[13] Great interest was felt for her in England.  In October Horace Walpole writes:  “While assemblies of friends calling themselves men are from day to day meditating torment and torture for his [Louis XVI.’s] heroic widow, on whom, with all their power and malice, and with every page, footman, and chamber-maid of hers in their reach, and with the rack in their hands, they have not been able to fix a speck.  Nay, do they not talk of the inutility of evidence?  What other virtue ever sustained such an ordeal?” Walpole’s testimony in such a matter is particularly valuable, because he had not only been intimately acquainted with all the gossip of the French capital for many years, but also because his principal friends in France did not belong to the party which might have been expected to be most favorable to the queen.  Had there been the very slightest foundation for the calumnies which had been propagated against her, we may be sure that such a person as Madame du Deffand would not only have heard them, but would have been but too willing to believe them.  His denunciation of them is a proof that she knew their falsehood.

[14] Goncourt, p. 388, quoting La Quotidienne of October 17th, 18th.

[15] The depositions which the little king had been compelled to sign contained accusations of his aunt as well as of his mother.

[16] As we shall see in the close of the letter, she did not regard those priests who had taken the oath imposed by the Assembly, but which the Pope had condemned, as any longer priests.

INDEX.

Abbe De Mandoux; De Sabran;
  De Sieyes;
  De Vermond. 
Abolition of titles of honour. 
Addresses presented from Paris and from the States of Languedoc. 
Adelaide, Princess, intrigues of;
  afflicted with the small-pox;
  flight of. 
Admiral de Coligny;
  d’Orvilliers;
  du Chaffault;
  Keppel;
  Rodney. 
Ailesbury, Lady. 
Alliance formed with the United States;
  with Russia and Prussia;
  with Spain. 
American war, the. 
Anglomania in Paris.
Anglomanie, a name given to English fashions. 
Anti-Austrian feeling in Paris. 
Antoinette, Marie.  See Marie Antoinette. 
Arbitrary powers of the sovereign of France. 
Archbishop Lomenie de Brienne. 
Archduke Maximilian visits his sister. 
Arpay-de-Duc, where the king’s aunts were detained. 
Arnould, Mademoiselle. 
Arrest of Cardinal Rohan. 
Assassination of Gustavus III. of Sweden. 
Assembly, parties in the, “the Right,” “the Left,” and “the Plain,”;
  abolishes all privileges August 4th, 1789;
  disorders in the;
  tyranny of the;
  meeting of the new. 
Austria, antagonistic feeling against;
  Emperor Joseph of, visits France incognito;
  writes to his sister, the Queen of France, on European politics;
  Austria, Maria Teresa, Empress of;
  death of Joseph II., Emperor of;
  influence of, in France, causes jealousy;
  remonstrating by the Emperor Leopold with the French Government;
  Death of Leopold;
  war declared against. 
Autun, Bishop of. 
Axel de Fersen, Count.