her subsequent attachment to the Duchesse de
+Polignac, who so much encouraged them for the pastime of her friend and
+sovereign.  Though naturally averse to everything requiring study or
+application, Marie Antoinette was very assiduous in preparing herself for
+the parts she performed in the various comedies, farces, and cantatas
+given at her private theatre; and their acquirement seemed to cost her no
+trouble.  These innocent diversions became a source of calumny against
+her; yet they formed almost the only part of her German education, about
+which Maria Theresa had been particular: the Empress-mother deemed them
+so valuable to her children that she ordered the celebrated Metastasio to
+write some of his most sublime cantatas for the evening recreations of
+her sisters and herself.  And what can more conduce to elegant literary
+knowledge, or be less dangerous to the morals of the young, than domestic
+recitation of the finest flights of the intellect?  Certain it is that
+Marie Antoinette never forgot her idolatry of her master Metastasio; and
+it would have been well for her had all concerned in her education done
+her equal justice.  The Abbe Vermond encouraged these studies; and the
+King himself afterwards sanctioned the translation of the works of his
+Queen's revered instructor, and their publication at her own expense, in
+a superb edition, that she might gratify her fondness the more
+conveniently by reciting them in French.  When Marie Antoinette herself
+became a mother, and oppressed from the change of circumstances, she
+regretted much that she had not in early life cultivated her mind more
+extensively.  'What a resource,' would she exclaim, is a mind well stored
+against human casualties!' She determined to avoid in her own offspring
+the error, of which she felt herself the victim, committed by her
+Imperial mother, for whose fault, though she suffered, she would invent
+excuses.  'The Empress,' she would say, was left a young widow with ten
+or twelve children; she had been accustomed, even during the Emperor's
+life, to head her vast empire, and she thought it would be unjust to
+sacrifice to her own children the welfare of the numerous family which
+afterwards devolved upon her exclusive government and protection.'
+
+"Most unfortunately for Marie Antoinette, her great supporter, Madame de
+Pompadour, died before the Archduchess came to France.  The pilot who was
+to steer the young mariner safe into port was no more, when she arrived
+at it.  The Austrian interest had sunk with its patroness.  The
+intriguers of the Court no sooner saw the King without an avowed
+favourite than they sought to give him one who should further their own
+views and crush the Choiseul party, which had been sustained by
+Pompadour.  The licentious Duc de Richelieu was the pander on this
+occasion.  The low, vulgar Du Barry was by him introduced to the King,
+and Richelieu had the honour of enthroning a successor to Pompadour, and
+supplying Louis XV. with the last of his mistresses.  Madame de Grammont,
+who had been the royal confidante during the interregnum, gave up to the
+rising star.  The effect of a new power was presently seen in new events.
+All the Ministers known to be attached to the Austrian interest were
+dismissed; and the time for the arrival of the young bride, the
+Archduchess of Austria, who was about to be installed Dauphine of France,
+was at hand, and she came to meet scarcely a friend, and many foes--of
+whom even her beauty, her gentleness, and her simplicity, were doomed to
+swell the phalanx."
+
+
+
+
+SECTION III.
+
+"On the marriage night, Louis XV.  said gaily to the Dauphin, who was
+supping with his usual heartiness, 'Don't overcharge your stomach to-
+night'
+
+"'Why, I always sleep best after a hearty supper,' replied the Dauphin,
+with the greatest coolness.
+
+"The supper being ended, he accompanied his Dauphine to her chamber, and
+at the door, with the greatest politeness, wished her a good night.  Next
+morning, upon his saying, when he met her at breakfast, that he hoped she
+had slept well, Marie Antoinette replied, 'Excellently well, for I had no
+one to disturb me!'
+
+"The Princesse de Guemenee, who was then at the head of the household,
+on hearing the Dauphine moving very early in her apartment, ventured to
+enter it, and, not seeing the Dauphin, exclaimed, 'Bless me! he is risen
+as usual!'--'Whom do you mean?' asked Marie Antoinette.  The Princess
+misconstruing the interrogation, was going to retire, when the Dauphine
+said, 'I have heard a great deal of French politeness, but I think I am
+married to the most polite of the nation!'--'What, then, he is risen?'--
+'No, no, no!' exclaimed the Dauphine, 'there has been no rising; he has
+never lain down here.  He left me at the door of my apartment with his
+hat in his hand, and hastened from me as if embarrassed with my person!'
+
+"After Marie Antoinette became a mother she would often laugh and tell
+Louis XVI.  of his bridal politeness, and ask him if in the interim
+between that and the consummation he had studied his maiden aunts or his
+tutor on the subject.  On this he would laugh most excessively.
