of amendment. In one matter,
too, which, if not exactly political, was at all events of public
interest, she acted in a manner of which none of her predecessors had set
an example. By a custom of immemorial antiquity, at the accession of a new
sovereign, a tax had been levied on the whole kingdom as an offering to
the king, known as "the gift of the happy accession;[11]" when there was a
queen, a similar tax was imposed upon the Parisians, to provide what was
called "the girdle of the queen.[12]" It has already been mentioned that
the distress which existed in Paris at this time was so severe that, just
before the death of the late king, Louis and Marie Antoinette had relieved
it by a munificent gift from their private purse; and to lay additional
burdens on the people at such a time was not only repugnant to their
feelings, but seemed especially inconsistent with their recent generosity.
Accordingly, the very first edict of the new reign announced that neither
tax would be imposed. The people felt the kindness which dictated such a
relief more than even the relief itself, and repaid it with expressions of
gratitude such as no French sovereign had heard for above a century; but
Marie Antoinette, with the humility natural to her on such subjects, made
light of her own share in the act of benevolence, turning off the
compliments which were paid to her with a playful jest, that it was
impossible for a queen to affix a purse to her girdle, now that girdles
had gone out of fashion.[13]

On another subject, also, not wholly unconnected with politics, Since the
nobleman concerned had once been the chief minister, but in which Marie
Antoinette's interest was personal, she broke through her usual rule of
not beginning the discussion with the king, and requested the recall from
banishment of the Due de Choiseul. An unfounded prejudice based upon
calumnies set on foot by the cabal of Madame du Barri, had envenomed
Louis's mind against the duke. He bad been led to suspect that his own
father, the late dauphin, had been poisoned, and that Choiseul had been
accessory to the crime. There was nothing more certain than that the
dauphin's death had been natural; but a dislike of the accused duke
lingered in the king's mind, and he eluded compliance with his wife's
request till she put it on entirely personal grounds, by declaring it to
be humiliating to herself that one to whom she was under the deepest
obligations as the negotiator of h