During the long and severe winter of 1783-84 the King gave three millions of livres for the relief of the indigent.  M. de Calonne, who felt the necessity of making advances to the Queen, caught at this opportunity of showing her respect and devotion.  He offered to place in her hands one million of the three, to be distributed in her name and under her direction.  His proposal was rejected; the Queen answered that the charity ought to be wholly distributed in the King’s name, and that she would this year debar herself of even the slightest enjoyments, in order to contribute all her savings to the relief of the unfortunate.

The moment M. de Calonne left the closet the Queen sent for me:  “Congratulate me, my dear,” said she; “I have just escaped a snare, or at least a matter which eventually might have caused me much regret.”  She related the conversation which had taken place word for word to me, adding, “That man will complete the ruin of the national finances.  It is said that I placed him in his situation.  The people are made to believe that I am extravagant; yet I have refused to suffer a sum of money from the royal treasury, although destined for the most laudable purpose, even to pass through my hands.”

The Queen, making monthly retrenchments from the expenditure of her privy purse, and not having spent the gifts customary at the period of her confinement, was in possession of from five to six hundred thousand francs, her own savings.  She made use of from two to three hundred thousand francs of this, which her first women sent to M. Lenoir, to the cures of Paris and Versailles, and to the Soeurs Hospitalieres, and so distributed them among families in need.

Desirous to implant in the breast of her daughter not only a desire to succour the unfortunate, but those qualities necessary for the due discharge of that duty, the Queen incessantly talked to her, though she was yet very young, about the sufferings of the poor during a season so inclement.  The Princess already had a sum of from eight to ten thousand francs for charitable purposes, and the Queen made her distribute part of it herself.

Wishing to give her children yet another lesson of beneficence, she desired me on New Year’s eve to get from Paris, as in other years, all the fashionable playthings, and have them spread out in her closet.  Then taking her children by the hand, she showed them all the dolls and mechanical toys which were ranged there, and told them that she had intended to give them some handsome New Year’s gifts, but that the cold made the poor so wretched that all her money was spent in blankets and clothes to protect them from the rigour of the season, and in supplying them with bread; so that this year they would only have the pleasure of looking at the new playthings.  When she returned with her children into her sitting-room, she said there was still an unavoidable expense to be incurred; that assuredly many mothers would at that season think as she did,—­that the toyman must lose by it; and therefore she gave him fifty Louis to repay him for the cost of his journey, and console him for having sold nothing.