“And yet, though the situation of Marie Antoinette was now become the theme of a whole nation’s exultation, she herself, the owner of the precious burthen, selected by Heaven as its special depositary, was the only one censured for expressing all her happiness!

“Those models of decorum, the virtuous Princesses, her aunts, deemed it highly indelicate in Her Majesty to have given public marks of her satisfaction to those deputed to compliment her on her prosperous situation.  To avow the joy she felt was in their eyes indecent and unqueenly.  Where was the shrinking bashfulness of that one of these Princesses who had herself been so clamorous to Louis XV. against her husband, the Duke of Modena, for not having consummated her own marriage?

“The party of the dismissed favourite Du Barry were still working underground.  Their pestiferous vapours issued from the recesses of the earth, to obscure the brightness of the rising sun, which was now rapidly towering to its climax, to obliterate the little planets which had once endeavoured to eclipse its beautiful rays, but were now incapable of competition, and unable to endure its lustre.  This malignant nest of serpents began to poison the minds of the courtiers, as soon as the pregnancy was obvious, by innuendoes on the partiality of the Comte d’Artois for the Queen; and at length, infamously, and openly, dared to point him out as the cause?

“Thus, in the heart of the Court itself, originated this most atrocious slander, long before it reached the nation, and so much assisted to destroy Her Majesty’s popularity with a people, who now adored her amiableness, her general kind-heartedness, and her unbounded charity.

“I have repeatedly seen the Queen and the Comte d’Artois together under circumstances in which there could have been no concealment of her real feelings; and I can firmly and boldly assert the falsehood of this allegation against my royal mistress.  The only attentions Marie Antoinette received in the earlier part of her residence in France were from her grandfather and her brothers-in-law.  Of these, the Comte d’Artois was the only one who, from youth and liveliness of character, thoroughly sympathised with his sister.  But, beyond the little freedoms of two young and innocent playmates, nothing can be charged upon their intimacy,—­no familiarity whatever farther than was warranted by their relationship.  I can bear witness that Her Majesty’s attachment for the Comte d’Artois never differed in its nature from what she felt for her brother the Emperor Joseph.

[When the King thought proper to be reconciled to the Queen after the death of his grandfather, Louis XV., and when she became a mother, she really was very much attached to Louis XVI., as may be proved from her never quitting him, and suffering all the horrid sacrifices she endured, through the whole period of the Revolution, rather than leave her husband, her children, or her sister.  Marie Antoinette might have saved her life twenty times, had not the King’s safety, united with her own and that of her family, impelled her to reject every proposition of self-preservation.]