hould prove unattainable to revenge himself by her
ruin.

"On the Cardinal's return to France, all his numerous and powerful
friends beset the King and Queen to allow of his restoration to his
embassy; but though on his arrival at Versailles, finding the Court had
removed to Compiegne, he had a short audience there of the King, all
efforts in his favour were thrown away. Equally unsuccessful was every
intercession with the Empress-mother. She had become thoroughly awakened
to his worthlessness, and she declared she would never more even receive
him in her dominions as a visitor. The Cardinal, being apprised of this
by some of his intimates, was at last persuaded to give up the idea of
further importunity; and, pocketing his disgrace, retired with his hey
dukes and his secretary, the Abbe Georgel, to whom may be attributed all
the artful intrigues of his disgraceful diplomacy.

"It is evident that Rohan had no idea, during all his schemes to supplant
the Dauphine by marrying her sister to the King, that the secret hope of
Louis XV. had been to divorce the Dauphin and marry the slighted bride
himself. Perhaps it is fortunate that Rohan did not know this. A brain
so fertile in mischief as his might have converted such a circumstance to
baneful uses. But the death of Louis XV. put an end to all the then
existing schemes for a change in her position. It was to her a real,
though but a momentary triumph. From the hour of her arrival she had a
powerful party to cope with; and the fact of her being an Austrian,
independent of the jealousy created by her charms, was, in itself, a
spell to conjure up armies, against which she stood alone, isolated in
the face of embattled myriads! But she now reared her head, and her foes
trembled in her presence. Yet she could not guard against the moles busy
in the earth secretly to undermine her. Nay, had not Louis XV. died at
the moment he did, there is scarcely a doubt, from the number and the
quality of the hostile influences working on the credulity of the young
Dauphin, that Marie Antoinette would have been very harshly dealt
with,--even the more so from the partiality of the dotard who believed
himself to be reigning. But she has been preserved from her enemies to
become their sovereign; and if her crowned brow has erewhile been stung
by thorns in its coronal, let me not despair of their being hereafter
smothered in yet unblown roses."

SECTION V.

"The accession