+
+"Scarcely was Marie Antoinette seated in her new country before the
+virulence of Court intrigue against her became active.  She was beset on
+all sides by enemies open and concealed, who never slackened their
+persecutions.  All the family of Louis XV., consisting of those maiden
+aunts of the Dauphin just adverted to (among whom Madame Adelaide was
+specially implacable), were incensed at the marriage, not only from their
+hatred to Austria, but because it had accomplished the ambition of an
+obnoxious favourite to give a wife to the Dauphin of their kingdom.  On
+the credulous and timid mind of the Prince, then in the leading strings
+of this pious sisterhood, they impressed the misfortunes to his country
+and to the interest of the Bourbon family, which must spring from the
+Austrian influence through the medium of his bride.  No means were left
+unessayed to steel him against her sway.  I remember once to have heard
+Her Majesty remark to Louis XVI., in answer to some particular
+observations he made, 'These, Sire, are the sentiments of our aunts, I am
+sure.'  And, indeed, great must have been their ascendency over him in
+youth, for up to a late date he entertained a very high respect for their
+capacity and judgment.  Great indeed must it have been to have prevailed
+against all the seducing allurements of a beautiful and fascinating young
+bride, whose amiableness, vivacity, and wit became the universal
+admiration, and whose graceful manner of address few ever equalled and
+none ever surpassed; nay, even so to have prevailed as to form one of the
+great sources of his aversion to consummate the marriage!  Since the
+death of the late Queen, their mother, these four Princesses (who, it was
+said, if old maids, were not so from choice) had received and performed
+the exclusive honours of the Court.  It could not have diminished their
+dislike for the young and lovely new-comer to see themselves under the
+necessity of abandoning their dignities and giving up their station.  So
+eager were they to contrive themes of complaint against her, that when
+she visited them in the simple attire in which she so much delighted,
+'sans ceremonie', unaccompanied by a troop of horse and a squadron of
+footguards, they complained to their father, who hinted to Marie
+Antoinette that such a relaxation of the royal dignity would be attended
+with considerable injury to French manufactures, to trade, and to the
+respect due to her rank.  'My State and Court dresses,' replied she,
+'shall not be less brilliant than those of any former Dauphine or Queen
+of France, if such be the pleasure of the King,--but to my grandpapa I
+appeal for some indulgence with respect to my undress private costume of
+the morning.
+
+"It was dangerous for one in whose conduct so many prying eyes were
+seeking for sources of accusation to gratify herself even by the
+overthrow of an absurdity, when that overthrow might incur the stigma of
+innovation.  The Court of Versailles was jealous of its Spanish
+inquisitorial etiquette.  It had been strictly wedded to its pageantries
+since the time of the great Anne of Austria.  The sagacious and prudent
+provisions of this illustrious contriver were deemed the ne plus ultra of
+royal female policy.  A cargo of whalebone was yearly obtained by her to
+construct such stays for the Maids of Honour as might adequately conceal
+the Court accidents which generally--poor ladies! --befell them in
+rotation every nine months.
+
+"But Marie Antoinette could not sacrifice her predilection for a
+simplicity quite English, to prudential considerations.  Indeed, she was
+too young to conceive it even desirable.  So much did she delight in
+being unshackled by finery that she would hurry from Court to fling off
+her royal robes and ornaments, exclaiming, when freed from them, 'Thank
+Heaven, I am out of harness!'
+
+"But she had natural advantages, which gave her enemies a pretext for
+ascribing this antipathy to the established fashion to mere vanity.  It
+is not impossible that she might have derived some pleasure from
+displaying a figure so beautiful, with no adornment except its native
+gracefulness; but how great must have been the chagrin of the Princesses,
+of many of the Court ladies, indeed, of all in any way ungainly or
+deformed, when called to exhibit themselves by the side of a bewitching
+person like hers, unaided by the whalebone and horse-hair paddings with
+which they had hitherto been made up, and which placed the best form on a
+level with the worst?  The prudes who practised illicitly, and felt the
+convenience of a guise which so well concealed the effect of their
+frailties, were neither the least formidable nor the least numerous of
+the enemies created by this revolution of costume; and the Dauphine was
+voted by common consent--for what greater crime could there be in France?
+--the heretic Martin Luther of female fashions!  The four Princesses, her
+aunts, were as bitter against the disrespect with which the Dauphine
+treated the armour, which they called dress, as if they themselves had
+benefited by the immunities it could, confer.
+
+"Indeed, most of the old Court ladies embattled themselves against Marie
+Antoinette's encroachments upon their habits.  The leader of them was a
+real medallion, whose costume, character, and notions spoke a genealogy
+perfectly antediluvian; who even to the latter days of Louis XV., amid a
+Court so irregular, persisted in her precision.  So systematic a
+supporter of the antique could be no other than the declared foe of any
+change, and, of course, deemed the desertion of large sack gowns,
+monstrous Court hoops, and the old notions of appendages attached to
+them, for tight waists and short petticoats, an awful demonstration of
+the depravity of the time!--[The editor needs scarcely add, that the
+allusion of the Princess is to Madame de Noailles.]
+
+"This lady had been first lady to the sole Queen of Louis XV.  She was
+retained in the same station for Marie Antoinette.  Her motions were
+regulated like clock-work.  So methodical was she in all her operations
+of mind and body, that, from the beginning of the year to its end, she
+never deviated a moment.  Every hour had its peculiar occupation.  Her
+element was etiquette, but the etiquette of ages before the flood.  She
+had her rules even for the width of petticoats, that the Queens and
+Princesses might have no temptation to straddle over a rivulet, or
+crossing, of unroyal size.
+
+"The Queen of Louis XV.  having been totally subservient in her movements
+night and day to the wishes of the Comtesse de Noailles, it will be
+readily conceived how great a shock this lady must have sustained on
+being informed one morning that the Dauphine had actually risen in the
+night, and her ladyship not by to witness a ceremony from which most
+ladies would have felt no little pleasure in being spared, but which, on
+this occasion, admitted of no delay!  Notwithstanding the Dauphine
+excused herself by the assurance of the urgency allowing no time to call
+the Countess, she nearly fainted at not having been present at that,
+which others sometimes faint at, if too near!  This unaccustomed
+watchfulness so annoyed Marie Antoinette, that, determined to laugh her
+out of it, she ordered an immense bottle of hartshorn to be placed upon
+her toilet.  Being asked what use was to be made of the hartshorn, she
+said it was to prevent her first Lady of Honour from falling into
+hysterics when the calls of nature were uncivil enough to exclude her
+from being of the party.  This, as may be presumed, had its desired
+effect, and Marie Antoinette was ever afterwards allowed free access at
+least to one of her apartments, and leave to perform that in private
+which few individuals except Princesses do with parade and publicity.
