The empress, however, was so uneasy that she induced her son, the Emperor Joseph, to add his expostulations to hers; and he, who was a prince of considerable shrewdness, as well as of a high idea of the proprieties of his rank, wrote her a long letter of remonstrance; imputing with great truth the failings, which he pointed out with sufficient plainness, to a facility of disposition which made her indulgent to the manoeuvres of those whom she admitted to her friendship, but who did not deserve such an honor.  He even spoke of the society which she had gathered round her, as calculated to prevent him from performing his promise of paying her a visit; “for what should he do in a court of frivolous intriguers?” And he concluded by urging her to prevent these false friends from making a tool of her for the gratification of their own selfishness and rapacity; and to be solicitous for no friendship or confidence but that of her husband; the study of whose wishes was to her not only a state duty, but the only one which would make her permanently happy, and secure to her the lasting affection of the people.

There was, however, no subject on which Marie Antoinette was so little amenable to advice as the choice of her friends, and none on which she more required it.  Above all the frequenters of the court, two ladies were distinguished by her especial favor—­the Princess de Lamballe and the Countess de Polignac.  The princess, a daughter of the Prince de Carignan in Savoy, having been married to the son of the Duc de Penthievre, was left a widow before she was twenty years of age.  She had been originally recommended to Mario Antoinette in the first year of her residence in France, partly by her royal birth, and partly by her misfortunes; and the attachment which the dauphiness at once conceived for her was cemented by the ardor with which it was returned.  In many respects the princess well deserved the favor with which she was regarded.  Her temper was sweet and amiable; her character singularly truthful and sincere; and, that she might never be separated from her friend, the place of superintendent of the queen’s household was revived for her.  Some cavilers were disposed to grumble at the re-establishment of an office which had been suppressed as useless and costly; but no one could allege that Madame de Lamballe abused the royal favor, and her share in the calamities of later days justified the queen’s choice by the proof it afforded of the princess’s unalterable fidelity and devotion.

But the countess was a very different character.  She had, indeed, a well-bred air of good humor, but that, with her youth (she was but twenty years of age), was her only qualification; for her capacity was narrow, her disposition selfish and grasping, and she was so inveterate a manoeuvrer, that, when she had no intrigues of her own on foot, she was always ready to lend herself to the plots of others.  What was worse, she did not enjoy an untainted character.