course eyed askance, and
ere long openly calumniated.

The Comtesse de Noailles, who never could forget the title the Queen gave
her of Madame Etiquette, nor forgive the frequent jokes which Her Majesty
passed upon her antiquated formality, availed herself of the opportunity
offered by her husband's being raised to the dignity of Marshal of
France, to resign her situation on the appointment of the Princesse de
Lamballe as superintendent. The Countess retired with feelings
embittered against her royal mistress, and her annoyance in the sequel
ripened into enmity. The Countess was attached to a very powerful party,
not only at Court but scattered throughout the kingdom. Her discontent
arose from the circumstance of no longer having to take her orders from
the Queen direct, but from her superintendent. Ridiculous as this may
seem to an impartial observer, it created one of the most powerful
hostilities against which Her Majesty had afterwards to contend.

Though the Queen esteemed the Comtesse de Noailles for her many good
qualities, yet she was so much put out of her way by the rigour with
which the Countess enforced forms which to Her Majesty appeared puerile
and absurd, that she felt relieved, and secretly gratified, by her
retirement. It will be shown hereafter to what an excess the Countess
was eventually carried by her malice.

One of the popular objections to the revival of the office of
superintendent in favour of the Princesse de Lamballe arose from its
reputed extravagance. This was as groundless as the other charges
against the Queen. The etiquettes of dress, and the requisite increase
of every other expense, from the augmentation of every article of the
necessaries as well as the luxuries of life, made a treble difference
between the expenditure of the circumscribed Court of Maria Leckzinska
and that of Louis XVI.; yet the Princesse de Lamballe received no more
salary than had been allotted to Mademoiselle de Clermont in the selfsame
situation half a century before.

(And even that salary she never appropriated to any private use of her
own, being amply supplied through the generous bounty of her
father-in-law, the Duc de Penthievre; and latterly, to my knowledge, so
far from receiving any pay, she often paid the Queen's and Princesse
Elizabeth's bills out of her own purse.)

So far from possessing the slightest propensity either to extravagance in
herself or to the encouragement of extravagance in