s much to her ruin, and even to that of royalty, as did
any other cause originating at court. Mme. de Lamballe was no match
for her rival, so she retired, a move which increased the influence
of Mme. de Polignac, to whose house the whole court flocked. The queen
followed her wherever she went, made her husband duke, and permitted
her to sit in her presence.

By spending so much of her time at the salons of Mme. de Polignac
and the Princesse de Guemenee, the queen excited the displeasure
and enmity of many of the court and the people; at those places, De
Besenval, De Ligny, De Lauzun,--men of the most licentious habits and
expert spendthrifts,--seemed to enjoy her intimate friendship, a state
of affairs which caused many scandalous stories and helped to alienate
some of the greatest houses of France. This injudicious display of
preference for her own circle of friends also fostered a general
distrust and dislike among the people. The first families of France
preferred to absent themselves from her weekly balls at Versailles,
since attendance would probably result in their being ignored by the
queen, who permitted herself to be so engrossed by a bevy of favorites
and her own amusements as scarcely to notice other guests.

Her eulogists find excuse for all this in her lightness of heart and
gay spirits, as well as in the manner of her rearing, having been
brought up in the court of Louis XV., where she saw shameless vice
tolerated and even condoned. Although she preserved her virtue in the
midst of all this dissipation, she became callous to the shortcomings
of her friends and her own finer perceptions became blunted. Thus,
in the most critical years of her reign, her nobler nature suffered
deterioration, which resulted fatally.

Despite many warnings, she could not or would not do without those
friends. She excused anything in those who could make themselves
useful to her amusement: everyone who catered to her taste received
her favor. M. Rocheterie, in his admirable work, _The Life of Marie
Antoinette_, gives as the source of her great love of pleasure her
very strongly affectionate disposition,--the need of showering upon
someone the overflowing of an ardent nature,--together with the desire
for activity so natural in a princess of nineteen. As a place in
which to vent all these emotions, these ebullitions of affections and
amusements, the king presented her with the chateau "Little Trianon,"
where she might enjoy he