“‘Here,’ continued the Queen, ‘I accuse myself of a want of that courage which every virtuous wife ought to exercise in not having complained of the visible neglect shown me long, long before I did; for this, perhaps, would have spared both of us the many bitter pangs originating in the seeming coldness, whence have arisen all the scandalous stories against my character--which have often interrupted the full enjoyment I should have felt had they not made me tremble for the security of that attachment, of which I had so many proofs, and which formed my only consolation amid all the malice that for yearn had been endeavouring to deprive me of it! So far as regards my husband’s estimation, thank fate, I have defied their wickedness! Would to Heaven I could have been equally secure in the estimation of my people--the object nearest to my heart, after the King and my dear children!’”
[The Dauphine could not understand the first allusion of the Duchess; but it is evident that the vile intriguer took this opportunity of sounding her upon what she was commissioned to carry on in favour of Louis XV., and it is equally apparent that when she heard Marie Antoinette express herself decidedly in favour of her young husband, and distinctly saw how utterly groundless were the hopes of his secret rival, she was led thereby to abandon her wicked project; and perhaps the change of apartments was the best mask that could have been devised to hide the villany.]
“The present period appears to have been one of the happiest in the life of Marie Antoinette. Her intimate society consisted of the King’s brothers, and their Princesses, with the King’s saint-like sister Elizabeth; and they lived entirely together, excepting when the Dauphine dined in public. These ties seemed to be drawn daily closer for some time, till the subsequent intimacy with the Polignacs. Even when the Comtesse d’Artois lay-in, the Dauphine, then become Queen, transferred her parties to the apartments of that Princess, rather than lose the gratification of her society.
“During all this time, however, Du Barry, the Duc d’Aiguillon, and the aunts-Princesses, took special care to keep themselves between her and any tenderness on the part of the husband Dauphin, and, from different motives uniting in one end, tried every means to get the object of their hatred sent back to Vienna.”