CHAPTER XIV.

[1] “La cour se precipite pele-mele avec la foule, car l’etiquette de France veut que tous entrent a ce moment, que nul ne soit refuse, et que le spectacle soit public d’une reine qui va donner un heritier a la couronne, ou seulement un enfant au roi.”—­Mem. de Goncourt, p. 105.

[2] Arneth, iii., p. 270.

[3] Madame de Campan, ch. ix.

[4] Ibid., ch. ix.

[5] Chambrier, i., p. 394.

[6] “Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI., et la Famille Royale,” p. 147, December 24th, 1778.

[7] Garde-malades was the name given to them.

[8] “Du moment qu’ils [les enfants] peuvent etre a l’air on les y accoutume petit a petit, et ils finissent par y etre presque toujours; je crois que c’est la maniere la plus saine et la meilleure des les elever.”

[9] Letter of Marie Antoinette to Maria Teresa, May 15th, 1779, Arneth, iii., p. 311.

[10] Maria Teresa had offered the mediation of the empire to restore peace between England and France.

[11] Spain had recently entered into the alliance against England in the hope of recovering Gibraltar.  And just at the date of this letter the combined fleet of sixty-six sail of the line sailed into the Channel, while a French army of 50,000 men was waiting at St. Malo to invade England so soon as the British Channel fleet should have been defeated; but, though Sir Charles Hardy had only forty sail under his orders, D’Orvilliers and his Spanish colleague retreated before him, and at the beginning of September, from fear of the equinoctial gales, of which the queen here speaks with such alarm, retired to their own harbors, without even venturing to come to action with a foe of scarcely two-thirds of their own strength.  See the author’s “History of the British Navy,” ch. xiv.

[12] Letter of September 15th.

[13] Letter of October 14th.

[14] Letter of November 16th.

[15] Letter of November 17th.

[16] Kaunitz had been the prime minister of the empress, who negotiated the alliances with France and Russia, which were the preparations for the Seven Years’ War.

CHAPTER XV.

[1] “On assure que sa majeste ne joue pas bien; ce que personne, excepte le roi, n’a ose lui dire.  Au contraire, on l’applaudit a tout rompre.”—­ Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI. et la Famille Royale p. 203, date September 28th, 1780.

[2] In May, 1780, Sir Henry Clinton took Charleston, with a great number of prisoners, a great quantity of stores and four hundred guns.—­LORD STANHOPE’S History of England, ch. lxii.

[3] “Cette disposition a ete faite deux ans plutot que ne le comporte l’usage etabli pour les enfants de France.”—­Mercy to Maria Teresa, October 14th, Arneth, iii. p. 476.

[4] Madame de Campan, ch. ix.