The name of the Comte de Vaudreuil was often coupled with hers in the scandals of the court.  And the queen, since she could hardly be ignorant of the reports which were circulated, incurred, by the marked favor which she showed to the countess, the imputation of shutting her eyes to the frailties of her friends, and thus showing that dissoluteness was not an insuperable barrier to her partiality.  It was only the earnest remonstrance of Mercy which prevented her from conferring the place of lady of honor on the countess; but she allowed her to exert a pernicious influence over her in many ways, for the countess was unwearied in soliciting appointments and pensions for her relatives; at times making demands in such numbers, and of so exorbitant a character, that the queen herself was forced to admit the impossibility of granting them all, though she still sought to gratify her to far too great an extent, and would not allow the proved insatiability of her and her family to open her eyes to her real character.

It was, however, a far more mischievous submission to the influence of the countess and her coterie, when she permitted them to prejudice her against Turgot, whom she had more than once described to her mother as an upright statesman, and who had constantly shown, so far as he could make compliance consistent with his duty to the State, a sincere desire to consult her wishes.  But as the Polignac party saw in his prudence, integrity, and firmness the most formidable obstacle to their project of using the queen’s favor to enrich themselves, she now yielded up her judgment to their calumnies.  Forgetting her former praises of the minister’s integrity, she began to disparage him as one whose measures caused general dissatisfaction, and at last she pushed her hostility to him so far that she actually tried to induce Louis not to be content with dismissing him from office, but to send him as a prisoner to the Bastille.[4] That she could not avoid feeling some shame at the part which she had acted may be inferred from the pains which she took to conceal it from her mother, whom she assured that, though she was not sorry for his dismissal, she had in no degree interfered in the matter; but “her conduct and even her intentions were well known, and known to be far removed from all manoeuvres and intrigues.[5]”

Unfortunately the ambassador’s letters tell a different story.  As a sincere friend as well as a loyal servant of Marie Antoinette, he expresses to the empress his deep feeling that, “as the comptroller-general enjoyed a great reputation for integrity, and was beloved by the people, it was a melancholy thing that his dismissal should be in part the queen’s work,[6]” and his fear that her conduct in the affair may “hereafter bring upon her the reproaches of the king her husband, and even of the entire nation.”  The foreboding thus uttered was but too sadly realized.  She had driven from her husband’s councils the only man who combined with the penetration to perceive the absolute necessity of a large reform and the character of the changes required, the genius to devise them and the firmness to carry them out.