equins, which
served as a joke against him for the royal family, who often amused
themselves with laughing at him about it.

An event, simple in itself, brought dire suspicion upon the Queen. She
was going out one evening with the Duchesse de Lupnes, lady of the palace,
when her carriage broke down at the entrance into Paris; she was obliged
to alight; the Duchess led her into a shop, while a footman called a
'fiacre'. As they were masked, if they had but known how to keep silence,
the event would never have been known; but to ride in a fiacre is so
unusual an adventure for a queen that she had hardly entered the
Opera-house when she could not help saying to some persons whom she met
there: "That I should be in a fiacre! Is it not droll?"

From that moment all Paris was informed of the adventure of the fiacre. It
was said that everything connected with it was mysterious; that the Queen
had kept an assignation in a private house with the Duc de Coigny. He was
indeed very well received at Court, but equally so by the King and Queen.
These accusations of gallantry once set afloat, there were no longer any
bounds to the calumnies circulated at Paris. If, during the chase or at
cards, the Queen spoke to Lord Edward Dillon, De Lambertye, or others,
they were so many favoured lovers. The people of Paris did not know that
none of those young persons were admitted into the Queen's private circle
of friends; the Queen went about Paris in disguise, and had made use of a
fiacre; and a single instance of levity gives room for the suspicion of
others.

Conscious of innocence, and well knowing that all about her must do
justice to her private life, the Queen spoke of these reports with
contempt, contenting herself with the supposition that some folly in the
young men mentioned had given rise to them. She therefore left off
speaking to them or even looking at them. Their vanity took alarm at
this, and revenge induced them either to say, or to leave others to think,
that they were unfortunate enough to please no longer. Other young
coxcombs, placing themselves near the private box which the Queen occupied
incognito when she attended the public theatre at Versailles, had the
presumption to imagine that they were noticed by her; and I have known
such notions entertained merely on account of the Queen's requesting one
of those gentlemen to inquire behind the scenes whether it would be long
before the commencement of the second pi