nt with circumstances almost entirely
personal to herself, no doubt I should have found more upon that period
in her manuscript. But the year of which Her Highness says so little was
the year of happiness and exclusive favour; and the Princess was above
the vanity of boasting, even privately in the self-confessional of her
diary. She resumes her records with her apprehensions; and thus
proceeds, describing the introduction of the Comtesse Julie de Polignac,
regretting her ascendency over the Queen, and foreseeing its fatal
effects.]

"I had been only a twelvemonth in Her Majesty's service, which I believe
was the happiest period of both our lives, when, at one of the Court
assemblies, the Comtesse Julie de Polignac was first introduced by her
sister-in-law, the Comtesse Diane de Polignac, to the Queen.

"She had lived in the country, quite a retired life, and appeared to be
more the motherly woman, and the domestic wife, than the ambitious Court
lady, or royal sycophant. She was easy of access, and elegantly plain in
her dress and deportment.

"Her appearance at Court was as fatal to the Queen as it was propitious
to herself!

"She seemed formed by nature to become a royal favourite, unassuming,
remarkably complaisant, possessing a refined taste, with a good-natured
disposition, not handsome, but well formed, and untainted by haughtiness
or pomposity.

"It would appear, from the effect her introduction had on the Queen, that
her domestic virtues were written in her countenance; for she became a
royal favourite before she had time to become a candidate for royal
favour.

"The Queen's sudden attachment to the Comtesse Julie produced no
alteration in my conduct, while I saw nothing extraordinary to alarm me
for the consequences of any particular marked partiality, by which the
character and popularity of Her Majesty might be endangered.

"But, seeing the progress this lady made in the feelings of the Queen's
enemies, it became my duty, from the situation I held, to caution Her
Majesty against the risks she ran in making her favourites friends; for
it was very soon apparent how highly the Court disapproved of this
intimacy and partiality: and the same feeling soon found its way to the
many-headed monster, the people, who only saw the favourite without
considering the charge she held. Scarcely had she felt the warm rays of
royal favour, when the chilling blasts of envy and malice began to nip it
in the bud of al