r preceptor.

[The Abbe de Vermond encouraged the impatience of etiquette shown by Marie
Antoinette while she was Dauphiness. When she became Queen he endeavoured
openly to induce her to shake off the restraints she still respected. If
he chanced to enter her apartment at the time she was preparing to go out,
"For whom," he would say, in a tone of raillery, "is this detachment of
warriors which I found in the court? Is it some general going to inspect
his army? Does all this military display become a young Queen adored by
her subjects?" He would call to her mind the simplicity with which Maria
Theresa lived; the visits she made without guards, or even attendants, to
the Prince d'Esterhazy, to the Comte de Palfi, passing whole days far from
the fatiguing ceremonies of the Court. The Abbe thus artfully flattered
the inclinations of Marie Antoinette, and showed her how she might
disguise, even from herself, her aversion for the ceremonies observed by
the descendants of Louis XIV.-MADAME CAMPAN.]

His pride received its birth at Vienna, where Maria Theresa, as much to
give him authority with the Archduchess as to make herself acquainted with
his character, permitted him to mix every evening with the private circle
of her family, into which the future Dauphiness had been admitted for some
time. Joseph II., the elder Archduchess, and a few noblemen honoured by
the confidence of Maria Theresa, composed the party; and reflections on
the world, on courts, and the duties of princes were the usual topics of
conversation. The Abbe de Vermond, in relating these particulars,
confessed the means which he had made use of to gain admission into this
private circle. The Empress, meeting him at the Archduchess's, asked him
if he had formed any connections in Vienna. "None, Madame," replied he;
"the apartment of the Archduchess and the hotel of the ambassador of
France are the only places which the man honoured with the care of the
Princess's education should frequent." A month afterwards Maria Theresa,
through a habit common enough among sovereigns, asked him the same
question, and received precisely the same answer. The next day he
received an order to join the imperial family every evening.

It is extremely probable, from the constant and well-known intercourse
between this man and Comte de Mercy, ambassador of the Empire during the
whole reign of Louis XVI., that he was useful to the Court of Vienna, and
that he often caused