XVIII. during her travels in Germany, as her husband the Duke did His Majesty during his residence at Mittau, in Courland, etc.  I have had the honour of seeing the Duke twice since the Revolution; once, on my coming from Russia, at General Binkingdroff’s, Governor of Mittau, and since, in Portland Place, at the French Ambassador’s, on his coming to England in the name of his Sovereign, to congratulate the King of England on his accession to the throne.]

“The great cabals, which agitated the Court in consequence of the favour shown to the De Polignacs, were not slow in declaring themselves.  The Comtesse de Noailles was one of the foremost among the discontented.  Her resignation, upon the appointment of a superintendent, was a sufficient evidence of her real feeling; but when she now saw a place filled, to which she conceived her family had a claim, her displeasure could not be silent, and her dislike to the Queen began to express itself without reserve.

“Another source of dissatisfaction against the Queen was her extreme partiality for the English.  After the peace of Versailles, in 1783, the English flocked into France, and I believe if a poodle dog had come from England it would have met with a good reception from Her Majesty.  This was natural enough.  The American war had been carried on entirely against her wish; though, from the influence she was supposed to exercise in the Cabinet, it was presumed to have been managed entirely by herself.  This odious opinion she wished personally to destroy; and it could only be done by the distinction with which, after the peace, she treated the whole English nation.’

[The daughter of the Duchesse de Polignac (of my meeting with whom I have already spoken in a note), entering with me upon the subject of France and of old times, observed that had the Queen limited her attachment to the person of her mother, she would not have given all the annoyance which she did to the nobility.  It was to these partialities to the English, the Duchesse de Guiche Grammont alluded.  I do not know the lady’s name distinctly, but I am certain I have heard the beautiful Lady Sarah Bunbury mentioned by the Princesse de Lamballe as having received particular attention from the Queen; for the Princess had heard much about this lady and “a certain great personage” in England; but, on discovering her acquaintance with the Duc de Lauzun, Her Majesty withdrew from the intimacy, though not soon enough to prevent its having given food for scandal.  “You must remember,” added the Duchesse de Guiche Grammont, “how much the Queen was censured for her enthusiasm about Lady Spencer.”  I replied that I did remember the much-ado about nothing there was regarding some English lady, to whom the Queen took a liking, whose name I could not exactly recall; but I knew well she studied to please the English in general.  Of this Lady Spencer it is that the Princess speaks in one of the following pages of this chapter.]