+
+"These things, however, planted the seeds of rancour against Marie
+Antoinette, which Madame de Noailles carried with her to the grave.
+It will be seen that she declared against her at a crisis of great
+importance.  The laughable title of Madame Etiquette, which the Dauphine
+gave her, clung to her through life; though conferred only in merriment,
+it never was forgiven.
+
+"The Dauphine seemed to be under a sort of fatality with regard to all
+those who had any power of doing her mischief either with her husband or
+the Court.  The Duc de Vauguyon, the Dauphin's tutor, who both from
+principle and interest hated everything Austrian, and anything whatever
+which threatened to lessen his despotic influence so long exercised over
+the mind of his pupil, which he foresaw would be endangered were the
+Prince once out of his leading-strings and swayed by a young wife, made
+use of all the influence which old courtiers can command over the minds
+they have formed (more generally for their own ends than those of
+uprightness) to poison that of the young Prince against his bride.
+
+"Never were there more intrigues among the female slaves in the Seraglio
+of Constantinople for the Grand Signior's handkerchief than were
+continually harassing one party against the other at the Court of
+Versailles.  The Dauphine was even attacked through her own tutor, the
+Abbe Vermond.  A cabal was got up between the Abbe and Madame Marsan,
+instructress of the sisters of Louis XVI. (the Princesses Clotilde and
+Elizabeth) upon the subject of education.  Nothing grew out of this
+affair excepting a new stimulus to the party spirit against the Austrian
+influence, or, in other words, the Austrian Princess; and such was
+probably its purpose.  Of course every trifle becomes Court tattle.  This
+was made a mighty business of, for want of a worse.  The royal aunts
+naturally took the part of Madame Marsan.  They maintained that their
+royal nieces, the French Princesses, were much better educated than the
+German Archduchesses had been by the Austrian Empress.  They attempted to
+found their assertion upon the embonpoint of the French Princesses.  They
+said that their nieces, by the exercise of religious principles, obtained
+the advantage of solid flesh, while the Austrian Archduchesses, by
+wasting themselves in idleness and profane pursuits, grew thin and
+meagre, and were equally exhausted in their minds and bodies!  At this
+the Abbe Vermond, as the tutor of Marie Antoinette, felt himself highly
+offended, and called on Comte de Mercy, then the Imperial Ambassador, to
+apprise him of the insult the Empire had received over the shoulders of
+the Dauphine's tutor.  The Ambassador gravely replied that he should
+certainly send off a courier immediately to Vienna to inform the Empress
+that the only fault the French Court could find with Marie Antoinette was
+her being not so unwieldy as their own Princesses, and bringing charms
+with her to a bridegroom, on whom even charms so transcendent could make
+no impression!  Thus the matter was laughed off, but it left, ridiculous
+as it was, new bitter enemies to the cause of the illustrious stranger.
+
+"The new favourite, Madame du Barry, whose sway was now supreme, was of
+course joined by the whole vitiated intriguing Court of Versailles.  The
+King's favourite is always that of his parasites, however degraded.  The
+politics of the De Pompadour party were still feared, though De Pompadour
+herself was no more, for Choiseul had friends who were still active in
+his behalf.  The power which had been raised to crush the power that was
+still struggling formed a rallying point for those who hated Austria,
+which the deposed Ministry had supported; and even the King's daughters,
+much as they abhorred the vulgarity of Du Barry, were led, by dislike for
+the Dauphine, to pay their devotions to their father's mistress.  The
+influence of the rising sun, Marie Antoinette, whose beauteous rays of
+blooming youth warmed every heart in her favour, was feared by the new
+favourite as well as by the old maidens.  Louis XV. had already expressed
+a sufficient interest for the friendless royal stranger to awaken the
+jealousy of Du Barry, and she was as little disposed to share the King's
+affections with another, as his daughters were to welcome a future Queen
+from Austria in their palace.  Mortified at the attachment the King daily
+evinced, she strained every nerve to raise a party to destroy his
+predilections.  She called to her aid the strength of ridicule, than
+which no weapon is more false or deadly.  She laughed at qualities she
+could not comprehend, and underrated what she could not imitate.  The Duc
+de Richelieu, who had been instrumental to her good fortune, and for whom
+(remembering the old adage: when one hand washes the other both are made
+clean) she procured the command of the army--this Duke, the triumphant
+general of Mahon and one of the most distinguished noblemen of France,
+did not blush to become the secret agent of a depraved meretrix in the
+conspiracy to blacken the character of her victim!  The Princesses, of
+course, joined the jealous Phryne against their niece, the daughter of
+the Caesars, whose only faults were those of nature, for at that time she
+could have no other excepting those personal perfections which were the
+main source of all their malice.  By one considered as an usurper, by the
+others as an intruder, both were in consequence industrious in the quiet
+work of ruin by whispers and detraction.
+
+"To an impolitic act of the Dauphine herself may be in part ascribed the
+unwonted virulence of the jealousy and resentment of Du Barry.  The old
+dotard, Louis XV., was so indelicate as to have her present at the first
+supper of the Dauphine at Versailles.  Madame la Marechale de Beaumont,
+the Duchesse de Choiseul, and the Duchesse de Grammont were there also;
+but upon the favourite taking her seat at table they expressed themselves
+very freely to Louis XV. respecting the insult they conceived offered to
+the young Dauphine, left the royal party, and never appeared again at
+Court till after the King's death.  In consequence of this scene, Marie
+Antoinette, at the instigation of the Abbe Vermond, wrote to her mother,
+the Empress, complaining of the slight put upon her rank, birth, and
+dignity, and requesting the Empress would signify her displeasure to the
+Court of France, as she had done to that of Spain on a similar occasion
+in favour of her sister, the Queen of Naples.
