Princess terminated in rendering
the motives of his incessant complaints suspected by the Empress.

Maria Theresa at length determined on sending her private secretary, Baron
de Neni, to Versailles, with directions to observe the conduct of the
Dauphiness with attention, and form a just estimate of the opinion of the
Court and of Paris with regard to that Princess. The Baron de Neni, after
having devoted sufficient time and intelligence to the subject, undeceived
his sovereign as to the exaggerations of the French ambassador; and the
Empress had no difficulty in detecting, among the calumnies which he had
conveyed to her under the specious excuse of anxiety for her august
daughter, proofs of the enmity of a, party which had never approved of the
alliance of the House of Bourbon with her own.

At this period the Dauphiness, though unable to obtain any influence over
the heart of her husband, dreading Louis XV., and justly mistrusting
everything connected with Madame du Barry and the Duc d'Aiguillon, had not
deserved the slightest reproach for that sort of levity which hatred and
her misfortunes afterwards construed into crime. The Empress, convinced
of the innocence of Marie Antoinette, directed the Baron de Neni to
solicit the recall of the Prince de Rohan, and to inform the Minister for
Foreign Affairs of all the motives which made her require it; but the
House of Rohan interposed between its protege and the Austrian envoy, and
an evasive answer merely was given.

It was not until two months after the death of Louis XV. that the Court
of Vienna obtained his recall. The avowed grounds for requiring it were,
first, the public gallantries of Prince Louis with some ladies of the
Court and others; secondly, his surliness and haughtiness towards other
foreign ministers, which would have had more serious consequences,
especially with the ministers of England and Denmark, if the Empress
herself had not interfered; thirdly, his contempt for religion in a
country where it was particularly necessary to show respect for it. He had
been seen frequently to dress himself in clothes of different colours,
assuming the hunting uniforms of various noblemen whom he visited, with so
much audacity that one day in particular, during the Fete-Dieu, he and all
his legation, in green uniforms laced with gold, broke through a
procession which impeded them, in order to make their way to a hunting
party at the Prince de Paar's; and fourthly,