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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5
+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 5
+       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 #3880]
+
+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 5.
+
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+
+[From the time that the Princesse de Lamballe saw the ties between the
+Queen and her favourite De Polignac drawing closer she became less
+assiduous in her attendance at Court, being reluctant to importune the
+friends by her presence at an intimacy which she did not approve.  She
+could not, however, withhold her accustomed attentions, as the period of
+Her Majesty's accouchement approached; and she has thus noted the
+circumstance of the birth of the Duchesse d'Angouleme, on the 19th of
+December, 1778.]
+
+"The moment for the accomplishment of the Queen's darling hope was now at
+hand: she was about to become a mother.
+
+"It had been agreed between Her Majesty and myself, that I was to place
+myself so near the accoucheur, Vermond,
+
+[Brother to the Abbe, whose pride was so great at this honour conferred
+on his relative, that he never spoke of him without denominating him
+Monsieur mon frere, d'accoucher de sa Majeste, Vermond.]
+
+as to be the first to distinguish the sex of the new-born infant, and if
+she should be delivered of a Dauphin to say, in Italian, 'Il figlio e
+nato.'
+
+"Her Majesty was, however, foiled even in this the most blissful of her
+desires.  She was delivered of a daughter instead of a Dauphin.
+
+"From the immense crowd that burst into the apartment the instant Vermond
+said, The Queen is happily delivered, Her Majesty was nearly suffocated.
+I had hold of her hand, and as I said 'La regina e andato', mistaking
+'andato' for 'nato', between the joy of giving birth to a son and the
+pressure of the crowd, Her Majesty fainted.  Overcome by the dangerous
+situation in which I saw my royal mistress, I myself was carried out of
+the room in a lifeless state.  The situation of Her Majesty was for some
+time very doubtful, till the people were dragged with violence from about
+her, that she might have air.  On her recovering, the King was the first
+person who told her that she was the mother of a very fine Princess.
+
+"'Well, then,' said the Queen, 'I am like my mother, for at my birth she
+also wished for a son instead of a daughter; and you have lost your
+wager:' for the King had betted with Maria Theresa that it would be a
+son.
+
+"The King answered her by repeating the lines Metastasio had written on
+that occasion.
+
+"'Io perdei: l'augusta figlia
+A pagar, m'a condemnato;
+Ma s'e ver the a voi somiglia
+Tutto il moudo ha guadagnato.'"
+
+[The Princesse de Lamballe again ceased to be constantly about the Queen.
+Her danger was over, she was a mother, and the attentions of
+disinterested friendship were no longer indispensable.  She herself about
+this time met with a deep affliction.  She lost both of her own parents;
+and to her sorrows may, in a great degree, be ascribed her silence upon
+the events which intervened between the birth of Madame and that of the
+Dauphin.  She was as assiduous as ever in her attentions to Her Majesty
+on her second lying-in.  The circumstances of the death of Maria Theresa,
+the Queen's mother, in the interval which divided the two accouchements,
+and Her Majesty's anguish, and refusal to see any but De Lamballe and De
+Polignac, are too well known to detain us longer from the notes of the
+Princess.  It is enough for the reader to know that the friendship of Her
+Majesty for her superintendent seemed to be gradually reviving in all its
+early enthusiasm, by her unremitting kindness during the confinements of
+the Queen, till, at length, they became more attached than ever. But, not
+to anticipate, let me return to the narrative.]
+
+"The public feeling had undergone a great change with respect to Her
+Majesty from the time of her first accouchement.  Still, she was not the
+mother of a future King.  The people looked upon her as belonging to them
+more than she had done before, and faction was silenced by the general
+delight.  But she had not yet attained the climax of her felicity.  A
+second pregnancy gave a new excitement to the nation; and, at length, on
+the 22nd October, 1781, dawned the day of hope.
+
+"In consequence of what happened on the first accouchement, measures were
+taken to prevent similar disasters on the second.  The number admitted
+into the apartment was circumscribed.  The silence observed left the
+Queen in uncertainty of the sex to which she had given birth, till, with
+tears of joy, the King said to her: 'Madame, the hopes of the nation, and
+mine, are fulfilled.  You are the mother of a Dauphin.'
+
+"The Princesse Elizabeth and myself were so overjoyed that we embraced
+every one in the room.
+
+"At this time Their Majesties were adored.  Marie Antoinette, with all
+her beauty and amiableness, was a mere cipher in the eyes of France
+previous to her becoming the mother of an heir to the Crown; but her
+popularity now arose to a pitch of unequalled enthusiasm.
+
+"I have heard of but one expression to Her Majesty upon this occasion in
+any way savouring of discontent.  This came from the royal aunts.  On
+Marie Antoinette's expressing to them her joy in having brought a Dauphin
+to the nation, they replied, 'We will only repeat our father's
+observation on a similar subject.  When one of our sisters complained to
+his late Majesty that, as her Italian husband had copied the Dauphin's
+whim, she could not, though long a bride, boast of being a wife, or hope
+to become a mother--"a prudent Princess," replied Louis XV., "never wants
+heirs!"'  But the feeling of the royal aunts was an exception to the
+general sentiment, which really seemed like madness.
+
+"I remember a proof of this which happened at the time.  Chancing to
+cross the King's path as he was going to Marly and I coming from
+Rambouillet, my two postillions jumped from their horses, threw
+themselves on the high road upon their knees, though it was very dirty,
+and remained there, offering up their benedictions, till he was out of
+sight.
+
+"The felicity of the Queen was too great not to be soon overcast.  The
+unbounded influence of the De Polignacs was now at its zenith.  It could
+not fail of being attacked.  Every engine of malice, envy, and detraction
+was let loose; and, in the vilest calumnies against the character of the
+Duchess, her royal mistress was included.
+
+"It was, in truth, a most singular fatality, in the life of Marie
+Antoinette that she could do nothing, however beneficial or
+disinterested, for which she was not either criticised or censured. She
+had a tenacity, of character which made her cling more closely to
+attachments from which she saw others desirous of estranging her; and
+this firmness, however excellent in principle, was, in her case, fatal in
+its effects.  The Abbe Vermond, Her Majesty's confessor and tutor, and,
+unfortunately, in many respects, her ambitious guide, was really alarmed
+at the rising favour of the Duchess; and, though he knew the very
+obstacles thrown in her way only strengthened her resolution as to any
+favourite object, yet he ventured to head an intrigue to destroy the
+great influence of the De Polignacs, which, as he might have foreseen,
+only served to hasten their aggrandisement.
+
+"At this crisis the dissipation of the Duc de Guemenee caused him to
+become a bankrupt.  I know not whether it can be said in principle, but
+certainly it may in property, 'It is an ill wind that blows no one any
+good.'  The Princess, his wife, having been obliged to leave her
+residence at Versailles, in consequence of the Duke's dismissal from the
+King's service on account of the disordered state of his pecuniary
+circumstances, the situation of governess to the royal children became
+necessarily vacant, and was immediately transferred to the Duchesse de
+Polignac.  The Queen, to enable her friend to support her station with
+all the eclat suitable to its dignity, took care to supply ample means
+from her own private purse.  A most magnificent suite of apartments was
+ordered to be arranged, under the immediate inspection of the Queen's
+maitre d'hotel, at Her Majesty's expense.
+
+"Is there anything on earth more natural than the lively interest which
+inspires a mother towards those who have the care of her offspring? What,
+then, must have been the feelings of a Queen of France who had been
+deprived of that blessing for which connubial attachments are formed, and
+which, vice versa, constitutes the only real happiness of every young
+female, what must have been, I say, the ecstasy of Marie Antoinette when
+she not only found herself a mother, but the dear pledges of all her
+future bliss in the hands of one whose friendship allowed her the
+unrestrained exercise of maternal affection,--a climax of felicity
+combining not only the pleasures of an ordinary mother, but the
+greatness, the dignity, and the flattering popularity of a Queen of
+France.
+
+"Though the pension of the Duchesse de Polignac was no more than that
+usually allotted to all former governesses of the royal children of
+France, yet circumstances tempted her to a display not a little injurious
+to her popularity as well as to that of her royal mistress.  She gave too
+many pretexts to imputations of extravagance.  Yet she had neither
+patronage, nor sinecures, nor immunities beyond the few inseparable from
+the office she held, and which had been the same for centuries under the
+Monarchy of France.  But it must be remembered, as an excuse for the
+splendour of her establishment, that she entered her office upon a
+footing very different from that of any of her predecessors.  Her mansion
+was not the quiet, retired, simple household of the governess of the
+royal children, as formerly: it had become the magnificent resort of the
+first Queen in Europe; the daily haunt of Her Majesty.  The Queen
+certainly visited the former governess, as she had done the Duchesse de
+Duras and many other frequenters of her Court parties; but she made the
+Duchesse de Polignac's her Court; and all the courtiers of that Court,
+and, I may say, the great personages of all France, as well as the
+Ministers and all foreigners of distinction, held there their usual
+rendezvous; consequently, there was nothing wanting but the guards in
+attendance in the Queen's apartments to have made it a royal residence
+suitable for the reception of the illustrious personages that were in the
+constant habit of visiting these levees, assemblies, balls, routs,
+picnics, dinner, supper, and card parties.
+
+[I have seen ladies at the Princesse de Lamballe's come from these card
+parties with their laps so blackened by the quantities of gold received
+in them, that they have been obliged to change their dresses to go to
+supper.  Many a chevalier d'industree and young military spendthrift has
+made his harvest here.  Thousands were won and lost, and the ladies were
+generally the dupes of all those who were the constant speculative
+attendants.  The Princease de Lamballe did not like play, but when it was
+necessary she did play, and won or lost to a limited extent; but the
+prescribed sum once exhausted or gained she left off.  In set parties,
+such as those of whist, she never played except when one was wanted,
+often excusing herself on the score of its requiring more attention than
+it was in her power to give to it and her reluctance to sacrifice her
+partner; though I have heard Beau Dillon, the Duke of Dorset, Lord Edward
+Dillon, and many others say that she understood and played the game much
+better than many who had a higher opinion of their skill in it.  Lord
+Edward Fitzgerald was admitted to the parties at the Duchesse de
+Polignac's on his first coming to Paris; but when his connection with the
+Duc d'Orleans and Madame de Genlis became known he was informed that his
+society would be dispensed with.  The famous, or rather the infamous,
+Beckford was also excluded.]
+
+"Much as some of the higher classes of the nobility felt aggrieved at the
+preference given by the Queen to the Duchesse de Polignac, that which
+raised against Her Majesty the most implacable resentment was her
+frequenting the parties of her favourite more than those of any other of
+the 'haut ton'.  These assemblies, from the situation held by the
+Duchess, could not always be the most select.  Many of the guests who
+chanced to get access to them from a mere glimpse of the Queen--whose
+general good-humour, vivacity, and constant wish to please all around her
+would often make her commit herself unconsciously and
+unintentionally--would fabricate anecdotes of things they had neither
+seen nor heard; and which never had existence, except in their own wicked
+imaginations.  The scene of the inventions, circulated against Her
+Majesty through France, was, in consequence, generally placed at the
+Duchess's; but they were usually so distinctly and obviously false that
+no notice was taken of them, nor was any attempt made to check their
+promulgation.
+
+"Exemplary as was the friendship between this enthusiastic pair, how much
+more fortunate for both would it have been had it never happened!  I
+foresaw the results long, long before they took place; but the Queen was
+not to be thwarted.  Fearful she might attribute my anxiety for her
+general safety to unworthy personal views, I was often silent, even when
+duty bade me speak.  I was, perhaps, too scrupulous about seeming
+officious or jealous of the predilection shown to the Duchess.
+Experience had taught me the inutility of representing consequences, and
+I had no wish to quarrel with the Queen.  Indeed, there was a degree of
+coldness towards me on the part of Her Majesty for having gone so far as
+I had done.  It was not until after the birth of the Duc de Normandie,
+her third child, in March, 1785, that her friendship resumed its
+primitive warmth.
+
+"As the children grew, Her Majesty's attachment for their governess grew
+with them.  All that has been said of Tasso's Armida was nothing to this
+luxurious temple of maternal affection.  Never was female friendship more
+strongly cemented, or less disturbed by the nauseous poison of envy,
+malice, or mean jealousy.  The Queen was in the plenitude of every
+earthly enjoyment, from being able to see and contribute to the education
+of the children she tenderly loved, unrestrained by the gothic etiquette
+with which all former royal mothers had been fettered, but which the kind
+indulgence of the Duchesse de Polignac broke through, as unnatural and
+unworthy of the enlightened and affectionate.  The Duchess was herself an
+attentive, careful mother.  She felt for the Queen, and encouraged her
+maternal sympathies, so doubly endeared by the long, long disappointment
+which had preceded their gratification.  The sacrifice of all the cold
+forms of state policy by the new governess, and the free access she gave
+the royal mother to her children, so unprecedented in the Court of
+France, rendered Marie Antoinette so grateful that it may justly be said
+she divided her heart between the governess and the governed.  Habit soon
+made it necessary for her existence that she should dedicate the whole of
+her time, not taken up in public ceremonies or parties, to the
+cultivation of the minds of her children.  Conscious of her own
+deficiency in this respect, she determined to redeem this error in her
+offspring.  The love of the frivolous amusements of society, for which
+the want of higher cultivation left room in her mind, was humoured by the
+gaieties of the Duchesse de Polignac's assemblies; while her nobler
+dispositions were encouraged by the privileges of the favourite's
+station.  Thus, all her inclinations harmonising with the habits and
+position of her friend, Marie Antoinette literally passed the greatest
+part of some years in company with the Duchesse de Polignac,--either
+amidst the glare and bustle of public recreation, or in the private
+apartment of the governess and her children, increasing as much as
+possible the kindness of the one for the benefit and comfort of the
+others.  The attachment of the Duchess to the royal children was returned
+by the Queen's affection for the offspring of the Duchess.  So much was
+Her Majesty interested in favour of the daughter of the Duchess, that,
+before that young lady was fifteen years of age, she herself contrived
+and accomplished her marriage with the Duc de Guiche, then 'maitre de
+ceremonie' to Her Majesty, and whose interests were essentially, promoted
+by this alliance.
+
+[The Duc de Guiche, since Duc de Grammont, has proved how much he merited
+the distinction he received, in consequence of the attachment between the
+Queen and his mother-in-law, by the devotedness with which he followed
+the fallen fortunes of the Bourbons till their restoration, since which
+he has not been forgotten.  The Duchess, his wife, who at her marriage
+was beaming with all the beauties of her age, and adorned by art and
+nature with every accomplishment, though she came into notice at a time
+when the Court had scarcely recovered itself from the debauched morals by
+which it had been so long degraded by a De Pompadour and a Du Barry, has
+yet preserved her character, by the strictness of her conduct, free from
+the censorious criticisms of an epoch in which some of the purest could
+not escape unassailed.  I saw her at Pyrmont in 1803; and even then,
+though the mother of many children, she looked as young and beautiful as
+ever.  She was remarkably well educated and accomplished, a profound
+musician on the harp and pianoforte, graceful in her conversation, and a
+most charming dancer.  She seemed to bear the vicissitudes of fortune
+with a philosophical courage and resignation not often to be met with in
+light-headed French women.  She was amiable in her manners, easy of
+access, always lively and cheerful, and enthusiastically attached to the
+country whence she was then excluded.  She constantly accompanied the
+wife of the late Louis XVIII. during her travels in Germany, as her
+husband the Duke did His Majesty during his residence at Mittau, in
+Courland, etc.  I have had the honour of seeing the Duke twice since the
+Revolution; once, on my coming from Russia, at General Binkingdroff's,
+Governor of Mittau, and since, in Portland Place, at the French
+Ambassador's, on his coming to England in the name of his Sovereign, to
+congratulate the King of England on his accession to the throne.]
+
+"The great cabals, which agitated the Court in consequence of the favour
+shown to the De Polignacs, were not slow in declaring themselves.  The
+Comtesse de Noailles was one of the foremost among the discontented.  Her
+resignation, upon the appointment of a superintendent, was a sufficient
+evidence of her real feeling; but when she now saw a place filled, to
+which she conceived her family had a claim, her displeasure could not be
+silent, and her dislike to the Queen began to express itself without
+reserve.
+
+"Another source of dissatisfaction against the Queen was her extreme
+partiality for the English.  After the peace of Versailles, in 1783, the
+English flocked into France, and I believe if a poodle dog had come from
+England it would have met with a good reception from Her Majesty.  This
+was natural enough.  The American war had been carried on entirely
+against her wish; though, from the influence she was supposed to exercise
+in the Cabinet, it was presumed to have been managed entirely by herself.
+This odious opinion she wished personally to destroy; and it could only
+be done by the distinction with which, after the peace, she treated the
+whole English nation.'
+
+[The daughter of the Duchesse de Polignac (of my meeting with whom I have
+already spoken in a note), entering with me upon the subject of France
+and of old times, observed that had the Queen limited her attachment to
+the person of her mother, she would not have given all the annoyance
+which she did to the nobility.  It was to these partialities to the
+English, the Duchesse de Guiche Grammont alluded.  I do not know the
+lady's name distinctly, but I am certain I have heard the beautiful Lady
+Sarah Bunbury mentioned by the Princesse de Lamballe as having received
+particular attention from the Queen; for the Princess had heard much
+about this lady and "a certain great personage" in England; but, on
+discovering her acquaintance with the Duc de Lauzun, Her Majesty withdrew
+from the intimacy, though not soon enough to prevent its having given
+food for scandal.  "You must remember," added the Duchesse de Guiche
+Grammont, "how much the Queen was censured for her enthusiasm about Lady
+Spencer."  I replied that I did remember the much-ado about nothing there
+was regarding some English lady, to whom the Queen took a liking, whose
+name I could not exactly recall; but I knew well she studied to please
+the English in general.  Of this Lady Spencer it is that the Princess
+speaks in one of the following pages of this chapter.]
+
+"Several of the English nobility were on a familiar footing at the
+parties of the Duchesse de Polignac.  This was quite enough for the
+slanderers.  They were all ranked, and that publicly, as lovers of Her
+Majesty.  I recollect when there were no less than five different private
+commissioners out, to suppress the libels that were in circulation over
+all France, against the Queen and Lord Edward Dillon, the Duke of Dorset,
+Lord George Conway, Arthur Dillon, as well as Count Fersen, the Duc de
+Lauzun, and the Comte d'Artois, who were all not only constant
+frequenters of Polignac's but visitors of Marie Antoinette.
+
+"By the false policy of Her Majesty's advisers, these enemies and
+libellers, instead of being brought to the condign punishment their
+infamy deserved, were privately hushed into silence, out of delicacy to
+the Queen's feelings, by large sums of money and pensions, which
+encouraged numbers to commit the same enormity in the hope of obtaining
+the same recompense.
+
+"But these were mercenary wretches, from whom no better could have been
+expected.  A legitimate mode of robbery had been pressed upon their
+notice by the Government itself, and they thought it only a matter of
+fair speculation to make the best of it.  There were some libellers,
+however, of a higher order, in comparison with whose motives for slander,
+those of the mere scandal-jobbers were white as the driven snow.  Of
+these, one of the worst was the Duc de Lauzun.
+
+"The first motive of the Queen's strong dislike to the Duc de Lauzun
+sprang from Her Majesty's attachment to the Duchesse d'Orleans, whom she
+really loved.  She was greatly displeased at the injury inflicted upon
+her valued friend by De Lauzun, in estranging the affection of the Duc
+d'Orleans from his wife by introducing him to depraved society.  Among
+the associates to which this connection led the Duc d'Orleans were a
+certain Madame Duthee and Madame Buffon.
+
+"When De Lauzun, after having been expelled from the drawing-room of the
+Queen for his insolent presumption,--[The allusion here is to the affair
+of the heron plume.]--meeting with coolness at the King's levee, sought
+to cover his disgrace by appearing at the assemblies of the Duchesse de
+Polignac, Her Grace was too sincerely the friend of her Sovereign and
+benefactress not to perceive the drift of his conduct.  She consequently
+signified to the self-sufficient coxcomb that her assemblies were not
+open to the public.  Being thus shut out from Their Majesties, and, as a
+natural result, excluded from the most brilliant societies of Paris, De
+Lauzun, from a most diabolical spirit of revenge, joined the nefarious
+party which had succeeded in poisoning the mind of the Duc d'Orleans, and
+from the hordes of which, like the burning lava from Etna, issued
+calumnies which swept the most virtuous and innocent victims that ever
+breathed to their destruction!
+
+"Among the Queen's favourites, and those most in request at the De
+Polignac parties, was the good Lady Spencer, with whom I became most
+intimately acquainted when I first went to England; and from whom, as
+well as from her two charming daughters, the Duchess of Devonshire and
+Lady Duncannon, since Lady Besborough, I received the greatest marks of
+cordial hospitality.  In consequence, when her ladyship came to France, I
+hastened to present her to the Queen.  Her Majesty, taking a great liking
+to the amiable Englishwoman, and wishing to profit by her private
+conversations and society, gave orders that Lady Spencer should pass to
+her private closet whenever she came to Versailles, without the formal
+ceremony of waiting in the antechamber to be announced.
+
+"One day, Her Majesty, Lady Spencer, and myself were observing the
+difficulty there was in acquiring a correct pronunciation of the English
+language, when Lady Spencer remarked that it only required a little
+attention.
+
+"'I beg your pardon,' said the Queen, 'that's not all, because there are
+many things you do not call by their proper names, as they are in the
+dictionary.'
+
+"'Pray what are they, please Your Majesty?'
+
+"'Well, I will give you an instance.  For example, 'les culottes'--what
+do you call them?'
+
+"'Small clothes,' replied her ladyship.
+
+"'Ma foi!  how can they be called small clothes for one large man?  Now I
+do look in the dictionary, and I find, for the word culottes--breeches.'
+
+"'Oh, please Your Majesty, we never call them by that name in England.'
+
+"'Voila done, j'ai raison!'
+
+"'We say "inexpressibles"!'
+
+"'Ah, c'est mieux!  Dat do please me ver much better.  Il y a du bon sens
+la dedans.  C'est une autre chose!'
+
+"In the midst of this curious dialogue, in came the Duke of Dorset, Lord
+Edward Dillon, Count Fersen, and several English gentlemen, who, as they
+were going to the King's hunt, were all dressed in new buckskin breeches.
+
+"'I do not like,' exclaimed the Queen to them, dem yellow irresistibles!'
+
+"Lady Spencer nearly fainted.  'Vat make you so frightful, my dear lady?'
+said the Queen to her ladyship, who was covering her face with her hands.
+'I am terrified at Your Majesty's mistake'--'Comment?  did you no tell me
+just now, dat in England de lady call les culottes
+"irresistibles"?'--'Oh, mercy!  I never could have made such a mistake,
+as to have applied to that part of the male dress such a word.  I said,
+please Your Majesty, inexpressibles.'
+
+"On this the gentlemen all laughed most heartily.
+
+"'Vell, vell,' replied the Queen, 'do, my dear lady, discompose yourself.
+I vill no more call de breeches irresistibles, but say small clothes, if
+even elles sont upon a giant!'
+
+"At the repetition of the naughty word breeches, poor Lady Spencer's
+English delicacy quite overcame her.  Forgetting where she was, and also
+the company she was in, she ran from the room with her cross stick in her
+hand, ready to lay it on the shoulders of any one who should attempt to
+obstruct her passage, flew into her carriage, and drove off full speed,
+as if fearful of being contaminated,--all to the no small amusement of
+the male guests.
+
+"Her Majesty and I laughed till the very tears ran down our cheeks.  The
+Duke of Dorset, to keep up the joke, said there really were some counties
+in England where they called 'culottes irresistibles.
+
+"Now that I am upon the subject of England, and the peace of 1783, which
+brought such throngs of English over to France, there occurs to me a
+circumstance, relating to the treaty of commerce signed at that time,
+which exhibits the Comte de Vergennes to some advantage; and with that
+let me dismiss the topic.
+
+"The Comte de Vergennes, was one of the most distinguished Ministers of
+France.  I was intimately acquainted with him.  His general character for
+uprightness prompted his Sovereign to govern in a manner congenial to his
+own goodness of heart, which was certainly most for the advantage of his
+subjects.  Vergennes cautioned Louis against the hypocritical adulations
+of his privileged courtiers.  The Count had been schooled in State policy
+by the great Venetian senator, Francis Foscari, the subtlest politician
+of his age, whom he consulted during his life on every important matter;
+and he was not very easily to be deceived.
+
+"When the treaty of commerce took place, at the period I mention, the
+experienced Vergennes foresaw--what afterwards really happened--that
+France would be inundated with British manufactures; but Calonne
+obstinately maintained the contrary, till he was severely reminded of the
+consequence of his misguided policy, in the insults inflicted on him by
+enraged mobs of thousands of French artificers, whenever he appeared in
+public.  But though the mania for British goods had literally caused an
+entire stagnation of business in the French manufacturing towns, and
+thrown throngs upon the 'pave' for want of employment, yet M. de Calonne
+either did not see, or pretended not to see, the errors he had committed.
+Being informed that the Comte de Vergennes had attributed the public
+disorders to his fallacious policy, M. de Calonne sent a friend to the
+Count demanding satisfaction for the charge of having caused the riots.
