[3] Marie Antoinette to Maria Teresa, August 12th, 1775, Arneth, ii., p. 366.

[4] “Le projet de la reine etait d’exiger du roi que le Sieur Turgot fut chasse, meme envoye a la Bastille ... et il a fallu les representations les plus fortes et les plus instantes pour arreter les effets de la colere de la Reine.”—­Mercy to Maria Teresa, May 16th, 1776, Arneth, ii., p. 446.

[5] The compiler of “Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI., et La Famille Royale” (date April 24th, 1776) has a story of a conversation between the king and queen which illustrates her feeling toward the minister.  She had just come in from the opera.  He asked her “how she had been received by the Parisians; if she had had the usual cheers.”  She made no reply; the king understood her silence.  “Apparently, madame, you had not feathers enough.”  “I should have liked to have seen you there, sir, with your St. Germain and your Turgot; you would have been rudely hissed.”  St. Germain was the minister of war.

[6] Mercy to Maria Teresa, May 16th, 1776, Arneth, ii., p. 446.

[7] January 14th, 1776, Arneth, ii., p. 414.

[8] The ground-floor of the palace was occupied by the shops of jewelers and milliners, some of whom were great sufferers by the fire.

[9] In a letter written at the end of 1775, Mercy reports to the empress that some of Turgot’s economical reforms had produced real discontent among those “qui trouvent leur interet dans le desordre,” which they had vented in scandalous and seditious writings.  Many songs of that character had come out, some of which were attributed to Beaumarchais, “le roi et la reine n’y ont point ete respectes.”—­December 17th, 1775.  Arneth, ii, p. 410.

[10] Mercy to Maria Teresa, November 15th, 1776, Arneth, ii., p. 524.

CHAPTER XII.

[1] “Le petit nombre de ceux que la Reine appelle ‘sa societe’”—­Mercy to Marie Teresa, February 15th, 1777, Arneth, iii., p. 18.

[2] “Il faut cependant convenir que dans ces circonstances si rapprochees de la familiarite, la Reine, par un maintien qui tient a son ame, a toujours su imprimer a ceux qui l’entouraient une contenance de respect qui contrebalancait un peu la liberte des propos.”—­Mercy to Maria Teresa, Arneth, ii, p.520.

[3] Brunoy is about fifteen miles from Paris.

[4] “Au reste il est temps pour la sante de la Reine que le carnaval finisse.  On remarque qu’elle s’en altere, et que sa Majeste maigrit beaucoup.”—­Marie Therese a Louis XVI., la date Fevrier 1, 1777, p 101.

[5] Once when he had spoken to her with a severity which alarmed Mercy, who feared it might irritate the queen, “Il me dit en riant qu’il en avait agi ainsi pour sonder l’ame de la reine, et voir si par la force il n’y aurait pas moyen d’obtenir plus que par la douceur.”—­Mercy to Maria Teresa, Arneth, iii., p. 79.