death of Louis XV. she had to retire first to
the Abbey of Pont-aux-Dames, near Meaux, then she was allowed to go to her
small house at St. Vrain, near Arpajon, and, finally, in 1775, to her
chateau at Louveciennes. Much to her credit be it said, she retained many
of her friends, and was on the most intimate terms till his death with the
Duc de Brissac (Louis Hercule Timoldon de Cosse-Brissac), who was killed
at Versailles in the massacre of the prisoners in September, 1792, leaving
at his death a large legacy to her. Even the Emperor Joseph visited her.
In 1791 many of her jewels were stolen and taken to England. This caused
her to make several visits to that country, where she gained her suit.
But these visits, though she took every precaution to legalise them,
ruined her. Betrayed by her servants, among them by Zamor, the negro
page, she was brought before the Revolutionary tribunal, and was
guillotined on 8th December, 1793, in a frenzy of terror, calling for
mercy and for delay up to the moment when her head fell.]

The men of ambition who were labouring to overthrow the Duc de Choiseul
strengthened themselves by their concentration at the house of the
favourite, and succeeded in their project. The bigots, who never forgave
that minister the suppression of the Jesuits, and who had always been
hostile to a treaty of alliance with Austria, influenced the minds of
Mesdames. The Duc de La Vauguyon, the young Dauphin's governor, infected
them with the same prejudices.

Such was the state of the public mind when the young Archduchess Marie
Antoinette arrived at the Court of Versailles, just at the moment when the
party which brought her there was about to be overthrown.

Madame Adelaide openly avowed her dislike to a princess of the House of
Austria; and when M. Campan, my father-in-law, went to receive his orders,
at the moment of setting off with the household of the Dauphiness, to go
and receive the Archduchess upon the frontiers, she said she disapproved
of the marriage of her nephew with an archduchess; and that, if she had
the direction of the matter, she would not send for an Austrian.

CHAPTER II.

MARIE ANTOINETTE JOSEPHE JEANNE DE LORRAINE, Archduchess of Austria,
daughter of Francois de Lorraine and of Maria Theresa, was born on the 2d
of November, 1755, the day of the earthquake at Lisbon; and this
catastrophe, which appeared to stamp the era of her birth with a fatal
mark, without forming a