tate, a sincere desire to
consult her wishes. But as the Polignac party saw in his prudence,
integrity, and firmness the most formidable obstacle to their project of
using the queen's favor to enrich themselves, she now yielded up her
judgment to their calumnies. Forgetting her former praises of the
minister's integrity, she began to disparage him as one whose measures
caused general dissatisfaction, and at last she pushed her hostility to
him so far that she actually tried to induce Louis not to be content with
dismissing him from office, but to send him as a prisoner to the
Bastille.[4] That she could not avoid feeling some shame at the part which
she had acted may be inferred from the pains which she took to conceal it
from her mother, whom she assured that, though she was not sorry for his
dismissal, she had in no degree interfered in the matter; but "her conduct
and even her intentions were well known, and known to be far removed from
all manoeuvres and intrigues.[5]"

Unfortunately the ambassador's letters tell a different story. As a
sincere friend as well as a loyal servant of Marie Antoinette, he
expresses to the empress his deep feeling that, "as the comptroller-
general enjoyed a great reputation for integrity, and was beloved by the
people, it was a melancholy thing that his dismissal should be in part the
queen's work,[6]" and his fear that her conduct in the affair may
"hereafter bring upon her the reproaches of the king her husband, and even
of the entire nation." The foreboding thus uttered was but too sadly
realized. She had driven from her husband's councils the only man who
combined with the penetration to perceive the absolute necessity of a
large reform and the character of the changes required, the genius to
devise them and the firmness to carry them out.

Thirteen years later, a variety of causes, some of which will be unfolded
in the course of this narrative, had contributed to irritate the
impatience of the nation, while the unskillfulness of the existing
minister had disarmed the royal authority. And the very same reforms which
would now have been accepted with general thankfulness were then only used
by demagogues as a pretext for further inflaming the minds of the
multitude against every thing which bore the slightest appearance of
authority, even against the very sovereign who had granted them. France
and all Europe to this day feel the sad effects of Marie Antoinette's
interference.

She