And in her second letter she specifies some of the Opposition by name; one of whom, as will be seen hereafter, contributed greatly to her subsequent miseries....  “The repugnance which you know that I have always had to interfering in business is today put cruelly to the proof; and you would be as tired as I am of all that goes on.  I have already spoken to you of our Upper and Lower House,[6] and of all the absurdities which take place there, and of the nonsense which is talked.  To be loaded with benefits by the king, like M. de Beauvau, to join the Opposition, and to surrender none of them, is what is called having spirit and courage.  It is, in truth, the courage of infamy.  I am wholly surrounded with folks who have revolted from him.  A duke,[7] a great maker of motions, a man who has always a tear in his eye when he speaks, is one of the number.  M. de La Fayette always founds the opinions he expresses on what is done at Philadelphia....  Even bishops and archbishops belong to the Opposition, and a great many of the clergy are the very soul of the cabal.  You may judge, after this, of all the resources which they employ to overturn the plans of the king and his ministers.”

Calonne, however, as has already been intimated, had been dismissed from office before this last letter was written.  There had been a trial of strength between him and his enemies; which he, believing that he had won the confidence of Louis himself, reckoned on turning to his own advantage, by inducing the king to dismiss those of his opponents who were in office.  To his astonishment, he found that Louis preferred dispensing with his own services, and the general voice was probably correct when it, affirmed that it was the queen who had induced him to come to that decision.

Lomenie de Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, was again a candidate for the vacant post, and De Vermond was as diligent as on the previous occasion[8] in laboring to return the obligations under which that prelate had formerly laid him, by extolling his abilities and virtues to the queen, and recommending him as a worthy successor to Calonne, whom she had never trusted or liked.  In reality, the archbishop was wholly destitute of either abilities or virtues.  He was notorious both for open profligacy and for avowed infidelity, so much so that Louis had refused to transfer him to the diocese of Paris, on the ground that “at least the archbishop of the metropolis ought to believe in God.[9]” But Marie Antoinette was ignorant of his character, and believed De Vermond’s assurance that the appointment of so high an ecclesiastic would propitiate the clergy, whose opposition, as many of her letters prove, she thought specially formidable, and for whose support she knew her husband to be nervously anxious.  Some of Calonne’s colleagues strongly urged the king to re-appoint Necker, whose recall would have been highly popular with the nation.  But Necker had recently given Louis personal offense