3.

[4] Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa, July 17th, Arneth, ii., p. 8.

[5] "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," par M. de Goncourt, p. 50. Quoting an
unpublished journal by M.M. Hardy, in the Royal Library.

[6] It is the name by which she is more than once described in Madame du
Deffand's letters. See her "Correspondence," ii., p. 357.

[7] Mercy to Maria Teresa, December 11th, 1773, Arneth, ii., p. 81.

[8] "Memoires de Besenval," i., p. 304.

CHAPTER VIII

[1] Mercy to Maria Teresa, August 14th, 1773, Arneth, ii., p. 31.

[2] The money was a joint gift from herself as well as from him. Great
distress, arising from the extraordinarily high price of bread, was at
this time prevailing in Paris.

[3] The term most commonly used by Marie Antoinette in her letters to her
mother to describe Madame du Barri. She was ordered to retire to the Abbey
of Pont-aux-Dames, near Meaux. Subsequently she was allowed to return to
Luciennes, a villa which her royal lover had given her.

[4] Madame de Mazarin was the lady who, by the fulsomeness of her
servility to Madame du Barri, provoked Madame du Deffand (herself a lady
not altogether _sans reproche_) to say that it was not easy to carry "the
heroism of baseness and absurdity farther."

[5] Lorraine had become a French province a few years before, on the death
of Stanislaus Leczinsky, father of the queen of Louis XV.

[6] Maria Teresa to Marie Antoinette, May 18th, and to Mercy on the same
day, Arneth, ii., p. 149.

[7] See his letter of 8th May to Maria Teresa. "Il faut que pour la suite
de son bonheur, elle commence a s'emparer de l'autorite que M. le Dauphin
n'exercera jamais que d'une facon convenable, et ... ce serait du dernier
danger et pour l'etat et pour le systeme general que qui ce soit s'emparat
de M. le Dauphin et qu'il fut conduit par autre que par Madame la
Dauphine."--ARNETH, ii., p. 137.

[8] "Je parle a l'amie, a la confidente du roi."--_Maria Teresa to Marie
Antoinette_, May 30th, 1770, Arneth, ii., p. 155.

[9] "Jusqu'a present l'etiquette de cette cour a toujours interdit aux
reines et princesses royales de manger avec des hommes."--_Mercy to Maria
Teresa_, June 7th, 1774, Arneth, ii, p. 164

[10] "Elle me traite, a mon arrivee, comme tous les jeunes gens qui
composaient ses pages, qu'elle comblait de bontes, en leur montrant une
bienveillance pleine de dignite, mais qu'on pouvait aussi appeler
maternelle."--_Marie Therese, Memoires de Tilly_, i.