+The Count calmly replied that he was too much of a man of honour to take
+so great an advantage, as to avail himself of the opportunity offered, by
+killing a man who had only one life to dispose of, when there were so
+many with a prior claim, who were anxious to destroy him 'en societe'. I
+Bid M. de Calonne,' continued the Count, 'first get out of that scrape,
+as the English boxers do when their eyes are closed up after a pitched
+battle.  He has been playing at blind man's buff, but the poverty to
+which he has reduced so many of our tradespeople has torn the English
+bandage from his eyes!'  For three or four days the Comte de Vergennes
+visited publicly, and showed himself everywhere in and about Paris; but
+M. de Calonne was so well convinced of the truth of the old fox's satire
+that he pocketed his annoyance, and no more was said about fighting.
+Indeed, the Comte de Vergennes gave hints of being able to show that M.
+de Calonne had been bribed into the treaty."
+
+[The Princesse de Lamballe has alluded in a former page to the happiness
+which the Queen enjoyed during the visits of the foreign Princes to the
+Court of France.  Her papers contain a few passages upon the opinions Her
+Majesty entertained of the royal travellers; which, although in the order
+of time they should have been mentioned before the peace with England,
+yet, not to disturb the chain of the narrative, respecting the connection
+with the Princesse de Lamballe, of the prevailing libels, and the
+partiality shown towards the English, I have reserved them for the
+conclusion of the present chapter.  The timidity of the Queen in the
+presence of the illustrious strangers, and her agitation when about to
+receive them, have, I think, been already spoken of.  Upon the subject of
+the royal travellers themselves, and other personages, the Princess
+expresses herself thus:]
+
+"The Queen had never been an admirer of Catharine II.  Notwithstanding
+her studied policy for the advancement of civilization in her internal
+empire, the means which, aided by the Princess Dashkoff, she made use of
+to seat herself on the imperial throne of her weak husband, Peter the
+Third, had made her more understood than esteemed.  Yet when her son, the
+Grand Duke of the North,--[Afterwards the unhappy Emperor Paul.]--and the
+Grand Duchess, his wife, came to France, their description of Catharine's
+real character so shocked the maternal sensibility of Marie Antoinette
+that she could scarcely hear the name of the Empress without shuddering.
+The Grand Duke spoke of Catharine without the least disguise.  He said he
+travelled merely for the security of his life from his mother, who had
+surrounded him with creatures that were his sworn enemies, her own spies
+and infamous favourites, to whose caprices they were utterly subordinate.
+He was aware that the dangerous credulity of the Empress might be every
+hour excited by these wretches to the destruction of himself and his
+Duchess, and, therefore, he had in absence sought the only refuge.  He
+had no wish, he said, ever to return to his native country, till Heaven
+should check his mother's doubts respecting his dutiful filial affection
+towards her, or till God should be pleased to take her into His sacred
+keeping.
+
+"The King was petrified at the Duke's description of his situation, and
+the Queen could not refrain from tears when the Duchess, his wife,
+confirmed all her husband had uttered on the subject.  The Duchess said
+she had been warned by the untimely fate of the Princess d'Armstadt, her
+predecessor, the first wife of the Grand Duke, to elude similar jealousy
+and suspicion on the part of her mother-in-law, by seclusion from the
+Court, in a country residence with her husband; indeed, that she had made
+it a point never to visit Petersburg, except on the express invitation of
+the Empress, as if she had been a foreigner.
+
+"In this system the Grand Duchess persevered, even after her return from
+her travels.  When she became pregnant, and drew near her accouchement,
+the Empress-mother permitted her to come to Petersburg for that purpose;
+but, as soon as the ceremony required by the etiquette of the Imperial
+Court on those occasions ended, the Duchess immediately returned to her
+hermitage.
+
+"This Princess was remarkably well-educated; she possessed a great deal
+of good, sound sense, and had profited by the instructions of some of the
+best German tutors during her very early years.  It was the policy of her
+father, the Duke of Wirtemberg, who had a large family, to educate his
+children as 'quietists' in matters of religion.  He foresaw that the
+natural charms and acquired abilities of his daughters would one day call
+them to be the ornaments of the most distinguished Courts in Europe, and
+he thought it prudent not to instil early prejudices in favour of
+peculiar forms of religion which might afterwards present an obstacle to
+their aggrandisement.
+
+[The first daughter of the Duke of Wirtemberg was the first wife of the
+present Emperor of Austria.  She embraced the Catholic faith and died
+very young, two days before the Emperor Joseph the Second, at Vienna.
+The present Empress Dowager, late wife to Paul, became a proselyte to the
+Greek religion on her arrival at Petersburg.  The son of the Duke of
+Wirtemburg, who succeeded him in the Dukedom, was a Protestant, it being
+his interest to profess that religion for the security of his
+inheritance.  Prince Ferdinand, who was in the Austrian service, and a
+long time Governor of Vienna, was a Catholic, as he could not otherwise
+have enjoyed that office.  He was of a very superior character to the
+Duke, his brother.  Prince Louis, who held a commission under the
+Prussian Monarch, followed the religion of the country where he served,
+and the other Princes, who were in the employment of Sweden and other
+countries, found no difficulty in conforming themselves to the religion
+of the Sovereigns under whom they served.  None of them having any
+established forms of worship, they naturally embraced that which conduced
+most to their aggrandisement, emolument, or dignity.]
+
+"The notorious vices of the King of Denmark, and his total neglect both
+of his young Queen, Carolina Matilda, and of the interest of his distant
+dominions, while in Paris, created a feeling in the Queen's mind towards
+that house which was not a little heightened by her disgust at the King
+of Sweden, when he visited the Court of Versailles.  This King, though
+much more crafty than his brother-in-law, the King of Denmark, who
+revelled openly in his depravities, was not less vicious.  The deception
+he made use of in usurping part of the rights of his people, combined
+with the worthlessness and duplicity, of his private conduct, excited a
+strong indignation in the mind of Marie Antoinette, of which she was
+scarcely capable of withholding the expression in his presence.
+
+"It was during the visit of the Duke and Duchess of the North, that the
+Cardinal de Rohan again appeared upon the scene.  For eight or ten years
+he had never been allowed to show himself at Court, and had been totally
+shut out of every society where the Queen visited.  On the arrival of the
+illustrious, travellers at Versailles, the Queen, at her own expense,
+gave them a grand fete at her private palace, in the gardens of Trianon,
+similar to the one given by the Comte de Provence--[Afterwards Louis
+XVIII.]--to Her Majesty, in the gardens of Brunoi.
+
+"On the eve of the fete, the Cardinal waited upon, me to know if he would
+be permitted to appear there in the character he had the honour to hold
+at Court, I replied that I had made it a rule never to interfere in the
+private or public amusements of the Court, and that His Eminence must be
+the best judge how far he, could obtrude himself upon the Queen's private
+parties, to which only a select number had been invited, in consequence
+of the confined spot where the fete was to be given.
+
+"The Cardinal left me, not much satisfied at his reception.  Determined
+to follow, as usual, his own misguided passion, he immediately went too
+Trianon, disguised with a large cloak.  He saw the porter, and bribed
+him.  He only wished, he said, to be placed in a situation whence he
+might see the Duke and Duchess of the North without being seen; but no
+sooner did he perceive the porter engaged at some distance than he left
+his cloak at the lodge, and went forward in his Cardinal's dress, as if
+he had been one of the invited guests, placing himself purposely in the
+Queen's path to attract her attention as she rode by in the carriage with
+the Duke and Duchess.
+
+"The Queen was shocked and thunderstruck at seeing him.  But, great as
+was her annoyance, knowing the Cardinal had not been invited and ought
+not to have been there, she only discharged the porter who had been
+seduced to let him in; and, though the King, on being made acquainted
+with his treachery, would have banished His Eminence a hundred leagues
+from the capital, yet the Queen, the royal aunts, the Princesse
+Elizabeth, and myself, not to make the affair public, and thereby
+disgrace the high order of his ecclesiastical dignity, prevented the King
+from exercising his authority by commanding instant exile.
+
+"Indeed, the Queen could never get the better of her fears of being some
+day, or in some way or other, betrayed by the Cardinal, for having made
+him the confidant of the mortification she would have suffered if the
+projected marriage of Louis XV. and her sister had been solemnized.  On
+this account she uniformly opposed whatever harshness the King at any
+time intended against the Cardinal.
+
+"Thus was this wicked prelate left at leisure to premeditate the horrid
+plot of the famous necklace, the ever memorable fraud, which so fatally
+verified the presentiments of the Queen."
+
+
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+
+[The production of 'Le Mariage de Figaro', by Beaumarchais, upon the
+stage at Paris, so replete with indecorous and slanderous allusions to
+the Royal Family, had spread the prejudices against the Queen through the
+whole kingdom and every rank of France, just in time to prepare all minds
+for the deadly blow which Her Majesty received from the infamous plot of
+the diamond necklace.  From this year, crimes and misfortunes trod
+closely on each others' heels in the history of the ill-starred Queen;
+and one calamity only disappeared to make way for a greater.
+
+The destruction of the papers which would have thoroughly explained the
+transaction has still left all its essential particulars in some degree
+of mystery; and the interest of the clergy, who supported one of their
+own body, coupled with the arts and bribes of the high houses connected
+with the plotting prelate, must, of course, have discoloured greatly even
+what was well known.
+
+It will be recollected that before the accession of Louis XVI.  the
+Cardinal de Rohan was disgraced in consequence of his intrigues; that all
+his ingenuity was afterwards unremittingly exerted to obtain renewed
+favour; that he once obtruded himself upon the notice of the Queen in the
+gardens of Trianon, and that his conduct in so doing excited the
+indignation it deserved, but was left unpunished owing to the entreaties
+of the best friends of the Queen, and her own secret horror of a man who
+had already caused her so much anguish.
+
+With the histories of the fraud every one is acquainted.  That of Madame
+Campan, as far as it goes, is sufficiently detailed and correct to spare
+me the necessity of expatiating upon this theme of villany.  Yet, to
+assist the reader's memory, before returning to the Journal of the
+Princesse de Lamballe, I shall recapitulate the leading particulars.
+
+The Cardinal had become connected with a young, but artful and
+necessitous, woman, of the name of Lamotte.  It was known that the
+darling ambition of the Cardinal was to regain the favour of the Queen.
+
+The necklace, which has been already spoken of, and which was originally
+destined by Louis XV. for Marie Antoinette--had her hand, by divorce,
+been transferred to him--but which, though afterwards intended by Louis
+XV. for his mistress, Du Barry, never came to her in consequence of his
+death--this fatal necklace was still in existence, and in the possession
+of the crown jewellers, Boehmer and Bassange.  It was valued at eighteen
+hundred thousand livres.  The jewellers had often pressed it upon the
+Queen, and even the King himself had enforced its acceptance.  But the
+Queen dreaded the expense, especially at an epoch of pecuniary difficulty
+in the State, much more than she coveted the jewels, and uniformly and
+resolutely declined them, although they had been proposed to her on very
+easy terms of payment, as she really did not like ornaments.
+
+It was made to appear at the parliamentary investigation that the artful
+Lamotte had impelled the Cardinal to believe that she herself was in
+communication with the Queen; that she had interested Her Majesty in
+favour of the long slighted Cardinal; that she had fabricated a
+correspondence, in which professions of penitence on the part of De Rohan
+were answered by assurances of forgiveness from the Queen.  The result of
+this correspondence was represented to be the engagement of the Cardinal
+to negotiate the purchase of the necklace secretly, by a contract for
+periodical payments.  To the forgery of papers was added, it was
+declared, the substitution of the Queen's person, by dressing up a girl
+of the Palais Royal to represent Her Majesty, whom she in some degree
+resembled, in a secret and rapid interview with Rohan in a dark grove of
+the gardens of Versailles, where she was to give the Cardinal a rose, in
+token of her royal approbation, and then hastily disappear. The
+importunity of the jewellers, on the failure of the stipulated payment,
+disclosed the plot.  A direct appeal of theirs to the Queen, to save them
+from ruin, was the immediate source of detection.  The Cardinal was
+arrested, and all the parties tried. But the Cardinal was acquitted, and
+Lamotte and a subordinate agent alone punished.  The quack Cagliostro was
+also in the plot, but he, too, escaped, like his confederate, the
+Cardinal, who was made to appear as the dupe of Lamotte.
+
+The Queen never got over the effect of this affair.  Her friends well
+knew the danger of severe measures towards one capable of collecting
+around him strong support against a power already so much weakened by
+faction and discord.  But the indignation of conscious innocence
+insulted, prevailed, though to its ruin!
+
+But it is time to let the Princesse de Lamballe give her own impressions
+upon this fatal subject, and in her own words.]
+
+"How could Messieurs Boehmer and Bassange presume that the Queen would
+have employed any third person to obtain an article of such value,
+without enabling them to produce an unequivocal document signed by her
+own hand and countersigned by mine, as had ever been the rule during my
+superintendence of the household, whenever anything was ordered from the
+jewellers by Her Majesty?  Why did not Messieurs Boehmer and Bassange
+wait on me, when they saw a document unauthorised by me, and so widely
+departing from the established forms?  I must still think, as I have
+often said to the King, that Boehmer and Bassange wished to get rid of
+this dead weight of diamonds in any way; and the Queen having
+unfortunately been led by me to hush up many foul libels against her
+reputation, as I then thought it prudent she should do, rather than
+compromise her character with wretches capable of doing anything to
+injure her, these jewellers, judging from this erroneous policy of the
+past, imagined that in this instance, also, rather than hazard exposure,
+Her Majesty would pay them for the necklace.  This was a compromise which
+I myself resisted, though so decidedly adverse to bringing the affair
+before the nation by a public trial.  Of such an explosion, I foresaw the
+consequences, and I ardently entreated the King and Queen to take other
+measures.  But, though till now so hostile to severity with the Cardinal,
+the Queen felt herself so insulted by the proceeding that she gave up
+every other consideration to make manifest her innocence.
+
+"The wary Comte de Vergennes did all he could to prevent the affair from
+getting before the public.  Against the opinion of the King and the whole
+council of Ministers, he opposed judicial proceedings.  Not that he
+conceived the Cardinal altogether guiltless; but he foresaw the fatal
+consequences that must result to Her Majesty, from bringing to trial an
+ecclesiastic of such rank; for he well knew that the host of the higher
+orders of the nobility, to whom the prelate was allied, would naturally
+strain every point to blacken the character of the King and Queen, as the
+only means of exonerating their kinsman in the eyes of the world from the
+criminal mystery attached to that most diabolical intrigue against the
+fair fame of Marie Antoinette.  The Count could not bear the idea of the
+Queen's name being coupled with those of the vile wretches, Lamotte and
+the mountebank Cagliostro, and therefore wished the King to chastise the
+Cardinal by a partial exile, which might have been removed at pleasure.
+But the Queen's party too fatally seconded her feelings, and prevailed.
+
+"I sat by Her Majesty's bedside the whole of the night, after I heard
+what had been determined against the Cardinal by the council of
+Ministers, to beg her to use all her interest with the King to persuade
+him to revoke the order of the warrant for the prelate's arrest.  To this
+the Queen replied, 'Then the King, the Ministers, and the people, will
+all deem me guilty.'
+
+"Her Majesty's remark stopped all farther argument upon the subject, and
+I had the inconsolable grief to see my royal mistress rushing upon
+dangers which I had no power of preventing her from bringing upon
+herself.
+
+"The slanderers who had imputed such unbounded influence to the Queen
+over the mind of Louis XVI. should have been consistent enough to
+consider that, with but a twentieth part of the tithe of her imputed
+power, uncontrolled as she then was by national authority, she might,
+without any exposure to third persons, have at once sent one of her pages
+to the garde-meuble and other royal depositaries, replete with hidden
+treasures of precious stones which never saw the light, and thence have
+supplied herself with more than enough to form ten necklaces, or to have
+fully satisfied, in any way she liked, the most unbounded passion for
+diamonds, for the use of which she would never have been called to
+account.
+
+"But the truth is, the Queen had no love of ornaments.  A proof occurred
+very soon after I had the honour to be nominated Her Majesty's
+superintendent.  On the day of the great fete of the Cordon Bleu, when it
+was the etiquette to wear diamonds and pearls, the Queen had omitted
+putting them on.  As there had been a greater affluence of visitors than
+usual that morning, and Her Majesty's toilet was overthronged by Princes
+and Princesses, I fancied in the bustle that the omission proceeded from
+forgetfulness.  Consequently, I sent the tirewoman, in the Queen's
+hearing, to order the jewels to be brought in.  Smilingly, Her Majesty
+replied, 'No, no!  I have not forgotten these gaudy things; but I do not
+intend that the lustre of my eyes should be outshone by the one, or the
+whiteness of my teeth by the other; however, as you wish art to eclipse
+nature, I'll wear them to satisfy you, ma belle dame!'
+
+"The King was always so thoroughly indulgent to Her Majesty, with regard
+both to her public and private conduct, that she never had any pretext
+for those reserves which sometimes tempt Queens as well as the wives of
+private individuals to commit themselves to third persons for articles of
+high value, which their caprice indiscreetly impels them to procure
+unknown to their natural guardians.  Marie Antoinette had no reproach or
+censure for plunging into excesses beyond her means to apprehend from her
+royal husband.  On the contrary, the King himself had spontaneously
+offered to purchase the necklace from the jewellers, who had urged it on
+him without limiting any time for payment.  It was the intention of His
+Majesty to have liquidated it out of his private purse.  But Marie
+Antoinette declined the gift.  Twice in my presence was the refusal
+repeated before Messieurs Boehmer and Bassange.  Who, then, can for a
+moment presume, after all these circumstances, that the Queen of France,
+with a nation's wealth at her feet and thousands of individuals offering
+her millions, which she never accepted, would have so far degraded
+herself and the honour of the nation, of which she was born to be the
+ornament, as to place herself gratuitously in the power of a knot of
+wretches, headed by a man whose general bad character for years had
+excluded him from Court and every respectable society, and had made the
+Queen herself mark him as an object of the utmost aversion.
+
+"If these circumstances be not sufficient adequately to open the eyes of
+those whom prejudice has blinded, and whose ears have been deafened
+against truth, by the clamours of sinister conspirators against the
+monarchy instead of the monarchs; if all these circumstances, I repeat,
+do not completely acquit the Queen, argument, or even ocular
+demonstration itself, would be thrown away.  Posterity will judge
+impartially, and with impartial judges the integrity of Marie Antoinette
+needs no defender.
+
+"When the natural tendency of the character of De Rohan to romantic and
+extraordinary intrigue is considered in connection with the associates he
+had gathered around him, the plot of the necklace ceases to be a source
+of wonder.  At the time the Cardinal was most at a loss for means to meet
+the necessities of his extravagance, and to obtain some means of access
+to the Queen, the mountebank quack, Cagliostro, made his appearance in
+France.  His fame had soon flown from Strasburg to Paris, the magnet of
+vices and the seat of criminals.  The Prince-Cardinal, known of old as a
+seeker after everything of notoriety, soon became the intimate of one who
+flattered him with the accomplishment of all his dreams in the
+realization of the philosopher's stone; converting puffs and French paste
+into brilliants; Roman pearls into Oriental ones; and turning earth to
+gold.  The Cardinal, always in want of means to supply the insatiable
+exigencies of his ungovernable vices, had been the dupe through life of
+his own credulity--a drowning man catching at a straw!  But instead of
+making gold of base materials, Cagliostro's brass soon relieved his blind
+adherent of all his sterling metal.  As many needy persons enlisted under
+the banners of this nostrum speculator, it is not to be wondered at that
+the infamous name of the Comtesse de Lamotte, and others of the same
+stamp, should have thus fallen into an association of the Prince-Cardinal
+or that her libellous stories of the Queen of France should have found
+eager promulgators, where the real diamonds of the famous necklace being
+taken apart were divided piecemeal among a horde of the most depraved
+sharpers that ever existed to make human nature blush at its own
+degradation!
+
+[Cagliostro, when he came to Rome, for I know not whether there had been
+any previous intimacy, got acquainted with a certain Marchese Vivaldi, a
+Roman, whose wife had been for years the chere amie of the last Venetian
+Ambassador, Peter Pesaro, a noble patrician, and who has ever since his
+embassy at Rome been his constant companion and now resides with him in
+England.  No men in Europe are more constant in their attachments than
+the Venetians.  Pesaro is the sole proprietor of one of the moat
+beautiful and magnificent palaces on the Grand Canal at Venice, though he
+now lives in the outskirts of London, in a small house, not so large as
+one of the offices of his immense noble palace, where his agent transacts
+his business. The husband of Pesaro's chere amie, the Marchese Vivaldi,
+when Cagliostro was arrested and sent to the Castello Santo Angelo at
+Rome, was obliged to fly his country, and went to Venice, where he was
+kept secreted and maintained by the Marquis Solari, and it was only
+through his means and those of the Cardinal Consalvi, then known only as
+the musical Abbe Consalvi, from his great attachment to the immortal
+Cimarosa, that Vivaldi was ever allowed to return to his native country;
+but Consalvi, who was the friend of Vivaldi, feeling with the Marquis
+Solari much interested for his situation, they together contrived to
+convince Pius VI. that he was more to be pitied than blamed, and thus
+obtained his recall.  I have merely given this note as a further warning
+to be drawn from the connections of the Cardinal de Rohan, to deter
+hunters after novelty from forming ties with innovators and impostors.
+Cagliostro was ultimately condemned, by the Roman laws under Pope Pius
+VI., for life, to the galleys, where he died.
+
+Proverbs ought to be respected; for it is said that no phrase becomes a
+proverb until after a century's experience of its truth. In England it is
+proverbial to judge of men by the company they keep.  Judge of the
+Cardinal de Rohan from his most intimate friend, the galley-slave.]
+
+"Eight or ten years had elapsed from the time Her Majesty had last seen
+the Cardinal to speak to him, with the exception of the casual glance as
+she drove by when he furtively introduced himself into the garden at the
+fete at Trianon, till he was brought to the King's cabinet when arrested,
+and interrogated, and confronted with her face to face.  The Prince
+started when he saw her.  The comparison of her features with those of
+the guilty wretch who had dared to personate her in the garden at
+Versailles completely destroyed his self-possession.  Her Majesty's
+person was become fuller, and her face was much longer than that of the
+infamous D'Oliva.  He could neither speak nor write an intelligible reply
+to the questions put to him.  All he could utter, and that only in broken
+accents, was, 'I'll pay!  I'll pay Messieurs Bassange.'
+
+"Had he not speedily recovered himself, all the mystery in which this
+affair has been left, so injuriously to the Queen, might have been
+prevented.  His papers would have declared the history of every
+particular, and distinctly established the extent of his crime and the
+thorough innocence of Marie Antoinette of any connivance at the fraud, or
+any knowledge of the necklace.  But when the Cardinal was ordered by the
+King's Council to be put under arrest, his self-possession returned.  He
+was given in charge to an officer totally unacquainted with the nature of
+the accusation.  Considering only the character of his prisoner as one of
+the highest dignitaries of the Church, from ignorance and inexperience,
+he left the Cardinal an opportunity to write a German note to his
+factotum, the Abbe Georgel.  In this note the trusty secretary was
+ordered to destroy all the letters of Cagliostro, Madame de Lamotte, and
+the other wretched associates of the infamous conspiracy; and the traitor
+was scarcely in custody when every evidence of his treason had
+disappeared.  The note to Georgel saved his master from expiating his
+offence at the Place de Grave.
+
+"The consequences of the affair would have been less injurious, however,
+had it been managed, even as it stood, with better judgment and temper.
+But it was improperly entrusted to the Baron de Breteuil and the Abbe
+Vermond, both sworn enemies of the Cardinal.  Their main object was the
+ruin of him they hated, and they listened only to their resentments. They
+never weighed the danger of publicly prosecuting an individual whose
+condemnation would involve the first families in France, for he was
+allied even to many of the Princes of the blood.  They should have
+considered that exalted personages, naturally feeling as if any crime
+proved against their kinsman would be a stain upon themselves, would of
+course resort to every artifice to exonerate the accused.  To criminate
+the Queen was the only and the obvious method.  Few are those nearest the
+Crown who are not most jealous of its wearers!  Look at the long civil
+wars of York and Lancaster, and the short reign of Richard.  The downfall
+of Kings meets less resistance than that of their inferiors.
+
+"Still, notwithstanding all the deplorable blunders committed in this
+business of De Rohan, justice was not smothered without great difficulty.
+His acquittal cost the families of De Rohan and De Conde more than a
+million of livres, distributed among all ranks of the clergy; besides
+immense sums sent to the Court of Rome to make it invalidate the judgment
+of the civil authority of France upon so high a member of the Church, and
+to induce it to order the Cardinal's being sent to Rome by way of
+screening him from the prosecution, under the plausible pretext of more
+rigid justice.
+
+"Considerable sums in money and jewels were also lavished on all the
+female relatives of the peers of France, who were destined to sit on the
+trial.  The Abbe Georgel bribed the press, and extravagantly paid all the
+literary pens in France to produce the most Jesuitical and sophisticated
+arguments in his patron's justification.  Though these writers dared not
+accuse or in any way criminate the Queen, yet the respectful doubts, with
+which their defence of her were seasoned, did indefinitely more mischief
+than any direct attack, which could have been directly answered.
+
+"The long cherished, but till now smothered, resentment of the Comtesse
+de Noailles, the scrupulous Madame Etiquette, burst forth on this
+occasion.  Openly joining the Cardinal's party against her former
+mistress and Sovereign, she recruited and armed all in favour of her
+protege; for it was by her intrigues De Rohan had been nominated
+Ambassador to Vienna.  Mesdames de Guemenee and Marsan, rival pretenders
+to favours of His Eminence, were equally earnest to support him against
+the Queen.  In short, there was scarcely a family of distinction in
+France that, from the libels which then inundated the kingdom, did not
+consider the King as having infringed on their prerogatives and
+privileges in accusing the Cardinal.
