court. Do you know what would have
happened to you? I will tell you. The king, with his usual affability,
would have laughed in your face, and talked to you of your converts at
Ferney. The queen would have spoken of your plays. Monsieur would have
asked you what your income was. Madame would have quoted some of your
verses. The Countess of Artois would have said nothing at all; and the
count would have conversed with you about 'the Maid of Orleans.'"--_Marie
Antoinette, Louis XVI. et la Famille Royale_, p. 125, March 3d.

CHAPTER XIV.

[1] "La cour se precipite pele-mele avec la foule, car l'etiquette de
France veut que tous entrent a ce moment, que nul ne soit refuse, et que
le spectacle soit public d'une reine qui va donner un heritier a la
couronne, ou seulement un enfant au roi."--_Mem. de Goncourt_, p. 105.

[2] Arneth, iii., p. 270.

[3] Madame de Campan, ch. ix.

[4] _Ibid_., ch. ix.

[5] Chambrier, i., p. 394.

[6] "Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI., et la Famille Royale," p. 147, December
24th, 1778.

[7] _Garde-malades_ was the name given to them.

[8] "Du moment qu'ils [les enfants] peuvent etre a l'air on les y
accoutume petit a petit, et ils finissent par y etre presque toujours; je
crois que c'est la maniere la plus saine et la meilleure des les elever."

[9] Letter of Marie Antoinette to Maria Teresa, May 15th, 1779, Arneth,
iii., p. 311.

[10] Maria Teresa had offered the mediation of the empire to restore peace
between England and France.

[11] Spain had recently entered into the alliance against England in the
hope of recovering Gibraltar. And just at the date of this letter the
combined fleet of sixty-six sail of the line sailed into the Channel,
while a French army of 50,000 men was waiting at St. Malo to invade
England so soon as the British Channel fleet should have been defeated;
but, though Sir Charles Hardy had only forty sail under his orders,
D'Orvilliers and his Spanish colleague retreated before him, and at the
beginning of September, from fear of the equinoctial gales, of which the
queen here speaks with such alarm, retired to their own harbors, without
even venturing to come to action with a foe of scarcely two-thirds of
their own strength. See the author's "History of the British Navy," ch.
xiv.

[12] Letter of September 15th.

[13] Letter of October 14th.

[14] Letter of November 16th.

[15] Letter of November 17th.

[16] Kaunitz had been the prime minister of the emp