they added to his uneasiness; he then went to M. de Sartine, who unravelled the whole plot.  The woman was sent to St. Pelagie; and the unfortunate husband was ruined, by replacing the sum borrowed, and by paying for the jewels fraudulently purchased in the Queen’s name.  The forged letters were sent to her Majesty; I compared them in her presence with her own handwriting, and the only distinguishable difference was a little more regularity in the letters.

This trick, discovered and punished with prudence and without passion, produced no more sensation out of doors than that of the Inspector Goupil.

A year after the nomination of Madame de Lamballe to the post of superintendent of the Queen’s household, balls and quadrilles gave rise to the intimacy of her Majesty with the Comtesse Jules de Polignac.  This lady really interested Marie Antoinette.  She was not rich, and generally lived upon her estate at Claye.  The Queen was astonished at not having seen her at Court earlier.  The confession that her want of fortune had even prevented her appearance at the celebration of the marriages of the Princes added to the interest which she had inspired.

The Queen was full of consideration, and took delight in counteracting the injustice of fortune.  The Countess was induced to come to Court by her husband’s sister, Madame Diane de Polignac, who had been appointed lady of honour to the Comtesse d’Artois.  The Comtesse Jules was really fond of a tranquil life; the impression she made at Court affected her but little; she felt only the attachment manifested for her by the Queen.  I had occasion to see her from the commencement of her favour at Court; she often passed whole hours with me, while waiting for the Queen.  She conversed with me freely and ingenuously about the honour, and at the same time the danger, she saw in the kindness of which she was the object.  The Queen sought for the sweets of friendship; but can this gratification, so rare in any rank, exist between a Queen and a subject, when they are surrounded, moreover, by snares laid by the artifice of courtiers?  This pardonable error was fatal to the happiness of Marie Antoinette.

The retiring character of the Comtesse Jules, afterwards Duchesse de Polignac, cannot be spoken of too favourably; but if her heart was incapable of forming ambitious projects, her family and friends in her fortune beheld their own, and endeavoured to secure the favour of the Queen.

[The Comtesse, afterwards Duchesse de Polignac, nee Polastron, Married the Comte (in 1780 the Duc) Jules de Polignac, the father of the Prince de Polignac of Napoleon’s and of Charles X.’s time.  She emigrated in 1789, and died in Vienna in 1793.]