Ambassador, to apprise him of the insult the Empire had received over the shoulders of the Dauphine’s tutor.  The Ambassador gravely replied that he should certainly send off a courier immediately to Vienna to inform the Empress that the only fault the French Court could find with Marie Antoinette was her being not so unwieldy as their own Princesses, and bringing charms with her to a bridegroom, on whom even charms so transcendent could make no impression!  Thus the matter was laughed off, but it left, ridiculous as it was, new bitter enemies to the cause of the illustrious stranger.

“The new favourite, Madame du Barry, whose sway was now supreme, was of course joined by the whole vitiated intriguing Court of Versailles.  The King’s favourite is always that of his parasites, however degraded.  The politics of the De Pompadour party were still feared, though De Pompadour herself was no more, for Choiseul had friends who were still active in his behalf.  The power which had been raised to crush the power that was still struggling formed a rallying point for those who hated Austria, which the deposed Ministry had supported; and even the King’s daughters, much as they abhorred the vulgarity of Du Barry, were led, by dislike for the Dauphine, to pay their devotions to their father’s mistress.  The influence of the rising sun, Marie Antoinette, whose beauteous rays of blooming youth warmed every heart in her favour, was feared by the new favourite as well as by the old maidens.  Louis XV. had already expressed a sufficient interest for the friendless royal stranger to awaken the jealousy of Du Barry, and she was as little disposed to share the King’s affections with another, as his daughters were to welcome a future Queen from Austria in their palace.  Mortified at the attachment the King daily evinced, she strained every nerve to raise a party to destroy his predilections.  She called to her aid the strength of ridicule, than which no weapon is more false or deadly.  She laughed at qualities she could not comprehend, and underrated what she could not imitate.  The Duc de Richelieu, who had been instrumental to her good fortune, and for whom (remembering the old adage:  when one hand washes the other both are made clean) she procured the command of the army—­this Duke, the triumphant general of Mahon and one of the most distinguished noblemen of France, did not blush to become the secret agent of a depraved meretrix in the conspiracy to blacken the character of her victim!  The Princesses, of course, joined the jealous Phryne against their niece, the daughter of the Caesars, whose only faults were those of nature, for at that time she could have no other excepting those personal perfections which were the main source of all their malice.  By one considered as an usurper, by the others as an intruder, both were in consequence industrious in the quiet work of ruin by whispers and detraction.