rt, and in the end you are left with none but bad company,
which by degrees leads to all manner of vices. . . . Likings carried
too far are baseness or weakness; one must learn to play one's part
properly if one wishes to be esteemed; you can do it if you will but
restrain yourself a little and follow the advice given you; if you are
heedless, I foresee great troubles for you, nothing but squabbles and
petty cabals which will render your days miserable. I wish to prevent
this and to conjure you to take the advice of a mother who knows the
world, who idolizes her children, and whose only desire is to pass her
sorrowful days in being of service to them."

Wise counsels of the most illustrious of mothers uselessly lavished upon
her daughters! Already the Queen of Naples was beginning to betray the
fatal tendencies of her character; whilst, in France, frivolous
pleasures, unreflecting friendships, and petty court-intrigues were day
by day undermining the position of Marie Antoinette. "I am much affected
at the situation of my daughter," wrote Maria Theresa, in 1776, to Abbe
Vermond, whom she had herself not long ago placed with the dauphiness,
then quite a child, and whose influence was often pernicious: "she is
hurrying at a great pace to her ruin, surrounded as she is by base
flatterers who urge her on for their own interests."

Almost at the same moment she was writing to the queen "I am very pleased
to learn that you had nothing to do with the change that has been made in
the cases of MM. Turgot and Malesherbes, who, however, have a great
reputation among the public and whose only fault, in my opinion, is that
they attempted too much at once. You say that you are not sorry; you
must have your own good reasons, but the public, for some time past, has
not spoken so well of you, and attributes to you point blank petty
practices which would not be seemly in your place. The king loving you,
his ministers must needs respect you; by asking nothing that is not right
and proper, you make yourself respected and loved at the same time. I
fear nothing in your case (as you are so young) but too much dissipation.
You never did like reading, or any sort of application: this has often
caused me anxieties. I was so pleased to see you devoted to music; that
is why I have often plagued you with questions about your reading. For
more than a year past there has no longer been any question of reading or
of music; I hear of nothin