+
+"Shortly after the acquittal of this most artful, and, in the present
+instance, certainly too fortunate prelate, the Princesse de Conde came to
+congratulate me on the Queen's innocence, and her kinsman's liberation
+from the Bastille.
+
+"Without the slightest observation, I produced to the Princess documents
+in proof of the immense sums she alone had expended in bribing the judges
+and other persons, to save her relation, the Cardinal, by criminating Her
+Majesty.
+
+"The Princesse de Conde instantly fell into violent hysterics, and was
+carried home apparently, lifeless.
+
+"I have often reproached myself for having given that sudden shock and
+poignant anguish to Her Highness, but I could not have supposed that one
+who came so barefacedly to impress me with the Cardinal's innocence,
+could have been less firm in refuting her own guilt.
+
+"I never mentioned the circumstance to the Queen.  Had I done so, Her
+Highness would have been forever excluded from the Court and the royal
+presence.  This was no time to increase the enemies of Her Majesty, and,
+the affair of the trial being ended, I thought it best to prevent any
+further breach from a discord between the Court and the house of Conde.
+However, from a coldness subsisting ever after between the Princess and
+myself, I doubt not that the Queen had her suspicions that all was not as
+it should be in that quarter.  Indeed, though Her Majesty never confessed
+it, I think she herself had discovered something at that very time not
+altogether to the credit of the Princesse de Conde, for she ceased going,
+from that period, to any of the fetes given at Chantilly.
+
+"These were but a small portion of the various instruments successfully
+levelled by parties, even the least suspected, to blacken and destroy the
+fair fame of Marie Antoinette.
+
+"The document which so justly alarmed the Princesse de Conde, when I
+showed it to her came into my hands in the following manner:
+
+"Whenever a distressed family, or any particular individual, applied to
+me for relief, or was otherwise recommended for charitable purposes, I
+generally sent my little English protegee--whose veracity, well knowing
+the goodness of her heart, I could rely--to ascertain whether their
+claims were really well grounded.
+
+[Indeed, I never deceived the Princess on these occasions.  She was so
+generously charitable that I should have conceived it a crime. When I
+could get no satisfactory information, I said I could not trace anything
+undeserving her charity, and left Her Highness to exercise her own
+discretion.]
+
+"One day I received an earnest memorial from a family, desiring to make
+some private communications of peculiar delicacy.  I sent my usual
+ambassadress to inquire into its import.  On making her mission known,
+she found no difficulty in ascertaining the object of the application. It
+proceeded from conscientious distress of mind.  A relation of this family
+had been the regular confessor of a convent.  With the Lady Abbess of
+this convent and her trusty nuns, the Princesse de Conde had deposited
+considerable sums of money, to be bestowed in creating influence in
+favour of the Cardinal de Rohan.  The confessor, being a man of some
+consideration among the clergy, was applied to, to use his influence with
+the needier members of the Church more immediately about him, as well as
+those of higher station, to whom he had access, in furthering the
+purposes of the Princesse de Conde.  The bribes were applied as intended.
+But, at the near approach of death, the confessor was struck with
+remorse.  He begged his family, without mentioning his name, to send the
+accounts and vouchers of the sums he had so distributed, to me, as a
+proof of his contrition, that I might make what use of them I should
+think proper.  The papers were handed to my messenger, who pledged her
+word of honour that I would certainly adhere to the dying man's last
+injunctions.  She desired they might be sealed up by the family, and by
+them directed to me.--[To this day, I neither know the name of the
+convent or the confessor.]--She then hastened back to our place of
+rendezvous, where I waited for her, and where she consigned the packet
+into my own hands.
+
+"That part of the papers which compromised only the Princesse de Conde
+was shown by me to the Princess on the occasion I have mentioned.  It was
+natural enough that she should have been shocked at the detection of
+having suborned the clergy and others with heavy bribes to avert the
+deserved fate of the Cardinal.  I kept this part of the packet secret
+till the King's two aunts, who had also been warm advocates in favour of
+the prelate, left Paris for Rome.  Then, as Pius VI. had interested
+himself as head of the Church for the honour of one of its members, I
+gave them these very papers to deliver to His Holiness for his private
+perusal.  I was desirous of enabling this truly charitable and Christian
+head of our sacred religion to judge how far his interference was
+justified by facts.  I am thoroughly convinced that, had he been sooner
+furnished with these evidences, instead of blaming the royal proceeding,
+he would have urged it on, nay, would himself have been the first to
+advise that the foul conspiracy should be dragged into open day.
+
+"The Comte de Vergennes told me that the King displayed the greatest
+impartiality throughout the whole investigation for the exculpation of
+the Queen, and made good his title on this, as he did on every occasion
+where his own unbiassed feelings and opinions were called into action, to
+great esteem for much higher qualities than the world has usually given
+him credit for.
+
+"I have been accused of having opened the prison doors of the culprit
+Lamotte for her escape; but the charge is false.  I interested myself, as
+was my duty, to shield the Queen from public reproach by having Lamotte
+sent to a place of penitence; but I never interfered, except to lessen
+her punishment, after the judicial proceedings.  The diamonds, in the
+hands of her vile associates at Paris, procured her ample means to
+escape.  I should have been the Queen's greatest enemy had I been the
+cause of giving liberty to one who acted, and might naturally have been
+expected to act, as this depraved woman did.
+
+"Through the private correspondence which was carried on between this
+country and England, after I had left it, I was informed that M. de
+Calonne, whom the Queen never liked, and who was called to the
+administration against her will--which he knew, and consequently became
+one of her secret enemies in the affair of the necklace--was discovered
+to have been actively employed against Her Majesty in the work published
+in London by Lamotte.
+
+"Mr. Sheridan was the gentleman who first gave me this information.
+
+"I immediately sent a trusty person by the Queen's orders to London, to
+buy up the whole work.  It was too late.  It had been already so widely
+circulated that its consequences could no longer be prevented.  I was
+lucky enough, however, for a considerable sum, to get a copy from a
+person intimate with the author, the margin of which, in the handwriting
+of M. de Calonne, actually contained numerous additional circumstances
+which were to have been published in a second edition!  This publication
+my agent, aided by some English gentlemen, arrived in time to suppress.
+
+"The copy I allude to was brought to Paris and shown to the Queen.  She
+instantly flew with it in her hands to the King's cabinet.
+
+"'Now, Sire,' exclaimed she, 'I hope you will be convinced that my
+enemies are those whom I have long considered as the most pernicious of
+Your Majesty's Councillors--your own Cabinet Ministers--your M. de
+Calonne!--respecting whom I have often given you my opinion, which,
+unfortunately, has always been attributed to mere female caprice, or as
+having been biassed by the intrigues of Court favourites!  This, I hope,
+Your Majesty will now be able to contradict!'
+
+"The King all this time was looking over the different pages containing
+M. de Calonne's additions on their margins.  On recognising the
+hand-writing, His Majesty was so affected by this discovered treachery of
+his Minister and the agitation of his calumniated Queen that he could
+scarcely articulate.
+
+"'Where,' said he, I did you procure this?'
+
+"'Through the means, Sire, of some of the worthy members of that nation
+your treacherous Ministers made our enemy--from England!  where your
+unfortunate Queen, your injured wife, is compassionated!'
+
+"'Who got it for you?'
+
+"'My dearest, my real, and my only sincere friend, the Princesse de
+Lamballe!'
+
+"The King requested I should be sent for.  I came.  As may be imagined, I
+was received with the warmest sentiments of affection by both Their
+Majesties.  I then laid before the King the letter of Mr. Sheridan, which
+was, in substance, as follows:
+
+"'MADAME,
+
+"'A work of mine, which I did not choose should be printed, was published
+in Dublin and transmitted to be sold in London.  As soon as I was
+informed of it, and had procured a spurious copy, I went to the
+bookseller to put a stop to its circulation.  I there met with a copy of
+the work of Madame de Lamotte, which has been corrected by some one at
+Paris and sent back to the bookseller for a second edition.  Though not
+in time to suppress the first edition, owing to its rapid circulation, I
+have had interest enough, through the means of the bookseller of whom I
+speak, to remit you the copy which has been sent as the basis of a new
+one.  The corrections, I am told, are by one of the King's Ministers.  If
+true, I should imagine the writer will be easily traced.
+
+"'I am happy that it has been in my power to make this discovery, and I
+hope it will be the means of putting a stop to this most scandalous
+publication.  I feel myself honoured in having contributed thus far to
+the wishes of Her Majesty, which I hope I have fulfilled to the entire
+satisfaction of Your Highness.
+
+"'Should anything further transpire on this subject, I will give you the
+earliest information.
+
+"'I remain, madame, with profound respect, Your Highness' most devoted,
+
+"'very humble servant,
+
+"'RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.'
+
+[Madame Campan mentions in her work that the Queen had informed her of
+the treachery of the Minister, but did not enter into particulars, nor
+explain the mode or source of its detection. Notwithstanding the parties
+had bound themselves for the sums they received not to reprint the work,
+a second edition appeared a short time afterwards in London.  This, which
+was again bought up by the French Ambassador, was the same which was to
+have been burned by the King's command at the china manufactory at
+Sevres.]
+
+"M. de Calonne immediately received the King's mandate to resign the
+portfolio.  The Minister desired that he might be allowed to give his
+resignation to the King himself.  His request was granted.  The Queen was
+present at the interview.  The work in question was produced.  On
+beholding it, the Minister nearly fainted.  The King got up and left the
+room.  The Queen, who remained, told M. de Calonne that His Majesty had
+no further occasion for his services.  He fell on his knees.  He was not
+allowed to speak, but was desired to leave Paris.
+
+"The dismissal and disgrace of M. de Calonne were scarcely known before
+all Paris vociferated that they were owing to the intrigues of the
+favourite De Polignac, in consequence of his having refused to administer
+to her own superfluous extravagance and the Queen's repeated demands on
+the Treasury to satisfy the numerous dependants of the Duchess.
+
+"This, however, was soon officially disproved by the exhibition of a
+written proposition of Calonne's to the Queen, to supply an additional
+hundred thousand francs that year to her annual revenue, which Her
+Majesty refused.  As for the Duchesse de Polignac, so far from having
+caused the disgrace, she was not even aware of the circumstance from
+which it arose; nor did the Minister himself ever know how, or by what
+agency, his falsehood was so thoroughly unmasked."
+
+NOTE:
+
+[The work which is here spoken of, the Queen kept, as a proof of the
+treachery of Calonne towards her and his Sovereign, till the storming of
+the Tuileries on the 10th of August, 1792, when, with the rest of the
+papers and property plundered on that memorable occasion, it fell into
+the hands of the ferocious mob.
+
+M. de Calonne soon after left France for Italy.  There he lived for some
+time in the palace of a particular friend of mine and the Marquis, my
+husband, the Countess Francese Tressino, at Vicenza.
+
+In consequence of our going every season to take the mineral waters and
+use the baths at Valdagno, we had often occasion to be in company with M.
+de Calonne, both at Vicenza and Valdagno, where I must do him the justice
+to say he conducted himself with the greatest circumspection in speaking
+of the Revolution.
+
+Though he evidently avoided the topic which terminates this chapter, yet
+one day, being closely pressed upon the subject, he said forgeries were
+daily committed on Ministers, and were most particularly so in France at
+the period in question; that he had borne the blame of various
+imprudencies neither authorized nor executed by him; that much had been
+done and supposed to have been done with his sanction, of which he had
+not the slightest knowledge. This he observed generally, without
+specifying any express instance.
+
+He was then asked whether he did not consider himself responsible for the
+mischief he occasioned by declaring the nation in a state of bankruptcy.
+He said, "No, not in the least.  There was no other way of preventing
+enormous sums from being daily lavished, as they then were, on herds of
+worthless beings; that the Queen had sought to cultivate a state of
+private domestic society, but that, in the attempt, she only warmed in
+her bosom domestic vipers, who fed on the vital spirit of her
+generosity."  He mentioned no names.
+
+I then took the liberty of asking him his opinion of the Princesse de
+Lamballe.
+
+"Oh, madame!  had the rest of Her Majesty's numerous attendants possessed
+the tenth part of that unfortunate Victim's virtues, Her Majesty would
+never have been led into the errors which all France must deplore!
+
+"I shall never forget her," continued he, "the day I went to take leave
+of her.  She was sitting on a sofa when I entered.  On seeing me, she
+rose immediately.  Before I could utter a syllable, 'Monsieur,' said the
+Princess, 'you are accused of being the Queen's enemy.  Acquit yourself
+of the foul deed imputed to you, and I shall be happy to serve you as far
+as lies in my power.  Till then, I must decline holding any communication
+with an individual thus situated. I am her friend, and cannot receive any
+one known to be otherwise.'
+
+"There was something," added he, "so sublime, so dignified, and
+altogether so firm, though mild in her manner, that she appeared not to
+belong to a race of earthly beings!"
+
+Seeing the tears fall from his eyes, while he was thus eulogising her
+whose memory I shall ever venerate, I almost forgave him the mischief of
+his imprudence, which led to her untimely end.  I therefore carefully
+avoided wounding his few gray hairs and latter days, and left him still
+untold that it was by her, of whom he thought so highly, that his
+uncontradicted treachery had been discovered.
+
+
+
+
+SECTION III.
+
+
+"Of the many instances in which the Queen's exertions to serve those whom
+she conceived likely to benefit and relieve the nation, turned to the
+injury, not only of herself, but those whom she patronised and the cause
+she would strengthen, one of the most unpopular was that of the promotion
+of Brienne, Archbishop of Sens, to the Ministry.  Her interest in his
+favour was entirely created by the Abbe Vermond, himself too superficial
+to pronounce upon any qualities, and especially such as were requisite
+for so high a station.  By many, the partiality which prompted Vermond to
+espouse the interests of the Archbishop was ascribed to the amiable
+sentiment of gratitude for the recommendation of that dignitary, by which
+Vermond himself first obtained his situation at Court; but there were
+others, who have been deemed deeper in the secret, who impute it to the
+less honourable source of self-interest, to the mere spirit of
+ostentation, to the hope of its enabling him to bring about the
+destruction of the De Polignacs.  Be this as it may, the Abbe well knew
+that a Minister indebted for his elevation solely to the Queen would be
+supported by her to the last.
+
+"This, unluckily, proved the case.  Marie Antoinette persisted in
+upholding every act of Brienne, till his ignorance and unpardonable
+blunders drew down the general indignation of the people against Her
+Majesty and her protege, with whom she was identified.  The King had
+assented to the appointment with no other view than that of not being
+utterly isolated and to show a respect for his consort's choice. But the
+incapable Minister was presently compelled to retire not only from
+office, but from Paris.  Never was a Minister more detested while in
+power, or a people more enthusiastically satisfied at his going out.  His
+effigy was burnt in every town of France, and the general illuminations
+and bonfires in the capital were accompanied by hooting and hissing the
+deposed statesman to the barriers.
+
+"The Queen, prompted by the Abbe Vermond, even after Brienne's
+dismission, gave him tokens of her royal munificence.  Her Majesty feared
+that her acting otherwise to a Minister, who had been honoured by her
+confidence, would operate as a check to prevent all men of celebrity from
+exposing their fortunes to so ungracious a return for lending their best
+services to the State, which now stood in need of the most skilful
+pilots.  Such were the motives assigned by Her Majesty herself to me,
+when I took the liberty, of expostulating with her respecting the dangers
+which threatened herself and family, from this continued devotedness to a
+Minister against whom the nation had pronounced so strongly.  I could not
+but applaud the delicacy of the feeling upon which her conduct had been
+grounded; nor could I blame her, in my heart, for the uprightness of her
+principle, in showing that what she had once undertaken should not be
+abandoned through female caprice.  I told Her Majesty that the system
+upon which she acted was praiseworthy; and that its application in the
+present instance would have been so had the Archbishop possessed as much
+talent as he lacked; but, that now it was quite requisite for her to stop
+the public clamour by renouncing her protection of a man who had so
+seriously endangered the public tranquillity and her own reputation.
+
+"As a proof how far my caution was well founded, there was an immense
+riotous mob raised about this time against the Queen, in consequence of
+her having, appointed the dismissed Minister's niece, Madame de Canisy,
+to a place at Court, and having given her picture, set in diamonds, to
+the Archbishop himself.
+
+"The Queen, in many cases, was by far too communicative to some of her
+household, who immediately divulged all they gathered from her unreserve.
+How could these circumstances have transpired to the people but from
+those nearest the person of Her Majesty, who, knowing the public feeling
+better than their royal mistress could be supposed to know it, did their
+own feeling little credit by the mischievous exposure?  The people were
+exasperated beyond all conception.  The Abbe Vermond placed before Her
+Majesty the consequences of her communicativeness, and from this time
+forward she never repeated the error.  After the lesson she had received,
+none of her female attendants, not even the Duchesse de Polignac, to whom
+she would have confided her very existence, could, had they been ever so
+much disposed, have drawn anything upon public matters from her.  With
+me, as her superintendent and entitled by my situation to interrogate and
+give her counsel, she was not, of course, under the same restriction. To
+his other representations of the consequences of the Queen's indiscreet
+openness, the Abbe Vermond added that, being obliged to write all the
+letters, private and public, he often found himself greatly embarrassed
+by affairs having gone forth to the world beforehand.  One misfortune of
+putting this seal upon the lips of Her Majesty was that it placed her
+more thoroughly in the Abbe's power.  She was, of course, obliged to rely
+implicitly upon him concerning many points, which, had they undergone the
+discussion necessarily resulting from free conversation, would have been
+shown to her under very different aspects. A man with a better heart,
+less Jesuitical, and not so much interested as Vermond was to keep his
+place, would have been a safer monitor.
+
+"Though the Archbishop of Sens was so much hated and despised, much may
+be said in apology for his disasters.  His unpopularity, and the Queen's
+support of him against the people, was certainly a vital blow to the
+monarchy.  There is no doubt of his having been a poor substitute for the
+great men who had so gloriously beaten the political paths of
+administration, particularly the Comte de Vergennes and Necker. But at
+that time, when France was threatened by its great convulsion, where is
+the genius which might not have committed itself?  And here is a man
+coming to rule amidst revolutionary feelings, with no knowledge whatever
+of revolutionary principles--a pilot steering into one harbour by the
+chart of another.  I am by no means a vindicator of the Archbishop's
+obstinacy in offering himself a candidate for a situation entirely
+foreign to the occupations, habits, and studies of his whole life; but
+his intentions may have been good enough, and we must not charge the
+physician with murder who has only mistaken the disease, and, though
+wrong in his judgment, has been zealous and conscientious; nor must we
+blame the comedians for the faults of the comedy.  The errors were not so
+much in the men who did not succeed as in the manners of the times.
+
+"The part which the Queen was now openly compelled to bear, in the
+management of public affairs, increased the public feeling against her
+from dislike to hatred.  Her Majesty was unhappy, not only from the
+necessity which called her out of the sphere to which she thought her sex
+ought to be confined, but from the divisions which existed in the Royal
+Family upon points in which their common safety required a common scheme
+of action.  Her favourite brother-in-law, D'Artois, had espoused the side
+of D'ORLEANS, and the popular party seemed to prevail against her, even
+with the King.
+
+"The various parliamentary assemblies, which had swept on their course,
+under various denominations, in rapid and stormy succession, were now
+followed by one which, like Aaron's rod, was to swallow up the rest. Its
+approach was regarded by the Queen with ominous reluctance. At length,
+however, the moment for the meeting of the States General at Versailles
+arrived.  Necker was once more in favour, and a sort of forlorn hope of
+better times dawned upon the perplexed monarch, in his anticipations from
+this assembly.
+
+"The night before the procession of the instalment of the States General
+was to take place, it being my duty to attend Her Majesty, I received an
+anonymous letter, cautioning me not to be seen that day by her side. I
+immediately went to the King's apartments and showed him the letter. His
+Majesty humanely enjoined me to abide by its counsels.  I told him I
+hoped he would for once permit me to exercise my own discretion; for if
+my royal Sovereign were in danger, it was then that her attendants should
+be most eager to rally round her, in order to watch over her safety and
+encourage her fortitude.
+
+"While we were thus occupied, the Queen and my sister-in-law, the
+Duchesse d'Orleans, entered the King's apartment, to settle some part of
+the etiquette respecting the procession.
+
+"'I wish,' exclaimed the Duchess, 'that this procession were over; or
+that it were never to take place; or that none of us had to be there; or
+else, being obliged, that we had all passed, and were comfortably at home
+again.'
+
+"'Its taking place,' answered the Queen, 'never had my sanction,
+especially at Versailles.  M. Necker appears to be in its favour, and
+answers for its success.  I wish he may not be deceived; but I much fear
+that he is guided more by the mistaken hope of maintaining his own
+popularity by this impolitic meeting, than by any conscientious
+confidence in its advantage to the King's authority.'
+
+"The King, having in his hand the letter which I had just brought him,
+presented it to the Queen.
+
+"'This, my dear Duchess,' cried the Queen, I comes from the Palais Royal
+manufactory, [Palais d' Orleans.  D.W.] to poison the very first
+sentiments of delight at the union expected between the King and his
+subjects, by innuendoes of the danger which must result from my being
+present at it.  Look at the insidiousness of the thing!  Under a pretext
+of kindness, cautions against the effect of their attachment are given to
+my most sincere and affectionate attendants, whose fidelity none dare
+attack openly.  I am, however, rejoiced that Lamballe has been
+cautioned.'
+
+"'Against what?' replied I.
+
+"'Against appearing in the procession,' answered the Queen.
+
+"'It is only,' I exclaimed, 'by putting me in the grave they can ever
+withdraw me from Your Majesty.  While I have life and Your Majesty's
+sanction, force only will prevent me from doing my duty.  Fifty thousand
+daggers, Madame, were they all raised against me, would have no power to
+shake the firmness of my character or the earnestness of my attachment. I
+pity the wretches who have so little penetration.  Victim or no victim,
+nothing shall ever induce me to quit Your Majesty.'
+
+"The Queen and Duchess, both in tears, embraced me.  After the Duchess
+had taken her leave, the King and Queen hinted their suspicions that she
+had been apprised of the letter, and had made this visit expressly to
+observe what effect it had produced, well knowing at the time that some
+attempt was meditated by the hired mob and purchased deputies already
+brought over to the D'ORLEANS faction.  Not that the slightest suspicion
+of collusion could ever be attached to the good Duchesse d'Orleans
+against the Queen.  The intentions of the Duchess were known to be as
+virtuous and pure as those of her husband's party were criminal and
+mischievous.  But, no doubt, she had intimations of the result intended;
+and, unable to avert the storm or prevent its cause, had been instigated
+by her strong attachment to me, as well as the paternal affection her
+father, the Duc de Penthievre, bore me, to attempt to lessen the
+exasperation of the Palais Royal party and the Duke, her husband, against
+me, by dissuading me from running any risk upon the occasion.
+
+"The next day, May 5, 1789, at the very moment when all the resources of
+nature and art seemed exhausted to render the Queen a paragon of
+loveliness beyond anything I had ever before witnessed, even in her; when
+every impartial eye was eager to behold and feast on that form whose
+beauty warmed every heart in her favour; at that moment a horde of
+miscreants, just as she came within sight of the Assembly, thundered in
+her ears, 'Orleans forever!' three or four times, while she and the King
+were left to pass unheeded.  Even the warning of the letter, from which
+she had reason to expect some commotions, suggested to her imagination
+nothing like this, and she was dreadfully shaken.  I sprang forward to
+support her.  The King's party, prepared for the attack, shouted 'Vive le
+roi!  Vive la reine!'  As I turned, I saw some of the members lividly
+pale, as if fearing their machinations had been discovered; but, as they
+passed, they said in the hearing of Her Majesty, 'Remember, you are the
+daughter of Maria Theresa.'--'True,' answered the Queen.  The Duc de
+Biron, Orleans, La Fayette, Mirabeau, and the Mayor of Paris, seeing Her
+Majesty's emotion, came up, and were going to stop the procession.  All,
+in apparent agitation, cried out 'Halt!'  The Queen, sternly looking at
+them, made a sign with her head to proceed, recovered herself, and moved
+forward in the train, with all the dignity and self-possession for which
+she was so eminently distinguished.
+
+"But this self-command in public proved nearly fatal to Her Majesty on
+her return to her apartment.  There her real feelings broke forth, and
+their violence was so great as to cause the bracelets on her wrists and
+the pearls in her necklace to burst from the threads and settings, before
+her women and the ladies in attendance could have time to take them off.
+She remained many hours in a most alarming state of strong convulsions.
+Her clothes were obliged to be cut from her body, to give her ease; but
+as soon as she was undressed, and tears came to her relief, she flew
+alternately to the Princesse Elizabeth and to myself; but we were both
+too much overwhelmed to give her the consolation of which she stood so
+much in need.
