The Abbe de Vermond could not repress his exultation when he succeeded in getting the Archbishop of Sens appointed head of the council of finance.  I have more than once heard him say that seventeen years of patience were not too long a term for success in a Court; that he spent all that time in gaining the end he had in view; but that at length the Archbishop was where he ought to be for the good of the State.  The Abbe, from this time, in the Queen’s private circle no longer concealed his credit and influence; nothing could equal the confidence with which he displayed the extent of his pretensions.  He requested the Queen to order that the apartments appropriated to him should be enlarged, telling her that, being obliged to give audiences to bishops, cardinals, and ministers, he required a residence suitable to his present circumstances.  The Queen continued to treat him as she did before the Archbishop’s arrival at Court; but the household showed him increased consideration:  the word “Monsieur” preceded that of Abbe; and from that moment not only the livery servants, but also the people of the antechambers rose when Monsieur l’Abbe was passing, though there never was, to my knowledge, any order given to that effect.

The Queen was obliged, on account of the King’s disposition and the very limited confidence he placed in the Archbishop of Sens, to take a part in public affairs.  While M. de Maurepas lived she kept out of that danger, as may be seen by the censure which the Baron de Besenval passes on her in his memoirs for not availing herself of the conciliation he had promoted between the Queen and that minister, who counteracted the ascendency which the Queen and her intimate friends might otherwise have gained over the King’s mind.

The Queen has often assured me that she never interfered respecting the interests of Austria but once; and that was only to claim the execution of the treaty of alliance at the time when Joseph ii. was at war with Prussia and Turkey; that, she then demanded that an army of twenty-four thousand men should be sent to him instead of fifteen millions, an alternative which had been left to option in the treaty, in case the Emperor should have a just war to maintain; that she could not obtain her object, and M. de Vergennes, in an interview which she had with him upon the subject, put an end to her importunities by observing that he was answering the mother of the Dauphin and not the sister of the Emperor.  The fifteen millions were sent.  There was no want of money at Vienna, and the value of a French army was fully appreciated.

“But how,” said the Queen, “could they be so wicked as to send off those fifteen millions from the general post-office, diligently publishing, even to the street porters, that they were loading carriages with money that I was sending to my brother!—­whereas it is certain that the money would equally have been sent if I had belonged to another house; and, besides, it was sent contrary to my inclination.”