imself conspicuous for every species of disorder. His whole life in
the Austrian capital had been a round of shameless profligacy and
extravagance. The conduct of the inferior members of the embassy,
stimulated by his example, and protected by his official character, had
been equally scandalous, till at last Maria Teresa had felt herself bound,
in justice to her subjects, to insist on his recall. The moment that he
became aware that his position was in danger, he began to write abusive
letters against the Empress-queen, and to circulate libels at Vienna
against both her and Marie Antoinette, on whom he openly threatened to
avenge himself, if his pleasures or his prospects should in any way be
interfered with.[10]

Since his return to France he had had the address to conciliate Maurepas,
who, adding the authority of his ministerial office to the solicitations
of the cardinal's sister, Madame de Marsan, had succeeded in wringing from
the unwilling king his appointment to the honorable and lucrative
preferment of grand almoner. But even that post, though it made him one of
the great officers of the court, did not weaken his desire to annoy the
queen, for having, as he believed, used her influence to deprive him of
his embassy, and for having by her marked coldness since his return from
Vienna, showed her disapproval of his profligate character, and of his
insolence to her mother.

And, unhappily, there were not wanting persons base enough to co-operate
with him, generally discredited as he was, as instruments of their own
secret malice. The birth of the dauphin had been a fatal blow to the hopes
which had been founded on the possible succession of the king's brothers;
and from this time forth the whisperers of detraction and calumny were
more than ever busy, sometimes venturing to forge her handwriting, and
sometimes daring, with still fouler audacity, to invent stories designed
to tarnish her reputation by throwing doubts on her conjugal fidelity. At
such a moment the presence of such a man as the cardinal on the stage was
an evil omen. His audacity, it seemed, could hardly be purposeless, and
his purpose could not be innocent.

He had been most anxious to obtain admission to one of the entertainments
which the queen gave to the Russian princes; and, when he was
disappointed, he had the silly audacity to bribe the porter of the Trianon
to admit him into the garden, where, as the royal party passed down the
different wal