+
+"Barnave that very evening came to my private apartment, and tendered his
+services to the Queen.  He told me he wished Her Majesty to be convinced
+that he was a Frenchman; that he only desired his country might be
+governed by salutary laws, and not by the caprice of weak sovereigns, or
+a vitiated, corrupt Ministry; that the clergy and nobility ought to
+contribute to the wants of the State equally with every other class of
+the King's subjects; that when this was accomplished, and abuses were
+removed, by such a national representation as would enable the Minister,
+Necker, to accomplish his plans for the liquidation of the national debt,
+I might assure Her Majesty that both the King and herself would find
+themselves happier in a constitutional government than they had ever yet
+been; for such a government would set them free from all dependence on
+the caprice of Ministers, and lessen a responsibility of which they now
+experienced the misery; that if the King sincerely entered into the
+spirit of regenerating the French nation, he would find among the present
+representatives many members of probity, loyal and honourable in their
+intentions, who would never become the destroyers of a limited legitimate
+monarchy, or the corrupt regicides of a rump Parliament, such as brought
+the wayward Charles the First, of England, to the fatal block.
+
+"I attempted to relate the conversation to the Queen.  She listened with
+the greatest attention till I came to the part concerning the
+constitutional King, when Her Majesty lost her patience, and prevented me
+from proceeding.
+
+[This and other conversations, which will be found in subsequent pages,
+will prove that Barnave's sentiments in favour of the Royal Family long
+preceded the affair at Varennes, the beginning of which Madame Campan
+assigns to it.  Indeed it must by this time be evident to the reader that
+Madame Campan, though very correct in relating all she knew, with respect
+to the history of Marie Antoinette, was not in possession of matters
+foreign to her occupation about the person of the Queen, and, in
+particular, that she could communicate little concerning those important
+intrigues carried on respecting the different deputies of the first
+Assembly, till in the latter days of the Revolution, when it became
+necessary, from the pressure of events, that she should be made a sort of
+confidante, in order to prevent her from compromising the persons of the
+Queen and the Princesse de Lamballe: a trust, of her claim to which her
+undoubted fidelity was an ample pledge.  Still, however, she was often
+absent from Court at moments of great importance, and was obliged to take
+her information, upon much which she has recorded, from hearsay, which
+has led her, as I have before stated, into frequent mistakes.]
+
+"The expense of the insulting scene, which had so overcome Her Majesty,
+was five hundred thousand francs!  This sum was paid by the agents of the
+Palais Royal, and its execution entrusted principally to Mirabeau,
+Bailly, the Mayor of Paris, and another individual, who was afterwards
+brought over to the Court party.
+
+"The history of the Assembly itself on the day following, the 6th of May,
+is too well known.  The sudden perturbation of a guilty conscience, which
+overcame the Duc d'Orleans, seemed like an awful warning.  He had
+scarcely commenced his inflammatory address to the Assembly, when some
+one, who felt incommoded by the stifling heat of the hall, exclaimed,
+'Throw open the windows!' The conspirator fancied he heard in this his
+death sentence.  He fainted, and was conducted home in the greatest
+agitation.  Madame de Bouffon was at the Palais Royal when the Duke was
+taken thither.  The Duchesse d'Orleans was at the palace of the Duc de
+Penthievre, her father, while the Duke himself was at the Hotel Thoulouse
+with me, where he was to dine, and where we were waiting for the Duchess
+to come and join us, by appointment.  But Madame de Bouffon was so
+alarmed by the state in which she saw the Duc d'Orleans that she
+instantly left the Palais Royal, and despatched his valet express to
+bring her thither.  My sister-in-law sent an excuse to me for not coming
+to dinner, and an explanation to her father for so abruptly leaving his
+palace, and hastened home to her husband.  It was some days before he
+recovered; and his father-in-law, his wife, and myself were not without
+hopes that he would see in this an omen to prevent him from persisting
+any longer in his opposition to the Royal Family.
+
+"The effects of the recall of the popular Minister, Necker, did not
+satisfy the King.  Necker soon became an object of suspicion to the Court
+party, and especially to His Majesty and the Queen.  He was known to have
+maintained an understanding with D'ORLEANS.  The miscarriage of many
+plans and the misfortunes which succeeded were the result of this
+connection, though it was openly disavowed.  The first suspicion of the
+coalition arose thus:
+
+"When the Duke had his bust carried about Paris, after his unworthy
+schemes against the King had been discovered, it was thrown into the
+mire.  Necker passing, perhaps by mere accident, stopped his carriage,
+and expressing himself with some resentment for such treatment to a
+Prince of the blood and a friend of the people, ordered the bust to be
+taken to the Palais Royal, where it was washed, crowned with laurel, and
+thence, with Necker's own bust, carried to Versailles.  The King's aunts,
+coming from Bellevue as the procession was upon the road, ordered the
+guards to send the men away who bore the busts, that the King and Queen
+might not be insulted with the sight.  This circumstance caused another
+riot, which was attributed to Their Majesties.  The dismission of the
+Minister was the obvious result.  It is certain, however, that, in
+obeying the mandate of exile, Necker had no wish to exercise the
+advantage he possessed from his great popularity.  His retirement was
+sudden and secret; and, although it was mentioned that very evening by
+the Baroness de Stael to the Comte de Chinon, so little bustle was made
+about his withdrawing from France, that it was even stated at the time to
+have been utterly unknown, even to his daughter.
+
+"Necker himself ascribed his dismission to the influence of the De
+Polignacs; but he was totally mistaken, for the Duchesse de Polignac was
+the last person to have had any influence in matters of State, whatever
+might have been the case with those who surrounded her.  She was devoid
+of ambition or capacity to give her weight; and the Queen was not so
+pliant in points of high import as to allow herself to be governed or
+overruled, unless her mind was thoroughly convinced.  In that respect,
+she was something like Catharine II., who always distinguished her
+favourites from her Minister; but in the present case she had no choice,
+and was under the necessity of yielding to the boisterous voice of a
+faction.
+
+"From this epoch, I saw all the persons who had any wish to communicate
+with the Queen on matters relative to the public business, and Her
+Majesty was generally present when they came, and received them in my
+apartments.  The Duchesse de Polignac never, to my knowledge, entered
+into any of these State questions; yet there was no promotion in the
+civil, military, or ministerial department, which she has not been
+charged with having influenced the Queen to make, though there were few
+of them who were not nominated by the King and his Ministers, even
+unknown to the Queen herself.
+
+"The prevailing dissatisfaction against Her Majesty and the favourite De
+Polignac now began to take so many forms, and produce effects so
+dreadful, as to wring her own feelings, as well as those of her royal
+mistress, with the most intense anguish.  Let me mention one gross and
+barbarous instance in proof of what I say.
+
+"After the birth of the Queen's second son, the Duc de Normandie, who was
+afterwards Dauphin, the Duke and Duchess of Harcourt, outrageously
+jealous of the ascendency of the governess of the Dauphin, excited the
+young Prince's hatred toward Madame de Polignac to such a pitch that he
+would take nothing from her hands, but often, young as he was at the
+time, order her out of the apartment, and treat her remonstrances with
+the utmost contempt.  The Duchess bitterly complained of the Harcourts to
+the Queen; for she really sacrificed the whole of her time to the care
+and attention required by this young Prince, and she did so from sincere
+attachment, and that he might not be irritated in his declining state of
+health.  The Queen was deeply hurt at these dissensions between the
+governor and governess.  Her Majesty endeavoured to pacify the mind of
+the young Prince, by literally making herself a slave to his childish
+caprices, which in all probability would have created the confidence so
+desired, when a most cruel, unnatural, I may say diabolical, report
+prevailed to alienate the child's affections even from his mother, in
+making him believe that, owing to his deformity and growing ugliness, she
+had transferred all her tenderness to his younger brother, who certainly
+was very superior in health and beauty to the puny Dauphin. Making a
+pretext of this calumny, the governor of the heir-apparent was malicious
+enough to prohibit him from eating or drinking anything but what first
+passed through the hands of his physicians; and so strong was the
+impression made by this interdict on the mind of the young Dauphin that
+he never after saw the Queen but with the greatest terror.  The feelings
+of his disconsolate parent may be more readily conceived than described.
+So may the mortification of his governess, the Duchesse de Polignac,
+herself so tender, so affectionate a mother.  Fortunately for himself,
+and happily for his wretched parents, this royal youth, whose life,
+though short, had been so full of suffering, died at Versailles on the
+4th of June, 1789, and, though only between seven and eight years of age
+at the time of his decease, he had given proofs of intellectual
+precocity, which would probably have made continued life, amidst the
+scenes of wretchedness, which succeeded, anything to him but a blessing.
+
+"The cabals of the Duke of Harcourt, to which I have just adverted,
+against the Duchesse de Polignac, were the mere result of foul malice and
+ambition.  Harcourt wished to get his wife, who was the sworn enemy of De
+Polignac, created governess to the Dauphin, instead of the Queen's
+favourite.  Most of the criminal stories against the Duchesse de
+Polignac, and which did equal injury to the Queen, were fabricated by the
+Harcourts, for the purpose of excluding their rival from her situation.
+
+"Barnave, meanwhile, continued faithful to his liberal principles, but
+equally faithful to his desire of bringing Their Majesties over to those
+principles, and making them republican Sovereigns.  He lost no
+opportunity of availing himself of my permission for him to call whenever
+he chose on public business; and he continued to urge the same points,
+upon which he had before been so much in earnest, although with no better
+effect.  Both the King and the Queen looked with suspicion upon Barnave,
+and with still more suspicion upon his politics.
+
+"The next time I received him, 'Madame,' exclaimed the deputy to me,
+'since our last interview I have pondered well on the situation of the
+King; and, as an honest Frenchman, attached to my lawful Sovereign, and
+anxious for his future prosperous reign, I am decidedly of opinion that
+his own safety, as well as the dignity of the crown of France, and the
+happiness of his subjects, can only be secured by his giving his country
+a Constitution, which will at once place his establishment beyond the
+caprice and the tyranny of corrupt administrations, and secure hereafter
+the first monarchy in Europe from the possibility of sinking under weak
+Princes, by whom the royal splendour of France has too often been debased
+into the mere tool of vicious and mercenary noblesse, and sycophantic
+courtiers.  A King, protected by a Constitution, can do no wrong.  He is
+unshackled with responsibility.  He is empowered with the comfort of
+exercising the executive authority for the benefit of the nation, while
+all the harsher duties, and all the censures they create, devolve on
+others.  It is, therefore, madame, through your means, and the well-known
+friendship you have ever evinced for the Royal Family, and the general
+welfare of the French nation, that I wish to obtain a private audience of
+Her Majesty, the Queen, in order to induce her to exert the never-failing
+ascendency she has ever possessed over the mind of our good King, in
+persuading him to the sacrifice of a small proportion of his power, for
+the sake of preserving the monarchy to his heirs; and posterity will
+record the virtues of a Prince who has been magnanimous enough, of his
+own free will, to resign the unlawful part of his prerogatives, usurped
+by his predecessors, for the blessing and pleasure of giving liberty to a
+beloved people, among whom both the King and Queen will find many
+Hampdens and Sidneys, but very few Cromwells.  Besides, madame, we must
+make a merit of necessity.  The times are pregnant with events, and it is
+more prudent to support the palladium of the ancient monarchy than risk
+its total overthrow; and fall it must, if the diseased excrescences, of
+which the people complain, and which threaten to carry death into the
+very heart of the tree, be not lopped away in time by the Sovereign
+himself.'
+
+"I heard the deputy with the greatest attention.  I promised to fulfil
+his commission.  The better to execute my task, I retired the moment he
+left me, and wrote down all I could recollect of his discourse, that it
+might be thoroughly placed before the Queen the first opportunity.
+
+"When I communicated the conversation to Her Majesty, she listened with
+the most gracious condescension, till I came to the part wherein Barnave
+so forcibly impressed the necessity of adopting a constitutional
+monarchy.  Here, as she had done once before, when I repeated some former
+observations of Barnave to her, Marie Antoinette somewhat lost her
+equanimity.  She rose from her seat, and exclaimed:
+
+"'What! is an absolute Prince, and the hereditary Sovereign of the
+ancient monarchy of France, to become the tool of a plebeian faction, who
+will, their point once gained, dethrone him for his imbecile
+complaisance?  Do they wish to imitate the English Revolution of 1648,
+and reproduce the sanguinary times of the unfortunate and weak Charles
+the First?  To make France a commonwealth!  Well! be it so!  But before I
+advise the King to such a step, or give my consent to it, they shall bury
+me under the ruins of the monarchy.'
+
+"'But what answer,' said I, 'does Your Majesty wish me to return to the
+deputy's request for a private audience?'
+
+"'What answer?' exclaimed the Queen.  No answer at all is the best answer
+to such a presumptuous proposition!  I tremble for the consequences of
+the impression their disloyal manoeuvres have made upon the minds of the
+people, and I have no faith whatever in their proffered services to the
+King.  However, on reflection, it may be expedient to temporise. Continue
+to see him.  Learn, if possible, how far he may be trusted; but do not
+fix any time, as yet, for the desired audience.  I wish to apprise the
+King, first, of his interview with you, Princess.  This conversation does
+not agree with what he and Mirabeau proposed about the King's recovering
+his prerogatives.  Are these the prerogatives with which he flattered the
+King?  Binding him hand and foot, and excluding him from every privilege,
+and then casting him a helpless dependant on the caprice of a volatile
+plebeian faction!  The French nation is very different from the English.
+The first rules of the established ancient order of the government broken
+through, they will violate twenty others, and the King will be
+sacrificed, before this frivolous people again organise themselves with
+any sort of regular government.'
+
+"Agreeably to Her Majesty's commands, I continued to see Barnave.  I
+communicated with him by letter,' at his private lodgings at Passy, and
+at Vitry; but it was long before the Queen could be brought to consent to
+the audience he solicited.
+
+[Of these letters I was generally the bearer.  I recollect that day
+perfectly.  I was copying some letters for the Princesse de Lamballe,
+when the Prince de Conti came in.  The Prince lived not only to see, but
+to feel the errors of his system.  He attained a great age.  He outlived
+the glory of his country.  Like many others, the first gleam of political
+regeneration led him into a system, which drove him out of France, to
+implore the shelter of a foreign asylum, that he might not fall a victim
+to his own credulity.  I had an opportunity of witnessing in his latter
+days his sincere repentance; and to this it is fit that I should bear
+testimony. There were no bounds to the execration with which he expressed
+himself towards the murderers of those victims, whose death he lamented
+with a bitterness in which some remorse was mingled, from the impression
+that his own early errors in favour of the Revolution had unintentionally
+accelerated their untimely end.  This was a source to him of deep and
+perpetual self-reproach.
+
+There was an eccentricity in the appearance, dress, and manners of the
+Prince de Conti, which well deserves recording.
+
+He wore to the very last--and it was in Barcelona, so late as 1803, that
+I last had the honour of conversing with him--a white rich stuff dress
+frock coat, of the cut and fashion of Louis XIV., which, being without
+any collar, had buttons and button-holes from the neck to the bottom of
+the skirt, and was padded and stiffened with buckram.  The cuffs were
+very large, of a different colour, and turned up to the elbows.  The
+whole was lined with white satin, which, from its being very much
+moth-eaten, appeared as if it had been dotted on purpose to show the
+buckram between the satin lining. His waistcoat was of rich green striped
+silk, bound with gold lace; the buttons and buttonholes of gold; the
+flaps very large, and completely covering his small clothes; which
+happened very apropos, for they scarcely reached his knees, over which he
+wore large striped silk stockings, that came half-way up his thighs.  His
+shoes had high heels, and reached half up his legs; the buckles were
+small, and set round with paste.  A very narrow stiff stock decorated his
+neck.  He carried a hat, with a white feather on the inside, under his
+arm.  His ruffles were of very handsome point lace.  His few gray hairs
+were gathered in a little round bag.  The wig alone was wanting to make
+him a thorough picture of the polished age of the founder of Versailles
+and Marly.
+
+He had all that princely politeness of manner which so eminently
+distinguished the old school of French nobility, previous to the
+Revolution.  He was the thorough gentleman, a character by no means so
+readily to be met with in these days of refinement as one would imagine.
+He never addressed the softer sex but with ease and elegance, and
+admiration of their persons.
+
+Could Louis XIV.  have believed, had it been told to him when he placed
+this branch of the Bourbons on the throne of Iberia, that it would one
+day refuse to give shelter at the Court of Madrid to one of his family,
+for fear of offending a Corsican usurper!]
+
+"Indeed, Her Majesty had such an aversion to all who had declared
+themselves for any innovation upon the existing power of the monarchy,
+that she was very reluctant to give audience upon the subject to any
+person, not even excepting the Princes of the blood.  The Comte d'Artois
+himself, leaning as he did to the popular side, had ceased to be welcome.
+Expressions he had made use of, concerning the necessity for some change,
+had occasioned the coolness, which was already of considerable standing.
+
+"One day the Prince de Conti came to me, to complain of the Queen's
+refusing to receive him, because he had expressed himself to the same
+effect as had the Comte d'Artois on the subject of the Tiers Etat.
+
+"'And does Your Highness,' replied I, 'imagine that the Queen is less
+displeased with the conduct of the Comte d'Artois on that head than she
+is with you, Prince?  I can assure Your Highness, that at this moment
+there subsists a very great degree of coolness between Her Majesty and
+her royal brother-in-law, whom she loves as if he were her own brother.
+Though she makes every allowance for his political inexperience, and well
+knows the goodness of his heart and the rectitude of his intentions, yet
+policy will not permit her to change her sentiments.'
+
+"'That may be,' said the Prince, 'but while Her Majesty continues to
+honour with her royal presence the Duchesse de Polignac, whose friends,
+as well as herself, are all enthusiastically mad in favour of the
+constitutional system, she shows an undue partiality, by countenancing
+one branch of the party and not the other; particularly so, as the great
+and notorious leader of the opposition, which the Queen frowns upon, is
+the sister-in-law of this very Duchesse de Polignac, and the avowed
+favourite of the Comte d'Artois, by whom, and the councils of the Palais
+Royal, he is supposed to be totally governed in his political career.'
+
+"'The Queen,' replied I, 'is certainly her own mistress.  She sees, I
+believe, many persons more from habit than any other motive; to which,
+Your Highness is aware, many Princes often make sacrifices.  Your
+Highness cannot suppose I can have the temerity to control Her Majesty,
+in the selection of her friends, or in her sentiments respecting them.'
+
+"'No,' exclaimed the Prince, 'I imagine not.  But she might just as well
+see any of us; for we are no more enemies of the Crown than the party she
+is cherishing by constantly appearing among them; which, according to her
+avowed maxims concerning the not sanctioning any but supporters of the
+absolute monarchy, is in direct opposition to her own sentiments.
+
+"'Who,' continued His Highness, 'caused that infernal comedy, 'Le Mariage
+de Figaro', to be brought out, but the party of the Duchesse de Polignac?
+
+[Note of the Princesse de Lamballe:--The Prince de Conti never could
+speak of Beaumarchais but with the greatest contempt.  There was
+something personal in this exasperation.  Beaumarchais had satirized the
+Prince.  'The Spanish Barber' was founded on a circumstance which
+happened at a country house between Conti and a young lady, during the
+reign of Louis XV., when intrigues of every kind were practised and
+almost sanctioned.  The poet has exposed the Prince by making him the
+Doctor Bartolo of his play.  The affair which supplied the story was
+hushed up at Court, and the Prince was punished only by the loss of his
+mistress, who became the wife of another.]
+
+The play is a critique on the whole Royal Family, from the drawing up of
+the curtain to its fall.  It burlesques the ways and manners of every
+individual connected with the Court of Versailles.  Not a scene but
+touches some of their characters.  Are not the Queen herself and the
+Comte d'Artois lampooned and caricatured in the garden scenes, and the
+most slanderous ridicule cast upon their innocent evening walks on the
+terrace?  Does not Beaumarchais plainly show in it, to every impartial
+eye, the means which the Comtesse Diane has taken publicly to demonstrate
+her jealousy of the Queen's ascendency over the Comte d'Artois?  Is it
+not from the same sentiment that she roused the jealousy of the Comtesse
+d'Artois against Her Majesty?'
+
+"'All these circumstances,' observed I, 'the King prudently foresaw when
+he read the manuscript, and caused it to be read to the Queen, to
+convince her of the nature of its characters and the dangerous tendency
+likely to arise from its performance.  Of this Your Highness is aware. It
+is not for me to apprise you that, to avert the excitement inevitable
+from its being brought upon the stage, and under a thorough conviction of
+the mischief it would produce in turning the minds of the people against
+the Queen, His Majesty solemnly declared that the comedy should not be
+performed in Paris; and that he would never sanction its being brought
+before the public on any stage in France.'
+
+"'Bah! bah! madame!' exclaimed De Conti.  The Queen has acted like a
+child in this affair, as in many others.  In defiance of His Majesty's
+determination, did not the Queen herself, through the fatal influence of
+her favourite, whose party wearied her out by continued importunities,
+cause the King to revoke his express mandate?  And what has been the
+consequence of Her Majesty's ungovernable partiality for these De
+Polignacs?'
+
+"'You know, Prince,' said I, 'better than I do.'
+
+"'The proofs of its bad consequences,' pursued His Highness, 'are more
+strongly verified than ever by your own withdrawing from the Queen's
+parties since her unreserved acknowledgment of her partiality (fatal
+partiality!) for those who will be her ruin; for they are her worst
+enemies.'
+
+"'Pardon me, Prince,' answered I, 'I have not withdrawn myself from the
+Queen, but from the new parties, with whose politics I cannot identify
+myself, besides some exceptions I have taken against those who frequent
+them.'
+
+"'Bah! bah!' exclaimed De Conti, 'your sagacity has got the better of
+your curiosity.  All the wit and humour of that traitor Beaumarchais
+never seduced you to cultivate his society, as all the rest of the
+Queen's party have done.'
+
+"'I never knew him to be accused of treason.'
+
+"'Why, what do you call a fellow who sent arms to the Americans before
+the war was declared, without his Sovereign's consent?'
+
+"'In that affair, I consider the Ministers as criminal as himself; for
+the Queen, to this day, believes that Beaumarchais was sanctioned by them
+and, you know, Her Majesty has ever since had an insuperable dislike to
+both De Maurepas and De Vergennes.  But I have nothing to do with these
+things.'
+
+"'Yes, yes, I understand you, Princess.  Let her romp and play with the
+'compate vous',--[A kind of game of forfeits, introduced for the
+diversion of the royal children and those of the Duchesse de
+Polignac.]--but who will 'compatire' (make allowance for) her folly?
+Bah! bah! bah! She is inconsistent, Princess.  Not that I mean by this to
+insinuate that the Duchess is not the sincere friend and well-wisher of
+the Queen.  Her immediate existence, her interest, and that of her
+family, are all dependent on the royal bounty.  But can the Duchess
+answer for the same sincerity towards the Queen, with respect to her
+innumerable guests? No!  Are not the sentiments of the Duchesses
+sister-in-law, the Comtesse Diane, in direct opposition to the absolute
+monarchy?  Has she not always been an enthusiastic advocate for all those
+that have supported the American war?  Who was it that crowned, at a
+public assembly, the democratical straight hairs of Dr. Franklin?  Why
+the same Madame Comtesse Diane!  Who was 'capa turpa' in applauding the
+men who were framing the American Constitution at Paris?  Madame Comtesse
+Diane!  Who was it, in like manner, that opposed all the Queen's
+arguments against the political conduct of France and Spain, relative to
+the war with England, in favour of the American Independence?  The
+Comtesse Diane! Not for the love of that rising nation, or for the sacred
+cause of liberty; but from a taste for notoriety, a spirit of envy and
+jealousy, an apprehension lest the personal charms of the Queen might rob
+her of a part of those affections, which she herself exclusively hoped to
+alienate from that abortion, the Comtesse d'Artois, in whose service she
+is Maid of Honour, and handmaid to the Count.  My dear Princess, these
+are facts proved.  Beaumarchais has delineated them all.  Why, then,
+refuse to see me?  Why withdraw her former confidence from the Comte
+d'Artois, when she lives in the society which promulgates antimonarchical
+principles?  These are sad evidences of Her Majesty's inconsistency.  She
+might as well see the Duc d'Orleans'
+
+"Here my feelings overwhelmed me.  I could contain myself no longer.  The
+tears gushed from my eyes.
+
+"'Oh, Prince!' exclaimed I, in a bitter agony of grief--'Oh, Prince!
+touch not that fatal string.  For how many years has he not caused these
+briny tears of mine to flow from my burning eyes!  The scalding drops
+have nearly parched up the spring of life!'"
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Beaumarchais sent arms to the Americans
+Educate his children as quietists in matters of religion
+It is an ill wind that blows no one any good
+Judge of men by the company they keep
+Les culottes--what do you call them?' 'Small clothes'
+My little English protegee
+No phrase becomes a proverb until after a century's experience
+We say "inexpressibles"
+Wish art to eclipse nature
+
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, by Madame Hausset, v5
+#5 in our series by Hausset, Lamballe and an unknown English Girl
+#43 in our series Historic Court Memoirs
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+Title: The Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, v5
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+Author: Madame du Hausset, and of an unknown English Girl and the
+Princess Lamballe
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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 5.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+
+     [From the time that the Princesse de Lamballe saw the ties between
+     the Queen and her favourite De Polignac drawing closer she became
+     less assiduous in her attendance at Court, being reluctant to
+     importune the friends by her presence at an intimacy which she did
+     not approve.  She could not, however, withhold her accustomed
+     attentions, as the period of Her Majesty's accouchement approached;
+     and she has thus noted the circumstance of the birth of the Duchesse
+     d'Angouleme, on the 19th of December, 1778.]
