“Several of the English nobility were on a familiar footing at the parties of the Duchesse de Polignac.  This was quite enough for the slanderers.  They were all ranked, and that publicly, as lovers of Her Majesty.  I recollect when there were no less than five different private commissioners out, to suppress the libels that were in circulation over all France, against the Queen and Lord Edward Dillon, the Duke of Dorset, Lord George Conway, Arthur Dillon, as well as Count Fersen, the Duc de Lauzun, and the Comte d’Artois, who were all not only constant frequenters of Polignac’s but visitors of Marie Antoinette.

“By the false policy of Her Majesty’s advisers, these enemies and libellers, instead of being brought to the condign punishment their infamy deserved, were privately hushed into silence, out of delicacy to the Queen’s feelings, by large sums of money and pensions, which encouraged numbers to commit the same enormity in the hope of obtaining the same recompense.

“But these were mercenary wretches, from whom no better could have been expected.  A legitimate mode of robbery had been pressed upon their notice by the Government itself, and they thought it only a matter of fair speculation to make the best of it.  There were some libellers, however, of a higher order, in comparison with whose motives for slander, those of the mere scandal-jobbers were white as the driven snow.  Of these, one of the worst was the Duc de Lauzun.

“The first motive of the Queen’s strong dislike to the Duc de Lauzun sprang from Her Majesty’s attachment to the Duchesse d’Orleans, whom she really loved.  She was greatly displeased at the injury inflicted upon her valued friend by De Lauzun, in estranging the affection of the Duc d’Orleans from his wife by introducing him to depraved society.  Among the associates to which this connection led the Duc d’Orleans were a certain Madame Duthee and Madame Buffon.

“When De Lauzun, after having been expelled from the drawing-room of the Queen for his insolent presumption,—­[The allusion here is to the affair of the heron plume.]—­meeting with coolness at the King’s levee, sought to cover his disgrace by appearing at the assemblies of the Duchesse de Polignac, Her Grace was too sincerely the friend of her Sovereign and benefactress not to perceive the drift of his conduct.  She consequently signified to the self-sufficient coxcomb that her assemblies were not open to the public.  Being thus shut out from Their Majesties, and, as a natural result, excluded from the most brilliant societies of Paris, De Lauzun, from a most diabolical spirit of revenge, joined the nefarious party which had succeeded in poisoning the mind of the Duc d’Orleans, and from the hordes of which, like the burning lava from Etna, issued calumnies which swept the most virtuous and innocent victims that ever breathed to their destruction!