+
+"This letter, which was intercepted, got to the knowledge of the Court
+and excited some clamour.  To say the worst, it could only be looked upon
+as an ebullition of the folly of youth.  But insignificant as such
+matters were in fact, malignity converted them into the locust, which
+destroyed the fruit she was sent to cultivate.
+
+"Maria Theresa, old fox that she was, too true to her system to retract
+the policy, which formerly, laid her open to the criticism of all the
+civilised Courts of Europe for opening the correspondence with De
+Pompadour, to whose influence she owed her daughter's footing in France--
+a correspondence whereby she degraded the dignity of her sex and the
+honour of her crown--and at the same time suspecting that it was not her
+daughter, but Vermond, from private motives, who complained, wrote the
+following laconic reply to the remonstrance:
+
+"'Where the sovereign himself presides, no guest can be exceptionable.'
+
+"Such sentiments are very much in contradiction with the character of
+Maria Theresa.  She was always solicitous to impress the world with her
+high notion of moral rectitude.  Certainly, such advice, however politic,
+ought not to have proceeded from a mother so religious as Maria Theresa
+wished herself to be thought; especially to a young Princess who, though
+enthusiastically fond of admiration, at least had discretion to see and
+feel the impropriety of her being degraded to the level of a female like
+Du Barry, and, withal, courage to avow it.  This, of itself, was quite
+enough to shake the virtue of Marie Antoinette; or, at least, Maria
+Theresa's letter was of a cast to make her callous to the observance of
+all its scruples.  And in that vitiated, depraved Court, she too soon,
+unfortunately, took the hint of her maternal counsellor in not only
+tolerating, but imitating, the object she despised.  Being one day told
+that Du Barry was the person who most contributed to amuse Louis XV.,
+'Then,' said she, innocently, 'I declare myself her rival; for I will try
+who can best amuse my grandpapa for the future.  I will exert all my
+powers to please and divert him, and then we shall see who can best
+succeed.'
+
+"Du Barry was by when this was said, and she never forgave it.  To this,
+and to the letter, her rancour may principally be ascribed.  To all those
+of the Court party who owed their places and preferments to her exclusive
+influence, and who held them subject to her caprice, she, of course,
+communicated the venom.
+
+"Meanwhile, the Dauphin saw Marie Antoinette mimicking the monkey tricks
+with which this low Sultana amused her dotard, without being aware of the
+cause.  He was not pleased; and this circumstance, coupled with his
+natural coolness and indifference for a union he had been taught to deem
+impolitic and dangerous to the interests of France, created in his
+virtuous mind that sort of disgust which remained so long an enigma to
+the Court and all the kingdom, excepting his royal aunts, who did the
+best they could to confirm it into so decided an aversion as might induce
+him to impel his grandfather to annul the marriage and send the Dauphine
+back to Vienna."
+
+"After the Dauphin's marriage, the Comte d'Artois and his brother
+Monsieur--[Afterwards Louis XVIII., and the former the present Charles
+X.]--returned from their travels to Versailles.  The former was
+delighted with the young Dauphine, and, seeing her so decidedly neglected
+by her husband, endeavoured to console her by a marked attention, but for
+which she would have been totally isolated, for, excepting the old King,
+who became more and more enraptured with the grace, beauty, and vivacity
+of his young granddaughter, not another individual in the Royal Family
+was really interested in her favour.  The kindness of a personage so
+important was of too much weight not to awaken calumny.  It was, of
+course, endeavoured to be turned against her.  Possibilities, and even
+probabilities, conspired to give a pretext for the scandal which already
+began to be whispered about the Dauphine and D'Artois.  It would have
+been no wonder had a reciprocal attachment arisen between a virgin wife,
+so long neglected by her husband, and one whose congeniality of character
+pointed him out as a more desirable partner than the Dauphin.  But there
+is abundant evidence of the perfect innocence of their intercourse.  Du
+Barry was most earnest in endeavouring, from first to last, to establish
+its impurity, because the Dauphine induced the gay young Prince to join
+in all her girlish schemes to tease and circumvent the favourite.  But
+when this young Prince and his brother were married to the two Princesses
+of Piedmont, the intimacy between their brides and the Dauphine proved
+there could have been no doubt that Du Barry had invented a calumny, and
+that no feeling existed but one altogether sisterly.  The three stranger
+Princesses were indeed inseparable; and these marriages, with that of the
+French Princess, Clotilde, to the Prince of Piedmont, created
+considerable changes in the coteries of Court.
+
+"The machinations against Marie Antoinette could not be concealed from
+the Empress-mother.  An extraordinary Ambassador was consequently sent
+from Vienna to complain of them to the Court of Versailles, with
+directions that the remonstrance should be supported and backed by the
+Comte de Mercy, then Austrian Ambassador at the Court of France.  Louis
+XV. was the only person to whom the communication was news.  This old
+dilettanti of the sex was so much engaged between his seraglio of the
+Parc-aux-cerfs and Du Barry that he knew less of what was passing in his
+palace than those at Constantinople.  On being informed by the Austrian
+Ambassador, he sent an Ambassador of his own to Vienna to assure the
+Empress that he was perfectly satisfied of the innocent conduct of his
+newly acquired granddaughter.
+
+"Among the intrigues within intrigues of the time I mention, there was
+one which shows that perhaps Du Barry's distrust of the constancy of her
+paramour, and apprehension from the effect on him of the charms of the
+Dauphine, in whom he became daily more interested, were not utterly
+without foundation.  In this instance even her friend, the Duc de
+Richelieu, that notorious seducer, by lending himself to the secret
+purposes of the King, became a traitor to the cause of the King's
+favourite, to which he had sworn allegiance, and which he had supported
+by defaming her whom he now became anxious to make his Queen.