+
+"The moment for the accomplishment of the Queen's darling hope was now at
+hand: she was about to become a mother.
+
+"It had been agreed between Her Majesty and myself, that I was to place
+myself so near the accoucheur, Vermond,
+
+     [Brother to the Abbe, whose pride was so great at this honour
+     conferred on his relative, that he never spoke of him without
+     denominating him Monsieur mon frere, d'accoucher de sa Majeste,
+     Vermond.]
+
+as to be the first to distinguish the sex of the new-born infant, and if
+she should be delivered of a Dauphin to say, in Italian, 'Il figlio e
+nato.'
+
+"Her Majesty was, however, foiled even in this the most blissful of her
+desires.  She was delivered of a daughter instead of a Dauphin.
+
+"From the immense crowd that burst into the apartment the instant Vermond
+said, The Queen is happily delivered, Her Majesty was nearly suffocated.
+I had hold of her hand, and as I said 'La regina e andato', mistaking
+'andato' for 'nato', between the joy of giving birth to a son and the
+pressure of the crowd, Her Majesty fainted.  Overcome by the dangerous
+situation in which I saw my royal mistress, I myself was carried out of
+the room in a lifeless state.  The situation of Her Majesty was for some
+time very doubtful, till the people were dragged with violence from about
+her, that she might have air.  On her recovering, the King was the first
+person who told her that she was the mother of a very fine Princess.
+
+"'Well, then,' said the Queen, 'I am like my mother, for at my birth she
+also wished for a son instead of a daughter; and you have lost your
+wager:' for the King had betted with Maria Theresa that it would be a
+son.
+
+"The King answered her by repeating the lines Metastasio had written on
+that occasion.
+
+                  "'Io perdei: l'augusta figlia
+                    A pagar, m'a condemnato;
+                    Ma s'e ver the a voi somiglia
+                    Tutto il moudo ha guadagnato.'"
+
+
+     [The Princesse de Lamballe again ceased to be constantly about the
+     Queen.  Her danger was over, she was a mother, and the attentions of
+     disinterested friendship were no longer indispensable.  She herself
+     about this time met with a deep affliction.  She lost both of her
+     own parents; and to her sorrows may, in a great degree, be ascribed
+     her silence upon the events which intervened between the birth of
+     Madame and that of the Dauphin.  She was as assiduous as ever in her
+     attentions to Her Majesty on her second lying-in.  The circumstances
+     of the death of Maria Theresa, the Queen's mother, in the interval
+     which divided the two accouchements, and Her Majesty's anguish, and
+     refusal to see any but De Lamballe and De Polignac, are too well
+     known to detain us longer from the notes of the Princess.  It is
+     enough for the reader to know that the friendship of Her Majesty for
+     her superintendent seemed to be gradually reviving in all its early
+     enthusiasm, by her unremitting kindness during the confinements of
+     the Queen, till, at length, they became more attached than ever.
+     But, not to anticipate, let me return to the narrative.]
+
+"The public feeling had undergone a great change with respect to Her
+Majesty from the time of her first accouchement.  Still, she was not the
+mother of a future King.  The people looked upon her as belonging to them
+more than she had done before, and faction was silenced by the general
+delight.  But she had not yet attained the climax of her felicity.  A
+second pregnancy gave a new excitement to the nation; and, at length, on
+the 22nd October, 1781, dawned the day of hope.
+
+"In consequence of what happened on the first accouchement, measures were
+taken to prevent similar disasters on the second.  The number admitted
+into the apartment was circumscribed.  The silence observed left the
+Queen in uncertainty of the sex to which she had given birth, till, with
+tears of joy, the King said to her: 'Madame, the hopes of the nation, and
+mine, are fulfilled.  You are the mother of a Dauphin.'
+
+"The Princesse Elizabeth and myself were so overjoyed that we embraced
+every one in the room.
+
+"At this time Their Majesties were adored.  Marie Antoinette, with all
+her beauty and amiableness, was a mere cipher in the eyes of France
+previous to her becoming the mother of an heir to the Crown; but her
+popularity now arose to a pitch of unequalled enthusiasm.
+
+"I have heard of but one expression to Her Majesty upon this occasion in
+any way savouring of discontent.  This came from the royal aunts.  On
+Marie Antoinette's expressing to them her joy in having brought a Dauphin
+to the nation, they replied, 'We will only repeat our father's
+observation on a similar subject.  When one of our sisters complained to
+his late Majesty that, as her Italian husband had copied the Dauphin's
+whim, she could not, though long a bride, boast of being a wife, or hope
+to become a mother--"a prudent Princess," replied Louis XV., "never wants
+heirs!"'  But the feeling of the royal aunts was an exception to the
+general sentiment, which really seemed like madness.
+
+"I remember a proof of this which happened at the time.  Chancing to
+cross the King's path as he was going to Marly and I coming from
+Rambouillet, my two postillions jumped from their horses, threw
+themselves on the high road upon their knees, though it was very dirty,
+and remained there, offering up their benedictions, till he was out of
+sight.
+
+"The felicity of the Queen was too great not to be soon overcast.  The
+unbounded influence of the De Polignacs was now at its zenith.  It could
+not fail of being attacked.  Every engine of malice, envy, and detraction
+was let loose; and, in the vilest calumnies against the character of the
+Duchess, her royal mistress was included.
+
+"It was, in truth, a most singular fatality, in the life of Marie
+Antoinette that she could do nothing, however beneficial or
+disinterested, for which she was not either criticised or censured.
+She had a tenacity, of character which made her cling more closely to
+attachments from which she saw others desirous of estranging her; and
+this firmness, however excellent in principle, was, in her case, fatal in
+its effects.  The Abbe Vermond, Her Majesty's confessor and tutor, and,
+unfortunately, in many respects, her ambitious guide, was really alarmed
+at the rising favour of the Duchess; and, though he knew the very
+obstacles thrown in her way only strengthened her resolution as to any
+favourite object, yet he ventured to head an intrigue to destroy the
+great influence of the De Polignacs, which, as he might have foreseen,
+only served to hasten their aggrandisement.
+
+"At this crisis the dissipation of the Duc de Guemenee caused him to
+become a bankrupt.  I know not whether it can be said in principle, but
+certainly it may in property, 'It is an ill wind that blows no one any
+good.'  The Princess, his wife, having been obliged to leave her
+residence at Versailles, in consequence of the Duke's dismissal from the
+King's service on account of the disordered state of his pecuniary
+circumstances, the situation of governess to the royal children became
+necessarily vacant, and was immediately transferred to the Duchesse de
+Polignac.  The Queen, to enable her friend to support her station with
+all the eclat suitable to its dignity, took care to supply ample means
+from her own private purse.  A most magnificent suite of apartments was
+ordered to be arranged, under the immediate inspection of the Queen's
+maitre d'hotel, at Her Majesty's expense.
+
+"Is there anything on earth more natural than the lively interest which
+inspires a mother towards those who have the care of her offspring?
+What, then, must have been the feelings of a Queen of France who had been
+deprived of that blessing for which connubial attachments are formed, and
+which, vice versa, constitutes the only real happiness of every young
+female, what must have been, I say, the ecstasy of Marie Antoinette when
+she not only found herself a mother, but the dear pledges of all her
+future bliss in the hands of one whose friendship allowed her the
+unrestrained exercise of maternal affection,--a climax of felicity
+combining not only the pleasures of an ordinary mother, but the
+greatness, the dignity, and the flattering popularity of a Queen of
+France.
+
+"Though the pension of the Duchesse de Polignac was no more than that
+usually allotted to all former governesses of the royal children of
+France, yet circumstances tempted her to a display not a little injurious
+to her popularity as well as to that of her royal mistress.  She gave too
+many pretexts to imputations of extravagance.  Yet she had neither
+patronage, nor sinecures, nor immunities beyond the few inseparable from
+the office she held, and which had been the same for centuries under the
+Monarchy of France.  But it must be remembered, as an excuse for the
+splendour of her establishment, that she entered her office upon a
+footing very different from that of any of her predecessors.  Her mansion
+was not the quiet, retired, simple household of the governess of the
+royal children, as formerly: it had become the magnificent resort of the
+first Queen in Europe; the daily haunt of Her Majesty.  The Queen
+certainly visited the former governess, as she had done the Duchesse de
+Duras and many other frequenters of her Court parties; but she made the
+Duchesse de Polignac's her Court; and all the courtiers of that Court,
+and, I may say, the great personages of all France, as well as the
+Ministers and all foreigners of distinction, held there their usual
+rendezvous; consequently, there was nothing wanting but the guards in
+attendance in the Queen's apartments to have made it a royal residence
+suitable for the reception of the illustrious personages that were in the
+constant habit of visiting these levees, assemblies, balls, routs,
+picnics, dinner, supper, and card parties.
+
+     [I have seen ladies at the Princesse de Lamballe's come from these
+     card parties with their laps so blackened by the quantities of gold
+     received in them, that they have been obliged to change their
+     dresses to go to supper.  Many a chevalier d'industree and young
+     military spendthrift has made his harvest here.  Thousands were won
+     and lost, and the ladies were generally the dupes of all those who
+     were the constant speculative attendants.  The Princease de Lamballe
+     did not like play, but when it was necessary she did play, and won
+     or lost to a limited extent; but the prescribed sum once exhausted
+     or gained she left off.  In set parties, such as those of whist, she
+     never played except when one was wanted, often excusing herself on
+     the score of its requiring more attention than it was in her power
+     to give to it and her reluctance to sacrifice her partner; though I
+     have heard Beau Dillon, the Duke of Dorset, Lord Edward Dillon, and
+     many others say that she understood and played the game much better
+     than many who had a higher opinion of their skill in it.  Lord
+     Edward Fitzgerald was admitted to the parties at the Duchesse de
+     Polignac's on his first coming to Paris; but when his connection
+     with the Duc d'Orleans and Madame de Genlis became known he was
+     informed that his society would be dispensed with.  The famous, or
+     rather the infamous, Beckford was also excluded.]
+
+"Much as some of the higher classes of the nobility felt aggrieved at the
+preference given by the Queen to the Duchesse de Polignac, that which
+raised against Her Majesty the most implacable resentment was her
+frequenting the parties of her favourite more than those of any other of
+the 'haut ton'.  These assemblies, from the situation held by the
+Duchess, could not always be the most select.  Many of the guests who
+chanced to get access to them from a mere glimpse of the Queen--whose
+general good-humour, vivacity, and constant wish to please all around her
+would often make her commit herself unconsciously and unintentionally--
+would fabricate anecdotes of things they had neither seen nor heard; and
+which never had existence, except in their own wicked imaginations.  The
+scene of the inventions, circulated against Her Majesty through France,
+was, in consequence, generally placed at the Duchess's; but they were
+usually so distinctly and obviously false that no notice was taken of
+them, nor was any attempt made to check their promulgation.
+
+"Exemplary as was the friendship between this enthusiastic pair,
+how much more fortunate for both would it have been had it never
+happened!  I foresaw the results long, long before they took place;
+but the Queen was not to be thwarted.  Fearful she might attribute my
+anxiety for her general safety to unworthy personal views, I was often
+silent, even when duty bade me speak.  I was, perhaps, too scrupulous
+about seeming officious or jealous of the predilection shown to the
+Duchess.  Experience had taught me the inutility of representing
+consequences, and I had no wish to quarrel with the Queen.  Indeed,
+there was a degree of coldness towards me on the part of Her Majesty for
+having gone so far as I had done.  It was not until after the birth of
+the Duc de Normandie, her third child, in March, 1785, that her
+friendship resumed its primitive warmth.
+
+"As the children grew, Her Majesty's attachment for their governess grew
+with them.  All that has been said of Tasso's Armida was nothing to this
+luxurious temple of maternal affection.  Never was female friendship more
+strongly cemented, or less disturbed by the nauseous poison of envy,
+malice, or mean jealousy.  The Queen was in the plenitude of every
+earthly enjoyment, from being able to see and contribute to the education
+of the children she tenderly loved, unrestrained by the gothic etiquette
+with which all former royal mothers had been fettered, but which the kind
+indulgence of the Duchesse de Polignac broke through, as unnatural and
+unworthy of the enlightened and affectionate.  The Duchess was herself an
+attentive, careful mother.  She felt for the Queen, and encouraged her
+maternal sympathies, so doubly endeared by the long, long disappointment
+which had preceded their gratification.  The sacrifice of all the cold
+forms of state policy by the new governess, and the free access she gave
+the royal mother to her children, so unprecedented in the Court of
+France, rendered Marie Antoinette so grateful that it may justly be said
+she divided her heart between the governess and the governed.  Habit soon
+made it necessary for her existence that she should dedicate the whole of
+her time, not taken up in public ceremonies or parties, to the
+cultivation of the minds of her children.  Conscious of her own
+deficiency in this respect, she determined to redeem this error in her
+offspring.  The love of the frivolous amusements of society, for which
+the want of higher cultivation left room in her mind, was humoured by the
+gaieties of the Duchesse de Polignac's assemblies; while her nobler
+dispositions were encouraged by the privileges of the favourite's
+station.  Thus, all her inclinations harmonising with the habits and
+position of her friend, Marie Antoinette literally passed the greatest
+part of some years in company with the Duchesse de Polignac,--either
+amidst the glare and bustle of public recreation, or in the private
+apartment of the governess and her children, increasing as much as
+possible the kindness of the one for the benefit and comfort of the
+others.  The attachment of the Duchess to the royal children was returned
+by the Queen's affection for the offspring of the Duchess.  So much was
+Her Majesty interested in favour of the daughter of the Duchess, that,
+before that young lady was fifteen years of age, she herself contrived
+and accomplished her marriage with the Duc de Guiche, then 'maitre de
+ceremonie' to Her Majesty, and whose interests were essentially, promoted
+by this alliance.
+
+     [The Duc de Guiche, since Duc de Grammont, has proved how much he
+     merited the distinction he received, in consequence of the
+     attachment between the Queen and his mother-in-law, by the
+     devotedness with which he followed the fallen fortunes of the
+     Bourbons till their restoration, since which he has not been
+     forgotten.  The Duchess, his wife, who at her marriage was beaming
+     with all the beauties of her age, and adorned by art and nature with
+     every accomplishment, though she came into notice at a time when the
+     Court had scarcely recovered itself from the debauched morals by
+     which it had been so long degraded by a De Pompadour and a Du Barry,
+     has yet preserved her character, by the strictness of her conduct,
+     free from the censorious criticisms of an epoch in which some of the
+     purest could not escape unassailed.  I saw her at Pyrmont in 1803;
+     and even then, though the mother of many children, she looked as
+     young and beautiful as ever.  She was remarkably well educated and
+     accomplished, a profound musician on the harp and pianoforte,
+     graceful in her conversation, and a most charming dancer.  She
+     seemed to bear the vicissitudes of fortune with a philosophical
+     courage and resignation not often to be met with in light-headed
+     French women.  She was amiable in her manners, easy of access,
+     always lively and cheerful, and enthusiastically attached to the
+     country whence she was then excluded.  She constantly accompanied
+     the wife of the late Louis XVIII. during her travels in Germany, as
+     her husband the Duke did His Majesty during his residence at Mittau,
+     in Courland, etc.  I have had the honour of seeing the Duke twice
+     since the Revolution; once, on my coming from Russia, at General
+     Binkingdroff's, Governor of Mittau, and since, in Portland Place, at
+     the French Ambassador's, on his coming to England in the name of his
+     Sovereign, to congratulate the King of England on his accession to
+     the throne.]
+
+"The great cabals, which agitated the Court in consequence of the favour
+shown to the De Polignacs, were not slow in declaring themselves.  The
+Comtesse de Noailles was one of the foremost among the discontented.  Her
+resignation, upon the appointment of a superintendent, was a sufficient
+evidence of her real feeling; but when she now saw a place filled, to
+which she conceived her family had a claim, her displeasure could not be
+silent, and her dislike to the Queen began to express itself without
+reserve.
+
+"Another source of dissatisfaction against the Queen was her extreme
+partiality for the English.  After the peace of Versailles, in 1783, the
+English flocked into France, and I believe if a poodle dog had come from
+England it would have met with a good reception from Her Majesty.  This
+was natural enough.  The American war had been carried on entirely
+against her wish; though, from the influence she was supposed to exercise
+in the Cabinet, it was presumed to have been managed entirely by herself.
+This odious opinion she wished personally to destroy; and it could only
+be done by the distinction with which, after the peace, she treated the
+whole English nation.'
+
+     [The daughter of the Duchesse de Polignac (of my meeting with whom I
+     have already spoken in a note), entering with me upon the subject of
+     France and of old times, observed that had the Queen limited her
+     attachment to the person of her mother, she would not have given all
+     the annoyance which she did to the nobility.  It was to these
+     partialities to the English, the Duchesse de Guiche Grammont
+     alluded.  I do not know the lady's name distinctly, but I am certain
+     I have heard the beautiful Lady Sarah Bunbury mentioned by the
+     Princesse de Lamballe as having received particular attention from
+     the Queen; for the Princess had heard much about this lady and "a
+     certain great personage" in England; but, on discovering her
+     acquaintance with the Duc de Lauzun, Her Majesty withdrew from the
+     intimacy, though not soon enough to prevent its having given food
+     for scandal.  "You must remember," added the Duchesse de Guiche
+     Grammont, "how much the Queen was censured for her enthusiasm about
+     Lady Spencer."  I replied that I did remember the much-ado about
+     nothing there was regarding some English lady, to whom the Queen
+     took a liking, whose name I could not exactly recall; but I knew
+     well she studied to please the English in general.  Of this Lady
+     Spencer it is that the Princess speaks in one of the following pages
+     of this chapter.]
+
+"Several of the English nobility were on a familiar footing at the
+parties of the Duchesse de Polignac.  This was quite enough for the
+slanderers.  They were all ranked, and that publicly, as lovers of Her
+Majesty.  I recollect when there were no less than five different private
+commissioners out, to suppress the libels that were in circulation over
+all France, against the Queen and Lord Edward Dillon, the Duke of Dorset,
+Lord George Conway, Arthur Dillon, as well as Count Fersen, the Duc de
+Lauzun, and the Comte d'Artois, who were all not only constant
+frequenters of Polignac's but visitors of Marie Antoinette.
+
+"By the false policy of Her Majesty's advisers, these enemies and
+libellers, instead of being brought to the condign punishment their
+infamy deserved, were privately hushed into silence, out of delicacy to
+the Queen's feelings, by large sums of money and pensions, which
+encouraged numbers to commit the same enormity in the hope of obtaining
+the same recompense.
+
+"But these were mercenary wretches, from whom no better could have been
+expected.  A legitimate mode of robbery had been pressed upon their
+notice by the Government itself, and they thought it only a matter of
+fair speculation to make the best of it.  There were some libellers,
+however, of a higher order, in comparison with whose motives for slander,
+those of the mere scandal-jobbers were white as the driven snow.  Of
+these, one of the worst was the Duc de Lauzun.
+
+"The first motive of the Queen's strong dislike to the Duc de Lauzun
+sprang from Her Majesty's attachment to the Duchesse d'Orleans, whom she
+really loved.  She was greatly displeased at the injury inflicted upon
+her valued friend by De Lauzun, in estranging the affection of the Duc
+d'Orleans from his wife by introducing him to depraved society.  Among
+the associates to which this connection led the Duc d'Orleans were a
+certain Madame Duthee and Madame Buffon.
+
+"When De Lauzun, after having been expelled from the drawing-room of the
+Queen for his insolent presumption,--[The allusion here is to the affair
+of the heron plume.]--meeting with coolness at the King's levee, sought
+to cover his disgrace by appearing at the assemblies of the Duchesse de
+Polignac, Her Grace was too sincerely the friend of her Sovereign and
+benefactress not to perceive the drift of his conduct.  She consequently
+signified to the self-sufficient coxcomb that her assemblies were not
+open to the public.  Being thus shut out from Their Majesties, and, as a
+natural result, excluded from the most brilliant societies of Paris, De
+Lauzun, from a most diabolical spirit of revenge, joined the nefarious
+party which had succeeded in poisoning the mind of the Duc d'Orleans,
+and from the hordes of which, like the burning lava from Etna, issued
+calumnies which swept the most virtuous and innocent victims that ever
+breathed to their destruction!
+
+"Among the Queen's favourites, and those most in request at the De
+Polignac parties, was the good Lady Spencer, with whom I became most
+intimately acquainted when I first went to England; and from whom, as
+well as from her two charming daughters, the Duchess of Devonshire and
+Lady Duncannon, since Lady Besborough, I received the greatest marks of
+cordial hospitality.  In consequence, when her ladyship came to France,
+I hastened to present her to the Queen.  Her Majesty, taking a great
+liking to the amiable Englishwoman, and wishing to profit by her private
+conversations and society, gave orders that Lady Spencer should pass to
+her private closet whenever she came to Versailles, without the formal
+ceremony of waiting in the antechamber to be announced.
+
+"One day, Her Majesty, Lady Spencer, and myself were observing the
+difficulty there was in acquiring a correct pronunciation of the English
+language, when Lady Spencer remarked that it only required a little
+attention.
+
+"'I beg your pardon,' said the Queen, 'that's not all, because there are
+many things you do not call by their proper names, as they are in the
+dictionary.'
+
+"'Pray what are they, please Your Majesty?'
+
+"'Well, I will give you an instance.  For example, 'les culottes'--what
+do you call them?'
+
+"'Small clothes,' replied her ladyship.
+
+"'Ma foi!  how can they be called small clothes for one large man?  Now I
+do look in the dictionary, and I find, for the word culottes--breeches.'
+
+"'Oh, please Your Majesty, we never call them by that name in England.'
+
+"'Voila done, j'ai raison!'
+
+"'We say "inexpressibles"!'
+
+"'Ah, c'est mieux!  Dat do please me ver much better.  Il y a du bon sens
+la dedans.  C'est une autre chose!'
+
+"In the midst of this curious dialogue, in came the Duke of Dorset, Lord
+Edward Dillon, Count Fersen, and several English gentlemen, who, as they
+were going to the King's hunt, were all dressed in new buckskin breeches.
+
+"'I do not like,' exclaimed the Queen to them, dem yellow irresistibles!'
+
+"Lady Spencer nearly fainted.  'Vat make you so frightful, my dear lady?'
+said the Queen to her ladyship, who was covering her face with her hands.
+'I am terrified at Your Majesty's mistake'--'Comment?  did you no tell me
+just now, dat in England de lady call les culottes "irresistibles"?'--
+'Oh, mercy!  I never could have made such a mistake, as to have applied
+to that part of the male dress such a word.  I said, please Your Majesty,
+inexpressibles.'
+
+"On this the gentlemen all laughed most heartily.
+
+"'Vell, vell,' replied the Queen, 'do, my dear lady, discompose yourself.
+I vill no more call de breeches irresistibles, but say small clothes, if
+even elles sont upon a giant!'
+
+"At the repetition of the naughty word breeches, poor Lady Spencer's
+English delicacy quite overcame her.  Forgetting where she was, and also
+the company she was in, she ran from the room with her cross stick in her
+hand, ready to lay it on the shoulders of any one who should attempt to
+obstruct her passage, flew into her carriage, and drove off full speed,
+as if fearful of being contaminated,--all to the no small amusement of
+the male guests.
+
+"Her Majesty and I laughed till the very tears ran down our cheeks.  The
+Duke of Dorset, to keep up the joke, said there really were some counties
+in England where they called 'culottes irresistibles.
+
+"Now that I am upon the subject of England, and the peace of 1783, which
+brought such throngs of English over to France, there occurs to me a
+circumstance, relating to the treaty of commerce signed at that time,
+which exhibits the Comte de Vergennes to some advantage; and with that
+let me dismiss the topic.
+
+"The Comte de Vergennes, was one of the most distinguished Ministers of
+France.  I was intimately acquainted with him.  His general character for
+uprightness prompted his Sovereign to govern in a manner congenial to his
+own goodness of heart, which was certainly most for the advantage of his
+subjects.  Vergennes cautioned Louis against the hypocritical adulations
+of his privileged courtiers.  The Count had been schooled in State policy
+by the great Venetian senator, Francis Foscari, the subtlest politician
+of his age, whom he consulted during his life on every important matter;
+and he was not very easily to be deceived.
+
+"When the treaty of commerce took place, at the period I mention, the
+experienced Vergennes foresaw--what afterwards really happened--that
+France would be inundated with British manufactures; but Calonne
+obstinately maintained the contrary, till he was severely reminded of the
+consequence of his misguided policy, in the insults inflicted on him by
+enraged mobs of thousands of French artificers, whenever he appeared in
+public.  But though the mania for British goods had literally caused an
+entire stagnation of business in the French manufacturing towns, and
+thrown throngs upon the 'pave' for want of employment, yet M. de Calonne
+either did not see, or pretended not to see, the errors he had committed.
+Being informed that the Comte de Vergennes had attributed the public
+disorders to his fallacious policy, M. de Calonne sent a friend to the
+Count demanding satisfaction for the charge of having caused the riots.
+The Count calmly replied that he was too much of a man of honour to take
+so great an advantage, as to avail himself of the opportunity offered, by
+killing a man who had only one life to dispose of, when there were so
+many with a prior claim, who were anxious to destroy him 'en societe'.
