Marie Antoinette, who, as we have seen, had been a diligent reader of Hume, had also been led to compare the proceedings of the refractory Notables with the conduct of our English parliamentary parties, and to an English reader some of her comments can not fail to be as interesting as they are curious.  The Duchess de Polignac was drinking the waters at Bath, which at that time was a favorite resort of French valetudinarians, and, while she was still in that most beautiful of English cities, the queen kept up an occasional correspondence with her.  We have two letters which Marie Antoinette wrote to her in April; one on the 9th, the very day on which Calonne was dismissed; the second, two days latter; and even the passages which do not relate to politics have their interest as specimens of the writer’s character, and of the sincere frankness with which she laid aside her rank and believed in the possibility of a friendship of complete equality.

“April 9th, 1787.

“I thank you, my dear heart, for your letter, which has done me good.  I was anxious about you.  It is true, then, that you have not suffered much from your journey.  Take care of yourself, I insist on it, I beg of you; and be sure and derive benefit from the waters, else I should repent of the privation I have inflicted on myself without your health being benefited.  When you are near I feel how much I love you; and I feel it much more when you are far away.  I am greatly taken up with you and yours, and you would be very ungrateful if you did not love me, for I can not change toward you.

“Where you are you can at least enjoy the comfort of never hearing of business.  Although you are in the country of an Upper and a Lower House, you can stop your ears and let people talk.  But here it is a noise that deafens one in spite of all I can do.  The words ‘opposition’ and ‘motions’ are established here as in the English Parliament, with this difference, that in London, when people go into opposition, they begin by denuding themselves of the favors of the king; instead of which, here numbers oppose all the wise and beneficent views of the most virtuous of masters, and still keep all he has given them.  It may be a cleverer way of managing, but it is not so gentleman-like.  The time of illusion is past, and we are tasting cruel experience.  We are paying dearly to-day for our zeal and enthusiasm for the American war.  The voice of honest men is stifled by members and cabals.  Men disregard principles to bind themselves to words, and to multiply attacks on individuals.  The seditious will drag the State to its ruin rather than renounce their intrigues.”