+
+"It has already been said, that the famous Duchesse de Grammont was one
+of the confidential friends of Louis XV.  before he took Du Barry under
+his especial protection.  Of course, there can be no difficulty in
+conceiving how likely a person she would be, to aid any purpose of the
+King which should displace the favourite, by whom she herself had been
+obliged to retire, by ties of a higher order, to which she might prove
+instrumental.
+
+"Louis XV. actually flattered himself with the hope of obtaining
+advantages from the Dauphin's coolness towards the Dauphine.  He
+encouraged it, and even threw many obstacles in the way of the
+consummation of the marriage.  The apartments of the young couple were
+placed at opposite ends of the palace, so that the Dauphin could not
+approach that of his Dauphine without a publicity which his bashfulness
+could not brook.
+
+"Louis XV. now began to act upon his secret passion to supplant his
+grandson, and make the Dauphine his own Queen, by endeavouring to secure
+her affections to himself.  His attentions were backed by gifts of
+diamonds, pearls, and other valuables, and it was at this period that
+Boehmer, the jeweller, first received the order for that famous necklace,
+which subsequently produced such dreadful consequences, and which was
+originally meant as a kingly present to the intended Queen, though
+afterwards destined for Du Barry, had not the King died before the
+completion of the bargain for it.
+
+"The Queen herself one day told me, 'Heaven knows if ever I should have
+had the blessing of being a mother had I not one evening surprised the
+Dauphin, when the subject was adverted to, in the expression of a sort of
+regret at our being placed so far asunder from each other.  Indeed, he
+never honoured me with any proof of his affection so explicit as that you
+have just witnessed'--for the King had that moment kissed her, as he left
+the apartment--'from the time of our marriage till the consummation.
+The most I ever received from him was a squeeze of the hand in secret.
+His extreme modesty, and perhaps his utter ignorance of the intercourse
+with woman, dreaded the exposure of crossing the palace to my bedchamber;
+and no doubt the accomplishment would have occurred sooner, could it have
+been effectuated in privacy.  The hint he gave emboldened me with
+courage, when he next left me, as usual, at the door of my apartment,
+to mention it to the Duchesse de Grammont, then the confidential friend
+of Louis XV., who laughed me almost out of countenance; saying, in her
+gay manner of expressing herself, "If I were as young and as beautiful a
+wife as you are I should certainly not trouble myself to remove the
+obstacle by going to him while there were others of superior rank ready
+to supply his place."  Before she quitted me, however, she said: "Well,
+child, make yourself easy: you shall no longer be separated from the
+object of your wishes: I will mention it to the King, your grandpapa, and
+he will soon order your husband's apartment to be changed for one nearer
+your own."  And the change shortly afterwards took place.
+
+"'Here,' continued the Queen, 'I accuse myself of a want of that courage
+which every virtuous wife ought to exercise in not having complained of
+the visible neglect shown me long, long before I did; for this, perhaps,
+would have spared both of us the many bitter pangs originating in the
+seeming coldness, whence have arisen all the scandalous stories against
+my character--which have often interrupted the full enjoyment I should
+have felt had they not made me tremble for the security of that
+attachment, of which I had so many proofs, and which formed my only
+consolation amid all the malice that for yearn had been endeavouring to
+deprive me of it!  So far as regards my husband's estimation, thank fate,
+I have defied their wickedness!  Would to Heaven I could have been
+equally secure in the estimation of my people--the object nearest to my
+heart, after the King and my dear children!'"
+
+     [The Dauphine could not understand the first allusion of the
+     Duchess; but it is evident that the vile intriguer took this
+     opportunity of sounding her upon what she was commissioned to carry
+     on in favour of Louis XV., and it is equally apparent that when she
+     heard Marie Antoinette express herself decidedly in favour of her
+     young husband, and distinctly saw how utterly groundless were the
+     hopes of his secret rival, she was led thereby to abandon her wicked
+     project; and perhaps the change of apartments was the best mask that
+     could have been devised to hide the villany.]
+
+"The present period appears to have been one of the happiest in the life
+of Marie Antoinette.  Her intimate society consisted of the King's
+brothers, and their Princesses, with the King's saint-like sister
+Elizabeth; and they lived entirely together, excepting when the Dauphine
+dined in public.  These ties seemed to be drawn daily closer for some
+time, till the subsequent intimacy with the Polignacs.  Even when the
+Comtesse d'Artois lay-in, the Dauphine, then become Queen, transferred
+her parties to the apartments of that Princess, rather than lose the
+gratification of her society.
+
+"During all this time, however, Du Barry, the Duc d'Aiguillon, and the
+aunts-Princesses, took special care to keep themselves between her and
+any tenderness on the part of the husband Dauphin, and, from different
+motives uniting in one end, tried every means to get the object of their
+hatred sent back to Vienna."
+
+
+
+
+SECTION IV.
+
+"The Empress-mother was thoroughly aware of all that was going on.  Her
+anxiety, not only about her daughter, but her State policy, which it may
+be apprehended was in her mind the stronger motive of the two, encouraged
+the machinations of an individual who must now appear upon the stage of
+action, and to whose arts may be ascribed the worst of the sufferings of
+Marie Antoinette.
+
+"I allude to the Cardinal Prince de Rohan.
+
+"At this time he was Ambassador at the Court of Vienna.  The reliance the
+Empress placed on him favoured his criminal machinations against her
+daughter's reputation.  He was the cause of her sending spies to watch
+the conduct of the Dauphine, besides a list of persons proper for her to
+cultivate, as well as of those it was deemed desirable for her to exclude
+from her confidence.
+
+"As the Empress knew all those who, though high in office in Versailles,
+secretly received pensions from Vienna, she could, of course, tell,
+without much expense of sagacity, who were in the Austrian interest.  The
+Dauphine was warned that she was surrounded by persons who were not her
+friends.