+I Bid M. de Calonne,' continued the Count, 'first get out of that scrape,
+as the English boxers do when their eyes are closed up after a pitched
+battle.  He has been playing at blind man's buff, but the poverty to
+which he has reduced so many of our tradespeople has torn the English
+bandage from his eyes!'  For three or four days the Comte de Vergennes
+visited publicly, and showed himself everywhere in and about Paris; but
+M. de Calonne was so well convinced of the truth of the old fox's satire
+that he pocketed his annoyance, and no more was said about fighting.
+Indeed, the Comte de Vergennes gave hints of being able to show that M.
+de Calonne had been bribed into the treaty."
+
+
+     [The Princesse de Lamballe has alluded in a former page to the
+     happiness which the Queen enjoyed during the visits of the foreign
+     Princes to the Court of France.  Her papers contain a few passages
+     upon the opinions Her Majesty entertained of the royal travellers;
+     which, although in the order of time they should have been mentioned
+     before the peace with England, yet, not to disturb the chain of the
+     narrative, respecting the connection with the Princesse de Lamballe,
+     of the prevailing libels, and the partiality shown towards the
+     English, I have reserved them for the conclusion of the present
+     chapter.  The timidity of the Queen in the presence of the
+     illustrious strangers, and her agitation when about to receive them,
+     have, I think, been already spoken of.  Upon the subject of the
+     royal travellers themselves, and other personages, the Princess
+     expresses herself thus:]
+
+"The Queen had never been an admirer of Catharine II.  Notwithstanding
+her studied policy for the advancement of civilization in her internal
+empire, the means which, aided by the Princess Dashkoff, she made use of
+to seat herself on the imperial throne of her weak husband, Peter the
+Third, had made her more understood than esteemed.  Yet when her son, the
+Grand Duke of the North,--[Afterwards the unhappy Emperor Paul.]--
+and the Grand Duchess, his wife, came to France, their description of
+Catharine's real character so shocked the maternal sensibility of Marie
+Antoinette that she could scarcely hear the name of the Empress without
+shuddering.  The Grand Duke spoke of Catharine without the least
+disguise.  He said he travelled merely for the security of his life from
+his mother, who had surrounded him with creatures that were his sworn
+enemies, her own spies and infamous favourites, to whose caprices they
+were utterly subordinate.  He was aware that the dangerous credulity of
+the Empress might be every hour excited by these wretches to the
+destruction of himself and his Duchess, and, therefore, he had in absence
+sought the only refuge.  He had no wish, he said, ever to return to his
+native country, till Heaven should check his mother's doubts respecting
+his dutiful filial affection towards her, or till God should be pleased
+to take her into His sacred keeping.
+
+"The King was petrified at the Duke's description of his situation, and
+the Queen could not refrain from tears when the Duchess, his wife,
+confirmed all her husband had uttered on the subject.  The Duchess said
+she had been warned by the untimely fate of the Princess d'Armstadt, her
+predecessor, the first wife of the Grand Duke, to elude similar jealousy
+and suspicion on the part of her mother-in-law, by seclusion from the
+Court, in a country residence with her husband; indeed, that she had made
+it a point never to visit Petersburg, except on the express invitation of
+the Empress, as if she had been a foreigner.
+
+"In this system the Grand Duchess persevered, even after her return from
+her travels.  When she became pregnant, and drew near her accouchement,
+the Empress-mother permitted her to come to Petersburg for that purpose;
+but, as soon as the ceremony required by the etiquette of the Imperial
+Court on those occasions ended, the Duchess immediately returned to her
+hermitage.
+
+"This Princess was remarkably well-educated; she possessed a great deal
+of good, sound sense, and had profited by the instructions of some of the
+best German tutors during her very early years.  It was the policy of her
+father, the Duke of Wirtemberg, who had a large family, to educate his
+children as 'quietists' in matters of religion.  He foresaw that the
+natural charms and acquired abilities of his daughters would one day call
+them to be the ornaments of the most distinguished Courts in Europe, and
+he thought it prudent not to instil early prejudices in favour of
+peculiar forms of religion which might afterwards present an obstacle to
+their aggrandisement.
+
+     [The first daughter of the Duke of Wirtemberg was the first wife of
+     the present Emperor of Austria.  She embraced the Catholic faith and
+     died very young, two days before the Emperor Joseph the Second, at
+     Vienna.  The present Empress Dowager, late wife to Paul, became a
+     proselyte to the Greek religion on her arrival at Petersburg.  The
+     son of the Duke of Wirtemburg, who succeeded him in the Dukedom, was
+     a Protestant, it being his interest to profess that religion for the
+     security of his inheritance.  Prince Ferdinand, who was in the
+     Austrian service, and a long time Governor of Vienna, was a
+     Catholic, as he could not otherwise have enjoyed that office.  He
+     was of a very superior character to the Duke, his brother.  Prince
+     Louis, who held a commission under the Prussian Monarch, followed
+     the religion of the country where he served, and the other Princes,
+     who were in the employment of Sweden and other countries, found no
+     difficulty in conforming themselves to the religion of the
+     Sovereigns under whom they served.  None of them having any
+     established forms of worship, they naturally embraced that which
+     conduced most to their aggrandisement, emolument, or dignity.]
+
+"The notorious vices of the King of Denmark, and his total neglect both
+of his young Queen, Carolina Matilda, and of the interest of his distant
+dominions, while in Paris, created a feeling in the Queen's mind towards
+that house which was not a little heightened by her disgust at the King
+of Sweden, when he visited the Court of Versailles.  This King, though
+much more crafty than his brother-in-law, the King of Denmark, who
+revelled openly in his depravities, was not less vicious.  The deception
+he made use of in usurping part of the rights of his people, combined
+with the worthlessness and duplicity, of his private conduct, excited a
+strong indignation in the mind of Marie Antoinette, of which she was
+scarcely capable of withholding the expression in his presence.
+
+"It was during the visit of the Duke and Duchess of the North, that the
+Cardinal de Rohan again appeared upon the scene.  For eight or ten years
+he had never been allowed to show himself at Court, and had been totally
+shut out of every society where the Queen visited.  On the arrival of the
+illustrious, travellers at Versailles, the Queen, at her own expense,
+gave them a grand fete at her private palace, in the gardens of Trianon,
+similar to the one given by the Comte de Provence--[Afterwards Louis
+XVIII.]--to Her Majesty, in the gardens of Brunoi.
+
+"On the eve of the fete, the Cardinal waited upon, me to know if he would
+be permitted to appear there in the character he had the honour to hold
+at Court, I replied that I had made it a rule never to interfere in the
+private or public amusements of the Court, and that His Eminence must be
+the best judge how far he, could obtrude himself upon the Queen's private
+parties, to which only a select number had been invited, in consequence
+of the confined spot where the fete was to be given.
+
+"The Cardinal left me, not much satisfied at his reception.  Determined
+to follow, as usual, his own misguided passion, he immediately went too
+Trianon, disguised with a large cloak.  He saw the porter, and bribed
+him.  He only wished, he said, to be placed in a situation whence he
+might see the Duke and Duchess of the North without being seen; but no
+sooner did he perceive the porter engaged at some distance than he left
+his cloak at the lodge, and went forward in his Cardinal's dress, as if
+he had been one of the invited guests, placing himself purposely in the
+Queen's path to attract her attention as she rode by in the carriage with
+the Duke and Duchess.
+
+"The Queen was shocked and thunderstruck at seeing him.  But, great as
+was her annoyance, knowing the Cardinal had not been invited and ought
+not to have been there, she only discharged the porter who had been
+seduced to let him in; and, though the King, on being made acquainted
+with his treachery, would have banished His Eminence a hundred leagues
+from the capital, yet the Queen, the royal aunts, the Princesse
+Elizabeth, and myself, not to make the affair public, and thereby
+disgrace the high order of his ecclesiastical dignity, prevented the King
+from exercising his authority by commanding instant exile.
+
+"Indeed, the Queen could never get the better of her fears of being some
+day, or in some way or other, betrayed by the Cardinal, for having made
+him the confidant of the mortification she would have suffered if the
+projected marriage of Louis XV. and her sister had been solemnized.  On
+this account she uniformly opposed whatever harshness the King at any
+time intended against the Cardinal.
+
+"Thus was this wicked prelate left at leisure to premeditate the horrid
+plot of the famous necklace, the ever memorable fraud, which so fatally
+verified the presentiments of the Queen."
+
+
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+     [The production of 'Le Mariage de Figaro', by Beaumarchais, upon the
+     stage at Paris, so replete with indecorous and slanderous allusions
+     to the Royal Family, had spread the prejudices against the Queen
+     through the whole kingdom and every rank of France, just in time to
+     prepare all minds for the deadly blow which Her Majesty received
+     from the infamous plot of the diamond necklace.  From this year,
+     crimes and misfortunes trod closely on each others' heels in the
+     history of the ill-starred Queen; and one calamity only disappeared
+     to make way for a greater.
+
+     The destruction of the papers which would have thoroughly explained
+     the transaction has still left all its essential particulars in some
+     degree of mystery; and the interest of the clergy, who supported one
+     of their own body, coupled with the arts and bribes of the high
+     houses connected with the plotting prelate, must, of course, have
+     discoloured greatly even what was well known.
+
+     It will be recollected that before the accession of Louis XVI.  the
+     Cardinal de Rohan was disgraced in consequence of his intrigues;
+     that all his ingenuity was afterwards unremittingly exerted to
+     obtain renewed favour; that he once obtruded himself upon the notice
+     of the Queen in the gardens of Trianon, and that his conduct in so
+     doing excited the indignation it deserved, but was left unpunished
+     owing to the entreaties of the best friends of the Queen, and her
+     own secret horror of a man who had already caused her so much
+     anguish.
+
+     With the histories of the fraud every one is acquainted.  That of
+     Madame Campan, as far as it goes, is sufficiently detailed and
+     correct to spare me the necessity of expatiating upon this theme of
+     villany.  Yet, to assist the reader's memory, before returning to
+     the Journal of the Princesse de Lamballe, I shall recapitulate the
+     leading particulars.
+
+     The Cardinal had become connected with a young, but artful and
+     necessitous, woman, of the name of Lamotte.  It was known that the
+     darling ambition of the Cardinal was to regain the favour of the
+     Queen.
+
+     The necklace, which has been already spoken of, and which was
+     originally destined by Louis XV. for Marie Antoinette--had her hand,
+     by divorce, been transferred to him--but which, though afterwards
+     intended by Louis XV. for his mistress, Du Barry, never came to her
+     in consequence of his death--this fatal necklace was still in
+     existence, and in the possession of the crown jewellers, Boehmer and
+     Bassange.  It was valued at eighteen hundred thousand livres.  The
+     jewellers had often pressed it upon the Queen, and even the King
+     himself had enforced its acceptance.  But the Queen dreaded the
+     expense, especially at an epoch of pecuniary difficulty in the
+     State, much more than she coveted the jewels, and uniformly and
+     resolutely declined them, although they had been proposed to her on
+     very easy terms of payment, as she really did not like ornaments.
+
+     It was made to appear at the parliamentary investigation that the
+     artful Lamotte had impelled the Cardinal to believe that she herself
+     was in communication with the Queen; that she had interested Her
+     Majesty in favour of the long slighted Cardinal; that she had
+     fabricated a correspondence, in which professions of penitence on
+     the part of De Rohan were answered by assurances of forgiveness from
+     the Queen.  The result of this correspondence was represented to be
+     the engagement of the Cardinal to negotiate the purchase of the
+     necklace secretly, by a contract for periodical payments.  To the
+     forgery of papers was added, it was declared, the substitution of
+     the Queen's person, by dressing up a girl of the Palais Royal to
+     represent Her Majesty, whom she in some degree resembled, in a
+     secret and rapid interview with Rohan in a dark grove of the gardens
+     of Versailles, where she was to give the Cardinal a rose,
+     in token of her royal approbation, and then hastily disappear.
+     The importunity of the jewellers, on the failure of the stipulated
+     payment, disclosed the plot.  A direct appeal of theirs to the
+     Queen, to save them from ruin, was the immediate source of
+     detection.  The Cardinal was arrested, and all the parties tried.
+     But the Cardinal was acquitted, and Lamotte and a subordinate agent
+     alone punished.  The quack Cagliostro was also in the plot, but he,
+     too, escaped, like his confederate, the Cardinal, who was made to
+     appear as the dupe of Lamotte.
+
+     The Queen never got over the effect of this affair.  Her friends
+     well knew the danger of severe measures towards one capable of
+     collecting around him strong support against a power already so much
+     weakened by faction and discord.  But the indignation of conscious
+     innocence insulted, prevailed, though to its ruin!
+
+     But it is time to let the Princesse de Lamballe give her own
+     impressions upon this fatal subject, and in her own words.]
+
+
+"How could Messieurs Boehmer and Bassange presume that the Queen would
+have employed any third person to obtain an article of such value,
+without enabling them to produce an unequivocal document signed by her
+own hand and countersigned by mine, as had ever been the rule during my
+superintendence of the household, whenever anything was ordered from the
+jewellers by Her Majesty?  Why did not Messieurs Boehmer and Bassange
+wait on me, when they saw a document unauthorised by me, and so widely
+departing from the established forms?  I must still think, as I have
+often said to the King, that Boehmer and Bassange wished to get rid of
+this dead weight of diamonds in any way; and the Queen having
+unfortunately been led by me to hush up many foul libels against her
+reputation, as I then thought it prudent she should do, rather than
+compromise her character with wretches capable of doing anything to
+injure her, these jewellers, judging from this erroneous policy of the
+past, imagined that in this instance, also, rather than hazard exposure,
+Her Majesty would pay them for the necklace.  This was a compromise which
+I myself resisted, though so decidedly adverse to bringing the affair
+before the nation by a public trial.  Of such an explosion, I foresaw the
+consequences, and I ardently entreated the King and Queen to take other
+measures.  But, though till now so hostile to severity with the Cardinal,
+the Queen felt herself so insulted by the proceeding that she gave up
+every other consideration to make manifest her innocence.
+
+"The wary Comte de Vergennes did all he could to prevent the affair from
+getting before the public.  Against the opinion of the King and the whole
+council of Ministers, he opposed judicial proceedings.  Not that he
+conceived the Cardinal altogether guiltless; but he foresaw the fatal
+consequences that must result to Her Majesty, from bringing to trial an
+ecclesiastic of such rank; for he well knew that the host of the higher
+orders of the nobility, to whom the prelate was allied, would naturally
+strain every point to blacken the character of the King and Queen, as the
+only means of exonerating their kinsman in the eyes of the world from the
+criminal mystery attached to that most diabolical intrigue against the
+fair fame of Marie Antoinette.  The Count could not bear the idea of the
+Queen's name being coupled with those of the vile wretches, Lamotte and
+the mountebank Cagliostro, and therefore wished the King to chastise the
+Cardinal by a partial exile, which might have been removed at pleasure.
+But the Queen's party too fatally seconded her feelings, and prevailed.
+
+"I sat by Her Majesty's bedside the whole of the night, after I heard
+what had been determined against the Cardinal by the council of
+Ministers, to beg her to use all her interest with the King to persuade
+him to revoke the order of the warrant for the prelate's arrest.  To this
+the Queen replied, 'Then the King, the Ministers, and the people, will
+all deem me guilty.'
+
+"Her Majesty's remark stopped all farther argument upon the subject, and
+I had the inconsolable grief to see my royal mistress rushing upon
+dangers which I had no power of preventing her from bringing upon
+herself.
+
+"The slanderers who had imputed such unbounded influence to the Queen
+over the mind of Louis XVI. should have been consistent enough to
+consider that, with but a twentieth part of the tithe of her imputed
+power, uncontrolled as she then was by national authority, she might,
+without any exposure to third persons, have at once sent one of her pages
+to the garde-meuble and other royal depositaries, replete with hidden
+treasures of precious stones which never saw the light, and thence have
+supplied herself with more than enough to form ten necklaces, or to have
+fully satisfied, in any way she liked, the most unbounded passion for
+diamonds, for the use of which she would never have been called to
+account.
+
+"But the truth is, the Queen had no love of ornaments.  A proof occurred
+very soon after I had the honour to be nominated Her Majesty's
+superintendent.  On the day of the great fete of the Cordon Bleu, when it
+was the etiquette to wear diamonds and pearls, the Queen had omitted
+putting them on.  As there had been a greater affluence of visitors than
+usual that morning, and Her Majesty's toilet was overthronged by Princes
+and Princesses, I fancied in the bustle that the omission proceeded from
+forgetfulness.  Consequently, I sent the tirewoman, in the Queen's
+hearing, to order the jewels to be brought in.  Smilingly, Her Majesty
+replied, 'No, no!  I have not forgotten these gaudy things; but I do not
+intend that the lustre of my eyes should be outshone by the one, or the
+whiteness of my teeth by the other; however, as you wish art to eclipse
+nature, I'll wear them to satisfy you, ma belle dame!'
+
+"The King was always so thoroughly indulgent to Her Majesty, with regard
+both to her public and private conduct, that she never had any pretext
+for those reserves which sometimes tempt Queens as well as the wives of
+private individuals to commit themselves to third persons for articles of
+high value, which their caprice indiscreetly impels them to procure
+unknown to their natural guardians.  Marie Antoinette had no reproach or
+censure for plunging into excesses beyond her means to apprehend from her
+royal husband.  On the contrary, the King himself had spontaneously
+offered to purchase the necklace from the jewellers, who had urged it on
+him without limiting any time for payment.  It was the intention of His
+Majesty to have liquidated it out of his private purse.  But Marie
+Antoinette declined the gift.  Twice in my presence was the refusal
+repeated before Messieurs Boehmer and Bassange.  Who, then, can for a
+moment presume, after all these circumstances, that the Queen of France,
+with a nation's wealth at her feet and thousands of individuals offering
+her millions, which she never accepted, would have so far degraded
+herself and the honour of the nation, of which she was born to be the
+ornament, as to place herself gratuitously in the power of a knot of
+wretches, headed by a man whose general bad character for years had
+excluded him from Court and every respectable society, and had made the
+Queen herself mark him as an object of the utmost aversion.
+
+"If these circumstances be not sufficient adequately to open the eyes of
+those whom prejudice has blinded, and whose ears have been deafened
+against truth, by the clamours of sinister conspirators against the
+monarchy instead of the monarchs; if all these circumstances, I repeat,
+do not completely acquit the Queen, argument, or even ocular
+demonstration itself, would be thrown away.  Posterity will judge
+impartially, and with impartial judges the integrity of Marie Antoinette
+needs no defender.
+
+"When the natural tendency of the character of De Rohan to romantic and
+extraordinary intrigue is considered in connection with the associates he
+had gathered around him, the plot of the necklace ceases to be a source
+of wonder.  At the time the Cardinal was most at a loss for means to meet
+the necessities of his extravagance, and to obtain some means of access
+to the Queen, the mountebank quack, Cagliostro, made his appearance in
+France.  His fame had soon flown from Strasburg to Paris, the magnet of
+vices and the seat of criminals.  The Prince-Cardinal, known of old as a
+seeker after everything of notoriety, soon became the intimate of one who
+flattered him with the accomplishment of all his dreams in the
+realization of the philosopher's stone; converting puffs and French paste
+into brilliants; Roman pearls into Oriental ones; and turning earth to
+gold.  The Cardinal, always in want of means to supply the insatiable
+exigencies of his ungovernable vices, had been the dupe through life of
+his own credulity--a drowning man catching at a straw!  But instead of
+making gold of base materials, Cagliostro's brass soon relieved his blind
+adherent of all his sterling metal.  As many needy persons enlisted under
+the banners of this nostrum speculator, it is not to be wondered at that
+the infamous name of the Comtesse de Lamotte, and others of the same
+stamp, should have thus fallen into an association of the Prince-Cardinal
+or that her libellous stories of the Queen of France should have found
+eager promulgators, where the real diamonds of the famous necklace being
+taken apart were divided piecemeal among a horde of the most depraved
+sharpers that ever existed to make human nature blush at its own
+degradation!
+
+     [Cagliostro, when he came to Rome, for I know not whether there had
+     been any previous intimacy, got acquainted with a certain Marchese
+     Vivaldi, a Roman, whose wife had been for years the chere amie of
+     the last Venetian Ambassador, Peter Pesaro, a noble patrician, and
+     who has ever since his embassy at Rome been his constant companion
+     and now resides with him in England.  No men in Europe are more
+     constant in their attachments than the Venetians.  Pesaro is the
+     sole proprietor of one of the moat beautiful and magnificent palaces
+     on the Grand Canal at Venice, though he now lives in the outskirts
+     of London, in a small house, not so large as one of the offices of
+     his immense noble palace, where his agent transacts his business.
+     The husband of Pesaro's chere amie, the Marchese Vivaldi, when
+     Cagliostro was arrested and sent to the Castello Santo Angelo at
+     Rome, was obliged to fly his country, and went to Venice, where he
+     was kept secreted and maintained by the Marquis Solari, and it was
+     only through his means and those of the Cardinal Consalvi, then
+     known only as the musical Abbe Consalvi, from his great attachment
+     to the immortal Cimarosa, that Vivaldi was ever allowed to return to
+     his native country; but Consalvi, who was the friend of Vivaldi,
+     feeling with the Marquis Solari much interested for his situation,
+     they together contrived to convince Pius VI. that he was more to be
+     pitied than blamed, and thus obtained his recall.  I have merely
+     given this note as a further warning to be drawn from the
+     connections of the Cardinal de Rohan, to deter hunters after novelty
+     from forming ties with innovators and impostors.  Cagliostro was
+     ultimately condemned, by the Roman laws under Pope Pius VI.,
+     for life, to the galleys, where he died.
+
+     Proverbs ought to be respected; for it is said that no phrase
+     becomes a proverb until after a century's experience of its truth.
+     In England it is proverbial to judge of men by the company they
+     keep.  Judge of the Cardinal de Rohan from his most intimate friend,
+     the galley-slave.]
+
+"Eight or ten years had elapsed from the time Her Majesty had last seen
+the Cardinal to speak to him, with the exception of the casual glance as
+she drove by when he furtively introduced himself into the garden at the
+fete at Trianon, till he was brought to the King's cabinet when arrested,
+and interrogated, and confronted with her face to face.  The Prince
+started when he saw her.  The comparison of her features with those of
+the guilty wretch who had dared to personate her in the garden at
+Versailles completely destroyed his self-possession.  Her Majesty's
+person was become fuller, and her face was much longer than that of the
+infamous D'Oliva.  He could neither speak nor write an intelligible reply
+to the questions put to him.  All he could utter, and that only in broken
+accents, was, 'I'll pay!  I'll pay Messieurs Bassange.'
+
+"Had he not speedily recovered himself, all the mystery in which this
+affair has been left, so injuriously to the Queen, might have been
+prevented.  His papers would have declared the history of every
+particular, and distinctly established the extent of his crime and the
+thorough innocence of Marie Antoinette of any connivance at the fraud, or
+any knowledge of the necklace.  But when the Cardinal was ordered by the
+King's Council to be put under arrest, his self-possession returned.  He
+was given in charge to an officer totally unacquainted with the nature of
+the accusation.  Considering only the character of his prisoner as one of
+the highest dignitaries of the Church, from ignorance and inexperience,
+he left the Cardinal an opportunity to write a German note to his
+factotum, the Abbe Georgel.  In this note the trusty secretary was
+ordered to destroy all the letters of Cagliostro, Madame de Lamotte, and
+the other wretched associates of the infamous conspiracy; and the traitor
+was scarcely in custody when every evidence of his treason had
+disappeared.  The note to Georgel saved his master from expiating his
+offence at the Place de Grave.
+
+"The consequences of the affair would have been less injurious, however,
+had it been managed, even as it stood, with better judgment and temper.
+But it was improperly entrusted to the Baron de Breteuil and the Abbe
+Vermond, both sworn enemies of the Cardinal.  Their main object was the
+ruin of him they hated, and they listened only to their resentments.
+They never weighed the danger of publicly prosecuting an individual whose
+condemnation would involve the first families in France, for he was
+allied even to many of the Princes of the blood.  They should have
+considered that exalted personages, naturally feeling as if any crime
+proved against their kinsman would be a stain upon themselves, would of
+course resort to every artifice to exonerate the accused.  To criminate
+the Queen was the only and the obvious method.  Few are those nearest the
+Crown who are not most jealous of its wearers!  Look at the long civil
+wars of York and Lancaster, and the short reign of Richard.  The downfall
+of Kings meets less resistance than that of their inferiors.
+
+"Still, notwithstanding all the deplorable blunders committed in this
+business of De Rohan, justice was not smothered without great difficulty.
+His acquittal cost the families of De Rohan and De Conde more than a
+million of livres, distributed among all ranks of the clergy; besides
+immense sums sent to the Court of Rome to make it invalidate the judgment
+of the civil authority of France upon so high a member of the Church,
+and to induce it to order the Cardinal's being sent to Rome by way of
+screening him from the prosecution, under the plausible pretext of more
+rigid justice.
+
+"Considerable sums in money and jewels were also lavished on all the
+female relatives of the peers of France, who were destined to sit on the
+trial.  The Abbe Georgel bribed the press, and extravagantly paid all the
+literary pens in France to produce the most Jesuitical and sophisticated
+arguments in his patron's justification.  Though these writers dared not
+accuse or in any way criminate the Queen, yet the respectful doubts, with
+which their defence of her were seasoned, did indefinitely more mischief
+than any direct attack, which could have been directly answered.
