writing to Louis XVI., and intimating that he owed his situation at Court solely to the confidence with which the late King had honoured him; and that as habits contracted during the Queen’s education placed him continually in the closest intimacy with her, he could not enjoy the honour of remaining near her Majesty without the King’s consent.  Louis XVI. sent back his letter, after writing upon it these words:  “I approve the Abbe de Vermond continuing in his office about the Queen.”

CHAPTER V.

At the period of his grandfather’s death, Louis XVI. began to be exceedingly attached to the Queen.  The first period of so deep a mourning not admitting of indulgence in the diversion of hunting, he proposed to her walks in the gardens of Choisy; they went out like husband and wife, the young King giving his arm to the Queen, and accompanied by a very small suite.  The influence of this example had such an effect upon the courtiers that the next day several couples, who had long, and for good reasons, been disunited, were seen walking upon the terrace with the same apparent conjugal intimacy.  Thus they spent whole hours, braving the intolerable wearisomeness of their protracted tete-a-tetes, out of mere obsequious imitation.

The devotion of Mesdames to the King their father throughout his dreadful malady had produced that effect upon their health which was generally apprehended.  On the fourth day after their arrival at Choisy they were attacked by pains in the head and chest, which left no doubt as to the danger of their situation.  It became necessary instantly to send away the young royal family; and the Chateau de la Muette, in the Bois de Boulogne, was selected for their reception.  Their arrival at that residence, which was very near Paris, drew so great a concourse of people into its neighbourhood, that even at daybreak the crowd had begun to assemble round the gates.  Shouts of “Vive le Roi!” were scarcely interrupted for a moment between six o’clock in the morning and sunset.  The unpopularity the late King, had drawn upon himself during his latter years, and the hopes to which a new reign gives birth, occasioned these transports of joy.

A fashionable jeweller made a fortune by the sale of mourning snuff-boxes, whereon the portrait of the young Queen, in a black frame of shagreen, gave rise to the pun:  “Consolation in chagrin.”  All the fashions, and every article of dress, received names expressing the spirit of the moment.  Symbols of abundance were everywhere represented, and the head-dresses of the ladies were surrounded by ears of wheat.  Poets sang of the new monarch; all hearts, or rather all heads, in France were filled with enthusiasm.  Never did the commencement of any reign excite more unanimous testimonials of love and attachment.  It must be observed, however, that, amidst all this intoxication, the anti-Austrian party never lost sight of the young Queen, but kept on the watch, with the malicious desire to injure her through such errors as might arise from her youth and inexperience.