Tidings of these extravagances of the queen and her court in time reached the empress-mother in Vienna.  Marie Therese severely reproached her daughter, writing:  “My daughter, my dear daughter, the first queen—­is she to grow like this?  The idea is insupportable to me.”  Yet, “to speak the exact truth,” said her counsellor, Mercy, when writing to the empress-mother, “there is less to complain of in the evil which exists than in the lack of all the good which might exist.”  It is chronicled to her credit that all her expenditure was not upon herself alone, but that she was equally lavish when she attempted charity.

Her first political act, the removal of Turgot, was disastrous.  She thought she was humoring public opinion, which was strongly against the minister on account of his many reforms, but her primary reason was rather one of personal vengeance.  Turgot had been openly hostile to her friend and favorite, the Duc de Guines.  She was then in the midst of her period of dissipation; “dazzled by the glory of the throne, intoxicated by public approval,” she overstepped the bounds of royal propriety, neglecting etiquette and forgetting that she was secretly hated by the people because of her origin; her greatest error was in forgetting that she was Queen of France and no longer the mere dauphiness.

Under the escort of her brother-in-law, the Comte d’Artois, she was constantly occupied with pleasures and had time for little else.  The king, retiring every night at eleven and rising at five, had all the doors locked; so the queen, who returned early in the morning, was compelled to enter by the back door and pass through the servants’ apartments.  Such behavior gave plentiful material to M. de Provence, the king’s brother, who remained at home and composed, for the Mercure de France, all sorts of stories, from so-called trustworthy information, on the king, on society, and especially on the doings of the queen.

Marie Antoinette’s fondness for the chase and the English racing fad, for gambling, billiards, and her petits soupers after the riding and racing, gave ample opportunity to the gossipmongers and enemies.  In spite of the vigorous remonstrances of her mother, the empress, she persisted in her wild career of dissipation and extravagance, and drew upon herself more and more the disrespect of the people, especially in appearing at places frequented by the disreputable of both sexes, by entering into all noisy and vulgar amusements, by her disregard and disdain of all the conventionalities of the court.  She increased her unpopularity by reviving the sport of sleighing; for this purpose she had gorgeous sleighs constructed at a time when the population of France was in misery.  Such proceedings caused libels, epigrams, and satirical chansonnettes to flow thick and fast from her enemies.  Her one idea was to seek congenial pleasures:  she appeared to be wholly oblivious to the disapproval of public opinion.