ing, 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, the immense debts contracted
by him and his people, which were tardily and only in part discharged.

The succeeding marriages of the Comte de Provence and the Comte d'Artois
with two daughters of the King of Sardinia procured society for the
Dauphiness more suitable to her age, and altered her mode of life.

A pair of tolerably fine eyes drew forth, in favour of the Comtesse de
Provence, upon her arrival at Versailles, the only praises which could
reasonably be bestowed upon her. The Comtesse d'Artois, though not
deformed, was very small; she had a fine complexion; he