The Queen testified her displeasure against all who had assisted the author of the “Mariage de Figaro” to deceive the King into giving his consent that it should be represented.  Her reproaches were more particularly directed against M. de Vaudreuil for having had it performed at his house.  The violent and domineering disposition of her favourite’s friend at last became disagreeable to her.

One evening, on the Queen’s return from the Duchess’s, she desired her ‘valet de chambre’ to bring her billiard cue into her closet, and ordered me to open the box that contained it.  I took out the cue, broken in two.  It was of ivory, and formed of one single elephant’s tooth; the butt was of gold and very tastefully wrought.  “There,” said she, “that is the way M. de Vaudreuil has treated a thing I valued highly.  I had laid it upon the couch while I was talking to the Duchess in the salon; he had the assurance to make use of it, and in a fit of passion about a blocked ball, he struck the cue so violently against the table that he broke it in two.  The noise brought me back into the billiard-room; I did not say a word to him, but my looks showed him how angry I was.  He is the more provoked at the accident, as he aspires to the post of Governor to the Dauphin.  I never thought of him for the place.  It is quite enough to have consulted my heart only in the choice of a governess; and I will not suffer that of a Governor to the Dauphin to be at all affected by the influence of my friends.  I should be responsible for it to the nation.  The poor man does not know that my determination is taken; for I have never expressed it to the Duchess.  Therefore, judge of the sort of an evening he must have passed!”

CHAPTER XIII.

Shortly after the public mind had been thrown into agitation by the performance of the “Mariage de Figaro,” an obscure plot, contrived by swindlers, and matured in a corrupted society, attacked the Queen’s character in a vital point and assailed the majesty of the throne.

I am about to speak of the notorious affair of the necklace purchased, as it was said, for the Queen by Cardinal de Rohan.  I will narrate all that has come to my knowledge relating to this business; the most minute particulars will prove how little reason the Queen had to apprehend the blow by which she was threatened, and which must be attributed to a fatality that human prudence could not have foreseen, but from which, to say the truth, she might have extricated herself with more skill.

I have already said that in 1774 the Queen purchased jewels of Boehmer to the value of three hundred and sixty thousand franca, that she paid for them herself out of her own private funds, and that it required several years to enable her to complete the payment.  The King afterwards presented her with a set of rubies and diamonds of a fine water, and subsequently with a pair of bracelets worth two hundred thousand francs.  The Queen, after having her diamonds reset in new patterns, told Boehmer that she found her jewel case rich enough, and was not desirous of making any addition to it.