+
+"The long cherished, but till now smothered, resentment of the Comtesse
+de Noailles, the scrupulous Madame Etiquette, burst forth on this
+occasion.  Openly joining the Cardinal's party against her former
+mistress and Sovereign, she recruited and armed all in favour of her
+protege; for it was by her intrigues De Rohan had been nominated
+Ambassador to Vienna.  Mesdames de Guemenee and Marsan, rival pretenders
+to favours of His Eminence, were equally earnest to support him against
+the Queen.  In short, there was scarcely a family of distinction in
+France that, from the libels which then inundated the kingdom, did not
+consider the King as having infringed on their prerogatives and
+privileges in accusing the Cardinal.
+
+"Shortly after the acquittal of this most artful, and, in the present
+instance, certainly too fortunate prelate, the Princesse de Conde came to
+congratulate me on the Queen's innocence, and her kinsman's liberation
+from the Bastille.
+
+"Without the slightest observation, I produced to the Princess documents
+in proof of the immense sums she alone had expended in bribing the judges
+and other persons, to save her relation, the Cardinal, by criminating Her
+Majesty.
+
+"The Princesse de Conde instantly fell into violent hysterics, and was
+carried home apparently, lifeless.
+
+"I have often reproached myself for having given that sudden shock and
+poignant anguish to Her Highness, but I could not have supposed that one
+who came so barefacedly to impress me with the Cardinal's innocence,
+could have been less firm in refuting her own guilt.
+
+"I never mentioned the circumstance to the Queen.  Had I done so, Her
+Highness would have been forever excluded from the Court and the royal
+presence.  This was no time to increase the enemies of Her Majesty, and,
+the affair of the trial being ended, I thought it best to prevent any
+further breach from a discord between the Court and the house of Conde.
+However, from a coldness subsisting ever after between the Princess and
+myself, I doubt not that the Queen had her suspicions that all was not as
+it should be in that quarter.  Indeed, though Her Majesty never confessed
+it, I think she herself had discovered something at that very time not
+altogether to the credit of the Princesse de Conde, for she ceased going,
+from that period, to any of the fetes given at Chantilly.
+
+"These were but a small portion of the various instruments successfully
+levelled by parties, even the least suspected, to blacken and destroy the
+fair fame of Marie Antoinette.
+
+"The document which so justly alarmed the Princesse de Conde, when I
+showed it to her came into my hands in the following manner:
+
+"Whenever a distressed family, or any particular individual, applied to
+me for relief, or was otherwise recommended for charitable purposes, I
+generally sent my little English protegee--whose veracity, well knowing
+the goodness of her heart, I could rely--to ascertain whether their
+claims were really well grounded.
+
+     [Indeed, I never deceived the Princess on these occasions.  She was
+     so generously charitable that I should have conceived it a crime.
+     When I could get no satisfactory information, I said I could not
+     trace anything undeserving her charity, and left Her Highness to
+     exercise her own discretion.]
+
+"One day I received an earnest memorial from a family, desiring to make
+some private communications of peculiar delicacy.  I sent my usual
+ambassadress to inquire into its import.  On making her mission known,
+she found no difficulty in ascertaining the object of the application.
+It proceeded from conscientious distress of mind.  A relation of this
+family had been the regular confessor of a convent.  With the Lady Abbess
+of this convent and her trusty nuns, the Princesse de Conde had deposited
+considerable sums of money, to be bestowed in creating influence in
+favour of the Cardinal de Rohan.  The confessor, being a man of some
+consideration among the clergy, was applied to, to use his influence with
+the needier members of the Church more immediately about him, as well as
+those of higher station, to whom he had access, in furthering the
+purposes of the Princesse de Conde.  The bribes were applied as intended.
+But, at the near approach of death, the confessor was struck with
+remorse.  He begged his family, without mentioning his name, to send the
+accounts and vouchers of the sums he had so distributed, to me, as a
+proof of his contrition, that I might make what use of them I should
+think proper.  The papers were handed to my messenger, who pledged her
+word of honour that I would certainly adhere to the dying man's last
+injunctions.  She desired they might be sealed up by the family, and by
+them directed to me.--[To this day, I neither know the name of the
+convent or the confessor.]--She then hastened back to our place of
+rendezvous, where I waited for her, and where she consigned the packet
+into my own hands.
+
+"That part of the papers which compromised only the Princesse de Conde
+was shown by me to the Princess on the occasion I have mentioned.  It was
+natural enough that she should have been shocked at the detection of
+having suborned the clergy and others with heavy bribes to avert the
+deserved fate of the Cardinal.  I kept this part of the packet secret
+till the King's two aunts, who had also been warm advocates in favour of
+the prelate, left Paris for Rome.  Then, as Pius VI. had interested
+himself as head of the Church for the honour of one of its members, I
+gave them these very papers to deliver to His Holiness for his private
+perusal.  I was desirous of enabling this truly charitable and Christian
+head of our sacred religion to judge how far his interference was
+justified by facts.  I am thoroughly convinced that, had he been sooner
+furnished with these evidences, instead of blaming the royal proceeding,
+he would have urged it on, nay, would himself have been the first to
+advise that the foul conspiracy should be dragged into open day.
+
+"The Comte de Vergennes told me that the King displayed the greatest
+impartiality throughout the whole investigation for the exculpation of
+the Queen, and made good his title on this, as he did on every occasion
+where his own unbiassed feelings and opinions were called into action,
+to great esteem for much higher qualities than the world has usually
+given him credit for.
+
+"I have been accused of having opened the prison doors of the culprit
+Lamotte for her escape; but the charge is false.  I interested myself,
+as was my duty, to shield the Queen from public reproach by having
+Lamotte sent to a place of penitence; but I never interfered, except to
+lessen her punishment, after the judicial proceedings.  The diamonds, in
+the hands of her vile associates at Paris, procured her ample means to
+escape.  I should have been the Queen's greatest enemy had I been the
+cause of giving liberty to one who acted, and might naturally have been
+expected to act, as this depraved woman did.
+
+"Through the private correspondence which was carried on between this
+country and England, after I had left it, I was informed that M. de
+Calonne, whom the Queen never liked, and who was called to the
+administration against her will--which he knew, and consequently became
+one of her secret enemies in the affair of the necklace--was discovered
+to have been actively employed against Her Majesty in the work published
+in London by Lamotte.
+
+"Mr. Sheridan was the gentleman who first gave me this information.
+
+"I immediately sent a trusty person by the Queen's orders to London, to
+buy up the whole work.  It was too late.  It had been already so widely
+circulated that its consequences could no longer be prevented.  I was
+lucky enough, however, for a considerable sum, to get a copy from a
+person intimate with the author, the margin of which, in the handwriting
+of M. de Calonne, actually contained numerous additional circumstances
+which were to have been published in a second edition!  This publication
+my agent, aided by some English gentlemen, arrived in time to suppress.
+
+"The copy I allude to was brought to Paris and shown to the Queen.  She
+instantly flew with it in her hands to the King's cabinet.
+
+"'Now, Sire,' exclaimed she, 'I hope you will be convinced that my
+enemies are those whom I have long considered as the most pernicious of
+Your Majesty's Councillors--your own Cabinet Ministers--your M. de
+Calonne!--respecting whom I have often given you my opinion, which,
+unfortunately, has always been attributed to mere female caprice, or as
+having been biassed by the intrigues of Court favourites!  This, I hope,
+Your Majesty will now be able to contradict!'
+
+"The King all this time was looking over the different pages containing
+M. de Calonne's additions on their margins.  On recognising the hand-
+writing, His Majesty was so affected by this discovered treachery of his
+Minister and the agitation of his calumniated Queen that he could
+scarcely articulate.
+
+"'Where,' said he, I did you procure this?'
+
+"'Through the means, Sire, of some of the worthy members of that nation
+your treacherous Ministers made our enemy--from England!  where your
+unfortunate Queen, your injured wife, is compassionated!'
+
+"'Who got it for you?'
+
+"'My dearest, my real, and my only sincere friend, the Princesse de
+Lamballe!'
+
+"The King requested I should be sent for.  I came.  As may be imagined, I
+was received with the warmest sentiments of affection by both Their
+Majesties.  I then laid before the King the letter of Mr. Sheridan, which
+was, in substance, as follows:
+
+     "'MADAME,
+
+     "'A work of mine, which I did not choose should be printed, was
+     published in Dublin and transmitted to be sold in London.  As soon
+     as I was informed of it, and had procured a spurious copy, I went to
+     the bookseller to put a stop to its circulation.  I there met with a
+     copy of the work of Madame de Lamotte, which has been corrected by
+     some one at Paris and sent back to the bookseller for a second
+     edition.  Though not in time to suppress the first edition, owing to
+     its rapid circulation, I have had interest enough, through the means
+     of the bookseller of whom I speak, to remit you the copy which has
+     been sent as the basis of a new one.  The corrections, I am told,
+     are by one of the King's Ministers.  If true, I should imagine the
+     writer will be easily traced.
+
+     "'I am happy that it has been in my power to make this discovery,
+     and I hope it will be the means of putting a stop to this most
+     scandalous publication.  I feel myself honoured in having
+     contributed thus far to the wishes of Her Majesty, which I hope I
+     have fulfilled to the entire satisfaction of Your Highness.
+
+     "'Should anything further transpire on this subject, I will give you
+     the earliest information.
+
+     "'I remain, madame, with profound respect, Your Highness' most
+     devoted,
+
+     "'very humble servant,
+
+     "'RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.'
+
+
+     [Madame Campan mentions in her work that the Queen had informed her
+     of the treachery of the Minister, but did not enter into
+     particulars, nor explain the mode or source of its detection.
+     Notwithstanding the parties had bound themselves for the sums they
+     received not to reprint the work, a second edition appeared a short
+     time afterwards in London.  This, which was again bought up by the
+     French Ambassador, was the same which was to have been burned by the
+     King's command at the china manufactory at Sevres.]
+
+"M. de Calonne immediately received the King's mandate to resign the
+portfolio.  The Minister desired that he might be allowed to give his
+resignation to the King himself.  His request was granted.  The Queen was
+present at the interview.  The work in question was produced.  On
+beholding it, the Minister nearly fainted.  The King got up and left the
+room.  The Queen, who remained, told M. de Calonne that His Majesty had
+no further occasion for his services.  He fell on his knees.  He was not
+allowed to speak, but was desired to leave Paris.
+
+"The dismissal and disgrace of M. de Calonne were scarcely known before
+all Paris vociferated that they were owing to the intrigues of the
+favourite De Polignac, in consequence of his having refused to administer
+to her own superfluous extravagance and the Queen's repeated demands on
+the Treasury to satisfy the numerous dependants of the Duchess.
+
+"This, however, was soon officially disproved by the exhibition of a
+written proposition of Calonne's to the Queen, to supply an additional
+hundred thousand francs that year to her annual revenue, which Her
+Majesty refused.  As for the Duchesse de Polignac, so far from having
+caused the disgrace, she was not even aware of the circumstance from
+which it arose; nor did the Minister himself ever know how, or by what
+agency, his falsehood was so thoroughly unmasked."
+
+
+NOTE:
+
+     [The work which is here spoken of, the Queen kept, as a proof of the
+     treachery of Calonne towards her and his Sovereign, till the
+     storming of the Tuileries on the 10th of August, 1792, when, with
+     the rest of the papers and property plundered on that memorable
+     occasion, it fell into the hands of the ferocious mob.
+
+     M. de Calonne soon after left France for Italy.  There he lived for
+     some time in the palace of a particular friend of mine and the
+     Marquis, my husband, the Countess Francese Tressino, at Vicenza.
+
+     In consequence of our going every season to take the mineral waters
+     and use the baths at Valdagno, we had often occasion to be in
+     company with M. de Calonne, both at Vicenza and Valdagno, where I
+     must do him the justice to say he conducted himself with the
+     greatest circumspection in speaking of the Revolution.
+
+     Though he evidently avoided the topic which terminates this chapter,
+     yet one day, being closely pressed upon the subject, he said
+     forgeries were daily committed on Ministers, and were most
+     particularly so in France at the period in question; that he had
+     borne the blame of various imprudencies neither authorized nor
+     executed by him; that much had been done and supposed to have been
+     done with his sanction, of which he had not the slightest knowledge.
+     This he observed generally, without specifying any express instance.
+
+     He was then asked whether he did not consider himself responsible
+     for the mischief he occasioned by declaring the nation in a state of
+     bankruptcy.  He said, "No, not in the least.  There was no other way
+     of preventing enormous sums from being daily lavished, as they then
+     were, on herds of worthless beings; that the Queen had sought to
+     cultivate a state of private domestic society, but that, in the
+     attempt, she only warmed in her bosom domestic vipers, who fed on
+     the vital spirit of her generosity."  He mentioned no names.
+
+     I then took the liberty of asking him his opinion of the Princesse
+     de Lamballe.
+
+     "Oh, madame!  had the rest of Her Majesty's numerous attendants
+     possessed the tenth part of that unfortunate Victim's virtues, Her
+     Majesty would never have been led into the errors which all France
+     must deplore!
+
+     "I shall never forget her," continued he, "the day I went to take
+     leave of her.  She was sitting on a sofa when I entered.  On seeing
+     me, she rose immediately.  Before I could utter a syllable,
+     'Monsieur,' said the Princess, 'you are accused of being the Queen's
+     enemy.  Acquit yourself of the foul deed imputed to you, and I shall
+     be happy to serve you as far as lies in my power.  Till then, I must
+     decline holding any communication with an individual thus situated.
+     I am her friend, and cannot receive any one known to be otherwise.'
+
+     "There was something," added he, "so sublime, so dignified, and
+     altogether so firm, though mild in her manner, that she appeared not
+     to belong to a race of earthly beings!"
+
+     Seeing the tears fall from his eyes, while he was thus eulogising
+     her whose memory I shall ever venerate, I almost forgave him the
+     mischief of his imprudence, which led to her untimely end.  I
+     therefore carefully avoided wounding his few gray hairs and latter
+     days, and left him still untold that it was by her, of whom he
+     thought so highly, that his uncontradicted treachery had been
+     discovered.
+
+
+
+
+SECTION III.
+
+"Of the many instances in which the Queen's exertions to serve those whom
+she conceived likely to benefit and relieve the nation, turned to the
+injury, not only of herself, but those whom she patronised and the cause
+she would strengthen, one of the most unpopular was that of the promotion
+of Brienne, Archbishop of Sens, to the Ministry.  Her interest in his
+favour was entirely created by the Abbe Vermond, himself too superficial
+to pronounce upon any qualities, and especially such as were requisite
+for so high a station.  By many, the partiality which prompted Vermond to
+espouse the interests of the Archbishop was ascribed to the amiable
+sentiment of gratitude for the recommendation of that dignitary, by which
+Vermond himself first obtained his situation at Court; but there were
+others, who have been deemed deeper in the secret, who impute it to the
+less honourable source of self-interest, to the mere spirit of
+ostentation, to the hope of its enabling him to bring about the
+destruction of the De Polignacs.  Be this as it may, the Abbe well knew
+that a Minister indebted for his elevation solely to the Queen would be
+supported by her to the last.
+
+"This, unluckily, proved the case.  Marie Antoinette persisted in
+upholding every act of Brienne, till his ignorance and unpardonable
+blunders drew down the general indignation of the people against Her
+Majesty and her protege, with whom she was identified.  The King had
+assented to the appointment with no other view than that of not being
+utterly isolated and to show a respect for his consort's choice. But the
+incapable Minister was presently compelled to retire not only from
+office, but from Paris.  Never was a Minister more detested while in
+power, or a people more enthusiastically satisfied at his going out.  His
+effigy was burnt in every town of France, and the general illuminations
+and bonfires in the capital were accompanied by hooting and hissing the
+deposed statesman to the barriers.
+
+"The Queen, prompted by the Abbe Vermond, even after Brienne's
+dismission, gave him tokens of her royal munificence.  Her Majesty feared
+that her acting otherwise to a Minister, who had been honoured by her
+confidence, would operate as a check to prevent all men of celebrity from
+exposing their fortunes to so ungracious a return for lending their best
+services to the State, which now stood in need of the most skilful
+pilots.  Such were the motives assigned by Her Majesty herself to me,
+when I took the liberty, of expostulating with her respecting the dangers
+which threatened herself and family, from this continued devotedness to a
+Minister against whom the nation had pronounced so strongly.  I could not
+but applaud the delicacy of the feeling upon which her conduct had been
+grounded; nor could I blame her, in my heart, for the uprightness of her
+principle, in showing that what she had once undertaken should not be
+abandoned through female caprice.  I told Her Majesty that the system
+upon which she acted was praiseworthy; and that its application in the
+present instance would have been so had the Archbishop possessed as much
+talent as he lacked; but, that now it was quite requisite for her to stop
+the public clamour by renouncing her protection of a man who had so
+seriously endangered the public tranquillity and her own reputation.
+
+"As a proof how far my caution was well founded, there was an immense
+riotous mob raised about this time against the Queen, in consequence of
+her having, appointed the dismissed Minister's niece, Madame de Canisy,
+to a place at Court, and having given her picture, set in diamonds, to
+the Archbishop himself.
+
+"The Queen, in many cases, was by far too communicative to some of her
+household, who immediately divulged all they gathered from her unreserve.
+How could these circumstances have transpired to the people but from
+those nearest the person of Her Majesty, who, knowing the public feeling
+better than their royal mistress could be supposed to know it, did their
+own feeling little credit by the mischievous exposure?  The people were
+exasperated beyond all conception.  The Abbe Vermond placed before Her
+Majesty the consequences of her communicativeness, and from this time
+forward she never repeated the error.  After the lesson she had received,
+none of her female attendants, not even the Duchesse de Polignac, to whom
+she would have confided her very existence, could, had they been ever so
+much disposed, have drawn anything upon public matters from her.  With
+me, as her superintendent and entitled by my situation to interrogate and
+give her counsel, she was not, of course, under the same restriction.
+To his other representations of the consequences of the Queen's
+indiscreet openness, the Abbe Vermond added that, being obliged to write
+all the letters, private and public, he often found himself greatly
+embarrassed by affairs having gone forth to the world beforehand.  One
+misfortune of putting this seal upon the lips of Her Majesty was that it
+placed her more thoroughly in the Abbe's power.  She was, of course,
+obliged to rely implicitly upon him concerning many points, which, had
+they undergone the discussion necessarily resulting from free
+conversation, would have been shown to her under very different aspects.
+A man with a better heart, less Jesuitical, and not so much interested as
+Vermond was to keep his place, would have been a safer monitor.
+
+"Though the Archbishop of Sens was so much hated and despised, much may
+be said in apology for his disasters.  His unpopularity, and the Queen's
+support of him against the people, was certainly a vital blow to the
+monarchy.  There is no doubt of his having been a poor substitute for the
+great men who had so gloriously beaten the political paths of
+administration, particularly the Comte de Vergennes and Necker.
+But at that time, when France was threatened by its great convulsion,
+where is the genius which might not have committed itself?  And here is a
+man coming to rule amidst revolutionary feelings, with no knowledge
+whatever of revolutionary principles--a pilot steering into one harbour
+by the chart of another.  I am by no means a vindicator of the
+Archbishop's obstinacy in offering himself a candidate for a situation
+entirely foreign to the occupations, habits, and studies of his whole
+life; but his intentions may have been good enough, and we must not
+charge the physician with murder who has only mistaken the disease, and,
+though wrong in his judgment, has been zealous and conscientious; nor
+must we blame the comedians for the faults of the comedy.  The errors
+were not so much in the men who did not succeed as in the manners of the
+times.
+
+"The part which the Queen was now openly compelled to bear, in the
+management of public affairs, increased the public feeling against her
+from dislike to hatred.  Her Majesty was unhappy, not only from the
+necessity which called her out of the sphere to which she thought her sex
+ought to be confined, but from the divisions which existed in the Royal
+Family upon points in which their common safety required a common scheme
+of action.  Her favourite brother-in-law, D'Artois, had espoused the side
+of D'ORLEANS, and the popular party seemed to prevail against her, even
+with the King.
+
+"The various parliamentary assemblies, which had swept on their course,
+under various denominations, in rapid and stormy succession, were now
+followed by one which, like Aaron's rod, was to swallow up the rest.
+Its approach was regarded by the Queen with ominous reluctance.
+At length, however, the moment for the meeting of the States General
+at Versailles arrived.  Necker was once more in favour, and a sort of
+forlorn hope of better times dawned upon the perplexed monarch, in his
+anticipations from this assembly.
+
+"The night before the procession of the instalment of the States General
+was to take place, it being my duty to attend Her Majesty, I received an
+anonymous letter, cautioning me not to be seen that day by her side.
+I immediately went to the King's apartments and showed him the letter.
+His Majesty humanely enjoined me to abide by its counsels.  I told him
+I hoped he would for once permit me to exercise my own discretion; for if
+my royal Sovereign were in danger, it was then that her attendants should
+be most eager to rally round her, in order to watch over her safety and
+encourage her fortitude.
+
+"While we were thus occupied, the Queen and my sister-in-law, the
+Duchesse d'Orleans, entered the King's apartment, to settle some part of
+the etiquette respecting the procession.
+
+"'I wish,' exclaimed the Duchess, 'that this procession were over; or
+that it were never to take place; or that none of us had to be there; or
+else, being obliged, that we had all passed, and were comfortably at home
+again.'
+
+"'Its taking place,' answered the Queen, 'never had my sanction,
+especially at Versailles.  M. Necker appears to be in its favour, and
+answers for its success.  I wish he may not be deceived; but I much fear
+that he is guided more by the mistaken hope of maintaining his own
+popularity by this impolitic meeting, than by any conscientious
+confidence in its advantage to the King's authority.'
+
+"The King, having in his hand the letter which I had just brought him,
+presented it to the Queen.
+
+"'This, my dear Duchess,' cried the Queen, I comes from the Palais Royal
+manufactory, [Palais d' Orleans.  D.W.] to poison the very first
+sentiments of delight at the union expected between the King and his
+subjects, by innuendoes of the danger which must result from my being
+present at it.  Look at the insidiousness of the thing!  Under a pretext
+of kindness, cautions against the effect of their attachment are given to
+my most sincere and affectionate attendants, whose fidelity none dare
+attack openly.  I am, however, rejoiced that Lamballe has been
+cautioned.'
+
+"'Against what?' replied I.
+
+"'Against appearing in the procession,' answered the Queen.
+
+"'It is only,' I exclaimed, 'by putting me in the grave they can ever
+withdraw me from Your Majesty.  While I have life and Your Majesty's
+sanction, force only will prevent me from doing my duty.  Fifty thousand
+daggers, Madame, were they all raised against me, would have no power to
+shake the firmness of my character or the earnestness of my attachment.
+I pity the wretches who have so little penetration.  Victim or no victim,
+nothing shall ever induce me to quit Your Majesty.'
+
+"The Queen and Duchess, both in tears, embraced me.  After the Duchess
+had taken her leave, the King and Queen hinted their suspicions that she
+had been apprised of the letter, and had made this visit expressly to
+observe what effect it had produced, well knowing at the time that some
+attempt was meditated by the hired mob and purchased deputies already
+brought over to the D'ORLEANS faction.  Not that the slightest suspicion
+of collusion could ever be attached to the good Duchesse d'Orleans
+against the Queen.  The intentions of the Duchess were known to be as
+virtuous and pure as those of her husband's party were criminal and
+mischievous.  But, no doubt, she had intimations of the result intended;
+and, unable to avert the storm or prevent its cause, had been instigated
+by her strong attachment to me, as well as the paternal affection her
+father, the Duc de Penthievre, bore me, to attempt to lessen the
+exasperation of the Palais Royal party and the Duke, her husband, against
+me, by dissuading me from running any risk upon the occasion.
+
+"The next day, May 5, 1789, at the very moment when all the resources of
+nature and art seemed exhausted to render the Queen a paragon of
+loveliness beyond anything I had ever before witnessed, even in her;
+when every impartial eye was eager to behold and feast on that form whose
+beauty warmed every heart in her favour; at that moment a horde of
+miscreants, just as she came within sight of the Assembly, thundered in
+her ears, 'Orleans forever!' three or four times, while she and the King
+were left to pass unheeded.  Even the warning of the letter, from which
+she had reason to expect some commotions, suggested to her imagination
+nothing like this, and she was dreadfully shaken.  I sprang forward to
+support her.  The King's party, prepared for the attack, shouted 'Vive le
+roi!  Vive la reine!'  As I turned, I saw some of the members lividly
+pale, as if fearing their machinations had been discovered; but, as they
+passed, they said in the hearing of Her Majesty, 'Remember, you are the
+daughter of Maria Theresa.'--'True,' answered the Queen.  The Duc de
+Biron, Orleans, La Fayette, Mirabeau, and the Mayor of Paris, seeing Her
+Majesty's emotion, came up, and were going to stop the procession.  All,
+in apparent agitation, cried out 'Halt!'  The Queen, sternly looking at
+them, made a sign with her head to proceed, recovered herself, and moved
+forward in the train, with all the dignity and self-possession for which
+she was so eminently distinguished.
+
+"But this self-command in public proved nearly fatal to Her Majesty on
+her return to her apartment.  There her real feelings broke forth, and
+their violence was so great as to cause the bracelets on her wrists and
+the pearls in her necklace to burst from the threads and settings, before
+her women and the ladies in attendance could have time to take them off.
+She remained many hours in a most alarming state of strong convulsions.
+Her clothes were obliged to be cut from her body, to give her ease; but
+as soon as she was undressed, and tears came to her relief, she flew
+alternately to the Princesse Elizabeth and to myself; but we were both
+too much overwhelmed to give her the consolation of which she stood so
+much in need.