+
+"The conduct of Maria Theresa towards her daughter, the Queen of Naples,
+will sufficiently explain how much the Empress must have been chagrined
+at the absolute indifference of Marie Antoinette to the State policy
+which was intended to have been served in sending her to France.  A less
+fitting instrument for the purpose could not have been selected by the
+mother.  Marie Antoinette had much less of the politician about her than
+either of her surviving sisters; and so much was she addicted to
+amusement, that she never even thought of entering into State affairs
+till forced by the King's neglect of his most essential prerogatives,
+and called upon by the Ministers themselves to screen them from
+responsibility.  Indeed, the latter cause prevailed upon her to take her
+seat in the Cabinet Council (though she took it with great reluctance)
+long before she was impelled thither by events and her consciousness of
+its necessity.  She would often exclaim to me: 'How happy I was during
+the lifetime of Louis XV.!  No cares to disturb my peaceful slumbers!  No
+responsibility to agitate my mind!  No fears of erring, of partiality, of
+injustice, to break in upon my enjoyments!  All, all happiness, my dear
+Princess, vanishes from the bosom of a woman if she once deviate from the
+prescribed domestic character of her sex!  Nothing was ever framed more
+wise than the Salique Laws, which in France and many parts of Germany
+exclude women from reigning, for few of us have that masculine capacity
+so necessary to conduct with impartiality and justice the affairs of
+State!'
+
+"To this feeling of the impropriety of feminine interference in masculine
+duties, coupled with her attachment to France, both from principle and
+feeling, may be ascribed the neglect of her German connexions, which led
+to many mortifying reproaches, and the still more galling espionage to
+which she was subjected in her own palace by her mother.  These are,
+however, so many proofs of the falsehood of the allegations by which she
+suffered so deeply afterwards, of having sacrificed the interests of her
+husband's kingdom to her predilection for her mother's empire.
+
+"The subtle Rohan designed to turn the anxiety of Maria Theresa about the
+Dauphine to account, and he was also aware that the ambition of the
+Empress was paramount in Maria Theresa's bosom to the love for her child.
+He was about to play a deep and more than double game.  By increasing the
+mother's jealousy of the daughter, and at the same time enhancing the
+importance of the advantages afforded by her situation, to forward the
+interests of the mother, he, no doubt, hoped to get both within his
+power: for who can tell what wild expectation might not have animated
+such a mind as Rohan's at the prospect of governing not only the Court of
+France but that of Austria?--the Court of France, through a secret
+influence of his own dictation thrown around the Dauphine by the mother's
+alarm; and that of Austria, through a way he pointed out, in which the
+object that was most longed for by the mother's ambition seemed most
+likely to be achieved!  While he endeavoured to make Maria Theresa beset
+her daughter with the spies I have mentioned, and which were generally of
+his own selection, he at the same time endeavoured to strengthen her
+impression of how important it was to her schemes to insure the
+daughter's co-operation.  Conscious of the eagerness of Maria Theresa for
+the recovery of the rich province which Frederick the Great of Prussia
+had wrested from her ancient dominions, he pressed upon her credulity the
+assurance that the influence of which the Dauphine was capable over Louis
+XV., by the youthful beauty's charms acting upon the dotard's admiration,
+would readily induce that monarch to give such aid to Austria as must
+insure the restoration of what it lost.  Silesia, it has been before
+observed, was always a topic by means of which the weak side of Maria
+Theresa could be attacked with success.  There is generally some peculiar
+frailty in the ambitious, through which the artful can throw them off
+their guard.  The weak and tyrannical Philip II., whenever the recovery
+of Holland and the Low Countries was proposed to him, was always ready to
+rush headlong into any scheme for its accomplishment; the bloody Queen
+Mary, his wife, declared that at her death the loss of Calais would be
+found engraven on her heart; and to Maria Theresa, Silesia was the
+Holland and the Calais for which her wounded pride was thirsting.
+
+"But Maria Theresa was wary, even in the midst of the credulity of her
+ambition.  The Baron de Neni was sent by her privately to Versailles to
+examine, personally, whether there was anything in Marie Antoinette's
+conduct requiring the extreme vigilance which had been represented as
+indispensable.  The report of the Baron de Neni to his royal mistress was
+such as to convince her she had been misled and her daughter
+misrepresented by Rohan.  The Empress instantly forbade him her presence.
+
+"The Cardinal upon this, unknown to the Court of Vienna, and indeed, to
+every one, except his factotum, principal agent, and secretary, the Abbe
+Georgel, left the Austrian capital, and came to Versailles, covering his
+disgrace by pretended leave of absence.  On seeing Marie Antoinette he
+fell enthusiastically in love with her.  To gain her confidence he
+disclosed the conduct which had been observed towards her by the Empress,
+and, in confirmation of the correctness of his disclosure, admitted that
+he had himself chosen the spies which had been set on her.  Indignant at
+such meanness in her mother, and despising the prelate, who could be base
+enough to commit a deed equally corrupt and uncalled for, and even thus
+wantonly betrayed when committed, the Dauphine suddenly withdrew from his
+presence, and gave orders that he should never be admitted to any of her
+parties.
+
+"But his imagination was too much heated by a guilty passion of the
+blackest hue to recede; and his nature too presumptuous and fertile in
+expedients to be disconcerted.  He soon found means to conciliate both
+mother and daughter; and both by pretending to manage with the one the
+self-same plot which, with the other, he was recommending himself by
+pretending to overthrow.  To elude detection he interrupted the regular
+correspondence between the Empress and the Dauphine, and created a
+coolness by preventing the communications which would have unmasked him,
+that gave additional security to the success of his deception.
