circle. Moreover, her conduct
brought slander upon her; as her companions she chose men and women
of bad reputation, and was constantly surrounded by dissipated young
noblemen whom she permitted to come into her presence in costumes
which shocked conservative people; she encouraged gambling, frequented
the worst gambling house of the time, that of the Princesse de
Guemenee, and visited masked balls where the worst women of the
capital jostled the great nobles of the court; her husband seldom
accompanied her to these pleasure resorts.

During part of the reign of Marie Antoinette the country was waging
an expensive war and was deeply in debt, but the queen did not set an
example of economy by retrenching her expenses; although her personal
allowance was much larger than that of the preceding queen, she was
always in debt and lost heavily at gambling. Generally, she avoided
interference with the government of the state, but as the wife of so
incapable a king she was forced into an attempt at directing public
matters. Whenever she did mingle in state affairs, it was generally
fatal to her interests and popularity. She usually carried out her
wishes, for the king shrank from disappointing his wife and dreaded
domestic contentions.

He permitted her to go out as she did with the Comte d'Artois, her
brother-in-law, to masked balls, races, rides in the Bois de Boulogne,
and on expeditions to the salon of the Princesse de Guemenee, where
she contracted the ills of a chronically empty purse and late hours.
When attacked by measles, to relieve her ennui--which her ladies were
not successful in doing--she procured the consent of the king to the
presence of four gentlemen, who waited upon her, coming at seven in
the morning and not departing until eleven at night; and these were
some of the most depraved and debauched among the nobility--such as De
Besenval, the Duc de Coigny, and the Duc de Guines.

While in power, she always sided with extravagance and the court,
against economy and the nation. If we add to all these defects a vain
and frivolous disposition, a nature fond of admiration, pleasure, and
popularity, and lending a willing ear to all flattery, compliments,
and counsels of her favorites, her Austrian birth, and as "little
dignity as a Paris grisette in her escapades with the dissipated and
arrogant Comte d'Artois," we have, in general, the causes of her wide
unpopularity.

It will be seen that as long as she was f