+
+"Barnave that very evening came to my private apartment, and tendered his
+services to the Queen.  He told me he wished Her Majesty to be convinced
+that he was a Frenchman; that he only desired his country might be
+governed by salutary laws, and not by the caprice of weak sovereigns,
+or a vitiated, corrupt Ministry; that the clergy and nobility ought to
+contribute to the wants of the State equally with every other class of
+the King's subjects; that when this was accomplished, and abuses were
+removed, by such a national representation as would enable the Minister,
+Necker, to accomplish his plans for the liquidation of the national debt,
+I might assure Her Majesty that both the King and herself would find
+themselves happier in a constitutional government than they had ever yet
+been; for such a government would set them free from all dependence on
+the caprice of Ministers, and lessen a responsibility of which they now
+experienced the misery; that if the King sincerely entered into the
+spirit of regenerating the French nation, he would find among the present
+representatives many members of probity, loyal and honourable in their
+intentions, who would never become the destroyers of a limited legitimate
+monarchy, or the corrupt regicides of a rump Parliament, such as brought
+the wayward Charles the First, of England, to the fatal block.
+
+"I attempted to relate the conversation to the Queen.  She listened with
+the greatest attention till I came to the part concerning the
+constitutional King, when Her Majesty lost her patience, and prevented me
+from proceeding.
+
+     [This and other conversations, which will be found in subsequent
+     pages, will prove that Barnave's sentiments in favour of the Royal
+     Family long preceded the affair at Varennes, the beginning of which
+     Madame Campan assigns to it.  Indeed it must by this time be evident
+     to the reader that Madame Campan, though very correct in relating
+     all she knew, with respect to the history of Marie Antoinette, was
+     not in possession of matters foreign to her occupation about the
+     person of the Queen, and, in particular, that she could communicate
+     little concerning those important intrigues carried on respecting
+     the different deputies of the first Assembly, till in the latter
+     days of the Revolution, when it became necessary, from the pressure
+     of events, that she should be made a sort of confidante, in order to
+     prevent her from compromising the persons of the Queen and the
+     Princesse de Lamballe: a trust, of her claim to which her undoubted
+     fidelity was an ample pledge.  Still, however, she was often absent
+     from Court at moments of great importance, and was obliged to take
+     her information, upon much which she has recorded, from hearsay,
+     which has led her, as I have before stated, into frequent mistakes.]
+
+"The expense of the insulting scene, which had so overcome Her Majesty,
+was five hundred thousand francs!  This sum was paid by the agents of the
+Palais Royal, and its execution entrusted principally to Mirabeau,
+Bailly, the Mayor of Paris, and another individual, who was afterwards
+brought over to the Court party.
+
+"The history of the Assembly itself on the day following, the 6th of May,
+is too well known.  The sudden perturbation of a guilty conscience, which
+overcame the Duc d'Orleans, seemed like an awful warning.  He had
+scarcely commenced his inflammatory address to the Assembly, when some
+one, who felt incommoded by the stifling heat of the hall, exclaimed,
+'Throw open the windows!' The conspirator fancied he heard in this his
+death sentence.  He fainted, and was conducted home in the greatest
+agitation.  Madame de Bouffon was at the Palais Royal when the Duke was
+taken thither.  The Duchesse d'Orleans was at the palace of the Duc de
+Penthievre, her father, while the Duke himself was at the Hotel Thoulouse
+with me, where he was to dine, and where we were waiting for the Duchess
+to come and join us, by appointment.  But Madame de Bouffon was so
+alarmed by the state in which she saw the Duc d'Orleans that she
+instantly left the Palais Royal, and despatched his valet express to
+bring her thither.  My sister-in-law sent an excuse to me for not coming
+to dinner, and an explanation to her father for so abruptly leaving his
+palace, and hastened home to her husband.  It was some days before he
+recovered; and his father-in-law, his wife, and myself were not without
+hopes that he would see in this an omen to prevent him from persisting
+any longer in his opposition to the Royal Family.
+
+"The effects of the recall of the popular Minister, Necker, did not
+satisfy the King.  Necker soon became an object of suspicion to the Court
+party, and especially to His Majesty and the Queen.  He was known to have
+maintained an understanding with D'ORLEANS.  The miscarriage of many
+plans and the misfortunes which succeeded were the result of this
+connection, though it was openly disavowed.  The first suspicion of the
+coalition arose thus:
+
+"When the Duke had his bust carried about Paris, after his unworthy
+schemes against the King had been discovered, it was thrown into the
+mire.  Necker passing, perhaps by mere accident, stopped his carriage,
+and expressing himself with some resentment for such treatment to a
+Prince of the blood and a friend of the people, ordered the bust to be
+taken to the Palais Royal, where it was washed, crowned with laurel, and
+thence, with Necker's own bust, carried to Versailles.  The King's aunts,
+coming from Bellevue as the procession was upon the road, ordered the
+guards to send the men away who bore the busts, that the King and Queen
+might not be insulted with the sight.  This circumstance caused another
+riot, which was attributed to Their Majesties.  The dismission of the
+Minister was the obvious result.  It is certain, however, that, in
+obeying the mandate of exile, Necker had no wish to exercise the
+advantage he possessed from his great popularity.  His retirement was
+sudden and secret; and, although it was mentioned that very evening by
+the Baroness de Stael to the Comte de Chinon, so little bustle was made
+about his withdrawing from France, that it was even stated at the time to
+have been utterly unknown, even to his daughter.
+
+"Necker himself ascribed his dismission to the influence of the De
+Polignacs; but he was totally mistaken, for the Duchesse de Polignac was
+the last person to have had any influence in matters of State, whatever
+might have been the case with those who surrounded her.  She was devoid
+of ambition or capacity to give her weight; and the Queen was not so
+pliant in points of high import as to allow herself to be governed or
+overruled, unless her mind was thoroughly convinced.  In that respect,
+she was something like Catharine II., who always distinguished her
+favourites from her Minister; but in the present case she had no choice,
+and was under the necessity of yielding to the boisterous voice of a
+faction.
+
+"From this epoch, I saw all the persons who had any wish to communicate
+with the Queen on matters relative to the public business, and Her
+Majesty was generally present when they came, and received them in my
+apartments.  The Duchesse de Polignac never, to my knowledge, entered
+into any of these State questions; yet there was no promotion in the
+civil, military, or ministerial department, which she has not been
+charged with having influenced the Queen to make, though there were few
+of them who were not nominated by the King and his Ministers, even
+unknown to the Queen herself.
+
+"The prevailing dissatisfaction against Her Majesty and the favourite
+De Polignac now began to take so many forms, and produce effects so
+dreadful, as to wring her own feelings, as well as those of her royal
+mistress, with the most intense anguish.  Let me mention one gross and
+barbarous instance in proof of what I say.
+
+"After the birth of the Queen's second son, the Duc de Normandie, who was
+afterwards Dauphin, the Duke and Duchess of Harcourt, outrageously
+jealous of the ascendency of the governess of the Dauphin, excited the
+young Prince's hatred toward Madame de Polignac to such a pitch that he
+would take nothing from her hands, but often, young as he was at the
+time, order her out of the apartment, and treat her remonstrances with
+the utmost contempt.  The Duchess bitterly complained of the Harcourts to
+the Queen; for she really sacrificed the whole of her time to the care
+and attention required by this young Prince, and she did so from sincere
+attachment, and that he might not be irritated in his declining state of
+health.  The Queen was deeply hurt at these dissensions between the
+governor and governess.  Her Majesty endeavoured to pacify the mind of
+the young Prince, by literally making herself a slave to his childish
+caprices, which in all probability would have created the confidence so
+desired, when a most cruel, unnatural, I may say diabolical, report
+prevailed to alienate the child's affections even from his mother,
+in making him believe that, owing to his deformity and growing ugliness,
+she had transferred all her tenderness to his younger brother, who
+certainly was very superior in health and beauty to the puny Dauphin.
+Making a pretext of this calumny, the governor of the heir-apparent was
+malicious enough to prohibit him from eating or drinking anything but
+what first passed through the hands of his physicians; and so strong was
+the impression made by this interdict on the mind of the young Dauphin
+that he never after saw the Queen but with the greatest terror.  The
+feelings of his disconsolate parent may be more readily conceived than
+described.  So may the mortification of his governess, the Duchesse de
+Polignac, herself so tender, so affectionate a mother.  Fortunately for
+himself, and happily for his wretched parents, this royal youth, whose
+life, though short, had been so full of suffering, died at Versailles on
+the 4th of June, 1789, and, though only between seven and eight years of
+age at the time of his decease, he had given proofs of intellectual
+precocity, which would probably have made continued life, amidst the
+scenes of wretchedness, which succeeded, anything to him but a blessing.
+
+"The cabals of the Duke of Harcourt, to which I have just adverted,
+against the Duchesse de Polignac, were the mere result of foul malice
+and ambition.  Harcourt wished to get his wife, who was the sworn enemy
+of De Polignac, created governess to the Dauphin, instead of the Queen's
+favourite.  Most of the criminal stories against the Duchesse de
+Polignac, and which did equal injury to the Queen, were fabricated by the
+Harcourts, for the purpose of excluding their rival from her situation.
+
+"Barnave, meanwhile, continued faithful to his liberal principles, but
+equally faithful to his desire of bringing Their Majesties over to those
+principles, and making them republican Sovereigns.  He lost no
+opportunity of availing himself of my permission for him to call whenever
+he chose on public business; and he continued to urge the same points,
+upon which he had before been so much in earnest, although with no better
+effect.  Both the King and the Queen looked with suspicion upon Barnave,
+and with still more suspicion upon his politics.
+
+"The next time I received him, 'Madame,' exclaimed the deputy to me,
+'since our last interview I have pondered well on the situation of the
+King; and, as an honest Frenchman, attached to my lawful Sovereign, and
+anxious for his future prosperous reign, I am decidedly of opinion that
+his own safety, as well as the dignity of the crown of France, and the
+happiness of his subjects, can only be secured by his giving his country
+a Constitution, which will at once place his establishment beyond the
+caprice and the tyranny of corrupt administrations, and secure hereafter
+the first monarchy in Europe from the possibility of sinking under weak
+Princes, by whom the royal splendour of France has too often been debased
+into the mere tool of vicious and mercenary noblesse, and sycophantic
+courtiers.  A King, protected by a Constitution, can do no wrong.  He is
+unshackled with responsibility.  He is empowered with the comfort of
+exercising the executive authority for the benefit of the nation, while
+all the harsher duties, and all the censures they create, devolve on
+others.  It is, therefore, madame, through your means, and the well-known
+friendship you have ever evinced for the Royal Family, and the general
+welfare of the French nation, that I wish to obtain a private audience of
+Her Majesty, the Queen, in order to induce her to exert the never-failing
+ascendency she has ever possessed over the mind of our good King,
+in persuading him to the sacrifice of a small proportion of his power,
+for the sake of preserving the monarchy to his heirs; and posterity will
+record the virtues of a Prince who has been magnanimous enough, of his
+own free will, to resign the unlawful part of his prerogatives, usurped
+by his predecessors, for the blessing and pleasure of giving liberty to
+a beloved people, among whom both the King and Queen will find many
+Hampdens and Sidneys, but very few Cromwells.  Besides, madame, we must
+make a merit of necessity.  The times are pregnant with events, and it is
+more prudent to support the palladium of the ancient monarchy than risk
+its total overthrow; and fall it must, if the diseased excrescences,
+of which the people complain, and which threaten to carry death into
+the very heart of the tree, be not lopped away in time by the Sovereign
+himself.'
+
+"I heard the deputy with the greatest attention.  I promised to fulfil
+his commission.  The better to execute my task, I retired the moment he
+left me, and wrote down all I could recollect of his discourse, that it
+might be thoroughly placed before the Queen the first opportunity.
+
+"When I communicated the conversation to Her Majesty, she listened with
+the most gracious condescension, till I came to the part wherein Barnave
+so forcibly impressed the necessity of adopting a constitutional
+monarchy.  Here, as she had done once before, when I repeated some former
+observations of Barnave to her, Marie Antoinette somewhat lost her
+equanimity.  She rose from her seat, and exclaimed:
+
+"'What! is an absolute Prince, and the hereditary Sovereign of the
+ancient monarchy of France, to become the tool of a plebeian faction,
+who will, their point once gained, dethrone him for his imbecile
+complaisance?  Do they wish to imitate the English Revolution of 1648,
+and reproduce the sanguinary times of the unfortunate and weak Charles
+the First?  To make France a commonwealth!  Well! be it so!  But before
+I advise the King to such a step, or give my consent to it, they shall
+bury me under the ruins of the monarchy.'
+
+"'But what answer,' said I, 'does Your Majesty wish me to return to the
+deputy's request for a private audience?'
+
+"'What answer?' exclaimed the Queen.  No answer at all is the best answer
+to such a presumptuous proposition!  I tremble for the consequences of
+the impression their disloyal manoeuvres have made upon the minds of the
+people, and I have no faith whatever in their proffered services to the
+King.  However, on reflection, it may be expedient to temporise.
+Continue to see him.  Learn, if possible, how far he may be trusted;
+but do not fix any time, as yet, for the desired audience.  I wish to
+apprise the King, first, of his interview with you, Princess.  This
+conversation does not agree with what he and Mirabeau proposed about the
+King's recovering his prerogatives.  Are these the prerogatives with
+which he flattered the King?  Binding him hand and foot, and excluding
+him from every privilege, and then casting him a helpless dependant on
+the caprice of a volatile plebeian faction!  The French nation is very
+different from the English.  The first rules of the established ancient
+order of the government broken through, they will violate twenty others,
+and the King will be sacrificed, before this frivolous people again
+organise themselves with any sort of regular government.'
+
+"Agreeably to Her Majesty's commands, I continued to see Barnave.  I
+communicated with him by letter,' at his private lodgings at Passy, and
+at Vitry; but it was long before the Queen could be brought to consent to
+the audience he solicited.
+
+     [Of these letters I was generally the bearer.  I recollect that day
+     perfectly.  I was copying some letters for the Princesse de
+     Lamballe, when the Prince de Conti came in.  The Prince lived not
+     only to see, but to feel the errors of his system.  He attained a
+     great age.  He outlived the glory of his country.  Like many others,
+     the first gleam of political regeneration led him into a system,
+     which drove him out of France, to implore the shelter of a foreign
+     asylum, that he might not fall a victim to his own credulity.  I had
+     an opportunity of witnessing in his latter days his sincere
+     repentance; and to this it is fit that I should bear testimony.
+     There were no bounds to the execration with which he expressed
+     himself towards the murderers of those victims, whose death he
+     lamented with a bitterness in which some remorse was mingled, from
+     the impression that his own early errors in favour of the Revolution
+     had unintentionally accelerated their untimely end.  This was a
+     source to him of deep and perpetual self-reproach.
+
+     There was an eccentricity in the appearance, dress, and manners of
+     the Prince de Conti, which well deserves recording.
+
+     He wore to the very last--and it was in Barcelona, so late as 1803,
+     that I last had the honour of conversing with him--a white rich
+     stuff dress frock coat, of the cut and fashion of Louis XIV., which,
+     being without any collar, had buttons and button-holes from the neck
+     to the bottom of the skirt, and was padded and stiffened with
+     buckram.  The cuffs were very large, of a different colour, and
+     turned up to the elbows.  The whole was lined with white satin,
+     which, from its being very much moth-eaten, appeared as if it had
+     been dotted on purpose to show the buckram between the satin lining.
+     His waistcoat was of rich green striped silk, bound with gold lace;
+     the buttons and buttonholes of gold; the flaps very large, and
+     completely covering his small clothes; which happened very apropos,
+     for they scarcely reached his knees, over which he wore large
+     striped silk stockings, that came half-way up his thighs.  His shoes
+     had high heels, and reached half up his legs; the buckles were
+     small, and set round with paste.  A very narrow stiff stock
+     decorated his neck.  He carried a hat, with a white feather on the
+     inside, under his arm.  His ruffles were of very handsome point
+     lace.  His few gray hairs were gathered in a little round bag.  The
+     wig alone was wanting to make him a thorough picture of the polished
+     age of the founder of Versailles and Marly.
+
+     He had all that princely politeness of manner which so eminently
+     distinguished the old school of French nobility, previous to the
+     Revolution.  He was the thorough gentleman, a character by no means
+     so readily to be met with in these days of refinement as one would
+     imagine.  He never addressed the softer sex but with ease and
+     elegance, and admiration of their persons.
+
+     Could Louis XIV.  have believed, had it been told to him when he
+     placed this branch of the Bourbons on the throne of Iberia, that it
+     would one day refuse to give shelter at the Court of Madrid to one
+     of his family, for fear of offending a Corsican usurper!]
+
+"Indeed, Her Majesty had such an aversion to all who had declared
+themselves for any innovation upon the existing power of the monarchy,
+that she was very reluctant to give audience upon the subject to any
+person, not even excepting the Princes of the blood.  The Comte d'Artois
+himself, leaning as he did to the popular side, had ceased to be welcome.
+Expressions he had made use of, concerning the necessity for some change,
+had occasioned the coolness, which was already of considerable standing.
+
+"One day the Prince de Conti came to me, to complain of the Queen's
+refusing to receive him, because he had expressed himself to the same
+effect as had the Comte d'Artois on the subject of the Tiers Etat.
+
+"'And does Your Highness,' replied I, 'imagine that the Queen is less
+displeased with the conduct of the Comte d'Artois on that head than she
+is with you, Prince?  I can assure Your Highness, that at this moment
+there subsists a very great degree of coolness between Her Majesty and
+her royal brother-in-law, whom she loves as if he were her own brother.
+Though she makes every allowance for his political inexperience, and well
+knows the goodness of his heart and the rectitude of his intentions, yet
+policy will not permit her to change her sentiments.'
+
+"'That may be,' said the Prince, 'but while Her Majesty continues to
+honour with her royal presence the Duchesse de Polignac, whose friends,
+as well as herself, are all enthusiastically mad in favour of the
+constitutional system, she shows an undue partiality, by countenancing
+one branch of the party and not the other; particularly so, as the great
+and notorious leader of the opposition, which the Queen frowns upon,
+is the sister-in-law of this very Duchesse de Polignac, and the avowed
+favourite of the Comte d'Artois, by whom, and the councils of the Palais
+Royal, he is supposed to be totally governed in his political career.'
+
+"'The Queen,' replied I, 'is certainly her own mistress.  She sees, I
+believe, many persons more from habit than any other motive; to which,
+Your Highness is aware, many Princes often make sacrifices.  Your
+Highness cannot suppose I can have the temerity to control Her Majesty,
+in the selection of her friends, or in her sentiments respecting them.'
+
+"'No,' exclaimed the Prince, 'I imagine not.  But she might just as well
+see any of us; for we are no more enemies of the Crown than the party she
+is cherishing by constantly appearing among them; which, according to her
+avowed maxims concerning the not sanctioning any but supporters of the
+absolute monarchy, is in direct opposition to her own sentiments.
+
+"'Who,' continued His Highness, 'caused that infernal comedy, 'Le Mariage
+de Figaro', to be brought out, but the party of the Duchesse de Polignac?
+
+     [Note of the Princesse de Lamballe:--The Prince de Conti never could
+     speak of Beaumarchais but with the greatest contempt.  There was
+     something personal in this exasperation.  Beaumarchais had satirized
+     the Prince.  'The Spanish Barber' was founded on a circumstance
+     which happened at a country house between Conti and a young lady,
+     during the reign of Louis XV., when intrigues of every kind were
+     practised and almost sanctioned.  The poet has exposed the Prince by
+     making him the Doctor Bartolo of his play.  The affair which
+     supplied the story was hushed up at Court, and the Prince was
+     punished only by the loss of his mistress, who became the wife of
+     another.]
+
+The play is a critique on the whole Royal Family, from the drawing up of
+the curtain to its fall.  It burlesques the ways and manners of every
+individual connected with the Court of Versailles.  Not a scene but
+touches some of their characters.  Are not the Queen herself and the
+Comte d'Artois lampooned and caricatured in the garden scenes, and the
+most slanderous ridicule cast upon their innocent evening walks on the
+terrace?  Does not Beaumarchais plainly show in it, to every impartial
+eye, the means which the Comtesse Diane has taken publicly to demonstrate
+her jealousy of the Queen's ascendency over the Comte d'Artois?  Is it
+not from the same sentiment that she roused the jealousy of the Comtesse
+d'Artois against Her Majesty?'
+
+"'All these circumstances,' observed I, 'the King prudently foresaw when
+he read the manuscript, and caused it to be read to the Queen, to
+convince her of the nature of its characters and the dangerous tendency
+likely to arise from its performance.  Of this Your Highness is aware.
+It is not for me to apprise you that, to avert the excitement inevitable
+from its being brought upon the stage, and under a thorough conviction of
+the mischief it would produce in turning the minds of the people against
+the Queen, His Majesty solemnly declared that the comedy should not be
+performed in Paris; and that he would never sanction its being brought
+before the public on any stage in France.'
+
+"'Bah! bah! madame!' exclaimed De Conti.  The Queen has acted like a
+child in this affair, as in many others.  In defiance of His Majesty's
+determination, did not the Queen herself, through the fatal influence of
+her favourite, whose party wearied her out by continued importunities,
+cause the King to revoke his express mandate?  And what has been the
+consequence of Her Majesty's ungovernable partiality for these De
+Polignacs?'
+
+"'You know, Prince,' said I, 'better than I do.'
+
+"'The proofs of its bad consequences,' pursued His Highness, 'are more
+strongly verified than ever by your own withdrawing from the Queen's
+parties since her unreserved acknowledgment of her partiality (fatal
+partiality!) for those who will be her ruin; for they are her worst
+enemies.'
+
+"'Pardon me, Prince,' answered I, 'I have not withdrawn myself from the
+Queen, but from the new parties, with whose politics I cannot identify
+myself, besides some exceptions I have taken against those who frequent
+them.'
+
+"'Bah! bah!' exclaimed De Conti, 'your sagacity has got the better of
+your curiosity.  All the wit and humour of that traitor Beaumarchais
+never seduced you to cultivate his society, as all the rest of the
+Queen's party have done.'
+
+"'I never knew him to be accused of treason.'
+
+"'Why, what do you call a fellow who sent arms to the Americans before
+the war was declared, without his Sovereign's consent?'
+
+"'In that affair, I consider the Ministers as criminal as himself; for
+the Queen, to this day, believes that Beaumarchais was sanctioned by them
+and, you know, Her Majesty has ever since had an insuperable dislike to
+both De Maurepas and De Vergennes.  But I have nothing to do with these
+things.'
+
+"'Yes, yes, I understand you, Princess.  Let her romp and play with the
+'compate vous',--[A kind of game of forfeits, introduced for the
+diversion of the royal children and those of the Duchesse de Polignac.]--
+but who will 'compatire' (make allowance for) her folly?  Bah! bah! bah!
+She is inconsistent, Princess.  Not that I mean by this to insinuate that
+the Duchess is not the sincere friend and well-wisher of the Queen.  Her
+immediate existence, her interest, and that of her family, are all
+dependent on the royal bounty.  But can the Duchess answer for the same
+sincerity towards the Queen, with respect to her innumerable guests?
+No!  Are not the sentiments of the Duchesses sister-in-law, the Comtesse
+Diane, in direct opposition to the absolute monarchy?  Has she not always
+been an enthusiastic advocate for all those that have supported the
+American war?  Who was it that crowned, at a public assembly, the
+democratical straight hairs of Dr. Franklin?  Why the same Madame
+Comtesse Diane!  Who was 'capa turpa' in applauding the men who were
+framing the American Constitution at Paris?  Madame Comtesse Diane!  Who
+was it, in like manner, that opposed all the Queen's arguments against
+the political conduct of France and Spain, relative to the war with
+England, in favour of the American Independence?  The Comtesse Diane!
+Not for the love of that rising nation, or for the sacred cause of
+liberty; but from a taste for notoriety, a spirit of envy and jealousy,
+an apprehension lest the personal charms of the Queen might rob her of a
+part of those affections, which she herself exclusively hoped to alienate
+from that abortion, the Comtesse d'Artois, in whose service she is Maid
+of Honour, and handmaid to the Count.  My dear Princess, these are facts
+proved.  Beaumarchais has delineated them all.  Why, then, refuse to see
+me?  Why withdraw her former confidence from the Comte d'Artois, when she
+lives in the society which promulgates antimonarchical principles?  These
+are sad evidences of Her Majesty's inconsistency.  She might as well see
+the Duc d'Orleans'
+
+"Here my feelings overwhelmed me.  I could contain myself no longer.  The
+tears gushed from my eyes.
+
+"'Oh, Prince!' exclaimed I, in a bitter agony of grief--'Oh, Prince!
+touch not that fatal string.  For how many years has he not caused these
+briny tears of mine to flow from my burning eyes!  The scalding drops
+have nearly parched up the spring of life!'"
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Beaumarchais sent arms to the Americans
+Educate his children as quietists in matters of religion
+It is an ill wind that blows no one any good
+Judge of men by the company they keep
+Les culottes--what do you call them?' 'Small clothes'
+My little English protegee
+No phrase becomes a proverb until after a century's experience
+We say "inexpressibles"
+Wish art to eclipse nature
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Memoirs of Louis XV., and XVI., v5
+by Madame du Hausset, and an unknown English girl and Princess Lamballe
+
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