+
+"By the most diabolical arts he obtained an interview with the Dauphine,
+in which he regained her confidence.  He made her believe that he had
+been commissioned by her mother, as she had shown so little interest for
+the house of Austria, to settle a marriage for her sister, the
+Archduchess Elizabeth, with Louis XV.  The Dauphine was deeply affected
+at the statement.  She could not conceal her agitation.  She
+involuntarily confessed how much she should deplore such an alliance.
+The Cardinal instantly perceived his advantage, and was too subtle to let
+it pass.  He declared that, as it was to him the negotiation had been
+confided, if the Dauphine would keep her own counsel, never communicate
+their conversation to the Empress, but leave the whole matter to his
+management and only assure him that he was forgiven, he would pledge
+himself to arrange things to her satisfaction.  The Dauphine, not wishing
+to see another raised to the throne over her head and to her scorn, under
+the assurance that no one knew of the intention or could prevent it but
+the Cardinal, promised him her faith and favour; and thus rashly fell
+into the springs of this wily intriguer.
+
+"Exulting to find Marie Antoinette in his power, the Cardinal left
+Versailles as privately as he arrived there, for Vienna.  His next object
+was to ensnare the Empress, as he had done her daughter; and by a
+singular caprice, fortune, during his absence, had been preparing for him
+the means.
+
+"The Abbe Georgel, his secretary, by underhand manoeuvres, to which he
+was accustomed, had obtained access to all the secret State
+correspondence, in which the Empress had expressed herself fully to the
+Comte de Mercy relative to the views of Russia and Prussia upon Poland,
+whereby her own plans were much thwarted.  The acquirement of copies of
+these documents naturally gave the Cardinal free access to the Court and
+a ready introduction once more to the Empress.  She was too much
+committed by his possession of such weapons not to be most happy to make
+her peace with him; and he was too sagacious not to make the best use of
+his opportunity.  To regain her confidence, he betrayed some of the
+subaltern agents, through whose treachery he had procured his evidences,
+and, in farther confirmation of his resources, showed the Empress several
+dispatches from her own Ministers to the Courts of Russia and Prussia.
+He had long, he said, been in possession of similar views of
+aggrandisement, upon which these Courts were about to act; and had, for a
+while, even incurred Her Imperial Majesty's displeasure, merely because
+he was not in a situation fully to explain; but that he had now thought
+of the means to crush their schemes before they could be put in practice.
+He apprised her of his being aware that Her Imperial Majesty's Ministers
+were actively carrying on a correspondence with Russia, with a view of
+joining her in checking the French co-operation with the Grand Signior;
+and warned her that if this design were secretly pursued, it would defeat
+the very views she had in sharing in the spoliation of Poland; and if
+openly, it would be deemed an avowal of hostilities against the Court of
+France, whose political system would certainly impel it to resist any
+attack upon the divan of Constantinople, that the balance of power in
+Europe might be maintained against the formidable ambition of Catherine,
+whose gigantic hopes had been already too much realised.
+
+"Maria Theresa was no less astonished at these disclosures of the
+Cardinal than the Dauphine had been at his communication concerning her.
+She plainly saw that all her plans were known, and might be defeated from
+their detection.
+
+"The Cardinal, having succeeded in alarming the Empress, took from his
+pocket a fabulous correspondence, hatched by his secretary, the Abbe
+Georgel.  'There, Madame,' said he, 'this will convince Your Majesty that
+the warm interest I have taken in your Imperial house has carried me
+farther than I was justified in having gone; but seeing the sterility of
+the Dauphine, or, as it is reported by some of the Court, the total
+disgust the Dauphin has to consummate the marriage, the coldness of your
+daughter towards the interest of your Court, and the prospect of a race
+from the Comtesse d'Artois, for the consequences of which there is no
+answering, I have, unknown to Your Imperial Majesty, taken upon myself to
+propose to LOUIS XV. a marriage with the Archduchess Elizabeth, who, on
+becoming Queen of France, will immediately have it in her power to
+forward the Austrian interest; for LOUIS XV., as the first proof of his
+affection to his young bride, will at once secure to your Empire the aid
+you stand so much in need of against the ambition of these two rising
+States.  The recovery of Your Imperial Majesty's ancient dominions may
+then be looked upon as accomplished from the influence of the French
+Cabinet.
+
+"The bait was swallowed.  Maria Theresa was so overjoyed at this scheme
+that she totally forgot all former animosity against the Cardinal.  She
+was encouraged to ascribe the silence of Marie Antoinette (whose letters
+had been intercepted by the Cardinal himself) to her resentment of this
+project concerning her sister; and the deluded Empress, availing herself
+of the pretended zeal of the Cardinal for the interest of her family,
+gave him full powers to return to France and secretly negotiate the
+alliance for her daughter Elizabeth, which was by no means to be
+disclosed to the Dauphine till the King's proxy should be appointed to
+perform the ceremony at Vienna.  This was all the Cardinal wished for.
+
+"Meanwhile, in order to obtain a still greater ascendency over the Court
+of France, he had expended immense sums to bribe secretaries and
+Ministers; and couriers were even stopped to have copies taken of all the
+correspondence to and from Austria.
+
+"At the same crisis the Empress was informed by Prince Kaunitz that the
+Cardinal and his suite at the palace of the French Ambassador carried on
+such an immense and barefaced traffic of French manufactures of every
+description that Maria Theresa thought proper, in order to prevent future
+abuse, to abolish the privilege which gave to Ministers and Ambassadors
+an opportunity of defrauding the revenue.  Though this law was levelled
+exclusively at the Cardinal, it was thought convenient under the
+circumstances to avoid irritating him, and it was consequently made
+general.  But, the Comte de Mercy now obtaining some clue to his
+duplicity, an intimation was given to the Court at Versailles, to which
+the King replied, 'If the Empress be dissatisfied with the French
+Ambassador, he shall be recalled.'  But though completely unmasked, none
+dared publicly to accuse him, each party fearing a discovery of its own
+intrigue.  His official recall did not in consequence take place for some
+time; and the Cardinal, not thinking it prudent to go back till Louis XV.
+should be no more, lest some unforeseen discovery of his project for
+supplying her royal paramour with a Queen should rouse Du Barry to get
+his Cardinalship sent to the Bastille for life, remained fixed in his
+post, waiting for events.
+
+"At length Louis XV. expired, and the Cardinal returned to Versailles.
+He contrived to obtain a private audience of the young Queen.  He
+presumed upon her former facility in listening to him, and was about to
+betray the last confidence of Maria Theresa; but the Queen, shocked at
+the knowledge which she had obtained of his having been equally
+treacherous to her and to her mother, in disgust and alarm left the room
+without receiving a letter he had brought her from Maria Theresa, and
+without deigning to address a single word to him.  In the heat of her
+passion and resentment, she was nearly exposing all she knew of his
+infamies to the King, when the coolheaded Princesse Elizabeth opposed
+her, from the seeming imprudence of such an abrupt discovery; alleging
+that it might cause an open rupture between the two Courts, as it had
+already been the source of a reserve and coolness, which had not yet been
+explained.  The Queen was determined never more to commit herself by
+seeing the Cardinal.  She accordingly sent for her mother's letter, which
+he himself delivered into the hands of her confidential messenger, who
+advised the Queen not to betray the Cardinal to the King, lest, in so
+doing, she should never be able to guard herself against the domestic
+spies, by whom, perhaps, she was even yet surrounded!  The Cardinal,
+conceiving, from the impunity of his conduct, that he still held the
+Queen in check, through the influence of her fears of his disclosing her
+weakness upon the subject of the obstruction she threw in the way of her
+sister's marriage, did not resign the hope of converting that ascendency
+to his future profit.
+
+"The fatal silence to which Her Majesty was thus unfortunately advised I
+regret from the bottom of my soul!  All the successive vile plots of the
+Cardinal against the peace and reputation of the Queen may be attributed
+to this ill-judged prudence!  Though it resulted from an honest desire of
+screening Her Majesty from the resentment or revenge to which she might
+have subjected herself from this villain, who had already injured her in
+her own estimation for having been credulous enough to have listened to
+him, yet from this circumstance it is that the Prince de Rohan built the
+foundation of all the after frauds and machinations with which he
+blackened the character and destroyed the comfort of his illustrious
+victim.  It is obvious that a mere exclusion from Court was too mild a
+punishment for such offences, and it was but too natural that such a mind
+as his, driven from the royal presence, and, of course, from all the
+noble societies to which it led (the anti-Court party excepted), should
+brood over the means of inveigling the Queen into a consent for his
+reappearance before her and the gay world, which was his only element,
+and if her favour should prove unattainable to revenge himself by her
+ruin.
+
+"On the Cardinal's return to France, all his numerous and powerful
+friends beset the King and Queen to allow of his restoration to his
+embassy; but though on his arrival at Versailles, finding the Court had
+removed to Compiegne, he had a short audience there of the King, all
+efforts in his favour were thrown away.  Equally unsuccessful was every
+intercession with the Empress-mother.  She had become thoroughly awakened
+to his worthlessness, and she declared she would never more even receive
+him in her dominions as a visitor.  The Cardinal, being apprised of this
+by some of his intimates, was at last persuaded to give up the idea of
+further importunity; and, pocketing his disgrace, retired with his hey
+dukes and his secretary, the Abbe Georgel, to whom may be attributed all
+the artful intrigues of his disgraceful diplomacy.
+
+"It is evident that Rohan had no idea, during all his schemes to supplant
+the Dauphine by marrying her sister to the King, that the secret hope of
+Louis XV. had been to divorce the Dauphin and marry the slighted bride
+himself.  Perhaps it is fortunate that Rohan did not know this.  A brain
+so fertile in mischief as his might have converted such a circumstance to
+baneful uses.  But the death of Louis XV. put an end to all the then
+existing schemes for a change in her position.  It was to her a real,
+though but a momentary triumph.  From the hour of her arrival she had a
+powerful party to cope with; and the fact of her being an Austrian,
+independent of the jealousy created by her charms, was, in itself, a
+spell to conjure up armies, against which she stood alone, isolated in
+the face of embattled myriads!  But she now reared her head, and her foes
+trembled in her presence.  Yet she could not guard against the moles busy
+in the earth secretly to undermine her.  Nay, had not Louis XV. died at
+the moment he did, there is scarcely a doubt, from the number and the
+quality of the hostile influences working on the credulity of the young
+Dauphin, that Marie Antoinette would have been very harshly dealt with,
+--even the more so from the partiality of the dotard who believed himself
+to be reigning.  But she has been preserved from her enemies to become
+their sovereign; and if her crowned brow has erewhile been stung by
+thorns in its coronal, let me not despair of their being hereafter
+smothered in yet unblown roses."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Embonpoint of the French Princesses
+Few individuals except Princesses do with parade and publicity
+Frailty in the ambitious, through which the artful can act
+Laughed at qualities she could not comprehend
+Mind well stored against human casualties
+Policy, in sovereigns, is paramount to every other
+Quiet work of ruin by whispers and detraction
+Ridicule, than which no weapon is more false or deadly
+Salique Laws
+Thank Heaven, I am out of harness
+Traducing virtues the slanderers never possessed
+Underrated what she could not imitate
+Where the knout is the logician
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Memoirs of Louis XV., and XVI., v3
+by Madame du Hausset, and an unknown English girl and Princess Lamballe
+
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